Is Digital actually better than Analog?

Andrew, enjoy your DV-50S and let sleeping dogs lie.

Having owned your DV-50S, yes, analog is better, no question. However, it does take much more work to set up properly, and keep the LP's clean.

If you have any doubt's, drop by again, when I have time, and I'll be happy to demo my analog rig. :-)

Cheers,
John

My goal is to have both analog and digital rigs sound as close to each other as possible. I've done it. People say my LPs sound like CDs and the CDs like LPs. Although I have three times more albums than CDs the high cost of used LPs readily available on CD drove me in this direction.

I use a Dan Wright modded Parasound belt drive transport and a KAB modded Technics 1200. The CIA DAC and Monolithic Sound phonostage are from the same designer (Dusty Vawter), thus having similar sonic signatures. I rely on a modified Stanton Trackmaster DJ cartridge for bass slam, superior trackability/dynamics and fluid, edge free harmonic midrange. The belt drive's power supply was re-engineered to provide glare free transient response and three dimensional imaging usually wanting in most digital systems.

Both formats have strengths and weaknesses. As the inherent weaknesses of each format are properly addressed analog and digital get closer to the same destination...music.

With psychic power and primal intensity,

Digital vs analog is something of a religious debate in audio. In my opinion both have strengths and weaknesses, and, unless you already have a sizeable collection of LPs it is not worthwhile to purchase an analog setup (turntable, phono pre-amp) ... spend the money on CDs or a better CD player instead. (I have a CD player and a turntable, but I also have a sizeable collection of LPs).

i recently swore off digital verses vinyl threads. i took the 12-step 'cure' (compared 12 Lps to digital). who the hell cares what anyone thinks anyway.

you guys have fun.

It's really a philosophical difference. I describe the differences below without making a case for either one (I hope!)

In analog, the soundwaves are literally captured in the groove "verbatim" so to speak. And they need only be gotten back into the air to hear them again. A process, I may point out, which doesn't necessarily even require electricity to implement (talk about organic!) The only real problem with analog (as with all things organic) is that the storage medium (the groove) and the stored information (the wiggles) are inseparable -- damage to the medium means damage to the information stored there.

Digital storage is completely inorganic. The information that is stored is not sound but rather a coded "blueprint" for creating or REcreating sound through electronic means (there are no hand-crank DACs!) The sonic information in its "coded" form bears no resemblance whatsoever to the entity (sound) that it represents -- in other words, you couldn't look at a list of ones and zeros and say, "Gee, that looks like some kind of wave form!" And therefore, the resulting de-coded sound is "virtual", and not "real", in the sense that it doesn't come from any tangible object that looks the same as (analogous to) the sound wave.

From the foregoing, it should be obvious that a principal feature of digital is that one can create "code" from scratch, process it, and hear it as "sound". Sort of like making a "test tube" baby. (I'm not talking about sampling or making actual sound, and then processing it -- as with the early synthesizers.) This possibility may not qualify as "music making" for some, because it isn't a "direct" way of producing sound with the human body (singing being the most direct) but therein lies the philosphical difference I mentioned at the beginning.
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