2. analog
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Vinyl vs. CD & HD from A.C.A...

Hi,

Probably the most favourite subject between audiophiles around the world is the on-going "fight" between analogue and digital. Since the introduction of the CD in 1981 and after some years of the digital predominance, digital seems to have hit the technological roof and analogue is making a strong come back in the last 10 years. Personally all over these years I have made my comparisons with various material and I have concluded them in a paper named Same great music on Vinyl vs. CD....

But some people were telling me that my old Wadia 8/15 pair was technologically outdated and so the comparison was not fair, so I decided to organize in my listening room a blind test between a top digital (whatever that means...) and my analogue gear, with lots of people invited...

See the rest of this very interesting IMHO story here:

- aca.gr/event08-9.htm (with lots of pictures and 10 videoclips covering the event).

I hope you enjoy it...
skaloumbakas
soulbrass
246 posts
 
Wow! Great post!!!
samhar
1,048 posts
 
Thank you!!!!
eee3
214 posts
 
Skaloumbakas, I'm so glad that you were honest enough to do what you did.
I've said for years that vinyl is better than digital hands down.
CD or digital which ever you want to call it was gimmick from the start. Designed so that record companies could make more money!! It cost much less to make a cd than an Lp bottom line. It never had to do with so called superior technology, that was the hype that record companies threw out that a lot people who couldn't hear in the first place latched onto.
Here are some things for digital diciples to consider:
(my personal observations)
The knock on digital has always been that it is cold and sterile sounding as well as harsh as opposed to analog which is characterized as warm and natural. While digital has come a long way in improving in those areas, it still has not totally done so.
The other thing that I and others noticed about digital is that it sounds compressed compared to analog. Why is that?
because your're trying to put the same amount of music(or more) from a 12in" disc on a 4 in" disc. and the only way to do that is by compression. Then they increase the dynamic range to play it back but have never been able to put back all that was taken out by compressing,that's why your panel noticed a 2-3db louder difference that analog had over digital. The other thing that compression does is remove noise, which is what you hear as a complaint by most digital fans about analog( the ticks and the pops)but what you also remove with the noise is a lot of the music that was in the recording as well.
So,essentially what you have with digital is quietness/clarity, dynamics and heavy bass or the perception
thereof, which a lot of folks seem to like or been fooled into liking.
What you have with analog is warmth, naturalness, presence, air, timbre and as you have mentioned dynamics, which I will take any day over the other.
Just as and aside, I use live music(recordings and club settings) as my reference when comparing the two formats, not studio recordings only which unfortunately most folks do.
The one question I have for digital diciples is this?
If digital is so much better than the old antiquated analog technology, why is it when you are trying to describe how good a digital player is you use words like warm and analog like? Why are you trying to sound like an old antiquated technology?
Just some of my observations.
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