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Revisiting Digital?

Have you done more than consider going back to Digital? I have only put my toe into the analog world, and found it to be the lost "High End" format. SACD and DVD-A failed to gain acceptance as a next generation High Definition audio format (Weird Huh..) With more and more vinyl being printed each month, customers are voting with their dollars.

However, I have not been able to get over the snaps and pops associated with vinyl. I have bought too many new albums, only to have a high noise floor, and distract me from the experience.

If you have any of these feelings, and have tip toed back into digital, what did you consider for your digital system, knowing you have drank from the TurnTable Cup!

To be fair, my system is decidedly Mid-Fi, theater led. I have a NHT 2.9/AC2/HDP2 - Velodyne 1210x 5.1 system. I use a B&K 31/50 Processor, and a Parasound 2205at 5ch amp. It is nice for theater, and in two channel mode with my Denon 300f turntable/phonopre.

Your journey - thoughts are appreciated/welcomed.

Jeff
jbryngelson
paulfolbrecht
603 posts
 
The digital I've ever heard comes from Audio Note DACs. The combination of no oversampling, no filtering of any kind, a very good power supply, and a very good tubed output stage (NOT a buffer!) does absolute wonders for digital.

I tried a kit DAC 1.1 (used) and it was so revelatory I bought & built the Kit DAC 2.1C Signature. This $2200 DAC fed by a Mac Mini stomps any other digital I've heard at any price - although I would have to guess that the expensive factory AN DACs, ranging up to about 25x the cost of mine (!), are indeed better, there's no doubt that their entry-level stuff fully captures their house sound as well.

As good as this DAC is - it is tonally accurate, detailed without *ever* being fatiguing, extremely dynamic in the micro & macro senses, very smooth & liquid *without* glossing over anything - my somewhat modest vinyl front-end does stomp it.

In a good system, there is no digital that is the equal of even middle-of-the-rode analog in terms of musicality - period.
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
In a good system, there is no digital that is the equal of even middle-of-the-rode analog in terms of musicality - period.
That's right. It's just like the way a $250 Blu-ray player will give you a better image (playing a Blu-ray disc) than a $7K upconverting DVD player can give you with a std-def DVD.

CDs have pathetically low resolution compared to an LP. The best player or DAC can't manufacture data that's missing on the disc any more than a multi-thou DVD player can create picture detail that isn't on the std-def DVD.

My humble Technics/Audio Technica LP rig blasts to smithereens the most expensive redbook players I've ever heard, especially regarding resolution of low level and inner detail.
paulfolbrecht
603 posts
 
I don't think it's resolution - cause I tried SACD for a while and it couldn't equal vinyl either.

I think it's jitter/noise/other issues that plague the A/D and D/A processes and I think we're a long way from fixing it.
jbryngelson OP
26 posts
 
This is my concern about turning my back on this "New" found high resolution format called RECORDS. I do love the musicality of Analog. Instruments sound like real instruments. But changing a record from side to side every few songs, the cleaning mess-trying to get a clean noiseless sound, is not optimal. What I am hearing is what I fear, I will not get the real sound from even a great digital system in 2009.

Bummer
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
04-13-09: Paulfolbrecht
I don't think it's resolution - cause I tried SACD for a while and it couldn't equal vinyl either.
SACD still can't touch analog in fine resolution. It's better than red book, but it's still not good enough.

There could be jitter and other noise issues as you mentioned, but I wonder if it doesn't come down to phase relationships. In an Absolute Sound forum, Bernie Grundman said that the one thing LPs do very well is preserve phase relationships, and that is essential for imaging, soundstage, and "hearing the room."

The thing I think is most important is how well a medium resolves tiny changes in amplitude. 16-bit red book has at best 64K increments of amplitude. At 2.7 Mhz sampling rate, I'm guessing SACD provides 2.7M increments of amplitude. 24-bit (as in DVD-A) provides 16M increments, which I think brings us closer than any of the other digital formats. 2.7 M increments simply isn't enough to replace the infinite amplitude resolution of analog. The 16M increments of 24-bit gets you about 80% of the way there in my estimation.
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