How Good Can Digital Get?

Lugnut - the teres rocked! it really did. we all just have different things that distract from and/or draw us into a recording.

noise distracts me. i haven't heard a rockport or walker, so i can't say what they're capable of.

and, as far as software goes, it's much easier to find what i like on cd. cheaper, too and in better condition.

and i'd say that were i a classical music junkie, i'd keep the vinyl around, but that's not true, either. SACD has so many classical titles, that i still couldn't justify it.

plus, i should also mention this taboo - i have a high-res mltichannel setup and vinyl don't do surround. (and i ain't buying the 70's equipment for quad, either) cd doesn't, either, but SACD does. and the few times a multichannel recording is done properly - YOWZA!

see:
peter gabriel - up
roxy music - avalon
pink floyd - dark side of the moon
nine inch nails - the downward spiral

these are all, to me, so superior to the 2-channel versions such that i hate listening to them in stereo afterwards.

of course, this isn't to say that they're all good. some music just shouldn't be done multichannel.
see:
nick drake - a treasury
beck - sea change
james taylor - everything

and some music could have been good, but is ruined by a lousy multichannel mix
see:
bowie - all of the MC sacds. i haven't heard "heathen" in multichannel yet, but i do have high-hopes for it. it could be really good - that music lends itself to great MC done right.
t-rex - electric warrior

and merry x-mas back to yaz!

Lazarus28:
Well, I’m a psychiatrist, so I suppose I should never object to someone introducing the possibility of psychology influencing audio perceptions, which it of course does. But I must say, having some basic understanding of my own inner workings, your explanation of my experience the other day doesn’t resonate at all. The fact is that what I heard initially that day sounded good, but it improved greatly once the change was made to vinyl (on an excellent turntable, tonearm, etc.). It is true I knew that this would happen, but not from some irrational attachment to vinyl, but from repeated past experience. I would be quite frankly surprised if anyone posting here could not have easily heard the improvement in the room that day – it was not subtle.

I know there are many overly zealous vinyl advocates, but I don’t feel comfortable in that camp. As I said, I really enjoy my CD player, and I have no problem with someone preferring digital. In fact, my wife strongly does, though I must say even she thinks good vinyl sounds substantially better. She just isn’t convinced that the difference is worth the effort and inconvenience. I think that is a reasonable position - just not one that I share.

newmanoc - quite a reasonable reply. thanks! i tend to be more or less in the same camp as your wife.

but, iffin yer a psychiatrist, shouldn't you go by newmanDOC?

:-)

Lazarus28:
Peace and happy listening. By the way, your username has an abstract-cool kind of thing going on. Mine is unimaginatively composed of my last name and initials. Now that maybe is something to analyze. :)

As owner of EMM Labs gear, I will say that digital has come a long, long way, and that people who blindly declare it inferior to vinyl are SADLY misguided. To me, digital and analog are two radically different formats with radically different methods of sound reproduction--and they produce radically different results. Not necessarily better or worse, just different. As I said before, digital has come a really long way since the dark days, and now I have a hard time choosing between the best digital and the best analog. They each do different things well--and not so well. For me, in the EMM gear, I finally found a digital component that I didn't have to apologize for in front of my analogue buddies. In fact, it's converted a few of them back to digital. And if you knew these guys like I knew 'em, you'd know that was no mean feat!