Modern Linestages

Onhwy61,
Hi, I must say I`m a bit surprised you did`nt get the obvious point Knghifi was making.

Goldeneraguy,
The strange thing is the pro active lightstage posters don`t belittle the those who prefer the passive or direct route at all. I`ts just a choice based on what sounds better to you. The passive advocates insist theirs is the purer,more accurate, thus the right way. Many who have tried both approaches have simply found that is`nt the case often.

Grannyring, years ago we had to face the issue of 'what is reference?' To that end we came to the conclusion that no media could be trusted as it all has flaws as you mention.

So we used direct microphone feeds. What we found with microphones running direct is that they can be so real that you can be easily fooled by the result of playing them, as long as the speakers are not in the same room as the mic!

We found that the media (tape, LP, CD and other digital formats) is source of the greatest degradation. Nevertheless I have found that it is very useful to have an LP of a recording that I have made and that I was there for, so when I hear the playback I have some idea of how it was really supposed to sound. At any rate its been my experience over the years to keep the processing of the playback as minimalist as possible, so long as that minimalism does not compromise the playback.

Its a tricky path to follow. But I have found that by doing that and also avoiding synergistic effects that I have the most success approaching the original- and mind you, it is not possible to get to the original music no matter how hard we can try, but OTOH getting to the original **recording** of that event is much more within our collective grasp.

To that end I have found a good line stage to be indispensable if you want to capture all the nuance in the recording. This allows the signal to arrive at the amplifiers without any contribution or editorial from the interconnect cables.

Atma,

Yes, I so understand your post. Yes, it seems the digital medium may in fact be a great source of lost fidelity. There are different roads to the same end and perhaps different experiences based on each of our own perceptions of what fidelity really sounds like.

Charles1dad ,you are correct.The active camp is passive (pun intended)in their posts.
I should mention that I not only prefer actives but I much prefer tubes as well
But then I also prefer vanilla over chocolate so I expect to be told I'm wrong on that too.
I've followed and enjoyed your posts,