Raul, My neighbor, who is a good friend as well, has a very very expensive digital set-up. I myself only own an Ayre C5Xe-mp and an Oppo 105 (one for each of my two different systems). However, I spend a lot of time listening to my neighbor's megabuck digital system, as well as to his analog system. Both he and I greatly prefer analog for "serious listening". If he wants to demonstrate a recent change in his equipment, he prefers to use vinyl as a source. At my house, I almost never listen to CDs (or SACDs or etc), unless I want to read a book with music in the background. Or if we are having a party. This is because I DO hear "distortions" in digital. Failure to elicit emotion is in my mind an indication that digital is leaving something out that was there in the original source musical content. (I attend live musical performances typically twice a month.) Digital commits errors of omission, in other words. But I will always listen to the "next big thing" in digital, always hoping to find something better. Which is why I wonder why you are so secretive about your own digital gear; if you are so convinced regarding its superiority, why not make it known to us so we might benefit? (You wrote that I won't "enjoy the digital alternative until [I] ACCEPT it"? That's ridiculous.)
I accept your right to your own preferences; why can you not accept mine? Why is the "other guy" in your thought process always delusional? Finally, as I have said many many times but with no penetration into your brain: unlike yourself, I try to keep an open mind. I do not categorically condemn or eliminate SS and digital from my life. Both of my phono stages are hybrids, using both tubes and transistors in the signal path. Because I have found that is the best way to achieve the gain needed for LOMCs without using a SUT. The input and driver stages in my Beveridge amplifiers are all solid state. I do use the Ayre, because I think that it is one of the best one-box CDPs I have ever heard, but I do recognize it is not state of the current digital art. For that, I can go down the street and be underwhelmed.
I accept your right to your own preferences; why can you not accept mine? Why is the "other guy" in your thought process always delusional? Finally, as I have said many many times but with no penetration into your brain: unlike yourself, I try to keep an open mind. I do not categorically condemn or eliminate SS and digital from my life. Both of my phono stages are hybrids, using both tubes and transistors in the signal path. Because I have found that is the best way to achieve the gain needed for LOMCs without using a SUT. The input and driver stages in my Beveridge amplifiers are all solid state. I do use the Ayre, because I think that it is one of the best one-box CDPs I have ever heard, but I do recognize it is not state of the current digital art. For that, I can go down the street and be underwhelmed.