Can Digital beat our Analog installations?


Having gone a long walk on developing my analog systems I am addicted to phono reproduction. Nevertheless I always kept an eye on CDs and also SACDs. Before I currently updated my digital dCS chain to the complete Scarlatti boxes I experimented on the best wordclocking connections. in the end I decided going for an additional rubidium clock added to my Verona master clock.

I am using also a second system equipped with the Accuphase 800 drive and 801 DAC, an Esoteric XO1 Limited and a Wadia 861 SE for other utilization. Let's concentrate on the dCS stack. These four boxes are sounding such good and analog like that I like to question my friends, Why isn't Digital an alternative to our best analogue chains?

So it's time comparing digital vs. analog systems and maybe some sophisticated digital chains are beating our sophisticated analog systems. Will it be possible?
thuchan

Showing 7 responses by czarivey

Even according to Al, I still can only believe that quality of digital reproduction in the mathematical and scientific terms can only "approach" quality of analogue reproduction as close as possible when sampling resolution approaches infinity [aka Q(digital media/playback) --> Q(analogue media/playback) when sampling resolution --> infinity], but can't be any greater potentially and so practically.
Neo(aka Matrix movie hero) may certainly have a different opinion, but certainly not proven yet :-) so the analogue today and probably in far future has and will have the HIGHEST possible resolution of sound.

Despite my HUGE analogue library of near or more than 10k of vinyls/45's/7"/flexi/75rpm, I do have digital PC audio playback/great DAC simply because I love media and music more than any type of playback regardless of format. If artist I desire isn't available on vinyl, I'd never mind having it on CD or other formats or medias.
Al, I clearly understand limiting factors of both reproductions. The number of variable in the matrix of analog reproduction is substantially larger than digital and that makes it EXTREAMLY sophisticated to achieve perfection, but in reality as even with digital...

It doesn't have to be. The sampling resolution just has to be good enough to reduce sampling artifacts to the point of either being inaudible, or to the point where they are less audibly significant than the many things in analog that are not infinitely perfect either.

What theoretically said in terms of approaching an infinity certainly isn't practially done in one or another domain, but having the fact that digital domain is less depended on analogue imperfection factors it's definitely cleaner.

What about presence of overtones and subtones that harmonise with audible spectrum in analogue? We know that they're not audible let's say in most of cases after 14kHz, but they're being superposed with the audible frequencies. Isn't that gives a sound it's signature and naturality?
I think that these may be and are diminished during sampling processing.
Can digital cables be wordclocking?
If yes how it's achieved?
Never heard of wordclocking cables. I only know that wordclocking can be achieved with electronics.
Thanks Jf, That's what I thought of some kind of synonym to our ordinary digital cable "wordclocking".