DIGITAL vs. ANALOG


Hi folks! I'm very interested on getting into analog but I don't know how much money would have to be the minimum to spend in a TT to worthily surpass my $1000 cd player, a Musical Fidelity A3CD. Any suggestion or thought? Thanx in advance!
jorge_err

Showing 1 response by kasboot

Hi Jorge,
I was born and lived with Viny for a while. Until CDs came in with the promise of "perfect sound for ever"....Will That is not True and 99% of the public have been sold on the idea of CDs. Why? To make money. These companies need new formats and new gadgets to keep as buying and buying so that the economy will continue to grow and so that they continue to profit. 90% of the gadgets out there are useless. They" are manipulating us like sheep and we don't even know it. If any moron tells you that CDs are better don't believe it. CDs are by definationa an anomaly: It's not posible to get smooth sine and cosine curves from a bunch of "0" and "1". You are forced to exprapolate and this where the music suffer and why it sounds etched out, edgy, rough, mechanical, and with monotaneous tone. This process also affects transparency and the 3D locations of the musicians in the soundstage. All of this leaves one with a muddy soundstage with different instrument sounds coming from all directions. I did not realize this difference until I went back to analog about 6 months ago. I have a Sony DVP S7700 DVD player, with Tara Labs Air Digital cable hooked to a Bel Canto DAC 1 which is hooked via Analysis Plus Silver Oval-In to a Proceed AVP A/V preamp( this unit does have a passive mode), finally using Cardas Golden Cross Interconnects, we get to the amplifier (BelCanto Evo 200.2), then using bi-wired Cardas Golden Cross cables we arrive at Canton Ergo RC-L speaker ( Floor standing speakers which are good speakers for the money)So, I bought a Rega Planar 2 with Clear Audio Aurum Beta "S" cartridge and believe it or not I just used a cheap phono stage that's installed in my Pioneer Elite reciever. The sound ?...Ummm...Open, Smmoth as silk, no edge, no etchiness, no feeling that you need to turn down the volume, trumpets and violins sound natural and not that uneasy sound that makes you either leave the room or turn down the volume. It sounds real, natural, buttery smooth and ahhhhhhhhhh, It's GOT SOUL BABY!! My Table cost me about $540 new with tax and the cartridge cost me $485. I also bought a VPI 16.5 record cleaning machine ($425 new).By Contrast the Bel Canto was $1353 w/ tax, The Tara Labs Digital Cable was $295 without tax, the Sony DVP S7700 was $850 with tax and the Proceed AVP was $4870 after tax. The Pioneer elite was $650 (2 years ago). So total cost for the digital gear was $7,368. And the total cost for the analog gear was $2,100. There fore my doigital gear ,which you gotta admit is pretty great stuff, cost me 3.5 times more than my analog gear (350% more!). But I listen to my analog gear more than 755 of the time. If I am lasy and don't want to get up frequently to change records then I will put in a CD, but I don't sit down to enjoy it! My gear changed very quickly when i relized the superior sound of analog. I immediately upgraded to a Rega Plana 25 but kept the Clear Audio cartridge. So if you want a brand new Plana 2 at 20% off the usual price, you know what to do. Sorry, had to plug in my pitch.
I challenge anyone with a high end digital set up to go with a relatively inexpensive analog set up and compare for themselve.