If you will tolerate a viewpoint from someone firmly in the digital camp, I think Ehider's illustration, just above, is an apt one. After years of listening to both live and recorded music with ears that have generally, sometimes grudgingly, been acknowledged to be pretty good, I find myself among that group of audiophiles who believe that the attraction of tubes and analog is not that they reveal things that digital conceals but that they impart subtle distortions that many people find extremely pleasant.
There is another thread running right now dealing with pro monitors vs. audiophile speakers. Quoted is a classic Stereophile piece by Gordon Holt in which he remarks that the real reason many audiophiles dislike pro monitors is not because they don't sound enough like live music but because they sound too much like live music. He goes on to discuss the subtle distortions that are customarily built into audiophile speakers and why people like them. I won't go on but commend that thread to you for your own reading.
A little case in point, albeit one dealing with tubes. I was listening last Sunday to a CD by Gloria Dei Cantores. I hasten to say that this is NOT a world class ensemble but they are popular with many folks and their music tends to be reasonably well recorded. The listening session began at my house, played through a Rega/Belles/JMLabs system. It migrated to a friend's home where the CD was replayed through a Njoe Tjoeb/CJ/Thiel system. Listening through my SS system, I found myself dissecting the Howells Gloucester Service as I would have done in my days as a singer and conductor, hearing parts, listening for ensemble and intonation, even noting room effects. Listening through my friend's valve system, I was transported to the experience of a cathedral evensong. Both were wonderful experiences. Very different experiences. I can certainly understand why many would find the latter the more "nirvanic" of the two. All that being said, however, there was not the slightest doubt by either of us that the SS reproduction was the more musically accurate, while the tube reproduction was the more euphonious.
A digital example of the same phenomenon: The same friend once played for our comparison an RCA vinyl recording (don't have details at hand) of Biggs playing some overplayed Bach on the Busch-Reisinger organ up at Harvard, followed by a re-release of the same tracks on CD. On the CD, I could listen with delight to the mechanical travails of that wonderful little organ, the nuances of the old man's articulation (how could he play like that with those gnarled, arthritic fingers?), even the uneven voicing of a chiffy flute on the gigue fugue. On the LP, I could sit back and enjoy a concert by a great player at the end of a great career. The vinyl was less accurate, less detailed, less revealing, but certainly more musical in the sense of being a pleasant aesthetic experience. Only the fact that some idiot was frying a pan of bacon in the background kept me from being tempted to dust off the old TT. :)
Please, oh please, don't read this as a flame and start writing polemical rebuttals. I realize that many of my fellow a'goners have invested tons of money in analog and tubes and have done so because they firmly believe they are getting closer to the holy grail thereby. That is precisely my point. Rather than having these endless debates over which is better, let's just talk about which we enjoy and why.
After all, isn't this supposed to be fun?
will
There is another thread running right now dealing with pro monitors vs. audiophile speakers. Quoted is a classic Stereophile piece by Gordon Holt in which he remarks that the real reason many audiophiles dislike pro monitors is not because they don't sound enough like live music but because they sound too much like live music. He goes on to discuss the subtle distortions that are customarily built into audiophile speakers and why people like them. I won't go on but commend that thread to you for your own reading.
A little case in point, albeit one dealing with tubes. I was listening last Sunday to a CD by Gloria Dei Cantores. I hasten to say that this is NOT a world class ensemble but they are popular with many folks and their music tends to be reasonably well recorded. The listening session began at my house, played through a Rega/Belles/JMLabs system. It migrated to a friend's home where the CD was replayed through a Njoe Tjoeb/CJ/Thiel system. Listening through my SS system, I found myself dissecting the Howells Gloucester Service as I would have done in my days as a singer and conductor, hearing parts, listening for ensemble and intonation, even noting room effects. Listening through my friend's valve system, I was transported to the experience of a cathedral evensong. Both were wonderful experiences. Very different experiences. I can certainly understand why many would find the latter the more "nirvanic" of the two. All that being said, however, there was not the slightest doubt by either of us that the SS reproduction was the more musically accurate, while the tube reproduction was the more euphonious.
A digital example of the same phenomenon: The same friend once played for our comparison an RCA vinyl recording (don't have details at hand) of Biggs playing some overplayed Bach on the Busch-Reisinger organ up at Harvard, followed by a re-release of the same tracks on CD. On the CD, I could listen with delight to the mechanical travails of that wonderful little organ, the nuances of the old man's articulation (how could he play like that with those gnarled, arthritic fingers?), even the uneven voicing of a chiffy flute on the gigue fugue. On the LP, I could sit back and enjoy a concert by a great player at the end of a great career. The vinyl was less accurate, less detailed, less revealing, but certainly more musical in the sense of being a pleasant aesthetic experience. Only the fact that some idiot was frying a pan of bacon in the background kept me from being tempted to dust off the old TT. :)
Please, oh please, don't read this as a flame and start writing polemical rebuttals. I realize that many of my fellow a'goners have invested tons of money in analog and tubes and have done so because they firmly believe they are getting closer to the holy grail thereby. That is precisely my point. Rather than having these endless debates over which is better, let's just talk about which we enjoy and why.
After all, isn't this supposed to be fun?
will