Is Digital actually better than Analog?

Queg -- maybe I'm missing something here, but I was under the impression that you took the lack of response to your recent job application as a supreme compliment, or at the very least, complete stupidity as to your qualifications.

Were you really disappointed?
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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

"......wellll, I jus' don't know" -- Lou Reed
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It's really a philosophical difference. I describe the differences below without making a case for either one (I hope!)

In analog, the soundwaves are literally captured in the groove "verbatim" so to speak. And they need only be gotten back into the air to hear them again. A process, I may point out, which doesn't necessarily even require electricity to implement (talk about organic!) The only real problem with analog (as with all things organic) is that the storage medium (the groove) and the stored information (the wiggles) are inseparable -- damage to the medium means damage to the information stored there.

Digital storage is completely inorganic. The information that is stored is not sound but rather a coded "blueprint" for creating or REcreating sound through electronic means (there are no hand-crank DACs!) The sonic information in its "coded" form bears no resemblance whatsoever to the entity (sound) that it represents -- in other words, you couldn't look at a list of ones and zeros and say, "Gee, that looks like some kind of wave form!" And therefore, the resulting de-coded sound is "virtual", and not "real", in the sense that it doesn't come from any tangible object that looks the same as (analogous to) the sound wave.

From the foregoing, it should be obvious that a principal feature of digital is that one can create "code" from scratch, process it, and hear it as "sound". Sort of like making a "test tube" baby. (I'm not talking about sampling or making actual sound, and then processing it -- as with the early synthesizers.) This possibility may not qualify as "music making" for some, because it isn't a "direct" way of producing sound with the human body (singing being the most direct) but therein lies the philosphical difference I mentioned at the beginning.
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Musicaudio, in defense of Mike Lavigne, I really don't think there's anything negative about urging people to "have fun" ;--) Nor did I get the idea he was suggesting we not care what others think, only that he didn't anymore.

I believe your interest in learning more is genuine, but the most you will ever get from these forums are reports. Or maybe even reports of REPORTS! These are indeed valuable if they give you a direction to pursue, or and area you could investigate, but in the last analysis, actual learning can only result from your own first hand experiences and experiments (and BTW, there are no "bad" experiences, we learn something from all of them.)
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There are secondary (reflected) sound waves which come from the sides and rear of concert halls and other large venues that do get recorded onto two channel formats. And with proper processing can be extracted and redirected to additional channels/speakers, even though in an actual concert hall setting, I never noticed sound as coming from anywhere but the stage -- reverberation is all enveloping; only echos seem to come from "somewhere" and are greatly frowned upon in the design of concert halls ;--)

Nevertheless, a good two channel system in an acoustically adjusted listening room will produce all those secondary waves accurately and from the (seemingly) appropriate directions using only two speakers, and it's not clear whether the necessary information is captured any better by analog or digital recording techniques. With a purly digital recording/playback process (DDD), my sense is that it's a tough thing to achieve using plain ol' Redbook, and maybe that's the attraction of SACD or DVDA for some. However I have several (Redbook) HDCDs and XRCDs whose sonics equal my best LPs.

So anyone who has really great gear of both kinds really should try some of the XRCD releases -- especially the orchestral ones made from the old RCA and Colombia mastertapes which you can (if, like me, you have them) compare with their original LP counterparts. I think you'd be very surprised at how much great sound never made it onto the original vinyl ;--)
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Well Mike, there was a (dark) time when certain major recording companies were trying to get the most onto vinyl instead of the most out of vinyl -- i.e. Dynagroove (and don't think RCA was the only culprit) but thank God for Mercury! My point is that a lot of old mastertapes which were never really properly cut onto vinyl have received new (and better) lives on XRCD.

Would they sound even better if transfered to properly cut and stamped discs? Probably. As a matter of fact, I recently heard a couple of those classical (RCA) releases on R2R 7ips tape, and except for a little hiss, the tape sounded way better than the LP. Better than the XRCD? I couldn't say, too close.
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D_edwards, I'm not sure what you mean by:

"If you listen in two channel only, you are not getting the best digital has too offer. Infact you're getting the nasty end of the stick."

unless you're referring to multi-channel SACD.

However, I have experienced every derived-ambience/multi-channel processing technique that's been devised, including all those created by the film industry. Everything from the old sum-difference technique Newbee described thru SQ and Quadraphonic records (and tapes) and all the various permutations of "surround" starting with the first Lexicon 7.1 processors. In the late 60's, I participated in the first controlled study of human stereophonic perception while studying psychoacoustics at MIT (pre-multichannel of course, but we all had at least two ears;--)

After all that (and my reason for returning to a purely two channel source/playback arrangement,) it became clear to me that multichannel, from the simplest home surround to the most complex 500 channel arrays used now for computerized concert hall design, does one thing: it produces a virtual sound field -- it can reproduce a real one, or create a "designed" one. Nothing wrong with that (except for all the additional hardware,) and most effective when done in an anechoic space.

However, in a properly designed live-end/dead-end room and optimum speaker/listener placement, a two channel playback system will accurately re-produce an original (i.e. recorded in a real space) sound field. What it won't do (very well) is create virtual sound fields: computer games, HT surround sound, or "studio created" multi-channel. I did find "designed" or "studio mixed" multi-channel stimulating for a time. But for me, it added absolutely nothing to the performance -- the Art of music, or the impact/realism of the kind of movies I usually watch at home. Eventually the novelty of the "ping-pong effect" wore off. My listening room provides an excellent natural (as opposed to virtual) sound field without all the extra hardware, so that's where I wound up: I got bored with multi. Others may not.

Your comment:

"there are toher factors that profundly affect 2 channel playback of digital in a very negative way."

I don't understand. Maybe you could elaborate?
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Thanks D. So glad someone was able to clear all that up for me. Very impressive system BTW.

What I want to know is: why can't they package the CDs in a decent 12x12 inch gatefold jacket so there's some real content to read and look at while you're listening to the album for the first time. Hell, you might even forget and think you were listening to an LP ;--)
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Ded_wards, I haven't searched MIT's archives lately, but I'm sure you'll find it under the Dept. of Physiological Psychology, ca. 1964-1966. The title of the paper is "Controlled Studies in Human Stereophonic Perception."

We had hundreds of volunteers (S-T-E-R-E-O was everywhere!), and more important, the first computer system large enough to crunch statistics and probability -- at the same time! So, no study of this type was even possible any time earlier.

Although my little project wasn't specifically concerned with re-producing virtual sonic environments using only two loudspeakers, in 1997, a fellow at MIT named Bill Gardner did his PhD thesis on that very subject. You can read it (150 pages) at:

http://sound.media.mit.edu/Papers/gardner_thesis.pdf

For those of you too busy to read it in detail, it describes a way for producing a "sweet spot" anywhere in the listening room through the use of a procedure called "head tracking." But it leaves no doubt that full re-creation of a sonic environment is possible using only two loudspeakers.

Thanks for the lively discussion ;--)
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CDWallace -- Like most things in this material world, it's about money.

On another thread, someone (not me) commenting on thee SS-vs-tube amp neverending story, made the brilliant observation that the sonic qualities of tube amps out-pace SS amps at a given price, until you get up into the megabuck range (Lamm, Levinson, Goldmund, FM Acoustics, darTZeel, Pass, and so forth) at which point it really becomes an absolutely moot issue -- really! It simply takes a lot of money before SS catches up to tubes. My guess why (and it's only a guess) is that folks have been working with tubes longer.

And I think the situation between analog and digital playback is similar. If you spend megabucks on digital, (Wadia, EMM, CDS, Esoteric, Aural Symphonics optics, etc) the analog/digital debate becomes moot again (assuming decent LP/CD software for each.) HOWEVER, if you spend less than megabucks for BOTH your analog and your digital gear, the analog is going to sound better than the digital for the same reason that modestly priced tube gear sounds better than modestly priced SS gear: Analog has been developed and refined for over 85 years vs. digital for barely 30. So of course a MODEST analog rig will smoke a MODESET digital rig. What the hell would you expect!

And though I own great examples of both technologies, and enjoy them equally, I know in my heart that analog has pretty much reached the peak of its development, while digital has only begun to be explored -- just to offer a single "for instance": what will happen to digital audio reproduction when 3-D optical storage becomes available? Think about it.
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And never regard new technology as "inferior."

Often we DO trade convenience/practicality/profit (newer technologies) for certain "qualities" available only with older methods. This is true in all areas of human endeavor.

I believe it's up to individuals to inform themselves on the merits and then make a personal value-judgement as to how much (extra?) time and money they're willing to allot to a particular pursuit. And no one else should question their decision.

We see examples everywhere of persons who are absolutely obsessive about obtaining the utmost in quality in a particular field, while exhibiting total lack of taste, interest, knowledge, or care in many other areas of their lives -- even if they could afford something "better."

If a person's answer to the question "Is it worth it to you?" is "No" then leave 'em be -- they're doing other things that you're not interested in ;--)
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