The character of analog and digital

in a perfect world, digital should be close to ’of a piece’ with analog. in other words, you ought to be able to switch back and forth from digital to analog/vinyl or analog/vinyl to digital and while the analog/vinyl is farther down the road to suspension of disbelief, the digital is getting there less only by degrees.

digital is never getting all the way there, but.....it does not have to. digital brings us access to much more music, and ease of use. and so we can live with ’of a piece’ synergy with our analog.

and this is where i think i am in my digital and analog. and i am as much invested in my analog and my digital as anyone here.

i do respect that some don’t agree and see the chasm between digital and analog as much greater; they need to work on their digital. or at least recognize what digital can do at the tip top of the digital food chain.

far away from wanting to prove you wrong! I am just pointing out that digital would have to have a fundamental problem yet to be identified to be eternally inferior to vinyl.

@antigrunge2

let’s just say, digital won’t quite equal vinyl in my lifetime and i’ll go with that.

just follow the dollars, there is no economic driver causing digital to be improved right now enough to bridge that gap. god knows i've pushed my digital to the very outer reaches of performance.

i’m no techie knowing the future, i just listen and observe trends and cause and effect.

your postulate of asymptotical closing of the gap between vinyl and digital seems counterfactual: vinyl suffers from distortions simply not present in digital, e.g. tracking angle on conventional tone arms, warp and flutter depending on pressing quality, imperfect reconstruction of the RIAA curve in the analogue domain, tonearm, step-up and analogue cable distortions to name but a few. Admittedly harmonic distortions on vinyl are euphonic and therefore often preferred to the ‘cold glare’ of digital, that however doesn’t mean they aren’t distortions. I fully agree with @lalitk that digital needs lots of work and am well aware of your state of the art setup on both vinyl and digital.

@antigrunge2

i guess i’m cursed with this whole listening thing. i find the best possible digital and vinyl sources, develop my system to tell me the truth without compromise, then listen to both every day. and draw my conclusions.

all the rest is noise, obfuscation, and rhetoric.

you are welcome to join me anytime for listening and point out where i’m wrong. seems obvious. 

certainly there are good, better, best recordings too. so each digital and vinyl event has variables. the media is 'more' variable with vinyl.