What is needed to have the best CD/Digital sound?

I generally agree with Tvad & Clio09. CDP/DAC is not the optimal place to get a "full, warmth, rich sound."

These are euphonic colorations that are not in the digital source but will come with your preamp and amp.

I am firmly on the fence when it comes to which sound I like best: rich and warm (euphonic) or detailed and wide open (accurate)--please, no arguments about the characterization or semantics; I am having enough debate with myself as it is.

So I use the most accurate CDP/DAC I can afford and switch my preamp/amp between tube and solid state depending on my mood. This way I can have my cake and eat it too. Remember, you can color the sound of your source downstream but you cannot take the color out.

Donbellphd, it depends on how you define accuracy. I hate to get off the initial thread but I don’t think we can say that digital sound is inherently or potentially more accurate than analog sound or vice versa. It’s all a matter of definition and execution. Both technologies have their own strength and weaknesses in dealing with complex musical information. Digital sound gives you the MAIN musical signals accurately without noise but misses some of the musical subtleties--richness and warmth are not all distortions; they are high harmonics in the musical signals themselves. Analog sound gives you the main AND subtle features of the musical signal but also additional noises. One error is mostly subtractive, the other mostly additive. But both technologies are capable of reducing their inaccuracies though not the same way.

I am a pragmatist with little emotional attachment or dogmatic belief in either format. I just look at the end results. The sound of analog master tape, a 50-year old technology, has all the attributes of the best digital sound but in far greater degree and is stunningly musical. If to get all the music I have to also get a little distortion, I’ll take it. Mind you, digital sound is improving all the time. By definition, however, digital sound will always remain an approximation. One day it can be close enough to the real thing that the tiny difference may not really matter to anyone. But that day is far from here yet and may or may not come.

Digitization is a very powerful tool that allows us to do things heretofore impossible with analog approach. Digital sound also offers great compatibility with the Internet, computer, telephone, and other digital technologies we currently enjoy. But digital sound is far from perfect and it is not a panacea. It has its own kind of “distortions” that are different but as (if not more) difficult to eliminate as analog distortions. The best analog sound is warm, rich, highly musical but a little noisy. The best digital sound is clean, detailed, and extremely quiet but a little dry. BOTH are inaccurate and I have no proof that either is inherently superior. They are just different.

Don, I am not sure I follow your line of thought. Sorry.

My point was simply that analog is just as capable of outstanding sound as digital. For either format, it still comes down to execution, not theoretical superiority.

I had the privilege to listen to some analog master-tape recordings of pop songs and the sound was vastly superior to the sound from analog LP or digital SACD/CD both of which I own. So excellence resides in the execution, not in a specific format. While the convenience of the digital format is quite abvious, I am unconvinced that it has any INHERENT or THEORETICAL ability to capture and reproduce music better than analog.

So far, the best digital sound from SACD/CD still has quite a way to go to catch up with the best LP sound. Theoretical explanation notwithstanding, SACD/CD is still unable to convey the richness and subtleties found in real music which LP seems to be able to routinely deliver albeit laced with colorations and noises.

I wish things were the other way around. I am sick and tired of adjusting my turntable/tonearm/cartridge and keeping my LPs clean--a real pain in the neck--and I long for the days when I can just enjoy the music with the convenience of the digital format. But so far, while digital sound is getting much better, it is still missing quite a bit of the richness of live music.

It may be premature to proclaim the superiority of digital sound now while it's still running behind. Let's wait and see.

Don, now I see your point. No doubt transductions are potential and real sources of distortions and LP does add another layer of transduction.

I still have trouble reconciling that fact with my own listening experience: if digital SACD/CD is a more accurate reproduction than analog LP, why did LP sound closer to the original master tape than SACD/CD? It must be that the subtractive distortions in SACD/CD muck up the sound more than the additive distortions in LP. The only encouraging thing is that LP is—or should I say was—a technology near its peak whereas digital media still have a lot of room for growth. But to improve a technology, we must first recognize its existing or hidden problems.

As a research engineer, I’ve been humbled too many times to hold any hubris about a complete theoretical understanding of a new technology. We thought we understood quantization and dithering errors at the introduction of CD and foolishly proclaimed its sound “perfect.” Then jitters came out of left field and bit us in the behind. We are just as confident now that our current digital media (SACD/CD) can capture and reproduce all the nuance of music. Simple listening tells us otherwise. I think it would be far more productive to acknowledge current limitations of digital technology and spend time figuring out its remaining (hidden) problems.

I for one would love to enjoy music in my old age without having to clean another LP.

Have a nice day!