How much do you need to spend to get digital to rival analog?

Well.... great analog with great records does have a natural warmth. but if I’m honest, 90% of records sound like crap. Compressed, surface noise, lots of distortion, blah, blah.

Lots of digital sounds like crap too, but i find that on average i’m better off with digital. And digital recordings are getting better and better. Early on there were serious errors made, and the equipment was fussy (44/16 with brick wall filters and little overhead to miss level sets by). Today with great equipment and 24/192 much more slop is allowed.


I have posted before on this topic, so I’ll be brief. I believe that 90% of the problems in ANY sound are locked into the recording/mastering process, and maybe the actual pressing with Vinyl, since there is so much opportunity to f it up.


Take some great analog recordings that coexist in CD format - 3 examples I’ll sugegst are 1-ANY Mercury Living Presence; 2-"Ella and Louis" on Verve, and 3-"Andre Previn and friends perform West Side Story" (RCA Red Seal). Superb on both CD and LP, and very analog sounding CDs. And I’m talking red book CDs. While 192/24 may have practical value in the studio, we can get great sound out of 44/16 if everything int he chain is 100%.


I love great vinyl. I have a crazy obscure turntable and arm that i put countless hours into building and setting up. Its great, except that most records are crap. The vast majority of rock records are awful. yea the recordings are bad, and the masterings by deaf engineers or tuned for AM radio, but the vinyl makes it WORSE. There are great recordings - but many are old, or very costly specialty pressings, and rarely have the great performances i want. So most of my good sounding records are used or gulp - from my parents. Way too many recrords that sounded good once, after 100 playings (Born to run anyone?) are now awful, again. OK maybe i need to invest in a new copy, but there are 100 more i also need new copies of, and to get good ones, I’m back in specialty land. Contrast that with the Mercury remastered boxed sets I just bought - they are ALL good. And used too :-)


So, in the end, while i am sympathetic, on balance I disagree. Now many say i have fairly analog-y sounding digital. My DACs ( i have a small fleet) are mostly fairly old, and only one was super high end even when new. For the record, it comes in dead last in shoot outs.  But its also carefully selected, and heavily modified with home made PLLs and power supplies. Duh, i do this sort of thing, and this shoemaker’s son has shoes. prototype ugly shoes, but very comfy.


So concentrate on a) good recordings, b) less on cost more on quality. Pass on the snake oil. read, read, read! Listen, listen, listen. you’ll find stuff. or decide you just love records ad then be happy with them. I’m typically happiest when i have some new (to me) recording on, in another room, while I work, totally paying no attention to the hgih end stuff, and learning a new piece.


G

I listen to about as much digital as I do analogue, although I go through periods where I listen primarily to one or the other.  I'm VERY happy with the PS Audio Directstream and the most recent iteration of its FPGA programmed DAC.  It sounds less digital than anything else I've ever heard and is now on a par with the DCS products for far less money.

I find the complete opposite.  Digital systems say under $1500 sound much better than analog - at least vinyl.  But once you get over about $3K vinyl starts sounding better than equally priced digital.  

as asked the question is not answerable.

there are so many levels of analog that you can't really say. i have what many consider to be the very tip top, bleeding edge of digital performance. yet, my best vinyl or tape easily surpasses it.

however; at more modest levels of analog there are cases to be made that digital can somewhat go head to head.

if you want to really understand where digital comes up short consider the limitations of digital recording, read this Stereophile interview from 1995 with the principles of Pacific Microsonics. especially read toward the bottom of the first page. you might think you know as much about music recording as these guys, but......you don't.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/hdcd-keith-johnson-pflash-pflaumer-michael-ritter

Gas car?  Electric car?

Unless the listeners ears are between 17 and 25 in biological age every nuance of difference even in CNO systems is impossible to convey.  The actual population discussing this will talk about jitter or filter harshness or wow and flutter or dynamic range etc. and theres too many structural issues to resolve attempting to normalize two very different forms of source media.  Whatever yiur setup is, if you like how one sounds you will become accustomed to the other but circle back to your original preferences.  Im not familiar with anyone devoting close to equal time with analog and digital.  For me, analog is the special occasion champagne while digital is the daily driver...the mixed analogy is intentional.