1. Home
  2. analog
  3. 152137-3034

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

I have heard some very high end digital front ends and although  they do sound very good, I never get the satisfaction that I do when i listen to analog regardless if its a"coloration" or whatever. I will listen to high end digital, and then I soon get bored, as if it just does not have the magic That I experience with a well set up analog system. So how much do I need to spend to say, " get a sound that at least equals or betters a 3K Turntable?

tzh21y
erik_squires
17,537 posts
 
What analog system lets me listen to internet radio?? :)
atdavid
736 posts
 
You only answered a very small portion of the question I asked and effectively ignored the most significant part of it.

As well, are you implying it would be impossible to build an analog limiter that soft-clips like magnetic tape and put that in the circuit before the A/D?   (not that that would have been needed in the last 20 ish years with 24 bit A/D with 20+ bits effective for studio equipment)



sadono91 posts11-05-2019 11:40pm@atdavid

Serious question for everyone. How do you reconcile claiming that vinyl is technically better ... not euphonically better, but technically better, when the vast majority of recordings made in the last 2 decades have been recorded on digital? Even where the original is analog, many remasters have been remastered via digitization? At some level, Vinyl is just another "DAC" for many records.

Digital recording is non-destructive and far easier to use. That said, there are still a select group of studios and artists that still record using reel-to-reels.

Reel-to-reels have a soft clipping nature, as it reaches 0. Those analog recordings keep part of their characteristic sound, even if they’re converted to digital and processed digitally. This is why some mixing and mastering engineers will transfer their mixes/masters to reel-to-reel, before - or as - their final format.

grey9hound
1,113 posts
 
@idigmusic64
I think you mean 20HZ to 20kHZ and 20HZ to 50kHZ

mr_m
1,900 posts
 
For me, It was how much would I need to spend to get my analog system to rival my digital. I had a $1000 cd player, and it took a outlay  of about $2500 in turntable, tonearm, and cartridge to level the playing field. No bliss in cheap analog systems.
jperry
2,535 posts
 
The Innous Statement server with the Nagra HD DAC is good and would compare favorably to a high end analog (turntable) front end.
More to discover