The muddy waters of Analogue vs. digital today

@audio-b-dog 

"In regards to chatgpt, it is true that if you ask it a subjective question you will get a subjective answer that it thinks you want to hear. But when I ask it about the quality of a recording it is fairly amazing. It will not only tell you about whether a recording is taken from an analogue or digital source, it wil tell you about the engineers and where the album was pressed. It will give you a ton of information. Just try it. Ask about an album you wonder about or about an album you'd like to buy. I asked about "My Favorite Things" from "Selflessness" being tipped up in the treble range. It told me that the recording was live and where it was recorded and where the mikes were placed and who engineered the recording. More than I really wanted to know."

Discogs has been doing this for decades now and list every remastering that's been done since a recording's first release no matter how old it is. Only requires your literary and basic computer skills to search out anything you want to know.

Do you really think that a digital version of an analog recording is going to have anything in common with an all analog version of it? Nothing about the mastering process is going to be the same though the producers of the digital reissue may strive to achieve a listening experience that the music buying public is accustomed to, a comparison just isn't fair in any way.

As for digital playback as in the case of CD or SACD it's only as good as the equipment you play it back on irrespective of how much you spend on your digital front end since a properly chosen CD/SACD player, transport, DAC and considering the system it's going to be matched to can yield outstanding results.

In my opinion there has never been anything wrong with the 16-bit format only it's implementation on certain recordings or remasters and for the most part I find it as enjoyable as SACD or even vinyl though I'm inexorably attracted to the tactility of vinyl for which I have the most titles and spend most of my time listening to given the choice.

I don’t really get the agonizing about analog vs digital any more.  It’s unreasonable to make it an either or context.  Both can produce excellent results if done well.  Some digital remasters of analog recordings aren’t as good as the original, but the reverse is certainly true as well.  It’s reasonable to have the capability to play both and make your decision on a case by case basis

@mahler123 I don’t know if anyone’s agonizing over it here. I’m definitely enjoying both formats. I’m really excited about the fact that more pure analog vinyl is being produced right now than even a year or two ago. I also hate the limited/numbered editions. But thankfully in some cases when the numbered editions ate sold out they still want to continue to make money and keep producing these records as regular versions. Some of these are killer sounding albums. So yeah I actually think now is a good time to get back into vinyl. 

Twenty years ago I bought an Ayre C-5xe and decided that I had found the one. But now I have to face up to the fact it is going to fail one of these days, so in preparation I got out a couple of older players and they have shocked me as to how good they sound! A 34 year old Meridian 206b (the bitstream version) and a 27 year old Sony SCD-1 (which now declines to play SACDs but plays CDs happily). If I didn’t have so many SACDs I could live with either, but when the Ayre dies I shall have to find some way of playing those SACDs. I’m hoping tech advances have trickled down into players like the Marantz 30n. All my attention the last twenty years has been directed at vinyl replay, so I have ignored streaming, and separate transports and DACS (though I did have a Counterpoint DA-11.5 and DA-10 way back when (~1995)). I shall just need a CD/SACD one box player that sounds as good as the Ayre.

@mahler123 @audphile1 

It's morning and I am not yet up to listening to anything demanding, so I am happily streaming Norah Jones' "In The Morning" 192/24. If the recording had been 44.1/16, I'd still be listening. Folks, I have happily listened to music on everything possible. When I was thirteen I had a little transistor radio with one earpiece with music compressed beyond modern conceptions. I listened happily on a $100 suitcase stereo when I was in college. I traveled through the Middle East when I was 21 and I listened to Turkish and Persian music on busses. I like music a lot.

I'm not in love with the whole record process. I do it because I can hear the difference. Any idiot can hear the skips and clicks of a record I've played several times and has gotten gunky. So, I have to throw it in the Degritter and that noise goes away. Pretty easy A/B test. No, I'm not in love with the whole vinyl process it's a pain in the ass.

I played CDs for many years while my album collection was in boxes. Reading Michael Fraemer in Stereophile I was convinced to give my vinyl front end an upgrade or two and see if I liked it better than CD. I absolutely did. And I still do. But even with 1,000 albums, my vinyl collection is limited so I stream things all the time. I hope for better quality (even 48 kHz is much better than 44.1). I can hear it. Trust me. You can hear it. 

I have had several audiophile friends who I've tried to talk into buying turntables. I have played records on my system and they simply couldn't hear the difference. My neighbor who would not listen to vinyl brought over cables for me to compare. I never quite understood how he could hear the difference in cables but not between records and CDs. Go out and enjoy whatever you like. I'm in agreement, but don't tell me that hearing the difference between analogue and digital is all in my head.

I think my Moon 280D is not a vastly inferior product. It cost $4K when I bought it a year and a half ago. If you read reviews, they talk about it "punching above its weight." Everything is about sonics. I compared it to $10K streamers and could not hear the difference. Obviously, it is not the top of th heap, but it sounds fine, especially on high resolution recordings.

I've mentioned Patricia Barber's "Clique." Even if you don't like her you should listen to the quality of this recording on Qobuz or Tidal. As I said, it's good enough that I won't bother purchasing the album. On the other hand, I was introduced to Wayne Shorter's "Speak No Evil." I streamed it a few times and decided to purchase a vinyl copy. For me, some jazz needs to be on vinyl.

What do I hear in good vinyl that I don't hear in digital? I would say the main thing is "air." The best streaming will flesh out notes as well or even better than analogue recordings. You can hear the attack of a stringed instrument as well or perhaps better than vinyl. But music is waves traveling through air. And good vinyl albums give me a feeling of that air that streaming simply can't.

Yet i am happily listening to this 192/24 recording of Norah Jones on headphones because our housekeeper is over and my wife has joined me in my music/writing room. My head easily gets into the music.

I would be happy if I didn't have a turntable. Eventually, I'd forget about the "air." But as long as my turntable and vinyl is here, I'll play a lot of records. And also stream. And also play a CD from time to time on my McCormack UDP-1 which I think was the best CD player 25 years ago, and it's still damned good.

BTW, as far as I've been concerned, any stereo I've owned has been fantastic. When I had energy bookshelf speakers, a NAD receiver, and a Nakamichi CD player, I was convinced it was the best system on earth. It's kind of like my wife or my kids. I love music and I'm happily biased.