My digital front end outdoes my analog.....


For the first time ever my analog setup is being outdone by my digital front end. The equipment: digital-MF Trivista SACD
analog-Thorens TD-125 w/Rabco SL8E linear tracking arm/Grado Master reference (4.0mv) YS Audio Concerto plus with Telefunken smooth plate 12AX7's. The sound: Overall fairly similar with that usual superior analog HF response. The image and seperation are way better on the CDP, this is my biggest issue. Better, but less so, are bass response and dynamics on the CDP as well. I love vinyl and always have and will. The tonearm is set up great and the thing tracks perfect. VTA perfect. I have it only two feet from the left speaker and it doesn't even think of feeding back. I can jump on the floor and the woofers don't move so it is so well isolated. The table/arm seem fine. Here are problems I see:
1)Lower end phono pre (so what do I need to spend)
2)Rewire TT from cart to interconnect as the tonearm is 30 years old
3)As a passive line stage user I need a very low Z ballsier phono stage. The current unit is 54db gain with an output impedence of 1000 ohms. The Trivista CDP's output impedence is 50 ohms (this could be the bass issue since I use a passive linestage)

Vinyl will never have the place for me it once did since so few new releases are on LP. I have most of the vinyl and out of print vinyl not on or never released on CD that I desire to own (based on what I like)
I do love playing with vinyl and shopping and finding it as well. Thoughts welcome-thanks in advance

ET
electroid
Analog is no more real then digital. They are both reproductions...the only "real" is live music.
DNA (the Double Helix) is inherently of digital-like construction. It may not use ones and zeros but it has a very limited set of exact states that are strung out in an almost endless string (rather like bits on a CD). DNA is an extremely robust way to maintain accuracy...each cell has an exact copy and there are millions of cells in each ear alone...does that make our auditory system perfect but artificial too?
Chad 'n Shad, what I meant by "imperfect" with respect to analog is that when storing analog information, any damage to the storage medium (the groove, the tape) also damages the information itself.

With storage of binary code, that is not true. As long as you can read the binary info AT ALL, you will be able to digitally reconstruct a "perfect facsimile" of the original sound. However, the resulting sound wave that gets to your ear, did not originate from an analog source (a wiggly groove), rather it was "reconstructed" using a code that can at best only "approximate" the analog equivalent, albeit without any pops and scratches.

The example of the DNA molecule would make a brilliant argument, except that it is not a digital (binary) storage system, and like the record groove, is vulnerable to all kinds of degradation and damage, and consequently, so is the information it stores. When this "damage" happens, we call it a mutation. Essential for evolution, but probably not so good for music reproduction.

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I think another consideration that has not been discussed here is the software as opposed to hardware issues. You have not told us what you listen to or have compared CD to vinyl. Not that the stlye of music matters but I have found that my excellent condition original issue 1950's jazz LP's are completely magical compared to even the best audiophile cd reissues sold today. On the other hand, many LP reissues (and new issues) don't necessarily beat or equal their cd equivalents. There are far too many gross generalizations about the whole issue of cd vs. vinyl. I will show anyone specific examples of where one format blows away the other or vica versa so be sure you aren't reaching your conclusions from too narrow a set of software comparisons.
Nothing in nature is digital. The helix only looks digital to us today because we don't have the technology to "look" even closer. Guaranteed those edges are rounded over and science will eventually find even more there, there.

I don't really care about the digital/analog debate. I do use both in my system. However, I have found very little to justify an investment in SACD. To my ears DVD-A has a much better potential. I choose not to go beyond CD because I'd rather wait and see where the digital world settles. There have been great strides in SS and digital components in the last few years. But there have also been great strides in analog components as well.

I still see this as a dollar for dollar comparison. I don't subscribe to the thinking that a $1k analog investment will outperform any digital. Might have been true a little while ago, but it's not a given any more. So, if someone chooses to invest more in digital than analog (or the other way around) then fine. Electroid posts that vinyl will never have the same place in his system while telling us about the performance of his $6K player. So he feels the need to tell us that his expediture makes him happy. Ok, but what's the point?

This really is pretty simple as I see it. If you do want to improve your analog source, invest in it to the same extent that you have invested in SACD. If you don't want to spend anymore on analog then that's fine as well, but why do you ask the obvious? I believe that for the same $6K one can have an analog front end that will better whatever SACD you want to bring to the table.