[himu]

Hi

Aging Audiophile still looking for digital Nirvana
I am new to this group but not the hobby. 

Wonder how many folks feel digital playback lacks emotion, and what are you doing about it.

[Jarbs]

Well, this is a deep topic, so I’ll start with some broad generalized comments. Digital is not inherently flawed, meaning conceptually it can work. Dragging a rock on plastic somehow works too, but over 100 years of development have certainly helped. Likewise digital has been significantly improved in even the last five years.

External and self noise, as well as flawed transfer protocols are the nemesis of good digital. All of this leads to read errors which affects every facet of performance. Bits are not bits when talking about real-time reading without error correction or redundancy (which digital music is). With money and research these are being effectively dealt with.

Some common results of these detractors are grey sound, rough high frequencies, poor phase response, soft bass, and confused transients. I’ve lived through it all since buying my first cd player in 1985.

Lately I’ve owned Lampizator tube dacs and Taiko servers. This is much better than my modest vinyl in every way. Sure, there are many others. Pick your price point. For maybe $15k you can have something pretty good. For $100k you get much more. Budgets much less than this you can find enjoyable, non-fatiguing sound, but you start to lose the essence of the music. Resolution is lower, dynamics less, perhaps more colored with a notable sonic imprint. Then there is that pernicious grayness which sucks the life out.

Those who say digital doesn’t compete with analog haven’t heard the best available. But the issues are real and the solutions come at a cost.

What are your aspirations? Do you spin discs or stream?

[FullRangeMan]

Musical appreciation is a very personal matter as all humans have different appearance, different voices from each other and also see and hear differently.

Digital or vinyl is a personal choice.

[Jarbs]

IMO, I’d rather live with low end analog than low end digital. The analog short-comings are more agreeable. I think this is one of the reasons that vinyl sales remain good. My wife and kids continue to buy vinyl. I stopped buying vinyl 20 years ago; cd’s 5 years ago.

The advent of streaming has been a game changer for me. A whole new world of music has become available. Only one path to get this. The whole low effort laziness is very attractive too. So it’s not just a SQ issue, the whole playback experience between analog and digital is different. Although it would be nice to have both formats at a high level, I had to choose one or the other.

The lifestyle of digital streaming is attractive, but at the same time frustrating when chasing the best SQ. The OP’s question is the same I had after choosing my path forward. I found the streamer/server makes it clean (along with clean power, switch and router) and the Lampizators with DHT outputs provided the soul, expression, and tone color. Digital can be good.

[timind]

First for Himu, unless you're talking about feet, or fish, it's soul, not sole. Second, I've experienced soul and maximum emotion listening to music in my old Ford Focus wagon with EOM CD player. I feel kinda sorry for folks who can't enjoy music unless they're hearing it in a specific manner.

[Jarbs]

It’s OEM, not EOM 

A couple days ago I was explaining my system and cost with some colleagues. After their disbelief faded, one asked what they should buy. I said an iPad with headphones streaming YouTube. Pick your own path from there. After decades of trying you end up somewhere you can’t foresee.

If your car radio checks all your boxes, what are you doing here? To be fair, there are plenty of things I don’t care about enough to spend money on.

[mix4fix]

First for Himu, unless you're talking about feet, or fish, it's soul, not sole. Second, I've experienced soul and maximum emotion listening to music in my old Ford Focus wagon with EOM CD player.

People seem to be relying on the equipment for enjoyment, and not the music. The song brings you the emotion, not the format nor the quality or the type of equipment.

[Jarbs]

Of course, unless you are at the live event, you are listening to the equipment. All equipment detracts from the original event, but by varying degrees.

I’ve heard some systems that sound pretty all by themselves. Music is just a means to hear the prettiness. Soon the sameness of sound gets boring.

But it’s a lot about picking the right tool for the job. Headbanging Bohemian Rhapsody in the Pacer? Yeah, that works for me. Good ol’ macro music. But classical on a car radio? That’s a major snooze for me. Kind of Blue? Nope. That’s micro stuff. The artistry is in the timing, pace, interplay, ebb and flow. To get the most out of the artists intent y’all need some resolution and clean playback.

So, does digital artifact - grayness, hf noise, time smearing, etc. detract from the artistic experience of micro content performances? Yup. This is what separates good artists from average ones. Nuance. Sorry, but I can appreciate the difference. Since the OP bothered to ask, maybe he cares too.

[Jon L]

Where are the "salad bowl" horns? 

The question at hand is really more about the listener than the gear IMO

[WGH]

I am new to this group but not the hobby. 

Wonder how many folks feel digital playback lacks emotion, and what are you doing about it.

Digital playback has been around for 42 years starting with the Compact Disk, my experience with digital music goes back almost that far. The early CD players definitely lacked emotion compared to vinyl recordings. These days the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, digital playback has caught up to vinyl and outperforms it in every metric unless you have a $50,000 vinyl setup. Or if your main source of music is from reel-to-reel tape recordings then you will always be dissatisfied with digital. A friend has a big library of production master tapes, reel-to-reel is still the gold standard for sound.


The death of the CD player couldn't happen soon enough, the all-in-one design of transport and DAC in one box held back the potential of digital music. The move to digital music files, stand alone DACs, computer audio, high powered chips and new decoding algorithms have ushered in a new era of emotion. Even music that was originally released on a CD, when ripped to a computer file and played back on modern equipment has emotion.

The key word is modern equipment, these days it's not necessarily expensive either (although that helps a lot).

Audio Circle has 1000's of hours of experience waiting to be tapped, but you have to give us a starting point. How deep do you want to go?

The speakers in your photo look interesting, what are they? Is that a subwoofer in the center? What do you use for playback electronics? Based on the photo your setup has the potential for a tremendous emotional experience.

[Jarbs]

Where are the "salad bowl" horns? 

The question at hand is really more about the listener than the gear IMO

Not sure where you are going with this. The OP needs to become more emotional? Maybe drink a bottle of wine? Smoke some weed? See a therapist?

Like so many other threads in these forums, I believe the implied questions is - why can’t we engage emotionally with digital playback as compared to analog playback - turntable or reel to reel.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I take this as a question about equipment. Why isn’t digital sound satisfying. Well, it’s because of the sins of addition unique to digital playback. There are ways to mitigate it if it isn’t working for the individual listener.

For a while the crowd chased correcting gadgets and miles of spaghetti wire between. At the top of the game this isn’t necessary anymore. Servers, transports, and dacs have come a long ways.

Step 1. Define the problem/question.
Step 2. Offer relevant solutions.

OP, if you want relevant help, please chime in. Regardless, there is nothing wrong starting with a good Cabernet.

[Jon L]

Step 1. Define the problem/question.
Step 2. Offer relevant solutions.

OP, if you want relevant help, please chime in. Regardless, there is nothing wrong starting with a good Cabernet.

As I type this, I am emotionally engaged listening to digital playback.  There is a ton of music, especially recorded/produced well in recent years, that sound wonderful in digital and emotionally engaging.  And most of it is not even available in vinyl or reel. If one is a type of person who constantly A-B compare vinyl version to digital (often older and not great digital transfers) and nit-pick and lament over the loss of analogue warmth and soul, what is to be gained from that?

Those speakers seem to be early version of Edgar horns with hornsubs, but Dr. Edgar (RIP) was proud of his round "salad bowl" horns of later versions. 

[Rocket]

Hi Guys,

I listen mainly to viny through my Technics sl1200g turntable, goldring mm and phonostage from my SST Ambrosia.  Some 7k investment.  I also recently bought a top end Nakamichi cassette player from the early 1980s.  I rarely listen to my cd's and/or music streamer. I just don't find it that engaging.

I just prefer the sound of analogue. Next step is a better quality cartridge.

Cheers Rod

[AllanS]

I have very little recent analog experience but day to day emotional engagement/soul has more to do with my mood and the quality of the recording.  Nothing destroys the experience for me more than a mucked up soundstage, which has nothing to do with digital.  I’m better off listening to my relatively unresolving desktop system.

[Letitroll98]

I was listening to The Charismatic Voice, an analysis of rock music by a classical music vocal coach who'd never heard any rock music growing up, on my phone last night.  Yes, my actual phone speaker, no DAC or headphones,  and there was plenty of soul.  Music has soul wherever and however you hear it.

[VinceT]

Tame the digital glare digital can be just as satisfying. In fact much more convenient and exploratory if streaming.

[himu]

The speakers in the picture are Dr Bruce Edgars 100hz Titans, and the big box is his Seismic sub. Best most dynamic sound I have ever heard bar none. Only system that can do a pipe organ justice! And in your living room to boot!

The emotion questions come from my latest experience ultrasonically cleaning records using the Kirmuss system.

His restoration/cleaning process removes so much dirt and grime your ears can't believe what sound and emotion is buried in the grooves.

Never heard digital playback sound like that. 

[rockadanny]

Yes it is possible through careful gear selection, including interconnects. I cobbled my system together,  piece by piece, to reproduce the humanity and emotion of the music for strictly CD playback. For me,  I ended up with tubes in pre and power amps, and good quality copper wires for the most natural, believable sound and performer conveyance of emotion. The final piece I put in place was high sensitive speakers of open baffle and horns.

[rockadanny]

Each piece was auditioned to gain better and better sound on my march to the end.

[rockadanny]

Whenever I put in a new piece, it was an improvement in the direction I was heading,  but it took a few months of living with it to realize ... I needed a little more clarity and openness. The trick was to achieve this without getting hyper-detail leading to fatigue. I had to be very careful and critical in my quest.