Digital edge, a thing of the past?

This has to be the biggest bone of contension for us 1's & 0's junkies, that 'digital sound' that still reares it's head, and the spectre of analogue pops back to remind you that, it's alive and well, and not just residing @ No. 27 maddison Street
Vinyl just does some thing so right, that us digi boys can't quite get near to/ let alone over .
Yes they are a few CDP that do a good job of the musical flow thang for sure, even managing to sound well 'quite good', yet never truely losing that digital-ness, Valve in output stages have been used, some to good effect, but it's always a trade off in hifi, the flow & bounce, yet no control, poor quality bass, rolled off top, never really giving the full picture
Well now, maybe that gap is about to be seriously shortened,
Usually even on the higher end, the output/analogue stages on cdp's & dac's are some what compromised, average decoupling caps and 'basic op-amps', whilst this isn't the 'whole picture' by a long shot, it does have more than a small say in the final 'sound' of the equipment, I've been using the 'usual suspects' for improvement and tweeking 2134's for that smooth unfatiguing sound, 627's for that big lusious enveloping wrap around effect, and the ubixitious 825's for life and dynamics.
A few months back, I was urged to try some new Analogue devices 'Fast fet' AD 8066 units, at the time only available as dual op-amps, I was playing around with some poor unsuspcting dvd player at the time, so 'slammed' em in, and waited to see what cooked Shite these things are smothing else, even better attack and life than the 825's, 627's where average now, but the total lack of 'edge' even this basic of player, was quite ear opening.
If these were capable of doing this to a 'richer sound style player' then the potential for the stuff higher up the tree, was very enticing.
I had to wait until a couple of weeks ago for the 'single' versions, and due to time constraints, not until yesterday, did I manage to fit them to me new player (which is all ready, midly been toyed with' and had 825's fitted, and was no slouch in musical flow dept.
These 8065's just take it too, well 'getting close to being RIGHT'.
The total lack of digitarlis and effortless flow is sublime (for a cdp), and the upper registars are just :MILD: as a drummer symbols are some what a 'close friend' last night I heard (from my own experianices) 'proper sounding & surprsinngly realistic' symbols being portrayed and strings sounding 'right'
This is first time, I can say I'm getting 'happy' with digital, TT boys, were closing on you. Wm

 

Digital edge, did it ever really exist?

 

Prior to the Arcam Alpha 9, it existed in every sub-£1000 CD player and quite a few above that price. Even the 9 isn't perfect but it's a lot better than most at that level. I'd be interested to find out if the 9's Op Amps can be upgraded (assuming it uses Op Amps).

 

Do you as a CD user consider that the 16 bit / 44.1Khz red book standard is really adequate to take on analogue? My personal view is that recent advances in CD player technology have proved remarkably good at getting the best from what is a in effect a broken format, but ultimately the format itself is just not up to the job. The resolution available with red book is IMHO not sufficient to get really accurate high frequencies - players can smooth it off a bit or play a few tricks to make it sound nice, but being honest the information probably isn't on the disc to start with! I am watching the DVDA / SACD developments with interest - the spec here probably is sufficient to do the job, it just needs more development.

Tony.

Analogue fundamentalist!

 

Entirely disagree. I owned a first generation (1985) Sony CD player and it displayed no noticeable "edge" whatsoever. It played music and the turntable played music and I was really happy with both. I never haad any occasion to think, "my goodness, that sounds noticeably inferior to that."

But then, perhaps this is another case of the golden ear trumpet allowing me to avoid the tortures you poor devils put yourselves through.

 

Not directed to me, Tony, but I have never found CD to be inferior to analogue, and I've listened to CD from the very beginning, buying my first player in 1985. I love the format, and I don't regard it as even slightly broken. As I said to Technobear, you poor golden ears have my sympathy.

 

Hi Tones

Have you played with any more recent phono stages yet?

I feel convinced you have a ''bottleneck'' (forgive the pun!!) in your analogue chain.

You're the only person Ive ever met who thinks the two mediums sound exactly the same.

Theres somethin' wrong in them thar hills.

 

I don't think that that is what was said, though, to be fair.

I have been happily living with both formats since 1985 too, and have never really understood this one versus the other argument. I can appreciate that the two formats both have inherent advantages and disadvantages but that doesn't mean I must have a preference for one format or the other - they are simply a means to an end for me, with the end being the music.

 

That's because he's cloth-eared!

No offence intended Tones - in one way you are a lucky man because you can just enjoy the music without spending a small fortune On the other hand you must be missing out on so much

 

I would say that, as I'm enjoying music from both formats, on the contrary, there's clearly nothing wrong in them or any other hills. No, I haven't played with any other phono stages, nor do I intend to. I feel that the constant search for better hi-fi reproduction is, as Ecclesiastes put it, a striving after wind. I wish you well on your journey to the perfection that you can never attain.

 

No offence taken - and yes, the more I read this forum, the luckier and happier I feel. As I said to Big Tone in a different context, reality in this business is the reality of the individual. Sound exists only in our heads, and is prone to whatever interpretation the individual brain puts on the vibrations detected at the eardrum. Mine interprets differently than yours, which makes neither of us right or wrong, just different. As my reality differs from yours, I'm missing out on precisely nothing, because what you perceive doesn't exist for me.

OK, I've been a big enough killjoy, I'll depart from this thread forthwith and you can discuss the digital edge with which your particular aural reality is cursed. You have my sympathy.

 

Tones, you'll never make an audiophile!

As ever, Google groups has great stuff. Consider this quote:


How about the classic Philips experiment at the launch of CD, when a bunch of audiophiles, audio journalists and industry 'experts' were asked to compare a digital recording and an LP made from the same master. They all exclaimed about how wonderful the LP was, in the usual 'warmer, less harsh' etc terms. Then the Philips guys pointed out that the digital recording *was* the master for the LP, so that what the 'experts' liked was not the original sound, but the *added* distortions and compromises of the LP.

 

Has the gap between vinyl and CD in your system not increased since you retired the Quad preamp for the EAR?

I must admit I remain baffled by many of the things that you have been unable to hear a difference between. In many ways I agree with Les W's (Avondale) view that early Quad preamps can make any speaker sound like its face down in the carpet, but even so I'd have thought a Mana table under the LP12 would have made a difference (even if you had hated it). Now it should be different - the EAR is a nice preamp, the 303 or 405 are good enough to let differences through, and LS3/5as are definitely well up to the job. Your Linn should simply murder a early CD player, if not it has to be broken!

With your current system there is no excuse not to talk bollocks about these 'huge differences' along with the rest of us

Tony.

PS I found the early generation of CD players absolutely appalling! Truly evil things.

 

But you see, it is 44.1kHz will capture anything up to 22.05kHz perfectly. The 16bit resolution gives a dynamic range which is already significantly greater than that of LPs so what more do you need?

As for early generation CD players - my dad has a Philips CD104 circa 1982 and it sounds a lot better than many budget and mid range players of today. Only 14bits and 4x oversampling but it's damned musical

Michael.

 

I think you are probably absolutely spot on with that observation.

Thanks Tones. It does indeed seem like a curse sometimes. Those of us with acute hearing have a hard time with hifi ( and there are plenty it seems who are worse afflicted than I am ).

Incidentally, I used to have just as hard a time, but in different ways, with vinyl. It was a different type of distortion in those days but just as annoying. And then there was snap, crackle and pop

 

Well, if the LP12 is broken, it is making a remarkably good job of pretending not to be broken! No, sorry, the EAR has made no difference. Far from murdering each other, ther LP12 and the Meridian 588 coexist rather nicely and both give enormous pleasure without any apparent tendency for one to assault the other.

As for Mana, let's forget that unfortunate waste of money, and leave it to St. John Watson and the faithful in Phase 300 heaven.

I do not mean this to be rude, but have you ever considered that you may be hearing things, rather than me not hearing things? That you may be hearing differences that you want to hear? I freely admit that I may not be hearing things because I subconsciously don't want to - no, perhaps even consciously, because I don't want to spend any more money than I have to on hi-fi equipment. The idea is that the equipment does the playing, not me. Six of one and half a dozen of the other!

P.S. I loved that old very non-evil Sony and only abandoned it when Sony (Schweiz) couldn't get the parts to fix it (it was 13 years old at that stage). Note also Michael's comment on the Philips first machine. You prejudice against the old machines appears to be just that.

 

Me too. I bought a Marantz CD50SE in 1989 as it was about the best available for sensible money at the time (I think it was £350 so equivalent to about £1000 now in terms of expense). It was a love/hate relationship from day 1. Some CDs sounded great. Others were virtually unlistenable. Some, of course, are still borderline with my current system, but much improved nonetheless. Still, I was grateful to have got rid of the noises and distortions of vinyl so I kept buying CDs.

 

I wouldn't worry too much, tones. See http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=gV6ca.80794$qi4.46108@rwcrnsc54&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain for another great link where Ivor 'Linn' Tiefenbrun underwent a blind test and 'failed' to hear a digital processor. And failed to hear a couple of other things he claimed too.

Audiophiles? Imagining things? Never!

 

I don't!

 

I've always questioned this and I still do. If you draw a sine wave, say ten cycles, and pretend it's a 21 kHz sine wave. Now mark on the sine wave, sample points at 44.1 kHz. Then draw as smooth a curve as you can joining the sample points. The new wave is *nothing* like the original. So can anyone explain to me just how CD supposedly manages to accurately reproduce anything at such high frequencies.

The least offensive sounding CD systems are those that roll off the extreme treble thus minimising the effect of this waveform distortion. No wonder CD is often accused of sounding unnatural. Is this the reason why people hearing DVD-A or SACD always seem to say that it sounds more natural. Is it the absence of waveform distortion at audible high frequencies due to the higher sampling rates used?

Red Book CD may well be a flawed design which was launched on the world before the technology was really available to do digital audio properly.