Woops... while Dev was busy splitting the thread I'd started a fresh one and was in full swing
Now deleted and this what I'd posted:
For me there are many positives and only a few potential negatives.
Positives:
- We now have access to powerful high resolution ADCs with extremely high resolution and dynamic range, way in excess of any analogue audio equipment.
- The quality of this equipment is often equal to that used by professionals to actually record and process the music we play on our systems.
- Recordings can be presented blind to the listener as there is no need to show the name of the equipment under test on the file. You simply present two, three, four + examples and let people listen at home. You remove the potential for demonstrator and expectation bias in one fell swoop.
- You get to listen through your own system and are therefore not distracted by unfamiliar rooms or kit.
- You can demonstrably prove that a good ADC/DAC loop is very transparent by insertion into a tape loop and comparing directly to source. You can use an active buffered loop or an entirely passive one - and you can do this with any amplifier.
The comparison can be made instantly at the flick of a switch.
- This remote demo technique opens the ability to listen and compare to many thousands of listeners. Something impossible at a conventional dem.
Negatives:
- The ultimate worth of this technique depends on the quality of the ADC/DAC used.
A quiet laptop input will suffice to reveal most differences but won't be capable of revealing the full potential of a good source. It gives a taste, but a good one.
There are many good quality inexpensive dacs out there and £130 will get you something more than good enough from the likes of MF or Cambridge.
- Digiphobia.
Some people see digital as the work of Satan and will refuse to believe - even after demonstration proof - that it can work extremely well.
Some other things to consider when comparing vinyl systems:
Vinyl can undoubtedly sound superb and I wouldn't have around 4000 albums and be spending lots of cash on a good front end if I thought it was poor.
But it is hugely compromised in many ways.
Firstly it is extremely complex if you examine the process end to end.
Numerous electro-mechanical conversions to actually produce a master, enormous amounts of EQ at the production stage, more electro-mechanical conversion at the replay stage using devices riddled with audible resonances, and of course distortions climbing well into double figures at high frequencies.
Then we have the speed inconsistencies due to even minor warps and the stylus merrily bouncing around on its hinge compliance, plus that old trick of not getting the hole quite in the middle of the disc...... and of course another load of EQ to reverse the previous lot.
Then we have the effects of the TT unit - speed variations from the drive, arm resonances and the effects of feedback.
Not nice is it?
Add to this the fact that anything recorded in the last 30 years is probably a digital master in the first place.
In short, we have a string of destructive processes, and the idea that any half decent modern digital recorder is going to unacceptably mask the shinning quality of something produced via the above process is nonsense.
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