That should be storage, not just "solid state" storage.
Make that redundant storage, geographically dispersed, and regularly and automatically refreshed on new media.
Properly stored digital data is safe unless a global thermonuclear war hits several data centers simultaneously.
Nothing at all wrong with having a preference. Saying vinyl is satisfying is fine. Saying its more accurate opens the can of worms.
Yes of course. For me, practicality of using digital outperforms any of its limitations. Even CD player is not practical anymore.
When talking about digital, what most people have in mind is the Redbook CD, which to my ears is inferior to a good analog player. 44k1/16-bit is simply not enough for critical music with high end audio system [speakers], even if no dynamic compression is applied to the record.
A cost no object analog device will easily outperform Redbook dynamic range. So to compete with this, analog must increase the resolution with better technology than the common oversampling, to avoid unknown sources of dissonance.
I think that digital can be said to have outperformed analog when people start to prefer higher resolution digital than the lower resolution ones [NOS, R2R] but of course for this to happen the CD material should be better than the standard Redbook [which is as rare as vinyl].
I myself, with my mediocre digital stuffs, still prefer the low resolution DAC than higher ones, not including the best ones that I don't own of course [e.g. HiRes format > DF1704 > PCM1795 > OPA2134]
what planet do you get this from? - wrong on virtually every technical point!
preference is fine - lies aren't
preference is fine - lies aren't
Agree that speaker is usually the weakest link. If the difference between the best digital and the best analog is that small, I think it is better to go with digital.
The Sony S9000ES is using the "flagship" current DAC CXA8042 and the classics OPA2132/2134. These opamps is cheap but easy on ears. May be there will be improvement from using discrete or tube output stage...
no vinyl playback beats CD dynamic range when perceptual weighted noise shaped dither is used
with vinyl's tracking limit you could even use the RedBook preemphasis along with dither taking it into account - not today's practice but fully within the standard and I would insist if you want to compare "cost no object"
the RedBook preemphasis isn't used because today close miced recordings are simply too hot - which means a similar frequency content vinyl couldn't be cut, tracked
with vinyl's tracking limit you could even use the RedBook preemphasis along with dither taking it into account - not today's practice but fully within the standard and I would insist if you want to compare "cost no object"
the RedBook preemphasis isn't used because today close miced recordings are simply too hot - which means a similar frequency content vinyl couldn't be cut, tracked
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The bold underlined was supposed to be "digital".
There had been debate about which one has better dynamic range [or resolution] between analog and digital. The problem is that the word "resolution" can be subjective or objective. Even the dynamic range can be considered subjective, because of many ways to measure and interpret it. And noise level really depends on individual implementation.
IMO, the standard resolution without oversampling is not enough. And the oversampling technology [including noise filtering] to bring better resolution often brings negative audible issues, which causes are not always clear [e.g. jitter].
Negative issue with my OS implementations is the unrealistic sound. Negative issue with my NOS implementations is the "dynamic range" [high level, I have to quote it because it is perception not measured performance]. Unfortunately I haven't tried the best of OS [it means the best DAC/DF chip] and the best of external resistor DAC.
Currently I'm building DAC using AK4318. I couldn't find any commercial DAC using this chip.
people using digital jitter in analog vs digital audio playback arguments are again completely innumerate
analog tape has tons of "FM" IMD from bearing noise, rubbing, stick/slip
and for the next steps no hypothesizing about the existence and magnitude of phonograph record signal chain errors is needed
the analog signal output of the your phono pre really has many technically measurable errors compared to the electronic signal fed to the pe-emphasis & cutting machine
there are JAES and other period trade magazine articles on modeling, measuring, and trying to mitigate the errors - there is no question that they exist and some are audible even to the untrained
LP playback reproduction of even the production master tape output is abysmal with tracing distortion, high frequency roll-off that add up to easily heard quality difference in outer vs inner tracks - ie. not even the same quality after 20 min of play
record centering, warp, wear, dirt, surface noise (not even including pops, scratches) that vary on every system and with every play, well known phonograph mastering process errors in lacquer cutting, plating, pulling, stamper replication, stamping and vinyl compounding variations...
even simple geometry is recognized with linear tracking arms giving superior accuracy of playback - but they have not "won" in the recent decade's high end phonograph player designs - clearly "audiophile" phono playback is competing on something besides technical signal reproduction accuracy
analog tape has tons of "FM" IMD from bearing noise, rubbing, stick/slip
and for the next steps no hypothesizing about the existence and magnitude of phonograph record signal chain errors is needed
the analog signal output of the your phono pre really has many technically measurable errors compared to the electronic signal fed to the pe-emphasis & cutting machine
there are JAES and other period trade magazine articles on modeling, measuring, and trying to mitigate the errors - there is no question that they exist and some are audible even to the untrained
LP playback reproduction of even the production master tape output is abysmal with tracing distortion, high frequency roll-off that add up to easily heard quality difference in outer vs inner tracks - ie. not even the same quality after 20 min of play
record centering, warp, wear, dirt, surface noise (not even including pops, scratches) that vary on every system and with every play, well known phonograph mastering process errors in lacquer cutting, plating, pulling, stamper replication, stamping and vinyl compounding variations...
even simple geometry is recognized with linear tracking arms giving superior accuracy of playback - but they have not "won" in the recent decade's high end phonograph player designs - clearly "audiophile" phono playback is competing on something besides technical signal reproduction accuracy
Of course everybody knows the problems with vinyl playback. Effect of jitter is mathematically nothing compared to wow and flutter etc. What we don't know is why for example oversampling implementation has so common subjective negative perception.
And that's why I mentioned that the causes are not always clear. "Jitter" is only one example of phenomenon that people use to explain it. I have never heard jitter so far, because when I implemented reclocking to NOS DAC I didn't hear any improvement but recently Joe Rasmussen mentioned that it cannot be done with NOS DAC, so until I make another reclocking project with OS DAC, I have no opinion regarding jitter audibility.
That is certainly true of the analog out of the back of a DAC. But the analog out of the back of a magnetizer or scarifier can well be described as unnatural, ugly and impure compared to the analog input signal.
Just my 2 cents... Analogue and Digital have different strengths and weaknesses... It can be a big advantage if you use both.. I personally use both the LP and CD to check, evaluate, fine tune my system.. using both LP and CD helps me identify and pin point areas for improvements a lot faster. Most important to me it is allows me access to a lot more music... My point is instead instead of using one and rejecting the other... why not understand what each does well and not so well and make full use of it.
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That was a problem with floppies, and before computers were regularly networked. Nowadays you can use a cloud service like Dropox or Google Drive and you have redundant, hot-swappable storage automatically* updated as drives wear out and new technology (such as solid state drives) become practical.
If you're storing data in a single location, you've got the same problem as with an LP - if there's a fire or other type of site destruction, you've lost it. For a cloud service to lose data (that you presumably also keep a local copy of), it has to lose storage in at least two data centers in different cities. If that happens, there's likely things to worry about other than listening to LPs and CDs.
That's a huge advantage of (modern) digital recordings, the technology to make remote backups is easy and very inexpensive. It's virtually free compared to recording every LP you have to analog tape, and then getting a secure place to store one or the other. Furthermore, the digital copy is just as good as the digital original (except for a few who don't understand or who have bizarre beliefs about digital copies or digital media).
*Okay, some guy in the data center has the job of swapping out bad drives, but even that will be done robotically soon if it's not already. The point is the data is always there, and you don't have to worry about what it's stored on.
Yes I think you are right. But I think that what Joe thought was that the effect is less dramatic with NOS than with OS.
I thought peufeu knew what he was doing [with his the Extremist DAC]. I just couldn't hear improvement with my system using his reclocking project. So the jitter improvement from the reclocking if any was not audible to my ears.
Joe OTOH is sure that the post DAC filter he is advocating is affecting the jitter and that it works only with SigmaDelta or similar.
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