Originally Posted by
Gordon Steadman
I spend my early sunday mornings, reading the papers on-line whilst enjoying some fresh croissants and black, very strong, very sweet coffee. My week's highlight.
I also tend to put the headphones on and listen to some music at high level without disturbing Ronnie, who spends her sunday mornings wrapped up in the bedclothes without me to disturb her.
Anyway, I'm sitting here listening to Nina Simone. This is an old cassette recording that has been imported into iTunes. The problems are obvious, a bit of hash, slight wow and a trace or two of distortion. So..... how come....... it sounds more like a real, living person singing to me than most of the wunnerful digital tracks in the collection.
It doesn't matter how often people try and tell me that digital is where it's at, the evidence seems to point the other way. I enjoy it a lot, it is convenient and easy to organise but..... it's that 'but' that always rears its ugly head. I've been listening almost exclusively to records this week and haven't thought about the hi-fi, just bunged another one on the TT. (Apart from the morning discovering that the Quad33 is one of my favourite per-amps
)
When I listen to digital, I tend to become a hi-fi fan rather than music fan and worry about the reproduction etc.
I couldn't put it more succinctly myself. The rise in vinyl sales is mainly (but obviously not exclusively) due to younger members of society discovering that digital has its moments but analogue adds the emotion.
Clive
SOURCE:OPPO UDP-205 BluRay, SkyQ, Technics SL1210M5G/HexMat Eclipse/MN Bearing/Origin Live Gravity One puck/Isonoes with Boots/Jelco TK-850S Tonearm/Hana Umami Blue, PS Audio Stellar Phonostage. I also have an AT-OC9XSH as a spare cartridge.
AMPLIFIER: Bryston BR-20 Pre/DAC/Streamer & Bryston 4B3 Power Amplifier
SPEAKERS: Spendor D7 on Iso-Acoustics Gaia III’s
HEADPHONES: OPPO PM-1 with Atlas Zeno cable, B&W Pi7 S2 and B&W C5 v2.
CABLES: Analogue: Speaker Atlas Mavros Grun. Interconnect - Atlas Mavros XLR x3, MCRU Silver Tonearm cable
Digital:Audioquest Carbon Ethernet x 4, Audioquest Carbon digital, English Electric 8Switch, Chord Optichord, Atlas Optical.
Mains: PS Audio Perfectwave AC-05 x 5, Isol-8 Powerline Extreme with Quantum Science yellow fuse on input cable, Sounds Fantastic 6way Mains Blocks.
STORAGE: Synology DS216J NAS with 2 x 3Tb WD Red hard-drives. Samsung 500Gb SSD.
TV LG55B7 OLED