Chord Dave - good as vinyl?

[Jimbo]

If you take an analogue tape and make a digital copy of it the copy is going to retain the character of analogue tape and of the RTR machine they used to transcribe it. So it makes sense that a good digital set up playing an analogue recording will sound like an RTR tape machine. Because that is essentially what you are listening to.

Do you remember Alans R2R recordings at Nebo and how good they sounded. Much of that music was digital recorded onto tape. What going on there then?

[Gazjam]

If you take an analogue tape and make a digital copy of it the copy is going to retain the character of analogue tape and of the RTR machine they used to transcribe it. So it makes sense that a good digital set up playing an analogue recording will sound like an RTR tape machine. Because that is essentially what you are listening to.

Depends on the mastering!
(He said ironically...)

[Gazjam]

Do you remember Alans R2R recordings at Nebo and how good they sounded. Much of that music was digital recorded onto tape. What going on there then?

I do.
And it sounded t’rific.

One of those musical experiences you remember.

[Macca]

Do you remember Alans R2R recordings at Nebo and how good they sounded. Much of that music was digital recorded onto tape. What going on there then?

If you take a either a digital or analogue recording and transfer it to (another) analogue tape your going to get a slight increase in distortion and noise floor* and a slight softening of transients. All of which could make the sound subjectively more pleasant to listen to although technically it's a degradation. Also reel to reel is the coolest of all sources so you've got to take that into account too.


* if it's tape to tape copying then you're doubling the amount of noise on each generation of copy.

[User211]

If you take a either a digital or analogue recording and transfer it to (another) analogue tape your going to get a slight increase in distortion and noise floor* and a slight softening of transients. All of which could make the sound subjectively more pleasant to listen to although technically it's a degradation. Also reel to reel is the coolest of all sources so you've got to take that into account too.


* if it's tape to tape copying then you're doubling the amount of noise on each generation of copy.

Agreed.

Similar sort of thing for vinyl. It is its technically dreadful performance compared to digital that makes it sound good on the pressings that are up to it, which must really be very good or dreadfulness injection doesn't work. It needs to be carefully dreadful, though. Too much dreadfulness spoils the broth. That means a multi-K playback setup, carefully honed by some obscure 103 year old Japanese master of the art.

Likewise, my DAC is carefully dreadful. And easily adjustable in terms of its dreadfulness.

Dreadfulness rules.

Taking the piss? Sure, but there's a good measure of truth in the above.

[Stratmangler]

if it's tape to tape copying then you're doubling the amount of noise on each generation of copy.

Don't forget that on top of that the playback head is physically rubbing the source tape's magnetic layer away every time it's played.
It might be a miniscule amount with each pass over the head, but the cumulative degradation eventually makes the source tape unusable.
It ain't a problem for casual use by an audio enthusiast, but when it's precious masters of historical significance it becomes a headache.

[Macca]

It's the disconnect between technically good and subjectively good. You can buy a DAC for a couple of hundred quid that will be technically as perfect as anyone will ever require. It still isn't going to make the music sound like it is playing from a vinyl record. So asking if a Chord Dave is going to sound as good as vinyl is like asking if an apple is going to taste as good as an orange. If you prefer oranges to apples then the answer's always going to be no.

Which is the more 'technically correct' presentation of the recording is irrelevant to how we subjectively feel about the sound. Psychoacoustics plays a big part in our appreciation of sound and a measuring suite is not your brain. Hence vinyl and RTR continue to be regarded as the gold standard of sound by many people even though we've had a domestic replay system that is technically a lot better than either for almost 40 years now.


If we were to be ushered into the mastering suite where our favourite recording was finalised and we sat down and had a listen to it there, how many people out of ten would say 'I want this recording to sound like this on my system?' I reckon it would be less than half. And yet that is 'what the recording sounds like'. That's what they signed off. That's what it is supposed to sound like. But it isn't what everyone will want it to sound like when they sit down to listen to it at home. And there's no getting away from that.

[Jimbo]

DAVE is an extraordinary DAC in its absolute ability to reveal and unravel detail in digital recordings. Like many folk here I have tried to optimise my vinyl playback to give me as much detail as possible but not at the expense musical enjoyment which is a factor when putting together a system.

One of my criticisms of digital systems is their single minded purpose of chasing detail at the expense of musical enjoyment. DACs can all too often be all about the detail they can retrieve from a recording and in my experience loose the soul or realism of the music. Now this is a quandary as you would think the more detail you have the more realistic the recording? Somehow digital looses that lovely distortions our ears like but this maybe how our hearing works.

[Macca]

but this maybe how our hearing works.

Not just that but a lot also depends on the sound we are personally looking for. Like at the phono stage bake-off, the AQvox was the stage I would have chosen to take home, I think only 1 or 2 people concurred with that. The other 14 or so picked one or other of the valve units.

After a listen to both sets of speakers that turned up (two very different designs) we had a vote as to which to use for the listening and it was split fifty-fifty.

I think this demonstrates that once you get beyond a certain level of quality it all comes down to personal taste and expectations which are a result of various psychological factors that probably couldn't be really quantified in any useful way. Essentially, we like what we like.


Still doesn't change the fact that there is no answer to the question in the o/p. I think the only solution is to make digital copies of your vinyl records and listen to them instead. Should give at least 90% of the vinyl experience without the faff. And no need to shell out 8 grand on a DAVE. Which won't make digital sound any more like vinyl than a £200 DAC does.

[doodoos]

If you value detail retreval above all else then the Dave is for you. Does it make music? Not so much to me but I’m a lone voice out there. I prefer a dac with tubes in the design myself.