duke43j;610326 Wrote: > Lately Ive been seeing a resurgence of claims about how much better > vinyl is compared to digital. I have an SB3 feeding a Benchmark DAC and > I love it! The sound is wonderful. I also have about 200 LPs in my > closet that I listen to occasionally on my somewhat mid-fi B&O > turntable with an MMC2 cartridge. While the sound from my turntable is > nice, it is not in the same league as my digital input. Naturally, Im > always looking for something better. So, out of curiosity, I went to a > dealer who showed me a Rega P3-25 turntable. I wasnt impressed. The > highs seemed somewhat rolled off, and the detail wasnt nearly as good > as my SB3/DAC. Given the fact that vinyl is so much more of a hassle > than digital, the only reason I would ever considering upgrading my > turntable is this supposed vast improvement in sound. > > Now Im thinking Either these claims are totally bogus, or Im just > looking in the wrong price range. The retail cost of the Rega table, > cartridge and phono preamp was about $1500, which is comparable to the > cost of my SB3 and Benchmark DAC 1. How high up the food chain do you > have to go to get this better than digital sound that people are > claiming? Does anybody have a good digital front end (i.e. comparable > to a Benchmark, Berkeley, Wavelength Audio Proton, etc.) with an > analog front end that they think sounds better?
To me, this is similar to the debate on analog vs digital photography. Today, it takes a lot of money to approximate analog photography on a digital camera. However, things are improving at a rapid pace, and it is conceivable that in a not too distant future 50 megapixel cameras with large size sensors will hit mainstream prices. We're seeing the same trend in the digital sound. Today, Logitech Squeezebox Touch can be purchased for less than $300, and after modding it a bit, you can get to the point of having a high-end digital transport that can compete with $5,000 transports. Same goes for DACs -- Bersford Caiman, with a fitted Gator board, can be had for around $300, and these two (the transport and the DAC) deliver a very high quality digital sound that can compete with many thousand dollars turntable/arm/moving coil cartridge/phono preamp chains. However, in my opinion, on a true high end analog, the sound is so superior, that I haven't been able to ever hear digital sound that can come even close. Few of us have to money to play in that league, though. So I think it's pretty much going to be digital all the way. -- magiccarpetride ------------------------------------------------------------------------ magiccarpetride's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37863 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=85590
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