Jenn wrote:
Jenn: Oh, and just for the
record, I don't give a rat's patoey which is has the greater
technical
merits.

Chung: Of course, we should care which has the greater technical
merit, because
the one with higher technical merit will produce better results when
other factors are equal. And technical merits include reliability,
repeatability, convenience, etc., and all those are important to us.
If you have not noticed already, a lot of discussions on CD vs vinyl
actually are about which format has the higher technical accuracy. Like

the ability to reproduce a piano's sounds.

But I don't listen to technical merit; I listen to music. If a given
piece of equipment or recording sounds more like music, I like it
better. It does me no good if one piece measures at ,0002 of some
measurement and another measures .9996 of that thing, if the better
measurement doesn't result in a more realistic piano, or orchestra, or
wind band, or whatever. My first test is "Do I get a headache when I
listen to this?" Some digital gives me a headache. No analogue gear
playing an all analogue recording has ever done this. Do I care why?
Not really, though I have some theories on this.

Here's one: you have your listening gear and room set up so that
analog tends to sound good, whereas a more accurate reproduction of
the frequency spectrum and more lifelike dynamic range, does not.

And too, we have no way of knowing of your idea of 'realistic' has
any objective credibility.




--

-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee