>>A true audiophile eh?

Yep, before I got into programming I had a part time business building stereo speakers. Even developed an electrostatic speaker. It took a DC bias voltage of over 5KV just to charge the diaphram! It sounded unbelievable, but was too directional in the highs. This is the main problem with planar transducers, however some people will say this is its greatest asset. I plan to get the company going again in my retirement. For now, its just a hobby.

>>IMO, if analysis equipment can't see the problem then the human ear can't >>hear it. I think it's all in your head dude. :-)

How can digital be better? Like I said, its only an approximation of an analog wave form. The record is the real thing.

Its speakers that add all the distortion. Bad speakers can alter the frequency response and worst of all, change the phase relationship between harmonically related components of a complex waveform. Very few speakers can pass a recogizable square wave.

I just recently went back to analog. To be honest, I was amazed by the tonality and depth of soundstage. To me, CD's have a subjectively more up front sound that not relaxing. This is that hard edge everyone talks about. I plan to investigate this further both objectively and subjectively.

Charlie





















I know this is completely off of the subject, but:

there are a truly wide range of opinions on this: true, a real 'expert' can tell a record from a CD, but which one reproduces the sound more truly is totally subjective. Records have a 'sound' to be sure- but some (most?) audiophiles feel that the anti-CD crowd only misses the record sound, not the lack of true reproduction. Records have all sorts of problems that are truly audible (frequency response for one) to most people. The 'problems' (tinny, harsh or metallic) with CDs are only perceptible to a relatively narrow margin of people, and vary widely in perception from recording to recording.

There was an article a few years back (audiophile I think? I can't remember) that did an informal study- they recorded a certain classical piece from the master onto CD with a few 'tweaks' to degrade the sound some to make it sound 'warmer', and played it to a few people in the ant-CD camp, who were duped into thinking that it was a record. IOW, a CD can hold whatever you put on it.

IMO, if analysis equipment can't see the problem then the human ear can't hear it. I think it's all in your head dude. :-)

My .02.