Today during a listening room appointment I had the pleasure of listening to a few tracks off this LP on my vinyl rig. It was my guests. First we listened on small speakers and then on big speakers. The sound was so damn good on both, that unable to find this particular album in my collection, I decided to stream it of Qobuz. On Qobuz and the particular song I checked was at 5.7dB of limiting, and doesn't sound like the same mastering. Since the big speakers were still hooked up, I started with those. They sounded exactly like the small speakers, but not as good. I was amazed at how it made large speakers literally sound like small speakers.  

I really can't believe the difference. It's disgusting. So much is missing. I don't think it's the formats digital vs analog but rather the mastering or something else. My digital rig on good recordings is now competitive with analog. This stream is not competitive with analog. I am listening to a drum solo that we marveled at on the LP today, and I swear to God it sounds like the drummer has gloves on and as a result is doing doubles instead of triplets. The complex English layered into the LP where the drumming was pushed and pulled was also glazed over. Exaggerating to make a point (but not really) this stream is just noise that resembles the actual music. The Piano sounds like a stove. The drum kit sounds like the music shop special hanging from the ceiling.



I could just be MBSA disease and might not be genetic.  (Molested By Some Algorithm)

Interestingly some of the later tracks almost sound ok, to where I thought I was listening to a different album, and I checked and there was only 0.1dB of limiting.  

Steve

I am unsure where to post this comment, Steve's topic heading of "Digital vs. Analog" seemed appropriate.  Last night, I read an article called, "Could digital audio ever outperform analog?" and found it interesting.  

https://bandzoogle.com/blog/could-digital-audio-ever-outperform-analog

It seemed written for someone like myself, one who has not given the question much thought but is curious about it just the same.  Helpful definitions of terms and numbers are included within the piece, though some numbers are hard to appreciate.  For example, " …vinyl record produces the same discrete approximation to a continuous audio sound signal as a digital signal with a bit depth of at least 16 bits and a sample rate of 730MHZ."

I'll have to accept that one for now.

Ultimately, he answers his own question asked in the piece's title:  Could digital outperform analog with a  "Yes, but…"  The but is not any time soon due to limits of storage and technology.

The piece, however, does not address something I experienced last night listening to music, something more subjective and less mathematical.   In response to what I was listening to, I felt emotion.  I heard music that was so clear and moving that it brought chills to my body and put a smile on my face while listening to -- Qobuz.  

Hmmm, maybe the arrival time for digital is sooner than he thinks.

I've never gone very far into this subject but Steve has a White Paper somewhere that I think says that digital signals can be sort of "analogued" by running them through analogue systems.  I think he used that example that vinyl record that was recorded digitally gets back much of what's lost when played with an analogue cartridge.  The "math" so far never explains what's really going on.  While recorded music playback is always a simulation, it sure makes sense to me that music that is analogue produced (vibrations of things in air) will always sound better when analogue reproduced.  Of course, the proof is in the sound.  Rather than writing scholarly papers on the subject, if someone thinks digital outperforms analogue, prove it with a playback system.  Oh, and please make it affordable!