Northerner said:
Fame at last!...still got another 14 minutes and 59 seconds of your 15 minutes of fame left
Anyhoo...The problem with the digital format is the harshness that comes with it. Analog has a warmer softer sound that does not wear out he ability to listen for longer periods of time. Another nasty result of digital is the loudness wars that resulted with the advent of the CD. Producers, more so than artists, wanted to make sure their songs had the biggest bang. This happened somewhat throughout all eras. Listen to big band or 50's rock and roll. Especially over the radio. You'll notice some songs are louder than others. This was done to get attention of the listener. The difference then was that there were headroom limitations due to the media (vinyl, tape) that prevented music being driven to clipping. The result in modern music is distorted bass, dry vocals, shrill highs and loss of subtle passages. The natural sound results are usually discovered in studio releases which are not recorded at the same excessive levels.
Digital is getting better everyday and software engineers like McDSP and JetAudio (consumer level) continue to try to get sound back to where it was. But my Pioneer PL-530, Sansui 5000X and SP-5500x speakers do a better job.
