The upsurge and improvement in digital playback has been relentless, and even the most diehard flat-earthers are admitting that CD was a big mistake and a rather silly waste of 20 years.
But I guess all ventures have to find the best way through the maze of compromises and 16bit/44.1Khz was certainly a big compromise in sound quality.
At least the quality of the latest dacs is bringing decent sound with 16 bit, and excellent sound with 24 bit and higher sampling rates. And the increasing refinement of up sampling even helps to bring 44.1 KHz to life. Currently I'm limited to an upper limit of 384Khz but expect to be listening to 768Khz up sampling soon. There is at least one dac capable of 768 playback , but as far as I know only the XXHighEnd program is capable of 768Khz upsampling, although JRiver has released 384Khz upsampling this year, so it must be just a matter of evolution .
It's going to be another interesting year in 2012 to see where this takes us.
At the moment I'd say that a well recorded 60's analog vinyl recording played back on a very high quality vinyl set up would still sound better then the digitized version of it, but it is so close. These recordings are very rare though, and when the high complexity , low sound quality mixing desks started to be used in the late 60's and absolute sound quality slipped, vinyls advantages were nullified by these poorer recording techniques.
Of course there are no generalizations here - I'm talking about very high quality recordings, and very high quality systems optimized for the playback required.
A 60's recording straight into tube mics, tube tape decks and then transferred straight to a master disc and played back on a high quality tube based system is something pretty special, but so is a modern recording with good mics,384Khz sampling rate and minimal processing at the master desk.
Early on in 2011 I was almost completely focused on digital/solid state with active electrostatic speakers driven by solid state high power amps and DEQX digital crossover/equalization - the only tube gear was a tube preamp.
However the demand for the Supratek Mondeuse and Malbec tube amplifiers remained constant and I built more than I would have expected, and all were tested on Tannoy and Lipinski monitor speakers.
The new digital technology is exciting , but there is still something about tube amplification that is " just right" . Especially when tube design is done correctly and the design is capable of accurate and dynamic reproduction. There seem to be more tube manufacturers using positive feedback this year, its nothing new, but the Supratek amps are about 5 years ahead of the pack in re-discovering this design feature which gives a modern accurate sound that really compliments the advantages of the new digital playback technologies. The positive feedback amps are not "warm and romantic" and "soggy" like many of the traditional sounding tube amps, but still retain that slight touch of euphonics that make listening a non-fatiguing ,enjoyable experience.
I put my stats away as I really need to do some deep research and learn how to get the best from the DEQX digital equalization , and went back to all tube amplification.
Bi-amping the Lipinskis with 100 watt Mondeuse on the woofer/midrange and 50 watt Malbecs on the tweeters.
My Tannoy Golds were born to be used with tube amps, and as they are a relatively easy load they just require a touch of positive feedback and almost no negative feedback to sing with the Supratek tube amps-they do like a bit of power though and come alive around 50 watts.
However no one is going to say that Tannoy Golds are accurate, despite their "monitor" tag. It may have been true back in the 70's but today's definition of accurate is much tighter.
The Tannoy Golds are usually used in large ,slightly lossy boxes that give a pleasing warmth in the upper bass region but although initially happy I found the inaccuracy a hinderance to evaluating and enjoying modern digital music.
I'm one of those guys that prefers to hear the recording rather than a "beautified" version of it.
With a very rigid cabinet that contains a very thick high density cardboard tube the Tannoys lose nearly all the resonances that colour the frequency response.
And to my surprise the answer to removing the last bit of the Tannoys inaccuracy lay in the digital domain. The Tannoys are used in a system with windows7 OS for the computer digital playback and I use JRivers Media Centre 17 as I like it's ease of use and up sampling capabilities.
It also has a great DSP (digital sound processing)function with octave and parametric EQ.
I've always been suspicious and unsatisfied with the audio quality of most EQ functions, a legacy from the old days of serious compression and distortion usually associated with octave EQ, but I can't fault the 64 bit processing of the JRiver process. Ive only used a maximum of 1.8dB on one of the bands and even less on the other bands , this has resulted in subtle but very advantageous solutions to bring the Tannoys to a very respectable level of accuracy.
Media Centre 17 also has a Sound Field function that "stimulates a wider, more submersive sound stage" . Yes it sounds tacky, but with medium enhancement it provides a subtle yet very worthwhile improvement I find surprisingly addictive.
So now we have another tool in our armory thanks to the refinement and evolution of DSP.
In retrospect, 2011 was a year of looking forward and yet still enjoying the best of what we have created in the past. Digital and tubes can exist together , and the very best of both worlds creates the present state of the art, to my ears.
Looking forward to 2012, cheers to all.
