The analogue/digital wars
What I'm trying to get at is, and I'm not sure how to clarify, so please bear with me, . . .
I hear and feel a fullness and depth and a complete range of frequencies from tape and vinyl sources that I don't hear from CDs, and it seems to me that if I really am hearing it, and not imagining it, then the speakers are also reproducing a wider, fuller range of frequencies. . .
I understand that a high digital sample rate should be a truer representation of the source material. . . But it seems to me that something, somewhere in the digital process, whether it happens in the mastering studio or what, I don't know, it seems to my ears, and my brain and my body, that digital media doesn't reproduce the whole range of frequencies, but "just enough" to satisfy the average listener, etc. .
For an example, years ago I was listening to a Pat Benatar Greatest Hits that I happened to have on cassette and CD. . The difference between the two was HUGE. HUGE> . . . My room was rocking with the tape going. But it was just loud music on CD. . . But why?
And yes, the harshness, and the brittle highs that digital reproduces should really be unacceptable, but somehow it has become acceptable. . .
Reply
Digital has both wider bandwidth and the ability to record all frequencies from low to high without the attenuation at both extremes, (and therefore, fat midrangy sound) that analogue tape gives. As for moving more air, this would be very subjective and could have a lot more to do with the relative outputs and/or quality of your cd and tape players. The fat, saturated analogue will have lots of voltage in the midrange while the digi could potentially out power it with bass.
The cd format was never ideal with ordinary resolution, (mp3 and similar have dumbed down quality even further) so high quality vinyl and even cassette can sound sweeter and gutsier but at the same time, cd format is capable of better resolution than the vast majority of domestic analogue equipment.
The harshness you are hearing is actually a result of the compressor wars, the beginning of which was roughly around the time of introduction of cd's.
Producers and engineers have been striving for the "loudest" recordings for a long time now, attempting to get maximum impact when heard over radio/internet sources and get peoples attention, and to begin with it worked, but as you know, given the headroom limitations of digi recording you can only compress so much and you can only hit the peak so hard, before you get those sorts of hard sounds.
Another quality perception problem has to do with the source of the stuff we are buying and listening to on cd. If it's a digi reproduction of an analouge recording the sound is going to depend on how much the master tape has degraded (the only analogue disadvantage that concerns me) and who has done the remix.
I recently bought George Harrisons All things must pass (which he remixed a coupla years before he sadly left us,RIP George), having somewhere lost my vinyl copy. On the cd his wonderful voice is almost completely buried under all the guitar, George, bless im, has been so focused on just the guitar sound that he has forgotten the important bits!
So in the end, the digital/analogue debate is pretty pointless, they both have their strengths and weaknesses and I've been driving a hybrid system for years now, have kept all the old analogue outboard and my beautiful reel to reel mutitrack but also have logic and all the plugin territory im my mac, I get great sounds out of all of it and no ones gonna take either of em off me! hehe!
Fight on! Rob