I have been wondering why so many of us are not as satisfied with digital sound as the vast majority were satisfied with analog when it was dominant. I know so many listeners who still wonder how CD’s came to replace vinyl when the only advantage was convenience. This was long before mp3’s, iPods and the nearly universal adaption of inferior mastering techniques based on loudness of playback.

How is it that a process as seamless and smooth as the Sony 2.8mhz technology can sound unnatural to many astute listeners? What is it that digital processing does, or does not do, that withholds the final measure of satisfaction from listeners like me? I have learned to live with CD's, but whenever I have added one more digital element in the reproduction chain I can't bear to listen. I have no technical explanation of what is going on but I can describe the result in language we can understand.

I need to reach back to my art roots for a way to verbalize what is wrong with the result. Imagine two artists creating something. It does not matter what, be it paintings, sculptures, musical compositions or performances, films, whatever. I will use painting and illustration as an example as it is most easily recognized there. One artist is giving form to something his soul is commanding him to create, using his considerable skill and experience to go where his heart commands. He is creating something for its own sake. The other is creating an ad for General Motors. The instincts of his heart are going to be modified to serve a different master, and how different his creation is. Things are indeed smoothed out and dumbed down to appeal to more than his soul. The target audience is as many people as possible and the recognition must be simple and quick. Gone are elements and passages too even, too rough, too challenging, too asymmetric, too startling, too unfamiliar, too stimulating of the areas of the human brain not remotely connected with acquiring material things. The result is – here is the key word – slick. It seems less the product of human beings and more the product of a machine.

Slick is a dirty word in the world of fine art and it should be in the world of music as well. (I know it is when it comes to the music itself. I still cringe when I remember Donnie & Marie – and about twenty other people – doing Jambalaya as the finale of a TV special. It was “da-da, da da, da da…” None of the life, swing or fire of the Hank Williams classic was there. A great – well, terrible – example of what slick is.) There is something slick about the digital reproduction of music, and we can hear the difference even if the end product is technically analog. It does not sound as natural, not surprising when you consider that analog is everywhere in nature and digital is nowhere in natural creation. Likewise, artwork created using computer graphics is understandably slick when compared to work created with hands, but what, you might say, about synthesizers? Same story, digital is inferior to analog in the category of naturalness.

I bought the CD from the Novachord Restoration Project some time ago, and it is startling in its superiority over digital instruments where sound quality is concerned. It is an analog all tube unit and it sounds natural and georgeous. It is a pain to restore and carry from one place to another and cannot be programmed but must be played. Today the field is dominated by far more convenient instruments that sound like garbage in comparison. Sound familier?

Clark