[wwittman]

Interestingly all of my favourite records have things left, right or dead centre.
Not "panned" to a thousand different places.

I rarely ever engage the pan pots... only switch things to L, R or C.

And while Bob Katz may "not be able to tell" listening to a mix whether it was done this way or that, that has nothing to do with being given two mixes and simply thinking "this one sounds BETTER than that one"

what Bob, said is that he hears some lousy analogue mixes and some good digital ones.

that doesn't mean that given the SAME mix done both ways he might not have a preference.

And in any event, it doesn't dismiss MY preferences.

The best digital available today sounds not nearly as good as the best analogue.
And it's NOT true that digital can reproduce that sound.

There is a clear moment in mastering when we are playing back thge analogue 2 track into the desk.. and there is that button that you can press.
This way and you hear the analogue through all the eq and whatever, and THIS way and you hear the same thing but through the A-D and D-A back.
and it's ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS a disappointment.

in NO way does the 16 bit 44.1 digital version sound anywhere NEAR as good as the analogue original.
But it's a compromise we HAVE to make to sell CD's.

so your premise that digital can reprodice that sound after analogue has "added" whatever it adds, is, in my strongly held view, wrong.

digital LOSES a good deal of the sound you start with.

leaving analogue out of the picture entirely... if you start by listening to the whole band balanced on the console playing LIVE before it hits any recorder, and then switch to listening to it through ProTools or whatever... that TOO is a disappointment.

there TOO, analogue tape sounds MORE like the live music being put into it.

You can't add analogue sound to digital anymore than you can add the resolution of an oil painting to a reproduced newspaper photo. there are only so many dots.

but hey.. you can believe what you want.