Built in Serendipity

Analog gear has a wide sweet spot, or perhaps better said, a wide margin for error.  When you don’t know (lack of experience) or can’t hear (poor monitoring) what you’re doing, it’s possible that some analog gear will help get acceptable results because you stumble upon a setting that works. It’s a tool with built in serendipity.

But when the quality of your monitoring environment and listening skills reach a tipping point, you may find that well chosen digital gear gets to the intended result faster, because you can hear exactly what you’re doing, and the digital gear (Weiss in my case) gives exactly what is expected, with no surprises.

When you can clearly hear the tradeoffs of (even the best) conversion, and adding extra analog circuitry inline, the serendipity factor of analog loses its charm fast.