bluno.orgoccasionally fully formed thoughts by bernie mcginn

I used to be the happy owner of a Marantz 7 tube pre-amp. It was a thing of beauty. Transistors and tubes. Beautifully machined dials. My records loved being channeled through the 40 year old technology. Especially old jazz records from the same era. (Ahh… Jimmy Smith.) I got the pre-amp for free. The parents of a good friend were moving out of their house and said I could come pick up this dusty old stereo equipment which would be thrown out anyway.

I can’t say I’m an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure sounded, well… right.

I put the Marantz on eBay to pay off some credit card debt. It made me feel bad, in a way. I knew I’d probably never drop $2k on a piece of stereo equipment, but carving off a chunk of debt was satisfying.

Flash forward 5 or 6 years: I sold all my stereo equipment before I moved to San Francisco. All of my listening is digital these days – straight from the laptop. I’m not sure when I will have my record collection again, so I can expect it to be digital for the forseeable future.

I can’t help but wonder if there is a software equivalent to my dear old Marantz – something to smooth off the edges of all those jagged ones and zeros.

iTunes has an EQ, of course, but I’m looking for something that can provide distinctive analog modeling, warmth, punch etc. Ideally, I could hook the laptop to a decent power amp, or stream music via Airport Express, and maintain most control and EQ from the computer. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on a fully digital set-up for someone who would prefer to be fully analog?

Thanks in advance, Internet.