Home General Asylum

General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

RE: Just glanced at conclusion

One of grad student's rants centered around the "Digital Threat". Does anyone actually believe that the Redbook recordings and players released in the early 80s are as good as what is available today? Jitter wasn't understood then. It is now. She attacks those who understand that it is the arbitrary selection of word size and sampling rate that determine the overall quality by suggesting that such a position was only taken because the required technology was more expensive and therefore elitist. Are we "elitists" because we observe the obvious? What claptrap! As IT guys, we fully understand why it was not practical to offer the necessary storage media capacity in 1982. Marketing triumphed.

It would be interesting if she were to revisit The Threat in the wake of SACD and the almost universal use of higher resolution digital masters and the availability of high rez downloads today - in an age where the cost of digital storage has gone down by a factor of millions! She commented briefly on the early days of the digital recordings that were delivered as pressings. I guess she doesn't understand Dr. Stockham's Soundstream recorder sampled at 50k, not 44.1k. The CD format was empirically a step backwards from the first commercial standard.



Edits: 11/13/14

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  VH Audio  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.