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In Reply to: Fortunately for CD listeners, the graph you posted is simply NOT true. posted by NewStevo on September 13, 2006 at 19:12:57:
or Digital would sound even worse than it does now.Did you ever see the brochure for the early Sony SACD and DAT players showing the staircase digital signal? They actually seemed to be proud of it.
This information is so clear, well written that I am adding both articles to my link page on my web site analoglovers.com.
“Is the sound on vinyl records better than on CDs or DVDs?” and “How Analog and Digital Recording Works by Marshall Brain”
"Analog is Music, Digital is mathematics"
Happy listening,
Teresa
Follow Ups:
The sample rate of a 44.1khz 16 bit cd is really close to the upper limits of a human ear hearing any difference between a DA signal and an analog master tape.A DVD-A recording at 96khz eclipses any possibility that the human ear can hear a difference in the signal. You might hear a difference between the playback devices but not in the signal itself.
The staircase description shown by the graph is completely wrong. I have seen the actual graphs done by the HDCD people and 20 bit 44.1khz actually sounds pretty awesome to my ears. HDCD was designed to completely match the limits of human hearing in the DA signal to an analog master tape. Just read their published literature if you want to learn more about the perceived inadequacy of CD redbook recordings.
Dithering is a whole different issue all together. Dithering does not smooth the staircase. It actually adds a noise floor to the digital recording. Without it the human ear could not hear the low level detail in the music. The background would be so silent that the human ear could not hear the quiet inner detail at all.
This was discovered very early by Philips engineers.
Dithering is added by a studio to be just what is necessary to uncover the low level details and is generally much lower noise than a Master tape hiss and certainly much lower than an LP's surface noise.
I wish we could stop digital bashing. Software is software. It is neither good nor bad it is simply a reproduction of what had been a performance. Enjoy the music not the media. I am after the magic of the performance not the technology of the playback.
"I wish we could stop digital bashing. Software is software. It is neither good nor bad it is simply a reproduction of what had been a performance. Enjoy the music not the media. I am after the magic of the performance not the technology of the playback."Sums it up nicely, I think.
But hey... different strokes, I guess.
Cheers & luck,
Bobbo :-)
Low resolution CD is a music destroyer. High resolution digital (96kHz 24 Bit PCM and DSD) can sound almost as good but it lacks the "soul" and "body" of analog.It's the music that matters and that is why Digital is a BIG problem. But it doesn't have to be as there are so many analog muscial alterntative plus George Mann's upcoming optical read analog format. Digital is not necessary.
"Analog is Music, Digital is mathematics"
Happy listening,
Teresa
Dave
Later Gator,
Crank up your talking machine, grab a jar of your favorite "kick-back", sit down, relax, and let the good times roll.The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
"Dither reduces quantization artifacts, allows the system to resolve information lower in amplitude than one-half of the least significant bit, and makes digital audio sound more like analog. Among other benefits, dither improves low-level resolution and smoothes reverberation decay. Without dither, reverberation decay gets granular in texture, then seems to drop off in a black hole. It's ironic that a small amount of analog noise can greatly improve the performance of digital audio."I stand corrected on one item, "the original waveform is recovered by smoothing the staircase with a low pass filter" p. 418.
It appears that the low pass filter is makes the original waveform look smoother, and both the low pass filter and dithering is required to make the original waveform sound smoother.
But nothing is as smooth as an analog waveform as it is continuous.
44.1kHz Digital is not acceptable as a music carrier. 24 Bit 96kHz and DSD are just barely acceptable. But any recording available in both high-resolution digital and pure analog, the analog is superior sometimes to a huge degree.
Digital does it own bashing in the playing of it?
"Analog is Music, Digital is mathematics"
Happy listening,
Teresa
Like me, he takes a physical phenomena and tries to describe it in laymen audiophile terms.Dither is simply a superimposed noise floor--Nothing more nothing less. Noise does not shape or smooth a wave form it simply adds a background noise level from which low level detail can be more easily heard.
The low pass cap filter on an analog output section is chosen to provide the smoothest sound. It does not smooth the signal itself. By the way the caps on your solid state and tube preamps and amplifiers do the exact same thing. It would be fair to say that every electronic component in a high resolution circuit was selected and voiced to provide the smoothest frequency response, the best overall sound quality and generate the highest s/n possible. Harley was describing a components effect on the sound and oversimplifying even on this.
Please refer to AES papers on digital waveforms and playback. Not to Harley's guide as a professional reference. I bet Harley would tell you the same thing.
I believe the big difference in digital is when you buy the more expensive models and get a better analog output amp. Many skimp on this figuring the DA will be done at the receiver or HT control unit rather than at the device level.
I have no great love for digital, I am spending my budget on LP's. Not because they are better or even as good as a CD, simply because they are cheap and people are dropping off their collections to thrift stores in huge numbers. I get to reap the rewards of having a better than average playback system and lots of inexpensive software to select from.
Cheers!
on a side note, dither can be interesting because of how it is implemented.I had some records go out for mastering recently to my usual mastering guy and they came back a little, well, cloudy sounding. I inquired about this and we tracked it down to the new dither that was being used. When the dither was changed the whole thing snapped back into focus, which I would never normally believe with something like dither, but then with digital you have to get the stuff in there and sometimes the way you do it can block information. One of the thinmgs i have learned from making records is that idea that digital is digital is as ridiculous a notion as analog is analog.
The Steinway software offers a variety of dithering options.Plus I find that certain analog to digital conversion software also seems to soften or thicken the music compared to others.
I prefer Cubase LE on my EMU 1212 processor for the cleanest and clearest window on recording my LP's to CDR or DVD-A.
I have no great love for digital, I am spending my budget on LP's. Not because they are better or even as good as a CD, simply because they are cheap and people are dropping off their collections to thrift stores in huge numbers. I get to reap the rewards of having a better than average playback system and lots of inexpensive software to select from.It sounds like you are not into vinyl, but into cheap.
I only use my gun whenever kindness fails
I go for the used LP's every time. 20 times more fun for the same dough!All music is good. DVD-A, SACD, CD, Tape or LP. It is all good.
And yes I am cheap!
Dave
Later Gator,
Crank up your talking machine, grab a jar of your favorite "kick-back", sit down, relax, and let the good times roll.The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
I almost laugh watching the young uns going to the store and plunking down 30+ bucks for their cds when I could have a new album to listen to each day of the month for the same amount.Vinyl playback is my preferred stress management program...
do me a favor and measure the freq response from a scully westrex cutting head at 331/3 and then we can talk. it gets really funny above 8k.
Also there are other types of reproduced Analog besides LPs what about the 2 Track/4 Track 7 1/2/15 IPS Reel to Reel analog formats many of us, me included own as well?I've never cut records but based on what I hear the best LPs sound like they compensate for any inaccuracies in frequency response of the cutting machine.
All one has to do is listen to the best recordings available in each format to confirm, it is really that easy.
"Analog is Music, Digital is mathematics"
Happy listening,
Teresa
you are right about the ebst recordings, but we may disagree because i think you are biased to an extent. you had a mastering place?
It was called Aesthetic Audio and the recordings were from Merlin Fidelity + of the UK they were Direct to Stereo. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab duplicated the cassettes for me on BASF chrome in Real Time from my 2 Track 15-IPS Dolby A Master copies. I never released any LPs so I am not familiar with the cutters.BTW nothing I have ever heard sounds as good as a 15 IPS reel to reel.
"Analog is Music, Digital is mathematics"
Happy listening,
Teresa
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