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In Reply to: Re: Nice story. Mine goes like this: posted by tomservo on May 7, 2007 at 10:46:24:
...there is no question that it was better than all but the most expensive tape decks." Beg to differ. Thousands of careful listeners (and many not so careful) protested the intrusion of digital, hearing it as a degradation. Granted, we were mostly classical buffs, but even *real* rock'n'roll suffered in sonics.Guess you aren't an analog guy...
Follow Ups:
Hi ClarkIn any technology’s life, there are at first about 10% of the audience will use it, new adopters of technology. Later, on has 80% who will eventually use it and then you have 10% who will never use it.
I think part of what gave CD’s an early bad name was that play back decks were not all essentially the same (transports made by very few co’s), some things in the filters and electronics were very marginal and of course the recordings made to “sell” the CD were intentionally voiced to be brighter and CLEARER or at least remind people of that.
Personally I think the direction they really went was wrong with “how” things are recorded now. It ticks me off that they have so much to work with and do little to “capture” an event which has always been my thing.I used to record, still do, I still have a pair of Teac 3340’s, a Revox A-77 (now junk) and several others which were not at all shabby in the day.
I have gone back and listened to old tapes plenty of times.
Now, I am not saying ANYTHING about what the recording industry turns out rather that now, with a good sound card or modest MI setup, one can make clearer more natural sounding recordings than one could in the old days with the best home tape decks and new tape.
24/96 is audibly better than 16/44.8 down at low volumes; too bad the CD is set in stone in that regard.I wouldn’t say I am analogue or digital, either can sound bad or good both have limitations and flaws, I like what works for what I’m doing.
Best,
...doesn't CD have a claimed dynamic range of 96db? Shouldn't that be sufficient?
Hi Clark, E-statAs I recall 16 bits does describe 96 dB of dynamic range.
With the tapes to CD or digital to CD, there are many places for problems to enter in which are not necessarily related to the sample rate and density issue.I have a guess why 24/96 can sound better.
We hear loudness logarithmically while the Digital sampling process is linear.
So from a log perspective we see that half of the bits are devoted to describing the top 6 dB of dynamic range AND the lowest 6 dB is defined by one bit.
With decreasing level, the process is increasingly granular or step like.At low levels, it would seem that the granularity is audible and is why recording folks go with even more than 24/96, it makes keeping track of level up relative to zero dB (an ugly carbide hard wall in digital world) much less important.
Also who ever keeps spouting Nyquist this or that to show “perfect sound”, needs to be shown the light. That only applies to a stationary signal, in the measurement world, it is assumed you need a sample rate 3 to 5 times the highest F, more if you have a highly variable signal.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying digital is the end all, I would he happier if they had adopted 24/96 from the beginning but as it was, making 16/44.8 work on a consumer scale was already a challenge back then and many old CD players did sound icky when A-B’d.
I would use anything that worked better or had fewer tradeoffs, I don’t care if its digital, FM modulated tape or analogue or some new approach.
What ever is next, it, like everything else prior to it, will have its own limitations and flaws that the sellers will omit to mention.
Best,Tom
Bit strangulation at low levels certainly is a problem, but I claim that improvements ("tweaks") in the CD system render that meaningless. You have to hear it to believe it!In short, CDs may turn out to have been pretty good all along.
...24/96 is audibly better than 16/44.8 down at low volumes.Some here might think you're beginning to sound like one of those whacky and irrational audiophiles who just don't understand Nyquist. :)
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