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In Reply to: You are on a very slippery slope here Teresa..... posted by tubesforever on September 13, 2006 at 23:09:19:
"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
Follow Ups:
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...
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