adamdea;578505 Wrote: > ... Nevertheless the fact that CD can sound great does not mean that it > can't be bettered. Also I think that there probably is something > instructive to be learned from the fact that an awful lot of picky > people still seem to think there is something in analog that Cd missed. > > > I think though that the concepts of analog noise floor, dynamic range, > quantisation noise and resolution need unpicking. Digital basically > wins in practical terms in terms of hearing quiet sounds because its > overall snr and dynamic range can easily be made greater than that of > eg a record player. > [But analog tapes manage to capture even if not immediately reproduce > sounds below the noise floor. The notes to the later editions of > Solti's Ring cycle disclose that once modern noise reduction system > were applied to the old analog masters, they found all kinds of things > they didn't know were there.] > > A digital system simply can't reproduce any sound below its > quantisation noise and that quantisation noise appears throughout the > amplitude range. In a digital system then the smallest value which can > be given is (I think) equal to the smallest incremental value of > amplitude. -If you look at John Atkinson's measurements of a sine wave > in dac reviews, a good unit will make a sinewave that looks like (er) a > sinewave in 24 bits. But in 16 bits even the best players can only make > a squiggly thing half way between a squarewave and a sine wave. This is > clear in the touch review but even clearer in the Transporter review. > The cause of this as I understand it is the limited range of sample > values in the 16 bit file. > > An analog system it seems to me may still make a very finely textured > range of sounds above a noisy background. I think it is very confusing > and probably inaccurate to measure the noise floor of an analog system > relative to max, convert that into bits and then treat that figure as > being the equivalent bit depth of the analog system for all purposes. > (I think that this is because in the analog system the smallest value > which can be given is not also the smallest incremental value-ie > dynamic range does not equal precision. I do hope this is correct]
I don't believe I ever said the CD format could not be bettered. That's not true anymore than saying the LP or open reel format is so perfect that there is no improvement possible for them. Formats are set where there are in terms of the technology available at the time. Don't you think the LP format, for example, might look a bit different if created from scratch in 2010 versus 1948? I also find the Atkinson sine wave example a bit disingenuous. Those plots are taken at a -90 dB level. There wouldn't even be a sine wave to examine at -90 dB on an LP or open reel! Sure, modern digital processing can pull information out of the muck from an old analog recording, but I think it is a bit of fanciful thinking to believe you are hearing that low level info from an unprocessed analog recording. As Phil noted, it is rather ironic that it takes DSP to even find the info. However, I try not to get wrapped up in theoretical debates on the analog vs digital subject. I've spent the last decade transferring over 2,000 LPs and open reels in my collection to digital for use with my Squeezeboxes, so I've got a serious amount of time under my belt with back-to-back comparisons. I find just as much enjoyment from the digital versions as the original analog recordings, and often more when I've been able to fix some of the glaring defects present on a LP. The other day I was listening to the ripped CD "Silks and Rags" by The Great American Main Street Band through my Touch. It is a stunningly well recorded, fully acoustic instrument recording. Sure, a 24/96 wouldn't hurt, but I simply can't imagine any LP or open reel of the recording giving me more enjoyment. My frank opinion is that we need to send a lot of recording engineers and producers back to school to learn to use what we already have as opposed to investing in high-rez so we can hear poor recordings in even greater detail. Just my 2 cents. -- mlsstl ------------------------------------------------------------------------ mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82050 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
