adamdea;579122 Wrote: > 1.2 It seems that an analog sytem has limited resolution but not limited > precision. > ... > whilst a digital recoding may have 16 bit resolution and 16 bit > precision, analogue systems can have 13 bit resolution and unlimited > precision. Excuse me for coming in a bit late but I wanted to comment on this.
"Resolution" and "precision" are two sides of the same coin. Here's an analogy. Take a 12" ruler - what is the smallest sized object you can confidently measure the size of? That's the resolution of your 12" ruler. Now measure something that's about 6" long - what's the accuracy with which you can measure its exact length? That's the precision. Can you see that both are constrained by the physical characteristics of the ruler itself, and are fundamentally the same thing? If you use a micrometer instead, you'll be able to both measure smaller objects (better resolution) and more accurately the size of relatively large objects (better precision). We can liken the 12" ruler to 8 bit digital audio and the micrometer to 16 bit audio. When it comes to audio, both resolution and precision are limited by the same thing: bit-depth (digital) or noise floor (analogue). They are just different ways of inaccurately measuring the voltage of a music signal. In particular, analogue does not have unlimited precision, because although (unlike digital) the voltage it delivers can be any arbitrary value, the noise floor means that the actual voltage is only an approximation. If the voltage should be 1V, an anlogue system might deliver anywhere between 0.999V or 1.001V, and you have no way of knowing what it should really be. It's a bit like you using that 12" ruler to measure an object is exactly 6" long - due to its lack of precision you are only in a position to say that it's somewhere between 5.95" and 6.05" -- cliveb Transporter -> ATC SCM100A ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82050 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
