Golden Earring wrote: > Hi Stephen! > > Interestingly, I came across a source that claimed that Sony chose > 44.1kHz as the CD sampling frequency in response to Herbert von > Karajan's insistence that a CD should accommodate a performance of > Beethoven's 9th, although other sources claim that the ready > availability of existing 44.1kHz clocks was the real reason. One would > have thought that 48kHz (as used for PCM sound on DVD-V's) would have > been a more obvious choice, but it wouldn't have allowed the 9th to fit > on a 700Mb CD. I also discovered by chance that the original intention > was only to use 14bit encoding, although this was changed during > development to 16bit before any CD's or CD players were commercially > produced. >
The story about Beethoven's 9th has been repeated enough going back far enough by relevant parities enough time that I would give it the benefit of the doubt. However that sampling rates were set that way is far from being the usual story. The same argument fits a wide range of sample rates, the NTSC TV convergence supports the specific number that was chosen and is thus far more likely. > > Of course the great advantage vinyl had over CD was that you had to buy > it, or suffer the even worse sound of a cassette tape copy. > That makes no sense, since *vinyl has no technical advantages at all over the CD*. The LP does have the economic advantage that back in the day, virtually everybody had the players and media on hand as sunk costs. The myths about CD's alleged flaws were invented by high end audio dealers out of fear of being stuck with a massive investment in vinyl gear in inventory and also the means of production. By then they had already been telling numerous other lies about cables, tweaks, and magical power amps, so they had quite a bit of confidence that they could pull it off, and they did. > > I'm sure they hadn't anticipated the development of CD-R & CD-RW's, but > failing to put any copy protection onto CD's was definitely a blunder > with hindsight. > The torpedoing of CD recorders supports that. However, that was overcome by the PC craze. > > Bands seem to rely on sell-out tours rather than recordings sales to > fund their lifestyles these days... > Selling swag on the tours is big business. But I think it pales compared to the box office. The bands are often trying to overcome the heavy promotional costs of launching new artists. The web has changed this equation in many ways. Dave :) P.S. I like Mahler's 2nd because of the passion that he invests in it, & the finale is fantastic. I like Messiaen too who was also a committed Catholic, & Handel (who would have been Protestant). But I also like Verdi's Requiem. Joe Green was a firm atheist so he obviously had enough passion of his own to produce such a great "religious" work ------------------------------------------------------------------------ arnyk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=64365 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
