On 5 May 2004, at 3:06 am, Kevin Tarr wrote:
I know the underlying science for representing analog sound in a digital format but I'm missing something important. More than a few new and older* CDs are quiet. *(Stuff originally recorded back in the 70s, i.e. not new music). If I go from the radio to a CD, I have to turn the volume up to get the same (seemingly) sound level. This is in many cars, or home players. That may be bad example; but I also notice different sound levels when I take songs from different CDs and make my own collection.
So the question: is there a reason this is so? Do they figure on better sound reproduction if the amplifier is producing the volume, rather than the source? Or is it to have more head room, space for loud crashes? Something else?
CDs only use 16-bits per channel. This is enough to please most of the people most of the time but is largely an artifact of the technology available when the format was introduced (20 years ago....).
Radio (non-digital) has even less bandwidth, so compression is used to narrow the dynamic range.
--But recording studios go up to 11 (well 24-bit :))
-- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
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