On Sep 26, 2010, at 11:28 AM, Steven wrote: > That really annoys me, since I don't consider digital files to be actual > things, just imaginary concepts.
Then you won't mind me subjecting your hard drives to extremely powerful magnetic fields, since magnets cannot hurt imaginary things, right? They may be not immediately tangible, but you can, with the aid of an electron microscope, visualize a file on a hard disk platter; digital files are a physical manifestation of phenomena on the hard drive platter. > Sure I can listen to them, but in reality they are just magnetic states on a > disc which, when read by a computer, give instructions on how to synthesize > the music in question. I buy most of my music on vinyl, where I get a disc > with an actual sound wave encoded on it, or reel to reel tape, where I get a > magnetic wave that is an electronic implementation of the original sound wave Wow, that's an impressive display of cognitive dissonance. In reality a vinyl record is just a piece of plastic with some scratches on it that your record player decodes into sounds, just as a computer decodes a MP3 file. With tapes it's even more like digital because you're literally flipping bits of iron oxide in the tape. True it's an analog encoding rather than a digital one, but it's still a non-aural, lossy encoding of a sound. Try as you might, without the aid of a decoding device, a vinyl record, a reel-to-reel tape or a CD loaded with MP3 files equally make no sound whatsoever. Likewise, a film negative is merely a binary encoding of an image. The main difference between film and digital cameras is the size and number number of pixels, but in both cases it's either 'on' or 'off', whether it's a bit in a jpeg or a grain of silver halide in acetate, or dye particle in a color negative. Many many 'audiophiles' wax lyrical over the 'warmth' of vinyl as played on a tube-based amplifier. What they're talking about is distortion, just as the alleged coldness and 'mechanicalness' of digital audio is decried as 'soulless'. Distortion due to the sound reproduction technology is *STILL* distortion, regardless of the source....it's just that the distortion of vinyl is remembered as 'the good old days'. Now there IS significant degradation of many sound recordings in the modern era, but it's all the fault of the recording engineers who are simply cranking the volume up and packing all the sound into the top few bits of their spectrum, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the medium, it's just easier to do that with digital encoding than analog. > (I don't even use digital cameras because there is no master negative, just a > digital copy). In reality the advent of digital photography has ushered in a true golden age of photography...you get feedback *instantly* on whether your photo was properly framed, exposed, focussed, etc...that instant feedback, coupled with the virtual zero cost of digital photos has let people get the amount of practice they needed to become better photographers. -- Bruce Johnson "Wherever you go, there you are" B. Banzai, PhD -- You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist
