A friend of mine from another company used to be fond of saying that "in the real (analog) world, digital plays a bit part". He was an analog designer and resented the relentless daily encroachment of digital technology into formally analog domains. What is ironic is that many physicists view of the world is one of discreet quanta and not a contuiuum, so it might be the opposite of my friends view "in the real world (discreet) analog plays a bit part". Who knows, maybe in the future, the tables will turn and a new physics will emerge with a contiuum view king once again.
<Peace> Lets just call it a truce and say that to each his own, whatever sounds better to someone at the price point that they can afford, then that's what they should get, regardless of what the technophiles, techno-pundits and engineers say. </Peace>
cheers,
rg
J. C. O'Connell wrote:
PURE speculation. We will never know either because no one is going to invest probably millions of dollars to design a build a true state of the art analog recorder when 24/196khz digital is already here and dirt cheap. As to what would sound better the analog or the digital if both were the very best using todays technology, I do not know and you do not know, you are just speculating.
And I do not why you keep quoting S/N figures. There is far more to really good sound than just S/N. JCO
-----Original Message-----
From: Gonz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 12:18 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: 35 vs digi - Some points to ponder.
It boils down to where is there the most significant degradation in the signal. In digital its the A/D conversion boundary. From then on there
is no degradation until get to the D/A boundary and you play it back on an analog speaker. In analog, there is generally no degradation in the amplification process until you get to the magnetic tape system, then you get degradation from non-linearities in the electromagnetic head, head to tape gap variations, speed variations, magnetic media inconsistencies, electromagentic interference/pickup, dust, channel to channel interference at the media boundary, and mechanical vibrations, did I leave anything out? On the replay side of analog, that is, if you
are going straight from Mag tape to your speakers, you have the reverse,
except that in the mean time, your mag tape has deteriorated somewhat, and you are probably playing it from a different machine than you recorded it on, which introduces a host of other noise problems. If you
put the analog information onto an LP, then you have about another 20 noise sources to worry about, including the grove cutter, electro-mechanical noise going into the cutter assembly, reproduction imperfections, dust, if mechanical pickup on the player, then wear and tear from that, plus non-linearities on the pickup head, stereo separation problems, speed variations, mechanical noise pickup, etc. etc. With the digital side, as I mentioned, once it gets to a digital quantity, as long as there is sufficient error correction and care of the medium, the only noise you have to worry about is quantitization noise at the A/D and D/A boundaries. So if you optimize that, the best DIGITAL is going to be better than the best ANALOG, thats because there is no mechanical, magnetic, or reproduction noise introduced, its all electronic, which can be kept very well controlled. 24 bits at 196khz/channel buys alot of S/N.
Cheers,
rg
J. C. O'Connell wrote:
That is debatable too. I am not aware of the level
the worlds finest analog recorder or the worlds finest digtial recorders so I wouldn’t want to speculate as to which is better. I know one thing, a world class ultimate analog recorder would be VERY expensive to make due to the precision mechanics involved
in the transport.
JCO
-----Original Message----- From: Gonz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 10:51 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: 35 vs digi - Some points to ponder.
I still stand by what I said: the BEST digital is better than the BEST
analog.
J. C. O'Connell wrote:
Cant you read? I stand by all my statements. NEARLY ALL EXISTING digitally mastered recordings are inferior to good analog ones. "good"
digital is brand new and as such there are very few "in the can". That
is why NEARLY all of the new vinyl releases are from ANALOG masters, there arent hardly ANY digital masters good enuff for the LP medium. You or someone else stated in the very beginning that most of the new vinyl releases were from digital recordings ( NOT TRUE) and someone else or you stated that DIGITAL recordings were "light years" ahead of every Analog recording EVER made, ALSO NOT TRUE. JCO
-----Original Message----- From: Gonz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 8:35 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: 35 vs digi - Some points to ponder.
JCO, I think were in complete violent agreement here. If you didn't originally record something in a true high end digital system (analog mag tape), and your destination is an analog medium (LP), of course
you
dont want to introduce digitization sampling noise to the process.
You
go straight from analog. The same is true of images. If your
original
is film and your destination is print, scanning only degrades the
image
transfer process. You want to do it optically. BUT, if your original
is DIGITAL or your destination is DIGITAL, you want to use a digital
process. 24/196K is not too new to matter, its the future, and done correctly, vastly exceeds the S/N ratio of the best analog ever. Digital is not automatically better than analog, but analog has its limits for any technology, so does digital, but the lossless transfer/manipulation and reproduction of digital ( a bit is a bit) means that many of the processes that are the weakness of analog, i.e.
amplification, storage, and reproduction (pickup), can be bypassed, especially with error correction codes. Of course the weakness in the
digital system are at the two ends, both of which are analog microphones/pre-amps and speakers. A/D converters have gotten S/N
down
to imperceptible levels. Now if only we could get digital microphones
and digital speakers!!!
rg
J. C. O'Connell wrote:
Not to stay off topic so long, but
The number of truly high end digitally mastered recordings is DWARFED
by the number of analog ones. That is why audiophile LP format fans shun digitally mastered recordings in general. The vast majority of them are inferior to well mastered analog. That is why my original statement on the matter is true. Nearly ALL of the high end vinyl issues being made today are from analog masters, not digital. For SONIC reasons. MOST existing digital recordings ARE inferior to good analog ones because they are in the older unrefined early digital, 24/196K is too new to matter.
JCO
-----Original Message----- From: Gonz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 12:23 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: 35 vs digi - Some points to ponder.
Yes, of course I'm referring to the high bit rate of current digital sampling systems. Read again. And of course you don't want to
sample
the analog stuff with digital if your final medium is going to be
analog
(LP). You want to go straight through an analog system without any digitization noise. But if TODAY I want to make a recording, the
best
way is to take the data straight out of the pre-amps, digitize it at
the
highest sampling rate and highest bit conversion I can get and save that
in digital form. Then it should be reproduced digitally, i.e. high stream rate audio reproduction gear. It would be a foolish
"audiophile"
indeed that would attempt to take mag tape at any speed and beat that,
loud or quiet. nuf said.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
you obviously are not an audiophile and no nothing about high end or
professional audio and especially nothing about state of the art LP reproduction. Professional analog recordings
can and often do sound incredibly good especially those made on the on
high speed (30 IPS) wide ANALOG tape. Early 16/20 bit 44.1/48K digital
was the crap! Yes now that 24 bit 196KHZ sampling exists digital has
mostly caught up to ANALOG but prior to about 1990 that didn’t even exist even in professional studios. Lp fans do not want the original
analog master recordings of the 50's, 60's, and 70's digitized and then converted back to analog. With LPs that is not necessary or desireable. It DEGRADES the sound quality. And the concensus is that
the latest digital sounds AS GOOD as top line analog recording , NOT
"light years ahead" it. Your post is simply absurd. It is not analog
or digital that makes for a great recording, it is how far each technology is pushed. And one last thing, Music lovers don’t care how
much better one format sounds WHEN THERE IS NO MUSIC, they care about which sounds better WHEN THE MUSIC IS PLAYING. JCO
-----Original Message----- From: Gonz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 11:52 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: 35 vs digi - Some points to ponder.
Huh? Analog mag tape original recordings are crap. Especially the older ones before metal came along. Horrible S/N ratio. Thats why Dolby went through such elaborate schemes to try to cut down on high
frequency noise, which sounds like hiss to us. High end digital is
the
way to go, conventional CD's at lower bit stream rates cannot
duplicate
this, but higher end audio DVD's and some CD formats are now beginning
to come out with the high bit stream rate reproduction, which is light
years ahead of any analog recording ever made. Digital straight from
the pre-amps. Quiet periods are where you can tell the difference immediately.
rg
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
WRONG WRONG WRONG.
The vinyl being produced today is mostly reissues of the finest recordings, both musically and sonically, on very high quality thick
virgin vinyl for the best possible sound quality.
About 99 percent of these masters are ANALOG not digital because those
are the best and these recordings are GREAT MUSIC not just boring demos no one wants to hear. The main reason they are economically viable is that the original LPS are rare and valuable in excellent
or
better condition so the $20-$30 for a good reissue seems like a bargain the discriminating music lover.
JCO
-----Original Message----- From: Rob Studdert [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 7:06 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: 35 vs digi - Some points to ponder.
On 25 Aug 2004 at 21:23, Pål Jensen wrote:
Gonz wrote:
Is any record company making LPs anymore?
REPLY:
Yes. It is a thriving business. But of course it is mostly high-end
users who are interested. Not mass market. Audiophile issues are popular.
And few recordings (mostly digital in origin) are available in vinyl,
a lot of the Audiophile label recordings are esoteric and are designed
primarily to display the capabilities of ones system when having your audiophile friends over for a listening session. :-)
It's akin to handing out your visiting photo pals loupes and lens test
chart images shot on 4x5 sheet film. Very impressive but boring as bat
sh*t.
Rob Studdert
HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA
Tel +61-2-9554-4110
UTC(GMT) +10 Hours
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/
Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
