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  #21  
Old 03-22-2013, 10:57 AM
rbbert rbbert is offline
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The last sentence of the article is key to me; the biggest problem with nearly all recordings today isn't the medium, it's the mastering (and I include things like mic placement, etc in the term "mastering")
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  #22  
Old 03-22-2013, 11:09 AM
Rayooo Rayooo is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rbbert View Post
The last sentence of the article is key to me; the biggest problem with nearly all recordings today isn't the medium, it's the mastering (and I include things like mic placement, etc in the term "mastering")
+1
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  #23  
Old 03-24-2013, 09:03 PM
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There is more to it than strictly digital vs analog. I believe either media can sound "musical" and "warm" and "natural" to the ear, just depends on the quality of the recording and mastering process. I have been convinced that digital is not all to blame by the XRCDs. Listening to many of my XRCDs is pure pleasure and considering the mastering process and source of the recording it now makes sense to me that digital is not all to blame.

Last edited by PHC1; 03-24-2013 at 09:31 PM.
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  #24  
Old 03-25-2013, 10:53 AM
rob.hughes rob.hughes is offline
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Originally Posted by PHC1 View Post
There is more to it than strictly digital vs analog. I believe either media can sound "musical" and "warm" and "natural" to the ear, just depends on the quality of the recording and mastering process. I have been convinced that digital is not all to blame by the XRCDs. Listening to many of my XRCDs is pure pleasure and considering the mastering process and source of the recording it now makes sense to me that digital is not all to blame.
I agree with this. I have CDs I enjoy. But CDs I enjoy are fewer and farther between than purely analog sources. So in addition to the overall quality of the recording/engineering and mastering process, the playback system is also important. And in my experience, "good" sounding analog is a lot less expensive than "good" digital. And by the same token, really stellar analog is more expensive than really stellar digital, or at least I'm not aware of any 200K+ CD transport/DAC combinations.
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  #25  
Old 03-25-2013, 11:05 AM
o0OBillO0o o0OBillO0o is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rob.hughes View Post
I agree with this. I have CDs I enjoy. But CDs I enjoy are fewer and farther between than purely analog sources. So in addition to the overall quality of the recording/engineering and mastering process, the playback system is also important. And in my experience, "good" sounding analog is a lot less expensive than "good" digital. And by the same token, really stellar analog is more expensive than really stellar digital, or at least I'm not aware of any 200K+ CD transport/DAC combinations.



Those last two sentences, with the use of "good" and "stellar" = highly debatable.
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  #26  
Old 03-25-2013, 06:17 PM
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Really interesting discussion. I love the distortion and especially the modulation noise that classic reel-to-reel machines add to the sound, just like I love the distortion and background noise vinyl records bring to the table. Maybe they make up for things lost elsewhere in the chain. Dunno. I love the sound of well mastered high bitrate large bit depth files bring to the table. Different for sure, but awesome nonetheless.

Who's to say what's right, when all three, when they're done well, sound so good?

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  #27  
Old 03-25-2013, 06:22 PM
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Forgot to mention - his examples prove the author of the article does not understand the two fundamental processes at work in digital audio - sampling and quantization. That makes the rest of the article 'ahem' questionable.
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  #28  
Old 03-25-2013, 07:36 PM
rob.hughes rob.hughes is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by o0OBillO0o View Post
Those last two sentences, with the use of "good" and "stellar" = highly debatable.
In my experience, anything related to audio is "highly debatable". I argue with my 20-something daughters over whether the 128k bitrate MP3s over their "they came with the ipod" earbuds actually sound as good as my set up. They actually claim their stuff sounds better. And despite one of them interning as a doctor at a decent teaching hospital and the other being a manager with a national company, I still can't help but feel that I failed as a father. Maybe not in that "their method of earning a living involves a chrome-plated pole and a lot of dollar bills" level of failure, but still, it's failure.
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  #29  
Old 03-25-2013, 08:56 PM
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What's actually kind of funny is that old laserdiscs were analog. And contained analog video as well as analog and digital audio sound tracks.

In hind sight maybe that was the future.

As I understand it, the pits and lands on a disc don't need to be constant size as the are on a digital CD (in this case used to the define ones and zeros). An analog signal can actually be encoded on the disc using variable sized pits and lands arranged in linear sequence. A laser can then pick then pickup that analog signal with no D/A conversion required. Pretty much like a turntable, but without the needle and associated wear, dust, static, etc. issues.

EDIT: a little further research on Wikipedia turned up this.


"An earlier analog optical disc recorded in 1935 for Licht-Tone Orgel (sampling organ)"
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  #30  
Old 06-17-2013, 01:25 PM
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Sampling is lossless, quantization is not. Nature has chosen 4-bit dna quantization over misty analog copying though for the reproduction of life, so I think that 24-bit is sort of overkill for music reproduction..

Last edited by redhulk; 06-17-2013 at 06:28 PM.
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