mshilarious
Banned
Yeah, kinda sad, they used to be a pretty good company; I mean they had some good products and some not-so-good, but oh well . . .
Does analog move more air. . . ?
- Thread starter AtoDeficient
- Start date
- Status
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
hmmmm I didn't try that ..... only tried the 16/44.1k and 24/96k but I could do that. I may but it'll be a couple weeks as I have bikeweek coming up and I'm gigging a lot right now. But that would get the nyquist up to 24k which could easily be a big difference. I think I'll try that when I get time and I'll let you know what I hear.
I know you're rude and dismissive to everyone including even those who show some degree support for you (like I foolishly did in this very thread).
And yes ..... it does seem like people here have made decisions concerning you ........ you are pretty funny though.
I always look forward to the trainwrecks you make threads into so props for that.
Victory Pete
Banned
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Can we go home yet ? 
Jim Rosebrook
It's All Good....
I assume you are talking about Alesis... they were/are a bit of a puzzle. Some products were big game changers for sure. The Masterlink with whatever shortcomings it had, was a breakthrough product. I remember having a big smile on my face when I got one when they first came out.
AtoDeficient
New member
I have two Midiverb4's. . I really don't have any experience with their other gear, but I might buy a third. . .I just love those things. . .
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Where the nuclear obliteration of all things digital isn't going nearly far enough !come on man, this is the analog forum !
You should ask yourself about that. The fact that you don't recognize some of the people that posted during this debate doesn't mean much. What it does tell me is that there are a number of people that from time to time pop into the analog forum but don't or rarely post there. I'm exactly the same in the studio building and mastering forums. I rarely post there, especially the building one ~ but I do find interesting topics in there and some views I may vehemently disagree with.
Safe havens ? Blimey. I thought the concept of forums necesitated a range of views.
It's ironic that not long ago a question was posed about where all the old posters to the analog forum have gone. There's not much action here. This thread has brought in alot more activity than has been seen in the anolog forum for the longest while.
But with no contribution from anyone that is firmly into digital recording.....and horror stories and digital flaws only.
This would probably be right were it not for the fact that many people of a certain age are experienced in both analog and digital and many of those that currently record with digitalia made the switch from analog. And vice versa in some cases. So alot of people have {or certainly have had} a foot in both camps.
I tend to look in all the forums and regularly there are analog users posting questions there and they regularly get helped. If they can't be, they get referred to here. Not only that, you get people looking for "analog warmth with digital machines" and things of that ilk. My point is that there is quite a bit of crossover.
But most pertinent is that it's incorrect to say that people were just wandering in to argue the virtues of digital. Those that went into detail about digital waves and numbers and the rest did so against the backdrop of statements about the medium that could not be verified. Emotion and preference was fused with what appeared to be fact and the resulting conclusion by necesity had to be, at the very least, questioned.
"Many" and "Most" does not equal "all". If out of 167 people 94 prefer analog, that's most of that number. Of course, the remaining 73 are the minority. If out of that 167, 64 do not use anything digital whatsoever, that's still many of them. But many does not necesarilly mean the majority.
As for the Beatle/Beach boy analogy, I can't for the life of me see what the problem is in going to a Beach boys forum and saying "actually, I always felt the Beatles were a better band". You're not saying that the Beach boys are crap {which would be suspect}.
It wasn't rude. The OP posed a question in the very first sentence of the thread, namely,
He compared analog to digital right from the get~go and so any hope of no debate was already lost, especially with the next sentence
That's as provocative a statement as it was possible to make. "We all know analog sounds better". There might be even analogists that could disagree with that. It is not a given. Although the OP stated
it already was before they had even finished typing that statement. The door was opened to the weight of digital firepower by two key statements upon which this whole thread went on to revolve,
and
. The immediate problem is that the OP has backed themself into a corner from which there is no escape because they've made a bold, direct and intractable statement while also stating that they don't know if maths and science will bear them out.
What if maths and science doesn't bear out their position ? How can only the analog agreers be the ones to present the evidence ? The opening post cried out for balance. From the other side.
Cue thread trainwreck.
mshilarious
Banned
I *thought* it was originally a simple supposition; I don't mind the stipulation that tape sounds better. The OP's question seemed to be whether a given phenomenon (variance in volume at some frequency of interest, perhaps) could be responsible for his sonic preference. I still think the hard science that lurks behind acoustic preferences is interesting, but yes this did devolve into the usual statements about digital flaws that don't really exist (vs. the ones that do and can be measured). Too bad.
And, for the record, I'm a huge Beach Boys and like the Beatles quite a lot also, but that's not a fair fight--three songwriters plus a producer kicking in classical arrangements up against one whose was held back at times by those around him. I'd take Brian over any single Beatle, but there was no way he could match the Beatles' total output by himself.
I'm also pretty sure Brian and Sir Paul consider it a fairly stupid debate as they are each other's biggest fans. We should be happy for their rivalry because it made their music better. Where is that today? Chris Brown vs. Rihanna?
We are pretty much all doomed, whatever the medium . . . at least we have Weird Al to make fun of it all
And, for the record, I'm a huge Beach Boys and like the Beatles quite a lot also, but that's not a fair fight--three songwriters plus a producer kicking in classical arrangements up against one whose was held back at times by those around him. I'd take Brian over any single Beatle, but there was no way he could match the Beatles' total output by himself.
I'm also pretty sure Brian and Sir Paul consider it a fairly stupid debate as they are each other's biggest fans. We should be happy for their rivalry because it made their music better. Where is that today? Chris Brown vs. Rihanna?
We are pretty much all doomed, whatever the medium . . . at least we have Weird Al to make fun of it all
miroslav
Cosmic Cowboy
Not to mention, you really can't talk about "analog only" scenarios....without considering/mentioning digital.
It's like talking about "daylight" ...in a world without any night.
mshilarious
Banned
No, not kidding, for straight up R&R swagger you are correct!
I warn you though, in a poll this BBS (not this subforum) selected Zep over the Stones
Interesting thread. Some thoughts.
I am not sure what "moving more air" means other than turning up the amplifier and hoping your speakers can handle it.
The first parameter in determining which is better (digital vs analog) is: playback equipment. If you have a turntable/cartridge that cost $300 new, a Pioneer amp and speakers, you will not be reproducing the program on the vinyl as well as you will if you have a $250K stereo (like my friend has). And, believe it or not, all digital playback systems are not created equal, either! You could be listening to a $100 Walkman .mp3 player with a decent set of phones encoded at high bitrates (which I do every morning for guided imagery routines) or you could be listening to the CD player that my friend has in his $250K system. My friend says that well-made vinyl is definitely better than CDs of equivalent quality. I have another friend and former business partner who deals audiophile equipment and he agrees. Personally, I think it's crazy to spend that kind of money on a stereo but I guess if you have it, WTH?
The second parameter is: media quality. To clarify, I am referring to both the recording quality and the mastering/reproduction process. These can be all over the map. I have roughly 2000 vinyl albums in my collection and although I do not have audiophile playback equipment there exists a marked difference between different albums. The most consistent quality albums I have are Deutsche Grammophon, which have the best clarity and dynamic range (more on that) of my classical LPs with Columbia coming in near the top as well. There are a lot of variables in both LP and CD mastering not the least of which is the skill of the engineer. If the person mastering either media does not do a careful job, the result may be junk. The CD mastering engineer can destroy the work of the mixing engineer, which is why mixing engineers attend mastering sessions. Also they might be dealing with a junk pre-master that isn't going to sound good no matter what you do to it. If an LP is mastered with too much bass at some point the LP will skip because of groove distortion.
This is as good a place as any to insert a sidebar about volume wars. Those of you who have read a few books about audio may have come across this item that started cropping up in the last days of vinyl and really altered standards when CDs took over. The dynamic range of what we are listening to has been steadily decreased and now it is commonplace to have CDs with 3 db dynamic range or less! This started because record companies felt that radio audiences would perceive their recordings as "better" if they sounded "louder". I suppose that's a matter of taste, but if I am listening to the radio and I like a song better than the one before it, I'm willing to turn up the radio. (Yes, how old school is that?!?!?!) Since I spend a great deal of time mixing I try to keep my ears in shape by avoiding long periods of high volume. Listening to a few loud songs can spoil my ears for the rest of the day. Yours, too.
Some program material requires a wider dynamic range than other. Classical music in general is written and performed with more dynamics than any other genre. Since analog does dynamic range BETTER than digital (this is a proven fact, not my opinion), the same recording reproduced with the same top quality mastering will sound better on an LP than it will on a CD. For an explanation of this I suggest pp 129 - 147 in Mike Stavrou's book Mixing With Your Mind. Digital excels at levels in the area of 0 dbFS but it lacks clarity and "balls" in the middle range due to less significant bits. Analog does well in those middle levels PLUS it has a lot of headroom, which unfortunately is not shared by digital. I'm sure we've all recorded the perfect track but accidentally let a couple of peaks get away and ended up with a redo.
OK this is getting too long so I will hurry.
What people tend to forget in this debate is that the last item the program goes through in the system before it hits your eardrums (which are analog) is an analog speaker of some sort. (I will avoid the topic of digital amplification here because it's complicated and often misconstrued). Imagine a speaker with a square wave going into it at 10 Hz. The speaker may not enjoy this task but it will probably do a fairly good job of it. As you increase the frequency of the square wave, the actual output of the speaker starts to get less and less square because the speaker can't turn on a dime. (This is called "slew rate" and it's also going on inside the amplifier in a different manner. It's also part of the cabinet and raw speaker design). So the reproduction of the program, be it analog or digital, is undergoing a smoothing process at the final stage which tends to mask the original program in a gooey coating of speaker coloration. Strangely, people who are not trained in audio may pick a highly colored speaker pair as "better" over something that is transparent. (Hear a good rock concert lately? Consider yourself lucky).
So IMO you should consider your end users when you record, mix, and master. There is a huge difference between an iPod and my buddy's quarter million dollar system. Personally, I try to get as much dynamic range in the final product as possible. Sometimes this isn't a lot. I use analog summing on projects with many tracks which helps immensely. I record at higher bitrates when possible although it depends on the final consumer and the performance. If, for example, I'm recording a violin sonata, I will use 96k because I'm only going to end up with 3 or 4 tracks and I think it sounds better although maybe I'm just hearing things. At the end it needs to be dithered down to 44.1k, at least at this point in our existence.
As to the original question, the reason that the analog sounds louder is because it has 10 to 20 db of headroom more than the digital does. It's more forgiving, because it will distort in that headroom range rather than doing a comeapart. If you want to achieve this effect with digital you must be very careful and realize that the resolution of digital is optimum at the top end of the scale because you are using more significant bits. The stuff underneath the top will be somewhere between obscured and buried. Therefore it's a good idea if you want your program to sound louder to have both VU and peak metering and the VU/peak ratio should be HIGHER than analog.
This is a somewhat complex topic and I'm glad that this forum has tackled it. I hope that what I have posted will help in some way, even if you disagree, I look forward to your comments.
I am not sure what "moving more air" means other than turning up the amplifier and hoping your speakers can handle it.
The first parameter in determining which is better (digital vs analog) is: playback equipment. If you have a turntable/cartridge that cost $300 new, a Pioneer amp and speakers, you will not be reproducing the program on the vinyl as well as you will if you have a $250K stereo (like my friend has). And, believe it or not, all digital playback systems are not created equal, either! You could be listening to a $100 Walkman .mp3 player with a decent set of phones encoded at high bitrates (which I do every morning for guided imagery routines) or you could be listening to the CD player that my friend has in his $250K system. My friend says that well-made vinyl is definitely better than CDs of equivalent quality. I have another friend and former business partner who deals audiophile equipment and he agrees. Personally, I think it's crazy to spend that kind of money on a stereo but I guess if you have it, WTH?
The second parameter is: media quality. To clarify, I am referring to both the recording quality and the mastering/reproduction process. These can be all over the map. I have roughly 2000 vinyl albums in my collection and although I do not have audiophile playback equipment there exists a marked difference between different albums. The most consistent quality albums I have are Deutsche Grammophon, which have the best clarity and dynamic range (more on that) of my classical LPs with Columbia coming in near the top as well. There are a lot of variables in both LP and CD mastering not the least of which is the skill of the engineer. If the person mastering either media does not do a careful job, the result may be junk. The CD mastering engineer can destroy the work of the mixing engineer, which is why mixing engineers attend mastering sessions. Also they might be dealing with a junk pre-master that isn't going to sound good no matter what you do to it. If an LP is mastered with too much bass at some point the LP will skip because of groove distortion.
This is as good a place as any to insert a sidebar about volume wars. Those of you who have read a few books about audio may have come across this item that started cropping up in the last days of vinyl and really altered standards when CDs took over. The dynamic range of what we are listening to has been steadily decreased and now it is commonplace to have CDs with 3 db dynamic range or less! This started because record companies felt that radio audiences would perceive their recordings as "better" if they sounded "louder". I suppose that's a matter of taste, but if I am listening to the radio and I like a song better than the one before it, I'm willing to turn up the radio. (Yes, how old school is that?!?!?!) Since I spend a great deal of time mixing I try to keep my ears in shape by avoiding long periods of high volume. Listening to a few loud songs can spoil my ears for the rest of the day. Yours, too.
Some program material requires a wider dynamic range than other. Classical music in general is written and performed with more dynamics than any other genre. Since analog does dynamic range BETTER than digital (this is a proven fact, not my opinion), the same recording reproduced with the same top quality mastering will sound better on an LP than it will on a CD. For an explanation of this I suggest pp 129 - 147 in Mike Stavrou's book Mixing With Your Mind. Digital excels at levels in the area of 0 dbFS but it lacks clarity and "balls" in the middle range due to less significant bits. Analog does well in those middle levels PLUS it has a lot of headroom, which unfortunately is not shared by digital. I'm sure we've all recorded the perfect track but accidentally let a couple of peaks get away and ended up with a redo.
OK this is getting too long so I will hurry.
What people tend to forget in this debate is that the last item the program goes through in the system before it hits your eardrums (which are analog) is an analog speaker of some sort. (I will avoid the topic of digital amplification here because it's complicated and often misconstrued). Imagine a speaker with a square wave going into it at 10 Hz. The speaker may not enjoy this task but it will probably do a fairly good job of it. As you increase the frequency of the square wave, the actual output of the speaker starts to get less and less square because the speaker can't turn on a dime. (This is called "slew rate" and it's also going on inside the amplifier in a different manner. It's also part of the cabinet and raw speaker design). So the reproduction of the program, be it analog or digital, is undergoing a smoothing process at the final stage which tends to mask the original program in a gooey coating of speaker coloration. Strangely, people who are not trained in audio may pick a highly colored speaker pair as "better" over something that is transparent. (Hear a good rock concert lately? Consider yourself lucky).
So IMO you should consider your end users when you record, mix, and master. There is a huge difference between an iPod and my buddy's quarter million dollar system. Personally, I try to get as much dynamic range in the final product as possible. Sometimes this isn't a lot. I use analog summing on projects with many tracks which helps immensely. I record at higher bitrates when possible although it depends on the final consumer and the performance. If, for example, I'm recording a violin sonata, I will use 96k because I'm only going to end up with 3 or 4 tracks and I think it sounds better although maybe I'm just hearing things. At the end it needs to be dithered down to 44.1k, at least at this point in our existence.
As to the original question, the reason that the analog sounds louder is because it has 10 to 20 db of headroom more than the digital does. It's more forgiving, because it will distort in that headroom range rather than doing a comeapart. If you want to achieve this effect with digital you must be very careful and realize that the resolution of digital is optimum at the top end of the scale because you are using more significant bits. The stuff underneath the top will be somewhere between obscured and buried. Therefore it's a good idea if you want your program to sound louder to have both VU and peak metering and the VU/peak ratio should be HIGHER than analog.
This is a somewhat complex topic and I'm glad that this forum has tackled it. I hope that what I have posted will help in some way, even if you disagree, I look forward to your comments.
mshilarious
Banned
If you exceed 0dBFS during production (which is all done at 24 bit now) and you somehow can't manage a retake . . . I just don't know what to say. I have an AAD classical CD of a famous old performance that is not clipped digitally but is badly distorted on a few peaks which had to have occurred in analogland (probably in the amps, not the tape). Today a conductor would never tolerate that on a recording, they would keep doing takes and edits (modern classical recording is *massively* edited, but that's a topic for another thread).
Once you have an unclipped recording if you can't produce a 16 bit CD without exceeding 0dBFS during the process (that is, once truncation from float to fixed must occur) you are an incompetent engineer.
As for your comments on decreased resolution for quieter sounds, all I can say is run a test and see if that is true. You don't ever get resolution below (unintegrated) noise. When you read people saying things like they can hear 30dB below noise, that's because the integrated noise figure is higher than the noise voltage at the signal frequency.
Math:
Let's say you have a signal of 3mV and noise of 1mV at that frequency. Can you hear the signal? Of course, it's louder than the noise:
20*log(3mV/1mV) = 9.5dB; the signal is at a level of 20*log(3mV/1V) = -50.5dBV
Let's further say that this is white noise so the noise voltage is the same 1mV across our 20kHz audio bandwidth. What is our specification for noise?
20*log(1mV*(20kHz^.5)/1V) = -17dBV
-17dB > -50.5dB, so we can hear "signal below noise", right? Not really, the noise level at the signal frequency is -60dBV.
Anyway, that works the same way with both media: CDs have an integrated noise floor of -90dB. That means the noise voltage at any given frequency is -133dB. Actually it can be somewhat better if we use a noise-shaped dither.
Here's a picture of this--note you don't *have* to use shaped noise, flat white noise works fine too, but the idea is the boosted noise >19kHz is extremely difficult to hear and it yields more dynamic range at frequencies where we are much more sensitive to noise (which is often measured via A-weighting).
If one medium has 60dB of unweighted dynamic range stated to some maximum THD (which you can exceed, sure, but you'd never want to do that for classical) and another medium has 90dB, then the medium with 90dB has 30dB more. Yeah, you can pump up the 60dB with preemphasis, compansion, etc., but you can use the exact same technique on the 90dB medium.
I'll try and post a little listening test for you tomorrow . . . I can't press vinyl, so it will be another tape (with NR) test--but since it's impossible for vinyl pressed from a tape to exceed the dynamic range of the tape (accounting for NR), it should be valid, adding another 10dB or so because reels are better than cassettes. Maybe I'll handicap the 16 bit source by 10dB to compensate.
Once you have an unclipped recording if you can't produce a 16 bit CD without exceeding 0dBFS during the process (that is, once truncation from float to fixed must occur) you are an incompetent engineer.
As for your comments on decreased resolution for quieter sounds, all I can say is run a test and see if that is true. You don't ever get resolution below (unintegrated) noise. When you read people saying things like they can hear 30dB below noise, that's because the integrated noise figure is higher than the noise voltage at the signal frequency.
Math:
Let's say you have a signal of 3mV and noise of 1mV at that frequency. Can you hear the signal? Of course, it's louder than the noise:
20*log(3mV/1mV) = 9.5dB; the signal is at a level of 20*log(3mV/1V) = -50.5dBV
Let's further say that this is white noise so the noise voltage is the same 1mV across our 20kHz audio bandwidth. What is our specification for noise?
20*log(1mV*(20kHz^.5)/1V) = -17dBV
-17dB > -50.5dB, so we can hear "signal below noise", right? Not really, the noise level at the signal frequency is -60dBV.
Anyway, that works the same way with both media: CDs have an integrated noise floor of -90dB. That means the noise voltage at any given frequency is -133dB. Actually it can be somewhat better if we use a noise-shaped dither.
Here's a picture of this--note you don't *have* to use shaped noise, flat white noise works fine too, but the idea is the boosted noise >19kHz is extremely difficult to hear and it yields more dynamic range at frequencies where we are much more sensitive to noise (which is often measured via A-weighting).
If one medium has 60dB of unweighted dynamic range stated to some maximum THD (which you can exceed, sure, but you'd never want to do that for classical) and another medium has 90dB, then the medium with 90dB has 30dB more. Yeah, you can pump up the 60dB with preemphasis, compansion, etc., but you can use the exact same technique on the 90dB medium.
I'll try and post a little listening test for you tomorrow . . . I can't press vinyl, so it will be another tape (with NR) test--but since it's impossible for vinyl pressed from a tape to exceed the dynamic range of the tape (accounting for NR), it should be valid, adding another 10dB or so because reels are better than cassettes. Maybe I'll handicap the 16 bit source by 10dB to compensate.
Tim Gillett
Banned
Analog recording does not do dynamic range better than even a CD. Analog recording needs Noise Reduction to improve its dynamic range. Digital recording doesnt need it because its dynamic range is already very good without NR.
True, analog tape goes into distortion more smoothly than a straight clip. But that's like saying the tape has better dynamic range than its own internal amp driving its record head. In a good machine, the record amps have much better dynamic range than the tape. The manufacturers could design them with even better dynamic range but it would be a waste of money. Go figure.
Solid state pre's and amps usually hard clip. It's not just digital that hard clips. But if you have enough dynamic range before hard clipping it's just not an issue. That's why the sound coming out of your pre or mixer is clean and undistorted. It's easy to avoid noise and clipping.
This is where people get confused. Analog is not analog.Turning a human voice into an electrical signal is easy. Analog amplification of that signal can easily be made, preserving good dynamic range. But analog recording of that signal can never match it in terms of dynamic range. The reason for that is another discussion in itself.
These are just engineering facts known long before a practical digital audio recorder was even made.
Some analog tape devotees here dont seem to properly understand analog tape and its limitations. Read the audio engineering books of the 50's and 60's when analog tape recording was all there was. It's spelt out there in black and white that the weak link in the signal chain was the recorder. What do you know that those top audio guys didnt?
Tim
True, analog tape goes into distortion more smoothly than a straight clip. But that's like saying the tape has better dynamic range than its own internal amp driving its record head. In a good machine, the record amps have much better dynamic range than the tape. The manufacturers could design them with even better dynamic range but it would be a waste of money. Go figure.
Solid state pre's and amps usually hard clip. It's not just digital that hard clips. But if you have enough dynamic range before hard clipping it's just not an issue. That's why the sound coming out of your pre or mixer is clean and undistorted. It's easy to avoid noise and clipping.
This is where people get confused. Analog is not analog.Turning a human voice into an electrical signal is easy. Analog amplification of that signal can easily be made, preserving good dynamic range. But analog recording of that signal can never match it in terms of dynamic range. The reason for that is another discussion in itself.
These are just engineering facts known long before a practical digital audio recorder was even made.
Some analog tape devotees here dont seem to properly understand analog tape and its limitations. Read the audio engineering books of the 50's and 60's when analog tape recording was all there was. It's spelt out there in black and white that the weak link in the signal chain was the recorder. What do you know that those top audio guys didnt?
Tim
Last edited:
lonewhitefly
Active member
Where the nuclear obliteration of all things digital isn't going nearly far enough !
You should ask yourself about that. The fact that you don't recognize some of the people that posted during this debate doesn't mean much. What it does tell me is that there are a number of people that from time to time pop into the analog forum but don't or rarely post there. I'm exactly the same in the studio building and mastering forums. I rarely post there, especially the building one ~ but I do find interesting topics in there and some views I may vehemently disagree with.
Safe havens ? Blimey. I thought the concept of forums necesitated a range of views.
It's ironic that not long ago a question was posed about where all the old posters to the analog forum have gone. There's not much action here. This thread has brought in alot more activity than has been seen in the anolog forum for the longest while.
But with no contribution from anyone that is firmly into digital recording.....and horror stories and digital flaws only.
I tend to look in all the forums and regularly there are analog users posting questions there and they regularly get helped. If they can't be, they get referred to here. Not only that, you get people looking for "analog warmth with digital machines" and things of that ilk. My point is that there is quite a bit of crossover.
But most pertinent is that it's incorrect to say that people were just wandering in to argue the virtues of digital. Those that went into detail about digital waves and numbers and the rest did so against the backdrop of statements about the medium that could not be verified. Emotion and preference was fused with what appeared to be fact and the resulting conclusion by necesity had to be, at the very least, questioned.
"Many" and "Most" does not equal "all". If out of 167 people 94 prefer analog, that's most of that number. Of course, the remaining 73 are the minority. If out of that 167, 64 do not use anything digital whatsoever, that's still many of them. But many does not necesarilly mean the majority.
As for the Beatle/Beach boy analogy, I can't for the life of me see what the problem is in going to a Beach boys forum and saying "actually, I always felt the Beatles were a better band". You're not saying that the Beach boys are crap {which would be suspect}.
It wasn't rude. The OP posed a question in the very first sentence of the thread, namely, He compared analog to digital right from the get~go and so any hope of no debate was already lost, especially with the next sentence That's as provocative a statement as it was possible to make. "We all know analog sounds better". There might be even analogists that could disagree with that. It is not a given. Although the OP statedit already was before they had even finished typing that statement. The door was opened to the weight of digital firepower by two key statements upon which this whole thread went on to revolve, and. The immediate problem is that the OP has backed themself into a corner from which there is no escape because they've made a bold, direct and intractable statement while also stating that they don't know if maths and science will bear them out.
What if maths and science doesn't bear out their position ? How can only the analog agreers be the ones to present the evidence ? The opening post cried out for balance. From the other side.
Cue thread trainwreck.
You should be a journalist, my friend!
Since these quote were kind of ... taken out of context, allow me to 're-contextualize' them:
Some people seem to have come into this thread/forum simply to 'ruffle our [regular readers/posters] feathers', so to speak. I found it to be rude. There is generally a certain level of respect for one another, as well as a certain level of respect for tape recording, that seems to have been largely absent from this thread.
Aside from that, some of the information being presented as fact just seems outright silly.
Analog/digital debates are plentiful elsewhere; I still stand by the opinion that they don't serve much of a purpose in this sub-forum. And it's essentially somewhat off-topic ... it's just watering down the relevancy of the forum. I'm not sure anything useful from this thread has been added to the database of knowledge here.
AtoDeficient
New member
. . . I got nothin'. . .
Victory Pete
Banned
I understand the limitations of Analog (And by Analog I mean Analog). It is Digitals A/D & D/A "Fabrication" of the waveform. especially high frequencies, that I think leads to its "Brittle and Harsh" rendition of the input signal.
VP
Tim Gillett
Banned
VP, did you come to the conclusion that digital sound was "harsh and brittle" especially in the highs from listening tests? If so, yours is very different from my listening experience and that of countless others, both amateur and professional.
Did you come to the conclusion based on looking at graphs of ADC sampling which are drawn as square waves? If so, that is not how those samples are played back. They may be represented on an editing program's display as square waves but they are are played back as sine waves. Is a sine wave "harsh and brittle "sounding?
Tim
Victory Pete
Banned
My "Brittle and Harsh Conclusion" comes from the 20 years I have been listening to Digital sources, whether it was from my experience with the Alesis ADAT, a Tascam DA-30 MKII ,a TASCAM CDRW900, Commercial CDs, or the Digital sources via Computer. I am going to do some tests recording various waveforms on my Digital Recorders and viewing the waveforms on one of my Tektronix 2246 ModA oscilloscopes.
VP
PS I am going to start the experiments this morning. I will have photos and results soon.
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