On 30 Jun 2005 03:16:37 GMT, "jeffc" wrote:

wrote in message
...
It made no sense that such a crude method of playback would be so much
more realistic.

Technically, digital is crude compared to vinyl, because vinyl is analog
which is pure. The analogy the approximation of an integral (area under a
curve) by using intervals, vs. actual calculus, which simply gets it right
from the start. I say "technically" because it is, or will be, possible to
get the approximation so good that you can't tell the difference.

This is a common, but completely wrong, argument. There is nothing
'pure' about vinyl, as it is a very *poor* analogue of the master tape
signal, whereas CD provides a very *good* analogue of that signal.
That the *intervening* stages in a CD-based system use digital
technology, does not affect the relative purity of the *analogue*
signals which come out of the DAC and the cartridge.

BTW, your analogy is also wrong, although a common misconception, as
digital is *not* the equivalent of an 'area under the curve by
histogram' approximation. The reconstruction filter ensures that the
output is a smooth curve, following the original bandwidth-limited
input signal *exactly*, not approximately.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering