[Arny Krueger]

"Scott" wrote in message
...
On Sep 3, 7:56 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Andrew Haley" wrote in message

...

Audio Empire wrote:
But the dynamic range of an actual musical performance can exceed
even the the range of DSD or 24 or 32-bit PCM.
Bluff.

True. If there actually were musical performancese that exceeded the the
range of 16 bits, then we should be able to find them on DSD or 24 bit
PCM.

I wonder what the greatest dynamic range in the musical repertoire is.

I've found some recordings of Beethoven Symphonies on the Bis label that
pushed up into the middle 80s.

The greatest range I've personally experienced in an audience is a
performance of _Monochrome_ by Maki Ishii, which exceeds 60dB from the
quietest drumming at the start to the crescendo.

My CD-Rcorder coincident mic recordings at music festivals not
infrequencly
push up into that range. I've done some 24 bit test recordings with
computer audio interfaces that had 110 dB dynamic range, and found that
the
electronic noise floor of my setup was about 93 dB down. If I applied
phantom power to the mics, then room tone reduced that to about 70 dB.
However, allowing living breathing performers into the room pushed the
noise
floor up a little more and I was back around 65 dB. If we could just
address thase annoying habits of performers such as breathing, having
beating hearts or moving their bodies!

This can lead to
some practical problems with audibility in a concert hall because it
is hard to hear over people breathing and occasionally coughing.

Or just being alive, beating hearts included.

The problem with all of this is considering the room tone to be a
noise floor the same way you have noise floors in the equipment
itself. The noise floor in real life is 0 in that all the "noise" in
real life is actually signal not noise. I want to hear the sound of
the room. that isn't noise that is the sound that transports me as a
listener to that space. The true dynamic range of real life is about
120 dB depending on one's thresholds of pain.

Back in the real world, the primary sources of room tone in most
contemporary live recordings is HVAC noise and/or other forms of atmospheric
or structure-borne noise from the environment.

Every time I do a spectral analysis of room tone from one of my recordings I
see the LF spikes from the HVAC air movers and hiss from the turbulent air
in and around the ducts and vents.

Everybody who wants to suffer the economic slings and arrows of building a
120 dB dynamic range recording system in order to produce 60 dB dynamic
range recordings of HVAC and traffic noise can be my guest! As things
stand, I'm usually producing recordings of them with 30 or so dB dynamic
range, and seems to produce little concern on the part of the paying
customers. A nicely done fade in and out at the beginning and end of the
song, and all seems well.