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Here we go again!
http://krakow.msnbc.msn.com:80/archi...29/338888.aspx
"There's a good reason for this. In addition to what people remember as the bad things that LPs provide (scratches, clicks and pops) vinyl discs have lots of good things going for them. LPs contain close to 100-percent of the uncompressed music information as originally recorded. CDs contain only about half of that recorded information. And compressed music files are left with only a small percentage of the information that's on a CD." With all due respect to Gary Krakow, he seems to be flaunting his ignorance of the relevant technologies. I understand that Gary wrote for Stereophile once upon a time. I don't think that even John Atkinson would tolerate this kind of technical error, heavy vinylista advertising in Stereophile notwithstanding. Information theory (which Gary is obviously appealing to when he says "music information") states that information can be quantified, based on the product of bandwidth and dynamic range. For example, an analog or digital channel with 6 dB more dynamic range is capable of passing twice as much information. An analog or digital channel with twice the bandwidth is capable of passing twice as much information. Applying the most generous weighting factors will allow the claim that the LP format is capable of about 75 dB dynamic range. In the real world, disappointing dynamic ranges of even 45 dB are not unheard of when vinyl is in play. The CD format is capable of more like 95 dB dynamic range, even when judged by a stiffer standard - unweighted noise. The clear advantage goes to the CD format, and by a factor of 10 or more. BTW, my analysis ignores the fact that LPs are prone to many scratches, clicks, and pops while CDs are not. Krakow goes further than most vinylistas in the direction of truth by admitting that these exist. Scratches, clicks and pops do more than just distract you from the music, they detract from dynamic range. A good scratch or pop may be louder than the music, possibly leading to the mind-bending concept of negative dynamic range. Therefore, by the most pro-LP-biased of technical evaluations, the music information leader is as always the CD format, and by a factor of at least 10. This means that if the LP format had far more bandwidth than the CD format (which as a practical matter it does not) the LP format would need to have 10 times more bandwidth than the CD format to break even. It would be a different world if journalists who pretend to be technical experts by dispensing technical advice had useful amounts of basic audio engineering training. |