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On Aug 12, 5:20 pm, George Graves wrote:
On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 14:07:49 -0700, Cheapskate wrote
(in article ):

In article , George Graves
wrote:


So? The aim of High-Fidelity is to make the music sound REAL in one's
listen
room. If it takes certain kinds of distortion to achieve that illusion,
then
I'm all for it.


If it takes certain distortions to make you happy, it's not
High-Fidelity by definition. Fidelity: 'the degree of exactness with
which something is copied or reproduced.'


You conveniently failed to quote where I said that even though perfect
reproduction is the GOAL, its an impossible one and that being the case, the
next best thing - all that we can currently aspire to - is make the music
sound as real as possible in our systems. And in the case of modern
technology, sounding "real" and "a perfect straight-wire" from microphone to
speaker aren't really the same thing.


It seems to me that in this hobby there are two basic "camps": One
camp is the "prefect straight-wire" crowd, i.e. what is important is
what goes in should be exactly what comes out. The other camp is the
"it should like music, no matter what" group. This crowd wants the
end result to sound as much like live acoustic music has a possibility
of sounding, regardless of any distortion that happens in the chain.

I'm firmly in the later group. I want recordings to sound like my
Baranik and my Conn and I want LJ's Martin to sound like a Martin and
Isaac Stern's Strad to sound like a Strad. I don't care what happens
in the system or software as long as it gets as close as possible to
that result. If it's distortion, why should I care?

But there's room for all of us IMO.

Jenn
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On Aug 13, 7:02 pm, Jenn wrote:
It seems to me that in this hobby there are two basic "camps": One
camp is the "prefect straight-wire" crowd, i.e. what is important is
what goes in should be exactly what comes out. The other camp is the
"it should like music, no matter what" group. This crowd wants the
end result to sound as much like live acoustic music has a possibility
of sounding, regardless of any distortion that happens in the chain.


Well, actually, there's another camp, represented by those,
of which we have an example here, who consider their
personal viewpoint to be so unassailable in a global sense,
that they are willing to trot out bogus pseudo-technical
"arguments" to support their personal viewpoint.

CLaims such as "dither does not happen during recording"
and "PCM is incapable of capturing ambience below the
quantization error" and "ditther is the random manipulation
of the bottom two or thee bits to keep them moving around
to mask the quantization distortion" and, my favorite, "give
me a successive approximation register and I'll build you
a DAC" are, unfortunately, a classic existence proof of this
camp. They use a poor understanding of basic principles
to attempt to prove the superiority of their viewpoint.

Myself, I could care less what George or Jenn or Arny
LIKE, because it's not important to anyone but themslevs.

But to propogate the kind of pseudo scientific claptrap
we see here is simply unproductive, confuses the
whole affair with irrelevant and incorrect ideas, and
only serves to erode the credibility of the person
wielding that clumsy club.

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On Aug 13, 6:49 pm, George Graves wrote:
As I said before, I'm not asking anyone to believe me.
Find these things out for yourself. Don't take my word
or anybody's word, for that matter.


Okay, sure thing, George.

You said:

"analog can capture ambience that's well
below the noise floor of the recording. PCM
cannot."

And I found out that you're wrong. Blesser, Vanderkooy
Lip****z and other found that out as well. Decades ago.

You also said:

"dithering is merely the random manipulation of the
two or three LSBs added in the CD mastering stage
(not during recording)"

And I also found out that you were wrong. Dither IS
applied during recording.

You further said:

"They have to actually introduce noise in an effort to
keep these bits moving to mask that error."

And yet again I found out you were wrong. Dithering
does not mask quantization error, it eliminates it.

So, George, 'nuf said?

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On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:55:25 -0700, Randy Yates wrote
(in article ):

George Graves writes:
[...]
The recordings that I have made have been
made several ways: Direct to CD from the microphone feed, [...]


You had to use an A/D converter, at a minimum. Which converter
did you use?


The one in the TASCAM SDRW-700P
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On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:00:15 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:15:52 -0700, Serge Auckland wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 18:12:25 -0700, Serge Auckland wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in
message ...
On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 08:59:43 -0700, Serge Auckland
wrote (in article ):


CD is NOT a perfect storage medium.


It isn't and it doesn't have to be.

If it were, it would
involve the listener more like real music involves the
listener,


The CD format involves most people more like real music than the LP format.


Easy to say, harder to prove. It's like saying that more people Like
Windows-based PCs than like Linux-based PCs because Windows is used of Linux
more than a hundred to one. The truth is that 99% of the computer users in
the world have NEVER even seen Linux. That's hardly making a choice.

Support for this is the fact that the general music-loving public has
abandoned the LP format in droves, to the point where the LP went from
almost 100% of the market for recorded music to less than 1%. Also note that
the barely 1% of the market that the LP has recently held was highly
dependent on the dance music market and a destructive process call
"scratching". IOW, it was irrelevant to music listening as we know it.
Scratching is disappearing because it has been replaced by digital
processing. The LP market segment has dropped significantly further in
recent days for this reason.


Again, you are making an assumption that people actually made a conscious
choice of CD over LP. They didn't. as I illustrated above, most CD buyers
never even consider vinyl. The go to CD for it's ubiquity, it's convenience,
and the fact that it's where the "new" music is. Also, if you think that DJ
dance music is what keeps vinyl afloat, you are seriously wrong. Like I
mentioned in another post. There are more fine turnatables, arms and
cartridges available today than there were in vinyl's "heyday". All that has
disappeared in the 22 years since CD was launched globally are the cheap,
mass market turntables. For instance, Thorens has more models on the market
today than ever before in history. Companies like VPI, ProJect, Clear Audio,
Music Hall, are flourishing. SME, who, in vinyl's heyday, made only
tone-arms now has 4 models of turntable in their line-up ranging in price for
eight to thirty THOUSAND dollars. New makers (Like Funk audio) are showing up
with new designs all the time. A substantial number of SOMEBODY is buying
these 'tables, arms and cartridges. This tells me that your conclusions are
at best based on outdates information and at worst are wishful thinking on
your part.

and to an awful lot of people, me included, it doesn't.


Less than 1% of the market for prerecorded music, and slipping no longer
constitutes "an awful lot of people".


See above. You are wrong here. The percentage might be low, but that
percentage represents an awful lot of people.

George, what you are saying above is that you (and of
course many others) prefer something that gives you the
emotional reaction you want, even though it is
demonstrably flawed technically.


Sure. That's what I am saying. Perfection ain't possible so I substitute the
illusion of perfection (or as close as that illusion will allow me to get).

Note that liking art as manifested in a flawed medium is a person's right,
and it is a right that is exercised very frequently.


A person who says that all charcoal drawings are more realistic and detailed
than high quality modern photographs would not be taken seriously.


No, they wouldn't.

OTOH, a person who finds a certain charcoal drawing of a person captures
their idea of the essence of that person in a way that is more meaningful to
them, is a completely understandable situation. Maybe a bit sentimental or
romantic, but we are now in the world of emotion and fond memories, and
everybody understands that this is not a technological judgement or a
scientific fact. Your posts have confused the worlds of emotion and
scientific fact.


I don't think so. Music is emotional and the science is in service to the
music.

16/44.1 has been
repeatedly shown to be an audibly "perfect" medium, in
that what goes in comes out, to limits which are very
much below audibility thresholds.


Agreed. If agree that the emotional efect of a recording is dependent on how
well it duplicates the actual origional sound, then we are forced to abandon
the LP format, except as an archival medium.

Even the
much-maligned MP3 can produce audibly transparent
results at high bit rates, say 320kbps, hence providing
4:1 data reduction with no reduction in perceived
quality.


So it seems. I find that most people won't notice that a CD was cut from a
192 Kb MP3 as opposed to a 44/16 or higher .wav file.

First of all, few of my LPs are made from digital masters
and frankly, those that were (like a couple of Telarcs
that I own) were mastered from early Soundstream
recordings, and frankly (except for the prodigious bass -
an early Telarc "trademark") they don't sound very good.


A minority opinion, even among LP lovers. In the days when the LP was all we
had, Telarc LPs were usually prized by the majority of music lovers who
heard them.


Sure. The bass drum whacks on the Frederick Fennell/Holst "Two Suites for
Military Band" album was unprecedented. We all bought it. But go back to that
LP (I still have mine) and compare it to Fennell's earlier recording of these
same works (on Mercury vinyl and still in print) and compare the
high-frequency content. The Telarc sounds fuzzy and the Mercury doesn't. I
heard digital copies of the masters at an AES convention at New York City's
Waldorff-Astoria at the time and noticed the dirty top-end then too. It was a
characteristic of all Telarcs with the Soundstream logo on them - one can
even hear it on CDs made from these early digital efforts. BTW, those bass
drum whacks on CD release of the Holst? They aren't nearly as impressive as
they are on the vinyl record.

Neither do CDs made from vinyl. They do NOT sound exactly
like the LP to me.


Avoidance of bias controls noted.

In short, the emperor has no clothes
and there are still a few of us that see (hear?) that.


The right word choice was in fact, see. The use of the word hear is properly
written here, as being highly questionable. Actually, there's no question at
all. The LP format is a far more audibly flawed medium than the CD.


It just sounds less like live music from acoustical instrumants played in a
real space than does LP.

It's been a long time since I thought about the digital
process, and yes, I misspoke about dithering because
frankly, I haven't read much about it and was relying on
memory from 20 years ago and I should have refreshed my
facts before relying on memory but laziness, you know...


No, what I see is a true statement of someone's state of mind which was
based on misapprehensions.

When I was learning about PCM, dithering, apparently,
wasn't being used much and I paid little attention to it.


I don't know when that could have been, as dithering is about as old if not
older thandigital encoding of analog signals itself.

Dithering was even explored in the early days of quality audio as a means to
manage sonic defects caused by crossover in class B tubed power amps, for
example. BTW, it works, but at a cost in dynamic range.


Perhaps, but It isn't talked about in any of the PCM texts that I was
familiar with. I never actually heard the term until about 1990.



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On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:02:59 -0700, Jenn wrote
(in article ):

On Aug 12, 5:20 pm, George Graves wrote:
On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 14:07:49 -0700, Cheapskate wrote
(in article ):

In article , George Graves
wrote:


So? The aim of High-Fidelity is to make the music sound REAL in one's
listen
room. If it takes certain kinds of distortion to achieve that illusion,
then
I'm all for it.


If it takes certain distortions to make you happy, it's not
High-Fidelity by definition. Fidelity: 'the degree of exactness with
which something is copied or reproduced.'


You conveniently failed to quote where I said that even though perfect
reproduction is the GOAL, its an impossible one and that being the case, the
next best thing - all that we can currently aspire to - is make the music
sound as real as possible in our systems. And in the case of modern
technology, sounding "real" and "a perfect straight-wire" from microphone to
speaker aren't really the same thing.


It seems to me that in this hobby there are two basic "camps": One
camp is the "prefect straight-wire" crowd, i.e. what is important is
what goes in should be exactly what comes out. The other camp is the
"it should like music, no matter what" group. This crowd wants the
end result to sound as much like live acoustic music has a possibility
of sounding, regardless of any distortion that happens in the chain.

I'm firmly in the later group. I want recordings to sound like my
Baranik and my Conn and I want LJ's Martin to sound like a Martin and
Isaac Stern's Strad to sound like a Strad. I don't care what happens
in the system or software as long as it gets as close as possible to
that result. If it's distortion, why should I care?

But there's room for all of us IMO.


I agree. I got into this "hobby" very early in life (built my first
integrated amplifier kit (Knight-kit 18 watt mono amp) when I was 11) because
I found myself in love with romantic era classical music and further I found
that part of it was the sound of a symphony orchestra. I simply went ga-ga
for it. Reproducing that sound became a life-long passion, one that is still
with me a half-century later. Not to name drop, but one of my closest friends
is J Gordon Holt, the founder of Stereophile Magazine. I remember something
he told me many years ago. "George, the music's the thing. Technology must be
in service to the music, not the other way 'round. When one puts the music
first, one cannot go too far wrong." In other words, the technical aspects of
the equipment are secondary to the illusion of real music playing in one's
living room. To me, Gordon's words still ring true. Arny Kruger and others
are plainly in the other camp and that's fine. Like you said, there's room
for all of us.
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On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:50:50 -0700, Randy Yates wrote
(in article ):

George Graves writes:
[...]
Theoretically you are correct. In practise, I'm not so sure. I've heard
3-bit
quantization of voice and it's terribly distorted. Maybe you can explain
why
a 16-bit system quantizing a low-level signal that only utilizes the 3
least
significant bits would be any less distorted.


Do you mean noisy? Noise and distortion are two different things.

Assuming you mean noisy, then of course 3 bits sounds noisy, just
like recording a signal at 70 dB below full-scale on your Otari
is going to sound noisy on playback as well. Representing a signal
at X dB below full-scale results in an X-dB decrease in SNR,
whether the representation is digital or analog.

Why is this relevent?

Study the topic for a few decades and then we can discuss it
intelligently. At this point, you should be asking questions and
learning rather than making incorrect assertions.


Like I said in another thread. I know all about Nyquist sampling theory,
Reed-Solomon error correction and interpolation, and I'm reasonably sure
that
I still remember how to design a workable D/A converter using a
differential
amplifier, a successive approximation register and a hand full of
resistors.
The fact that I only had a hazy recollection of how dither works (and
didn't
check my facts before I posted) is out of laziness and is my bad. I
apologize
for that.


You make my point for me. Successive-approximation is a technique used in
A/D converters, not D/A converters.


Yes, you are right. Most D/As use a R-2-R network or a summing network and a
constant voltage reference to extract a stair-step waveform. A/D uses a SAR.


I believe you may know a little about these topics, but I don't think
you have an engineering-level understanding. In case I'm wrong,
here are a few questions to test you:

0. What is the definition of a linear quantizer?


Turning a continuous waveform into a series of digital words that define the
amplitude of the sampled waveform at 1/sampling rate (Fs).

1. What is the maximum bandwidth of the ouptut of a linear quantizer
operating at Fs samples/second in the most general case?


1/2 Fs according to Nyquist.

2. Is there a relationship between sample rate and total quantization noise
power? If so, what is it?


I'm not sure that I understand the question. If you are talking about
aliasing noise, the input must be filtered of any information above 1/2 Fs to
prevent aliasing noise.

3. Can oversampling without noise-shaping be used to increase the
resolution of a linear quantizer?


No, I don't think so. As I recall, introducing band-limited white noise
across the passband and then sampling at a higher than Nyquist Fs can
increase signal-to-noise ratios to levels above that obtained at merely
sampling at the required rate at a given number of bits , IF the resultant
converter output is digitally filtered to the input signal's bandwidth.

4. What is the difference between oversampling and interpolation? Does
interpolation increase the resolution of a signal?


Oversampling is the practice of processing digital signals at Fs higher than
Nyquist. In audio, this is usually either 88.2KHz, 96KHz or in some cases,
192KHz. Interpolation is "guessing" about what what's missing in a digital
bit stream. It's usually applied to digital bitstreams when error correction
has failed.

5. Reed-Solomon error correction operates in an arithmetic system.
Name this arithmetic system and provide four of its properties.


Do you mean polynomial arithmetic? I'm sorry, I don't remember enough math
to answer the last part. I do know that R-S works by converting the data sent
into a polynomial number and the sum parts of the polynomial are unique for
each value. By applying the polynomial for each value, that value can usually
be reconstructed if it is partially or wholly compromised.

Jesus, I haven't thought about any of this stuff since I worked with DSP in
the early eighties!
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On Aug 13, 10:19 pm, George Graves wrote:
Dithering was even explored in the early days of
quality audio as a means to manage sonic defects
caused by crossover in class B tubed power amps, for
example. BTW, it works, but at a cost in dynamic range.


Perhaps, but It isn't talked about in any of the PCM texts that I was
familiar with. I never actually heard the term until about 1990.


Earlier you made, in essence, the claim that you were at least
familiar with the engineering principles behind the topic,
even going so far as claiming that your could make a D/A
converter out of a successive approximation register (a
rather extraordinary claim in and of itself).

And, once again, you deomstrate here, in fact, exactly how
LITTLE you know, and much of that is wrong.

Blesser described the principles behind, the necessity of
AND the practice of using dither for digital audio in his
1978 article which I have cited elsewhere. That's 12 years
before you actually heard ot it.

How about Schuchmann, "Dither Signals and Their Effect on
Quantization Noise?" He has you beat by about a quarter
of a century, having published that in a 1964 IEEE journal.

You seem to have made the assumption that what YOU
didn't know about, no one else knew about either. You
seem to assume that what you are ignorant of, the rest
of the world is as well. Unfortunately for your position,
the quantization noise and distortion was a solved problem
long before you became aware of it.

Yet you insist on using it as a strawman argument to bolster
your personal opinion.

If you don't like CD, you should have just said so and moved
on. Instead, you decided to reveal exactly how much you
DON'T know and, in the process, pretty much trashed
whatever credibility you might have originally enjoyed.
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On Aug 13, 4:00 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
The CD format involves most people more like real music than the LP format.
Support for this is the fact that the general music-loving public has
abandoned the LP format in droves, to the point where the LP went from
almost 100% of the market for recorded music to less than 1%.


This doesn't show the extent to which either format involes people
like real music at all, of course.

Also note that
the barely 1% of the market that the LP has recently held was highly
dependent on the dance music market and a destructive process call
"scratching". IOW, it was irrelevant to music listening as we know it.
Scratching is disappearing because it has been replaced by digital
processing. The LP market segment has dropped significantly further in
recent days for this reason.


IIRC, vinyl sales are increasing while the general trend is that
physical media sales continue to decline.

Jenn
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"George Graves" wrote in message

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:17:56 -0700, Randy Yates wrote
(in article ):

George Graves writes:
[...]
Since ALL CDs seem to exhibit this lack of imaging and
reduced sound-stage on
any player, I'd have to disagree.


Don't you find it a bit odd that 25 years of experience
in digital audio by mastering, electronic design, and
research engineers have not noticed this purported flaw?


Because many experienced listeners HAVE
noticed it.


More properly stated, they have thought that they noticed it. However, they
all fail to reliably detect the interposition of 44/16 digitization and
reconstruction in listening tests that make detection 100% contingent on
reliably hearing a difference, and nothing else.

Here's the bottom line. Recording and
distributing music performances is a BUSINESS.


My first thought is "so what"? We're talking science here. Science doesn't
care about business. It is what it is.

CD is lucrative


Because it can easily be excellent-sounding given good source material,
reliable and economical to produce and use.

and 99% of the market doesn't care about the
things we have been dicussing because most have never
even heard live, un-amplified music


That would be hyperbole. I record competitions of various musical groups.
They are participated in, and spectated by 100's of people. The music is
100% live and acoustical. I'd guess that at least 25 % of all the students
participate or otherwise attend these events.

Furthermore there is nothing necessarily irrelevant amplified music. In most
cases each instrument has its own amplifier, so there is no intermodulation.
The electronic amplfication is just an extension of the acoustic
amplification built into acoustical instruments.

or don't care about
the differences or the shortcomings of any particular
medium.


I don't read minds so well these days, so I can neither say nor agree with
claims that can only be determined by means of mind reading.

Remember, the business will go where the dollars
are. In the ten or so years before CD, the music industry
was perfectly content to change their business from vinyl
to analog cassette and you know bad those were!


I see analog cassette as a medium with a different mix of audible
deficiencies than LP's audible deficiencies. Neither is anywhere as
sonically transparent as the CD format. That is easy to determine in
listening tests.

The CD was a godsend. The little silver discs caught on big-time
with the public for a variety of mostly practical reasons


One of those practical reasons was reliable delivery of higher quality
sound, as measured by just about any means, and as heard by just about every
music lover.

most having little or nothing to do with ultimate sound
quality.


That seems very improbable. I know its an article of faith among a tiny
noisy minority of people, many of whom have already lost a lot of their
ability to hear due to age.

They were cheap to make and could be sold for a
premium.


Actually, CDs were more costly to make than LPs until several years after
introduction.

Of course the industry went for them. Who cared
that less than one percent of the buying public noticed
that the emperor had no clothes?


Thoughtful persons such as myself entertained such thoughts and assertions
as being a possibility until thoroughly proven to be false.

They aren't important to the business.


In fact the sound quality of LPs went through significant evoluationary
improvement throughout their commercial life. If the industy were as
insensitive to customer desires for sound quality as is being claimed here,
this would have never happened. But, it did. Therefore the model of the
music industry as being willing to compromise quality for profits is false.

It wouldn't surprise me to see the industry
announce, in the next few years, a total stop to the
production of CDs in favor of direct internet sales of
all music (MP3 at 128 or 192 KB/s, of course.


It might happen. If that happens, my claim that 44/16 is an overkill format
will be supported in a real and tangible way.

Low bit
rates equal smaller files)). It's cheaper for the music
companies because they don't have to manufacture or ship
anything. And again, 99% of all listeners won't notice or
care. Most of the world listens to pop music.


It turns out that a fantastic percentage of all audiophiles, even high end
audiophiles listen to pop music. Therefore the inclusion of pop music as a
detriment to a desire for sound quality is incorrect.

What would
they know or care about soundstage, distortion or
artifacts?


Contrary to popular belief, pop music is on occasion performed live, with a
lifelike soundstage and low distortion, and a total freedom of media-related
artifacts at the time of performance.

Only audiophiles care about those things and
there are fewer of us every year (as this forum aptly
proves).


I suspect that the american taste in media and reproduction has gone through
a lot of changes as one generation dies off and the next generation rises to
preminence. There are plenty of audiophiles, its just that many of them
listen to portable devices or watch video along with their music.

As to mastering engineers and design engineers, they have
to make a living. What they honestly believe and what
they do everyday to please their clients may not be the
same thing at all. I personally know a number of "famous"
recording engineers and mastering engineers and I find
most (but not all) agree with me on a personal level.
You'd be surprised at what one "household name" (in the
audio community, anyway) mastering specialist told me
about his opinions of CD. I can't tell you his name
because I don't have his permission. But his words were
harsh. He listens only to SACD at home, now.


A small exception does not prove anything.

Who would have us believe: you, or literally tens of
thousands of other people who are or have been
specialists in the field?


I'm not asking anyone to believe me about anything. I
have stated what I have found to be true, and if you
don't believe me, then you can stand over there with the
rest of the 99% :-


No, one need not believe the usual old wive's tales about digital audio to
be an audiophile.

It makes no difference to me. I don't even take exception
to nor hold a grudge against you because we don't see
eye-to-eye on this (or any issue).


Agreed. But George, it is too bad that you feel compelled to comfort
yourself by telling techno-myths.

These are extraordinary claims, and I don't think you
should expect anyone to believe them until you can
reliably distinuguish CD outputs from these other
sources via blind testing.


As I said before, I'm not asking anyone to believe me.


The fact that you go on and on about this stuff, and repeat the same
misapprehensions says that you would like to enlarge the circle of people
who still believe you.

Find these things out for yourself. Don't take my word or
anybody's word, for that matter.


Now I agree with that. Thing is, any scientific investigation is going to
disprove the usual techno-myths about digital audio.



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"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message

Arny Krueger wrote:
"George Graves" wrote in message


Then where does that ambience go?


If it is part of a recording, then it goes onto the CD
and also comes off of it. The CD format is far more
capable of recording and reproducing low level ambience
than typical listening rooms, recording studios and
concert halls. This is because the dynamic range of all
those places is far less than that of the CD format.


Maybe George is referring to the crosstalk and
phase-related 'ambience' that's one of the euphonic
colorations of vinyl playback?


Don't forget the FM distortion, AM distortion, and amplitude modulation due
to the inevitable record warps.

There's something self-contradictory about preferring to hear music with
clearly audible noise and distortion added.

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Arny Krueger wrote:
"George Graves" wrote in message

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:15:52 -0700, Serge Auckland wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 18:12:25 -0700, Serge Auckland wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in
message ...
On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 08:59:43 -0700, Serge Auckland
wrote (in article ):


CD is NOT a perfect storage medium.


It isn't and it doesn't have to be.


Neither, of cousrre, is the LP, nor does it have to be.
It only has to be 'good enough' to please enough users to remain
a viable product.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason
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"George Graves" wrote in message
...

Since ALL CDs seem to exhibit this lack of imaging and reduced sound-stage
on
any player, I'd have to disagree. The recordings that I have made have
been
made several ways: Direct to CD from the microphone feed, direct to DAT
and
then to CD and to analog tape and then to CD and recently, direct to Hi-MD
Mini-Disc (16-bit/44.1 linear PCM to 1 Gigabyte Hi-MD Discs and then to
CD.
All with the same results. Not as good imaging as my half-track 15ips
Otari
MX5050 produces from the same equipment. Commercial CDs exhibit the exact,
same phenomenon. Recordings that should image well, do not. carefully
recorded with only two mikes on the orchestra from Telarcs, Sony's EMI
etc.
all exhibit vague imaging.


If I had seen only the above, what comes to my mind is that "everyone is out
of step but Johnny". Perhaps CD gets it right and all the others wrong;
namely that's the way the imaging should be. Since you have made all those
recordings and are evidently very familiar with the real thing, it doesn't
seem possible to come to such a conclusion, nevertheless it's still very
tempting to do so. It also sticks in my mind that imaging is enhanced by the
_visual_ presentation when experiencing the real thing.
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George Graves wrote:
On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:17:10 -0700, Cheapskate wrote
(in article ):


In article , George Graves
wrote:

Fair enough, but Hi-Fi isn't really about "perfect reproduction", that's an
impossible goal (a laudable goal and a point of reference, but an
impossible
goal). It's about the next best thing which seems to me to be bringing the
emotional impact of the actual musical performance home by recreating the
live sound field as closely as possible.


If that can be accomplished by being
technically perfect, then I'm all for technical perfection. Many here might
be able to show that 16/44.1 PCM is theoretically technically perfect, but
the fact that it doesn't bring home (to more than a few people) either the
intellectual or the emotional connection with the music that music lovers
say
they want from their stereo systems, tells me that there is still something
about it (CD) that's not quite right.


Have you even the vaguest inkling of how many people in the world there
are who enjoy an intellectual emotional connection with the music they
play on their CD or other digital format based systems? You arrogantly
claim this number is no more than a few. You claim your assertion to
be 'fact.'


You misunderstand me. And upon rereading what I wrote, I see why. When I said
"PCM is theoretically technically perfect, but the fact that it doesn't bring
home (to more than a few people) either the intellectual or the emotional
connection with the music..." what I was saying is that "more than a few
people" find CD unsatisfying in this regard.


"More than a few" stills seems to be a vast minority.

I daresay 'more than a few' have heard high quality LP playback, and still
find CD very satisfying. More than a few have said as much on the various audiophile
discussion forums I've been frequenting for years.

In the end: so what? If the two media sound inherently different, then it is purely a
*preference* we're arguing. (I have even seen some clearly deranged souls state that they've
heard good sounding CDs *and* good-sounding LPs, suggesting that both media can offer
'euphony'. Inconceivable!)

IME, the downfall of the LPphile is *always* when they try to justify their preference for
vinyl sound -- and even moreso, their dislike of CD sound -- in technical terms. As you have
done.

Here you just answered your own question. Turntables and vinyl not only still
exist, the market flourishes. I can buy many more fine turntables, arms and
cartridges at any price point from several hundred dollars to $25,000 or more
than I could during vinyl's "heyday". The only thing that has disappeared
after 23 years of CD is the cheap, mass market turntable because the masses
find CD better suited to their needs.


Actually you can buy TTs for as little as $135 at Best Buy. Some even have USB out for
transferring LP to digital.

I can't keep repeating the same answer over and over again. The average music
buyer DOESN'T CARE about sound.


And the "non average' music buyer -- the 'audiophile' -- can still prefere CD to LP.
And 'more than a few do'. So?

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason
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Arny Krueger wrote:
"George Graves" wrote in message


On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 14:10:35 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):


I agree, but nobody here is blindly assuming any such
thing. The relevant facts are easy to collect, and this
has been done many times. The results are consistently
obtained. 44/16 digital is indistinguishable from the
proverbial straight wire when reproducing music or
speech in any kind of reasonable listening test that
addresses listener bias.


The kind of test you describe is (almost) impossible and
certainly impractical.


That's news to me.


First of all, nobody can listen to
an LP and not know its an LP whether they've been told or
not or whether they can see the apparatus or not. Clicks
and pops, vinyl rush on the lead-in grooves, etc. will
give the game away every time (of course, you could fake
those sounds somehow and mix them in with the CD, but who
has facilities to do that?).


You've missed the point. The key part of a test like this is the fact that
any real-world audio signal regardless of source can be digitized and
converted back to analog in real time with negligable delays. You then
compare the source to the version of it that has been digitized and
converted back to analog. Nobody can reliably hear a difference.


And oddly enough, George claims to have done blind comparison of CD to LP,
in this very thread, after I asked him if he'd ever compared an LP to a
digital copy of an LP.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason


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ScottW wrote:
wrote in message ...
On Aug 13, 7:02 pm, Jenn wrote:
It seems to me that in this hobby there are two basic "camps": One
camp is the "prefect straight-wire" crowd, i.e. what is important is
what goes in should be exactly what comes out. The other camp is the
"it should like music, no matter what" group. This crowd wants the
end result to sound as much like live acoustic music has a possibility
of sounding, regardless of any distortion that happens in the chain.


Well, actually, there's another camp, represented by those,
of which we have an example here, who consider their
personal viewpoint to be so unassailable in a global sense,
that they are willing to trot out bogus pseudo-technical
"arguments" to support their personal viewpoint.

CLaims such as "dither does not happen during recording"
and "PCM is incapable of capturing ambience below the
quantization error" and "ditther is the random manipulation
of the bottom two or thee bits to keep them moving around
to mask the quantization distortion" and, my favorite, "give
me a successive approximation register and I'll build you
a DAC" are, unfortunately, a classic existence proof of this
camp. They use a poor understanding of basic principles
to attempt to prove the superiority of their viewpoint.

Myself, I could care less what George or Jenn or Arny
LIKE, because it's not important to anyone but themslevs.


I agree that a lot of people stumble trying to justify their
subjective preferences in a technical sense.
But it is clear that a system for quantifying perceived
sound quality does not yet exist.


True, but it's not like we know *nothing* about that, either.
Far from it. Aside from the Gedlee stuff, there's also Floyd Toole's
and colleagues' years of work on loudspeaker and room sound
at the NRC and at Harman. Toole published a summary of sorts
in JAES last year, it's fascinating reading:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=13686

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason
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On Aug 14, 4:06 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

That would be hyperbole. I record competitions of various musical groups.
They are participated in, and spectated by 100's of people. The music is
100% live and acoustical. I'd guess that at least 25 % of all the students
participate or otherwise attend these events.


About 21% in 1988, about 14% last year FYI.

Jenn
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"George Graves" wrote in message

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:17:10 -0700, Cheapskate wrote
(in article ):

In article , George Graves
wrote:


Many here might be able to show that

the fact that it doesn't bring home (to more than a few
people) either the intellectual or the emotional
connection with the music that music lovers say
they want from their stereo systems, tells me that
there is still something about it (CD) that's not quite
right.


Have you even the vaguest inkling of how many people in
the world there are who enjoy an intellectual emotional
connection with the music they play on their CD or other
digital format based systems? You arrogantly claim this
number is no more than a few. You claim your assertion
to be 'fact.'


The more probable interpretation of the available facts is that although it
is relatively easy to show that the 44/16 format is sonically transparent,
there are a few people who for other reason or unreason, choose to prefer
music processed by a legacy EFX system called the LP format.

Where are those music lovers absolutely bereft of any
connection to the music they listen to, pining for an
emotional response to the music which they are just not
experiencing? Their number must, logically, be legion.


In fact they are a tiny but noisy minority. We've been subjected to years of
hype about the LP format coming back due to increasing sales, but that has
come to an end. All along we suspected that the increasing sales were due to
the LP's then-unique ability to be "scratched" by dance club DJs. Now that
electronic scratching products are available, the LP sales are falling away
pretty quickly.

Show them to us, point them out, enlighten us.


Turntables and vinyl still exist. Why do we not see a
vast sea of dissatisfied humanity jostling for admission
to the few places where such arcana can still be
purchased?


Actually, buying vinyl and vinyl playback hardware is pretty easy.

Here you just answered your own question. Turntables and
vinyl not only still exist, the market flourishes. I can
buy many more fine turntables, arms and cartridges at any
price point from several hundred dollars to $25,000 or
more than I could during vinyl's "heyday".


High prices are symptomatic of low production numbers and people who acquire
expensive arcane equipment as status symbols.

The only thing
that has disappeared after 23 years of CD is the cheap,
mass market turntable because the masses find CD better
suited to their needs.


Cheap turntables most definately did not disappear. They are what you find
in dance clubs, for example. At one time more cheap turntables were sold in
music stores to DJs, than electric guitars.

When the CD was first introduced, CD players and CDs
were very much in the minority relative to LPs and
turntables. Why didn't everyone who bought a CD player
and some CDs abandon the format in disgust upon
listening, and apologetically sidle across their living
room floor to their beloved turntable and LP collection
and lovingly stroke them begging for forgiveness?


Good question. In fact the CD flourished right from the start, even though
the availability of titles was miniscule and player and media prices were
high.

Because they didn't care? Or found the practicality of
the CD more than compensatory for any sonic drawbacks
(that most wouldn't notice anyway) that CD might bring to
the table?


Here we see a rendition of those who for some reason prefer retro technolgy
despite its well known sonic difficulties, being portrayed as heros. Note
that the one doing the portraying is one of those who prefers the LP. It
looks like someone is patting themselves on the back, no?

Why did they instead, swiftly place an ad in the
buy-and-sell for their turntable et. al., hoping some
sucker - I mean appreciative connoisseur - would take it
off their hands for a good price before the market was
flooded with people trying to do likewise?


I can't keep repeating the same answer over and over
again. The average music buyer DOESN'T CARE about sound.


Repeating something that is improbable and unbelievable not to mention
self-congratulatory, does not make it true. The average music buyer does
care about sound. The era of LP supremacy was rife with complaints about
poor sound quality and poor quality control. Returns were such a problem for
music stores that they had to formulate new policies. LP playback equipment
was delicate, and required touchy adjustments and replacment of expensive
diamond styli. The media itself could easily degrade if not stored and
played carefully. Magazines that catered to audiophiles and music lovers had
page after page of advertisements for record cleaning devices, any number of
which I personally invested in and used religiously.

But they do care when their favorite record gets
scratched or so noisy that they can't listen to it any
more. The practical side of CD; it's convenient size, the
fact that it doesn't deteriorate with every play, the
fact that with minimal care they won't get scratched or
noisy are far more important to the average consumer than
are any shortcomings of the CD that someone like me might
find annoying.


Interesting that the alleged sonic shortcomings of the CD are impossible to
find in bias-controlled, level-matched, time-synched listening tests.

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"Jenn" wrote in message


It seems to me that in this hobby there are two basic
"camps": One camp is the "prefect straight-wire" crowd,
i.e. what is important is what goes in should be exactly
what comes out. The other camp is the "it should like
music, no matter what" group. This crowd wants the end
result to sound as much like live acoustic music has a
possibility of sounding, regardless of any distortion
that happens in the chain.


The first group believes that purity is of the essence. That is, realism is
faciliated by minimizing added noise and distortion.

The second group seems to believe that something is more impure can somehow
more closely resemble the original than something that is more pure.

If audio were strawberry preserves the first group would probably make
freezer jam, and avoid most cooking and other additives that degrade the
flavor of fresh, ripe strawberries. The second group would be willing to
overlook the use of various synthetic additives and artificial flavorings,
if the results tickle their palates.

As a live recordist, my position is similar to that of a person who has
their own strawberry patch, as well as their own kitchen. Most musicians
lack both. I've found that the first approach is more effective.

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"Jenn" wrote in message

On Aug 14, 4:06 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

That would be hyperbole. I record competitions of
various musical groups. They are participated in, and
spectated by 100's of people. The music is 100% live and
acoustical. I'd guess that at least 25 % of all the
students participate or otherwise attend these events.


About 21% in 1988, about 14% last year FYI.


Compare this to George's 1% or so.



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"Jenn" wrote in message

On Aug 13, 4:00 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
The CD format involves most people more like real music
than the LP format. Support for this is the fact that
the general music-loving public has abandoned the LP
format in droves, to the point where the LP went from
almost 100% of the market for recorded music to less
than 1%.


This doesn't show the extent to which either format
involves people like real music at all, of course.


Only if one can swallow the improbable idea that most people don't care
whether recordings sound realistic to them or not.

Also note that
the barely 1% of the market that the LP has recently
held was highly dependent on the dance music market and
a destructive process call "scratching". IOW, it was
irrelevant to music listening as we know it. Scratching
is disappearing because it has been replaced by digital
processing. The LP market segment has dropped
significantly further in recent days for this reason.


IIRC, vinyl sales are increasing while the general trend
is that physical media sales continue to decline.


Your information is out of date.

The RIAA says that LP sales dropped by about 30% in 2006.

That's is a far bigger drop than CD sales experienced.

Here's the latest stats from the horse's mouth:

http://76.74.24.142/6BC7251F-5E09-53...8C37FB6AE8.pdf

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On Aug 14, 7:03 pm, Jenn wrote:

IIRC, vinyl sales are increasing while the general trend is that
physical media sales continue to decline.


RIAA data indicates that vinyl's market share has stagnated, even as
the bottom has dropped out of CDs. Which means that vinyl sales are
falling too, and about as fast.

bob
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"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Jenn" wrote in message

On Aug 13, 4:00 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
The CD format involves most people more like real music
than the LP format. Support for this is the fact that
the general music-loving public has abandoned the LP
format in droves, to the point where the LP went from
almost 100% of the market for recorded music to less
than 1%.


This doesn't show the extent to which either format
involves people like real music at all, of course.


Only if one can swallow the improbable idea that most people don't care
whether recordings sound realistic to them or not.

Also note that
the barely 1% of the market that the LP has recently
held was highly dependent on the dance music market and
a destructive process call "scratching". IOW, it was
irrelevant to music listening as we know it. Scratching
is disappearing because it has been replaced by digital
processing. The LP market segment has dropped
significantly further in recent days for this reason.


IIRC, vinyl sales are increasing while the general trend
is that physical media sales continue to decline.


Your information is out of date.

The RIAA says that LP sales dropped by about 30% in 2006.


I think you misread as that appears to be music video.

LP sales are lumped in with cassettes, DVD-A, and SACD
so your reference does not clearly show your claim.

This article disagrees over a longer period.

https://tv.ku.edu/news/2006/02/27/vi...cord-industry/

So does this re 2005 to 2006.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/...nyl-usat_x.htm

This NPR clip also disagrees...sales driven by vinyl to MP3 recorder!
Now that is a twist.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=9598796

ScottW
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On Aug 14, 7:52 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



It seems to me that in this hobby there are two basic
"camps": One camp is the "prefect straight-wire" crowd,
i.e. what is important is what goes in should be exactly
what comes out. The other camp is the "it should like
music, no matter what" group. This crowd wants the end
result to sound as much like live acoustic music has a
possibility of sounding, regardless of any distortion
that happens in the chain.


The first group believes that purity is of the essence. That is, realism is
faciliated by minimizing added noise and distortion.

The second group seems to believe that something is more impure can somehow
more closely resemble the original than something that is more pure.

If audio were strawberry preserves the first group would probably make
freezer jam, and avoid most cooking and other additives that degrade the
flavor of fresh, ripe strawberries. The second group would be willing to
overlook the use of various synthetic additives and artificial flavorings,
if the results tickle their palates.


What is the purpose of the preserves? Answer: to "tickle the
palate".


As a live recordist, my position is similar to that of a person who has
their own strawberry patch, as well as their own kitchen. Most musicians
lack both.


How so?

Jenn

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On Aug 14, 7:53 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Aug 14, 4:06 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:


That would be hyperbole. I record competitions of
various musical groups. They are participated in, and
spectated by 100's of people. The music is 100% live and
acoustical. I'd guess that at least 25 % of all the
students participate or otherwise attend these events.


About 21% in 1988, about 14% last year FYI.


Compare this to George's 1% or so.


He didn't say 1% hadn't heard this music, he said "most".

Jenn



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On Aug 14, 7:56 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Aug 13, 4:00 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
The CD format involves most people more like real music
than the LP format. Support for this is the fact that
the general music-loving public has abandoned the LP
format in droves, to the point where the LP went from
almost 100% of the market for recorded music to less
than 1%.


This doesn't show the extent to which either format
involves people like real music at all, of course.


Only if one can swallow the improbable idea that most people don't care
whether recordings sound realistic to them or not.


Not at all. First, there are several reasons why CD surplanted the LP
besides the "sounds like real music" factor that you sited, such as
convenience, portability, the fact that the vast majority of people
never took care of their LPs as the typical audiophile does,
marketing, etc. Second, I don't believe that most people would list
"sounds realistic" as their top priority. Perform a little
experiment: as 20 or so random people (NOT audiophiles or sound
people) what their top couple of priorities in home audio are, and
I'll bet you they list things like "good bass" and "plays loud" before
they ever get to "sounds realistic". I do this with my classes every
now and then, and almost no one lists "sounds realistic".


Also note that
the barely 1% of the market that the LP has recently
held was highly dependent on the dance music market and
a destructive process call "scratching". IOW, it was
irrelevant to music listening as we know it. Scratching
is disappearing because it has been replaced by digital
processing. The LP market segment has dropped
significantly further in recent days for this reason.


IIRC, vinyl sales are increasing while the general trend
is that physical media sales continue to decline.


Your information is out of date.

The RIAA says that LP sales dropped by about 30% in 2006.

That's is a far bigger drop than CD sales experienced.

Here's the latest stats from the horse's mouth:

http://76.74.24.142/6BC7251F-5E09-53...8C37FB6AE8.pdf


2006 is the last available RIAA data. Other data from other sources
from 2007 show different trends. I saw some data from the music
retailers associations such as ERA, NRMCA, etc that supports my
statement. I'll dig it out later today and post it. There are also
casual accounts of vinyl regaining some market share, such as

http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/pop...fier=&mtype=WM

Jenn

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On Aug 15, 6:38 pm, "ScottW" wrote:
This article disagrees over a longer period.

https://tv.ku.edu/news/2006/02/27/vi...spite-lagging-...


From the article:

"According to the Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl
sales have doubled in percentage of music sales since 2000 to become a
$110-million-dollar industry. Since that same year, overall music
sales dropped to $12.2 billion from $14.4 billion, a plunge that the
vinyl industry escaped without a scratch."

This is simply wrong, as the RIAA's own numbers show. Market share was
0.5% in 2000, and 0.7% in 2005. So, even cherry-picking two years that
appear* to give you a clear increase, it doesn't come close to
doubling. And the growth in sales--if there was any*--was even
smaller, given that the overall music market was shrinking at the
time.

*I said "if there was any" because the difference between those two
market share numbers is statistically insignificant. Vinyl's market
share in the RIAA Consumer Survey has fluctuated between 0.5% and 0.7%
for more than a decade (with the exception of a single, obvious
outlier). It's not rising; it's stagnant.


So does this re 2005 to 2006.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/...nyl-usat_x.htm


LOL! The same article notes that vinyl sales--using the very same
metric--were down over 40% since 2000.

This NPR clip also disagrees...sales driven by vinyl to MP3 recorder!
Now that is a twist.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=9598796


It would be if it had any evidence to support it. But this report
doesn't even cite a source for its claim that vinyl sales are rising.
The one industry spokesman he talks to admits to having no idea how
many vinyl albums are sold, because his organization doesn't track it.

So far in this thread we've heard technical claims about the
inferiority of digital that were wrong, and economic claims about the
sale of LPs that were wrong. Anybody for "Vinyl Cures Cancer!"?

bob
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Jenn a écrit :
On Aug 14, 7:56 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Aug 13, 4:00 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
The CD format involves most people more like real music
than the LP format. Support for this is the fact that
the general music-loving public has abandoned the LP
format in droves, to the point where the LP went from
almost 100% of the market for recorded music to less
than 1%.


This doesn't show the extent to which either format
involves people like real music at all, of course.

Only if one can swallow the improbable idea that most people don't care
whether recordings sound realistic to them or not.


Not at all. First, there are several reasons why CD surplanted the LP
besides the "sounds like real music" factor that you sited, such as
convenience, portability, the fact that the vast majority of people
never took care of their LPs as the typical audiophile does,
marketing, etc. Second, I don't believe that most people would list
"sounds realistic" as their top priority. Perform a little
experiment: as 20 or so random people (NOT audiophiles or sound
people) what their top couple of priorities in home audio are, and
I'll bet you they list things like "good bass" and "plays loud" before
they ever get to "sounds realistic". I do this with my classes every
now and then, and almost no one lists "sounds realistic".

Also note that
the barely 1% of the market that the LP has recently
held was highly dependent on the dance music market and
a destructive process call "scratching". IOW, it was
irrelevant to music listening as we know it. Scratching
is disappearing because it has been replaced by digital
processing. The LP market segment has dropped
significantly further in recent days for this reason.


IIRC, vinyl sales are increasing while the general trend
is that physical media sales continue to decline.

Your information is out of date.

The RIAA says that LP sales dropped by about 30% in 2006.

That's is a far bigger drop than CD sales experienced.

Here's the latest stats from the horse's mouth:

http://76.74.24.142/6BC7251F-5E09-53...8C37FB6AE8.pdf


2006 is the last available RIAA data. Other data from other sources
from 2007 show different trends. I saw some data from the music
retailers associations such as ERA, NRMCA, etc that supports my
statement. I'll dig it out later today and post it. There are also
casual accounts of vinyl regaining some market share, such as

http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/pop...fier=&mtype=WM

Jenn

I would like to know how come that according to some Lp sales are
dropping while in Montreal,Qc in the last year 5 new store opened that
sell what... LP several of them are import. About 70% of what they carry
is LP and the rest is SACD. How come more and more turntable are
appearing in the Montreal area Hi-Fi dealers --Kebecson, AudioShop,
AudioClub, Filtronique-- (I am not talking of Best Buy or Future shop
but real HI-FI dealers). Visit any of those dealers and they will tell
you that when it come to music you have Live music, music on Vinyl and
little behind SACD. For them CD is not musical enought.

Jocelyn Major
Proud son of Leo Major DCM & Bar
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Randy Yates Randy Yates is offline
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Hello George,

I have created a pdf of the "solutions" to these questions and placed them
on-line:

http://www.digitalsignallabs.com/qtest.pdf

I "graded" your responses assuming each question was worth 10 points. See
the comments below.

George Graves writes:

0. What is the definition of a linear quantizer?


Turning a continuous waveform into a series of digital words that define the
amplitude of the sampled waveform at 1/sampling rate (Fs).


5/10

This is not too precise as you say nothing about what distinguishes a
linear quantizer from other quantizers. Note also that the sampling rate
has nothing to do with it.

1. What is the maximum bandwidth of the ouptut of a linear quantizer
operating at Fs samples/second in the most general case?


1/2 Fs according to Nyquist.


0/10.

This was a sort of trick question. I had hoped that the phrase
"general case" would tip you off that this isn't a normal question.

2. Is there a relationship between sample rate and total quantization noise
power? If so, what is it?


I'm not sure that I understand the question. If you are talking about
aliasing noise, the input must be filtered of any information above 1/2 Fs to
prevent aliasing noise.


0/10.

This is a very important concept when working with digital signals and belies
a very weak understanding of such signals. Quantization noise and aliasing
are two completely different things.

3. Can oversampling without noise-shaping be used to increase the
resolution of a linear quantizer?


No, I don't think so. As I recall, introducing band-limited white noise
across the passband and then sampling at a higher than Nyquist Fs can
increase signal-to-noise ratios to levels above that obtained at merely
sampling at the required rate at a given number of bits , IF the resultant
converter output is digitally filtered to the input signal's bandwidth.


9/10.

Wow. Well, first you say no, but then you say yes. 1 point off for
contradicting yourself.

4. What is the difference between oversampling and interpolation? Does
interpolation increase the resolution of a signal?


Oversampling is the practice of processing digital signals at Fs higher than
Nyquist. In audio, this is usually either 88.2KHz, 96KHz or in some cases,
192KHz. Interpolation is "guessing" about what what's missing in a digital
bit stream. It's usually applied to digital bitstreams when error correction
has failed.


6/10.

You got oversampling, and interpolation does have the meaning that you
describe in some contexts. However, this isn't one of them. It should
have been clear that I meant the kind of interplation that increases
the sample rate. Also note that in this case the missing samples aren't
"guessed" at all - they are completely, unambiguously determined.

5. Reed-Solomon error correction operates in an arithmetic system.
Name this arithmetic system and provide four of its properties.


Do you mean polynomial arithmetic? I'm sorry, I don't remember enough math
to answer the last part. I do know that R-S works by converting the data sent
into a polynomial number and the sum parts of the polynomial are unique for
each value. By applying the polynomial for each value, that value can usually
be reconstructed if it is partially or wholly compromised.


2/10.

The fact you remembered it's polynomial arithmetic is worth a couple of points.

Total: 22/60.

--------------

It appears to me that you think you know more about these subjects
than you actually do. It is certainly NOT the case in my opinion that
"you know all about them."

I will say the same thing that several other folks have already stated:
If you want to claim that you simply like LPs better than CDs, I wouldn't
have any problem whatsoever with that.

However, your attempts to justify your preferences with scientific
arguments are, quite simply, wrong, and are based on some fairly
serious misunderstandings and lack of knowledge on your part.

Hey, I'm an aging engineer myself (turning 50 this year), but I try
very hard to keep up my knowledge. So if you want to bone up on these
topics, and then think you have some scientific bases for your
preferences, I'd love to talk more.
--
% Randy Yates % "...the answer lies within your soul
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC % 'cause no one knows which side
%%% 919-577-9882 % the coin will fall."
%%%% % 'Big Wheels', *Out of the Blue*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr
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Steven Sullivan Steven Sullivan is offline
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Jocelyn Major wrote:

I would like to know how come that according to some Lp sales are
dropping while in Montreal,Qc in the last year 5 new store opened that
sell what... LP several of them are import. About 70% of what they carry
is LP and the rest is SACD. How come more and more turntable are
appearing in the Montreal area Hi-Fi dealers --Kebecson, AudioShop,
AudioClub, Filtronique-- (I am not talking of Best Buy or Future shop
but real HI-FI dealers). Visit any of those dealers and they will tell
you that when it come to music you have Live music, music on Vinyl and
little behind SACD. For them CD is not musical enought.


Nor are its profit margins wide enough.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason


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"Jenn" wrote in message
...
On Aug 14, 7:53 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Aug 14, 4:06 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:


That would be hyperbole. I record competitions of
various musical groups. They are participated in, and
spectated by 100's of people. The music is 100% live and
acoustical. I'd guess that at least 25 % of all the
students participate or otherwise attend these events.


About 21% in 1988, about 14% last year FYI.


Compare this to George's 1% or so.


He didn't say 1% hadn't heard this music, he said "most".


Actually he said:

"...99% of the market doesn't care about the things we have been
discussing because most have never even heard live, un-amplified music or
don't care about the differences or the shortcomings of any particular
medium."

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"Jocelyn Major" wrote in message
...

I would like to know how come that according to some Lp sales are dropping


They are, on the large scale.

while in Montreal,Qc in the last year 5 new store opened that sell what...
LP several of them are import.


An exception does not prove a well-documented rule. Besides, it doesn't
cost a lot to open a shop - let's see how many of them are around in a few
years.

About 70% of what they carry is LP and the rest is SACD. How come more
and more turntable are appearing in the Montreal area Hi-Fi
dealers --Kebecson, AudioShop, AudioClub, Filtronique-- (I am not talking
of Best Buy or Future shop but real HI-FI dealers).


It looks like a number of new turntable products are coming on the market,
trying to appeal to people who want to digitize their collections.

Visit any of those dealers and they will tell you that when it come to
music you have Live music, music on Vinyl and little behind SACD. For them
CD is not musical enough.


I've long ago learned not believe everything that a saleman would tell me.

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"Jenn" wrote in message
...
On Aug 14, 7:52 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



It seems to me that in this hobby there are two basic
"camps": One camp is the "prefect straight-wire" crowd,
i.e. what is important is what goes in should be exactly
what comes out. The other camp is the "it should like
music, no matter what" group. This crowd wants the end
result to sound as much like live acoustic music has a
possibility of sounding, regardless of any distortion
that happens in the chain.


The first group believes that purity is of the essence. That is, realism
is
faciliated by minimizing added noise and distortion.

The second group seems to believe that something is more impure can
somehow
more closely resemble the original than something that is more pure.

If audio were strawberry preserves the first group would probably make
freezer jam, and avoid most cooking and other additives that degrade the
flavor of fresh, ripe strawberries. The second group would be willing to
overlook the use of various synthetic additives and artificial
flavorings,
if the results tickle their palates.


What is the purpose of the preserves? Answer: to "tickle the
palate".


So then Jenn you favor the use of synthesis and artifical additives to
*enhance flavor*?

As a live recordist, my position is similar to that of a person who has
their own strawberry patch, as well as their own kitchen. Most musicians
lack both.


How so?


I have plenty of live music to record, and I have the ready means to do so,
and do so.

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bob bob is offline
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On Aug 15, 11:01 pm, Jocelyn Major wrote:

I would like to know how come that according to some Lp sales are
dropping


Just to be clear, nobody really knows how much vinyl is being sold,
because nobody keeps track of it. The best source on this is probably
the RIAA Consumer Survey (because it should capture the small
producers and distribution outlets where most vinyl gets sold
nowadays). In that survey, vinyl maintains a stable market share in a
declining market. But that's only a very rough estimate, and it's
possible that vinyl sales are inching up rather than down (but only
inching).

The real question is, why do vinylphiles keep bringing this up, when
there's no hard data to support their claim of higher sales?

while in Montreal,Qc in the last year 5 new store opened that
sell what... LP several of them are import. About 70% of what they carry
is LP and the rest is SACD.


Five new stores whose inventory is 70% LP/30% SACD? Are you sure
you're not exaggerating just a little bit?

How come more and more turntable are
appearing in the Montreal area Hi-Fi dealers --Kebecson, AudioShop,
AudioClub, Filtronique-- (I am not talking of Best Buy or Future shop
but real HI-FI dealers).


Could be several reasons. Turntable sales could be up without vinyl
sales being up. (Boomers digging out their old music, people buying
used records, etc.) Also, turntables are one area where boutique
dealers would have a clear comparative advantage--there are fewer
alternative outlets, auditions are more critical, and advice and
expertise are more valuable than for some other components.

Visit any of those dealers and they will tell
you that when it come to music you have Live music, music on Vinyl and
little behind SACD. For them CD is not musical enought.


Here's a hint: What salesmen say is a pretty good indication of what
salesmen sell. It really shouldn't be taken as anything more than
that.

bob
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Steven Sullivan Steven Sullivan is offline
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ScottW wrote:
"bob" wrote in message
...
On Aug 15, 6:38 pm, "ScottW" wrote:
This article disagrees over a longer period.

https://tv.ku.edu/news/2006/02/27/vi...spite-lagging-...


From the article:

"According to the Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl
sales have doubled in percentage of music sales since 2000 to become a
$110-million-dollar industry. Since that same year, overall music
sales dropped to $12.2 billion from $14.4 billion, a plunge that the
vinyl industry escaped without a scratch."

This is simply wrong, as the RIAA's own numbers show. Market share was
0.5% in 2000, and 0.7% in 2005.


Yes, but 0.5% of 14.4 is .072 while 0.7% of 14.4B is .085 showing
by your own numbers that vinyl did escape the decline...without a scratch.


Actually, it would be 0.7% of *12.2* that equals 0.0854 billion ($85.4 million). It's an
increase in percentage but not a doubling of the percentage. And it's an increase of ~$13
million in sales over 5 years... LPs cost something like $25 a pop these days...do the math
and figure out how much that means in terms of actual units shifted.

Vinyl sales had already suffered a catastrophic decline, decades ago. 'Doubling in percentage'
*sounds* impressive, but in this case the baseline percentage is so low, it's more like
bragging that $2 versus $1 marks a '100% increase' in revenues.

Sales figures are always questionable, but it is clear.
Vinyl is hanging on. It is also clear to those of us who
enjoy it, that the SOTA vinyl producers are producing a
superior product today.


I'd think they'd have to, to compete with CD.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason


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[email protected] eseedhouse@gmail.com is offline
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On Aug 14, 7:56 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
The RIAA says that LP sales dropped by about 30% in 2006.

That's is a far bigger drop than CD sales experienced.

Here's the latest stats from the horse's mouth:

http://76.74.24.142/6BC7251F-5E09-53...8C37FB6AE8.pdf


Here in Victoria B.C. Canada a local radio station is running a web
poll asking "What format do you use most often as your source for
recorded music?". Current results are

Vinyl - 3%
Cassette - 4%
CD - 75%
MP-3 - 19%

The station is a talk show format (CFAX 1070) attracting an older
audience I would assume.

http://www.cfax1070.com/polls.php

As a web poll it's not terribly credible (no random sample) but might
be interesting to some.

Ed Seedhouse
Victoria B.C.



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Jenn Jenn is offline
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On Aug 16, 3:58 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message

...



On Aug 14, 7:53 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message




On Aug 14, 4:06 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:


That would be hyperbole. I record competitions of
various musical groups. They are participated in, and
spectated by 100's of people. The music is 100% live and
acoustical. I'd guess that at least 25 % of all the
students participate or otherwise attend these events.


About 21% in 1988, about 14% last year FYI.


Compare this to George's 1% or so.


He didn't say 1% hadn't heard this music, he said "most".


Actually he said:

"...99% of the market doesn't care about the things we have been
discussing because most have never even heard live, un-amplified music or
don't care about the differences or the shortcomings of any particular
medium."


That's correct; he said most haven't this music.

Jenn
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Jenn Jenn is offline
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On Aug 16, 4:00 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message

...



On Aug 14, 7:52 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message




It seems to me that in this hobby there are two basic
"camps": One camp is the "prefect straight-wire" crowd,
i.e. what is important is what goes in should be exactly
what comes out. The other camp is the "it should like
music, no matter what" group. This crowd wants the end
result to sound as much like live acoustic music has a
possibility of sounding, regardless of any distortion
that happens in the chain.


The first group believes that purity is of the essence. That is, realism
is
faciliated by minimizing added noise and distortion.


The second group seems to believe that something is more impure can
somehow
more closely resemble the original than something that is more pure.


If audio were strawberry preserves the first group would probably make
freezer jam, and avoid most cooking and other additives that degrade the
flavor of fresh, ripe strawberries. The second group would be willing to
overlook the use of various synthetic additives and artificial
flavorings,
if the results tickle their palates.


What is the purpose of the preserves? Answer: to "tickle the
palate".


So then Jenn you favor the use of synthesis and artifical additives to
*enhance flavor*?


I prefer what "tastes" best to me.


As a live recordist, my position is similar to that of a person who has
their own strawberry patch, as well as their own kitchen. Most musicians
lack both.


How so?


I have plenty of live music to record, and I have the ready means to do so,
and do so.


As do many musicians, of course. But it's quite beside the point.
One should listen to what pleases one the most. It seems so simple.
What pleases me is the closest approximation of live acoustic that I
can get. Sometimes that's an LP, sometimes it's a CD. How either
medium got to sound so good is interesting to me, but not really
important at the end of the day. Better to just relax, listen, and
enjoy ;-)

Jenn

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Randy Yates Randy Yates is offline
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Jenn writes:
On Aug 16, 4:00 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
[...]
I have plenty of live music to record, and I have the ready means to do so,
and do so.


As do many musicians, of course. But it's quite beside the point.


No, it is not beside the point.

The main point being debated in this discussion has been whether or
not LPs are more accurate than CDs. Having live music available and
the means to record it and compare the digital, recorded version to
the original is very, very relevent to this point. The reference point
is reality (live music).

However, your comments did prompt me to highlight the distinction
between *making music* and *listening to music*.

It is all well-and-good to listen to whatever pleases you the most,
but listening to anything other than what the musician and recording
engineer intended you to hear is essentially making your own
music. For example, I can put my Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon"
through a bass doubler (octave extender) and obtain a fantastic and
entertaining result. However, that is not the music that Pink Floyd
and their recording engineer intended me to hear. I've added something
to it - I'm "making" music.

So it is also the same with a medium that modifies the original studio
signal - if you prefer to listen to that medium, then you are making
your own music vis-a-vis your choice of the medium.

When you choose a medium that most accurately relays the recorded
signal, then you're not making music anymore but rather are listening
to what someone else has created.

I think this is a very important point that bears bringing out.
--
% Randy Yates % "Though you ride on the wheels of tomorrow,
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC % you still wander the fields of your
%%% 919-577-9882 % sorrow."
%%%% % '21st Century Man', *Time*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr
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"Jenn" wrote in message
...
On Aug 16, 3:58 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message

...



On Aug 14, 7:53 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message




On Aug 14, 4:06 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:


That would be hyperbole. I record competitions of
various musical groups. They are participated in, and
spectated by 100's of people. The music is 100% live and
acoustical. I'd guess that at least 25 % of all the
students participate or otherwise attend these events.


About 21% in 1988, about 14% last year FYI.


Compare this to George's 1% or so.


He didn't say 1% hadn't heard this music, he said "most".


Actually he said:


"...99% of the market doesn't care about the things we have been
discussing because most have never even heard live, un-amplified music or
don't care about the differences or the shortcomings of any particular
medium."


That's correct; he said most haven't this music.


His criteria is disconnected from the facts. He's demanding proof that most
people have heard live music to explain the fact that 99% of them have
stopped buying analog media. You and I have agreed that 14% have heard live
music just last year by just one means. Obviously other means and other
times are equally relevant.

About 99% of all music lovers deep-sixed analog media for digital. At
least 14% of those people have heard live acoustic music in just the past
year, due to just one fact - their relationship to the US educational
system. There are other ways that people hear live music (go to church, go
to concerts for example).

The idea that hearing live music someone predisposes people to choose analog
media over digital just doesn't make sense. It's based on personal prejudice
and wishful thinking on the part of people who assert it.

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