Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
I was just watching "Wired Science" on PBS. They just did a "shoot-out"
between digital and analog sound. I'm not going to argue with the result, because they so screwed-up the way that they explained what they were doing to the TV audience as to make the entire thing worthless. First they introduced a recording engineer who's Chicago studio is all analog. He maintains that analog is better than digital (without defining WHAT he means by "digital"). Then they interviewed a recording engineer that thought that digital was better than analog (again without explaining WHAT kind of digital: 16/44.1, 24/96, DSD, MP3 whatever). Then they thoroughly confused the issue by interchangeably using the terms MP3 and digital recording- as if they were one and the same. Then they picked two other recording engineers and two musicians to listen to a cut from those same musicians' latest recording. Sometimes they were listening to analog, sometimes digital, and they held up paddles with the words "digital" and "analog" written on them, to show whenever they thought they heard a difference. The cut they played was contiguous with no breaks to indicate when or if the media had changed (how did they do THAT without editing the two together onto the same medium??!). In the end, the two musicians chose correctly 53% of the time, and the two recording engineers chose correctly 55% of the time. In other words, essentially, statistically, no better than blind chance. The conclusion that the TV show producers came to was that digital is indistinguishable from analog. This "test" basically just confuses the issue. They say that they were testing the widely held belief that analog sounds better than digital. But what they don't differentiate between is PCM digital CD vs MP3. The impression that I was left with is that they were saying that an analog master is statistically indistinguishable from an MP3 digital simply because they made no effort to differentiate between MP3 and RedBook PCM and never said what the listening "panel" was actually listening too, or the circumstances under which the "listening test" was conducted. "Wired Science"? Bogus science is more like it. |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
This is rec.audio.high-end? Correct?
Too the average listener, he or she will not be able hear the difference between analog or digital. And yes they are very happy with that. It's just a simple fact. Yes, if you play a LP for them, they can hear a few pops and clicks and tell which was the LP and which was the CD. Play a analog recording on tape against a CD and you will hear a big difference. My recording of Oh Brother Where Art Thou sounds completely different on CD that it does on the LP. And those who have listened at my house can hear the difference and like the LP better. However, someone with a better "ear" can distinguish Red book from Analog. Isn't that what High End Audio is about? If digital was better than analog, why do studio's still record masters on Analog Tape instead of DAT. Why do musicians still want wind instruments recorded on analog tape instead of DAT. Analog is what the human ear hears. It's natural with all the 3rd and 4th order harmonics the brain senses yet we can not hear. Thank you Mike Mueller |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 19:44:43 -0800, mike mueller wrote
(in article ): This is rec.audio.high-end? Correct? Too the average listener, he or she will not be able hear the difference between analog or digital. And yes they are very happy with that. It's just a simple fact. Yes, if you play a LP for them, they can hear a few pops and clicks and tell which was the LP and which was the CD. Play a analog recording on tape against a CD and you will hear a big difference. My recording of Oh Brother Where Art Thou sounds completely different on CD that it does on the LP. And those who have listened at my house can hear the difference and like the LP better. However, someone with a better "ear" can distinguish Red book from Analog. Isn't that what High End Audio is about? If digital was better than analog, why do studio's still record masters on Analog Tape instead of DAT. Why do musicians still want wind instruments recorded on analog tape instead of DAT. Analog is what the human ear hears. It's natural with all the 3rd and 4th order harmonics the brain senses yet we can not hear. Thank you Mike Mueller Interesting, but irrelevant to to the point of my previous post. |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
mike mueller wrote:
This is rec.audio.high-end? Correct? Too the average listener, he or she will not be able hear the difference between analog or digital. And yes they are very happy with that. It's just a simple fact. Yes, if you play a LP for them, they can hear a few pops and clicks and tell which was the LP and which was the CD. Play a analog recording on tape against a CD and you will hear a big difference. My recording of Oh Brother Where Art Thou sounds completely different on CD that it does on the LP. And those who have listened at my house can hear the difference and like the LP better. That difference is not due to the mediums, though. Take that LP and record it to digital with a good soundcard. Burn an audio CD. I bet if you test that CD against the LP, no one will tell the difference. What does that say? However, someone with a better "ear" can distinguish Red book from Analog. Isn't that what High End Audio is about? If digital was better than analog, why do studio's still record masters on Analog Tape instead of DAT. Because, like all things, there's good and bad. There's bad digital audio and good digital audio. After 20 some odd years digital audio is reaching its mature stage, if it hasn't already. We've had mediums like DVDA, SACD, great DA converters like the DAC1 etc. Pretty soon everything in digital audio will be great. The onboard sound of your cheap computer will eventually sound every bit as good as a DAC1. Why do musicians still want wind instruments recorded on analog tape instead of DAT. Pleasant euphonics of analog, that's all it is. Analog is what the human ear hears. It's natural with all the 3rd and 4th order harmonics the brain senses yet we can not hear. Thank you Mike Mueller Master |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
"Sonnova" wrote in message
I was just watching "Wired Science" on PBS. They just did a "shoot-out" between digital and analog sound. I'm not going to argue with the result, because they so screwed-up the way that they explained what they were doing to the TV audience as to make the entire thing worthless. Ah, the shoe is on the other foot. Do you want to comment on the scientice behind this article: Wired Magazine article: http://301url.com/dbk First they introduced a recording engineer who's Chicago studio is all analog. He maintains that analog is better than digital (without defining WHAT he means by "digital"). No doubt, he didn't explain what he meant by better, either! Then they interviewed a recording engineer that thought that digital was better than analog (again without explaining WHAT kind of digital: 16/44.1, 24/96, DSD, MP3 whatever). Probably 16/44. Then they thoroughly confused the issue by interchangeably using the terms MP3 and digital recording- as if they were one and the same. MP3 is a subset of digital. Then they picked two other recording engineers and two musicians to listen to a cut from those same musicians' latest recording. Sometimes they were listening to analog, sometimes digital, and they held up paddles with the words "digital" and "analog" written on them, to show whenever they thought they heard a difference. The cut they played was contiguous with no breaks to indicate when or if the media had changed (how did they do THAT without editing the two together onto the same medium??!). Good question. Not hard to do in the digital domain, but I've done similar things with analog, and it takes a lot more skill and work. In the end, the two musicians chose correctly 53% of the time, and the two recording engineers chose correctly 55% of the time. In other words, essentially, statistically, no better than blind chance. The conclusion that the TV show producers came to was that digital is indistinguishable from analog. Good digital and good analog are indistinguishable, so no surprise. This "test" basically just confuses the issue. They say that they were testing the widely held belief that analog sounds better than digital. It's not a widely held belief. But what they don't differentiate between is PCM digital CD vs MP3. Good MP3 outperforms LP and analog tape. The impression that I was left with is that they were saying that an analog master is statistically indistinguishable from an MP3 digital simply because they made no effort to differentiate between MP3 and RedBook PCM and never said what the listening "panel" was actually listening too, or the circumstances under which the "listening test" was conducted. "Wired Science"? Bogus science is more like it. Compared to the article in Wired, it was really pretty good. ;-) |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
Sonnova wrote:
I was just watching "Wired Science" on PBS. They just did a "shoot-out" between digital and analog sound. I'm not going to argue with the result, because they so screwed-up the way that they explained what they were doing to the TV audience as to make the entire thing worthless. First they introduced a recording engineer who's Chicago studio is all analog. Steve Albini. He maintains that analog is better than digital (without defining WHAT he means by "digital"). That's implied by his choice of gear, but all he was explicitly quoted as saying was that LP is going to trounce an mp3 download of uncertain origin. Then they thoroughly confused the issue by interchangeably using the terms MP3 and digital recording- as if they were one and the same. Then they picked two other recording engineers and two musicians to listen to a cut from those same musicians' latest recording. Sometimes they were listening to analog, sometimes digital, and they held up paddles with the words "digital" and "analog" written on them, to show whenever they thought they heard a difference. The cut they played was contiguous with no breaks to indicate when or if the media had changed (how did they do THAT without editing the two together onto the same medium??!). In the end, the two musicians chose correctly 53% of the time, and the two recording engineers chose correctly 55% of the time. In other words, essentially, statistically, no better than blind chance. The conclusion that the TV show producers came to was that digital is indistinguishable from analog. This "test" basically just confuses the issue. They say that they were testing the widely held belief that analog sounds better than digital. But what they don't differentiate between is PCM digital CD vs MP3. The impression that I was left with is that they were saying that an analog master is statistically indistinguishable from an MP3 digital simply because they made no effort to differentiate between MP3 and RedBook PCM and never said what the listening "panel" was actually listening too, or the circumstances under which the "listening test" was conducted. "Wired Science"? Bogus science is more like it. Actually, all they said was that the test music was a recording made on a digital console vs a recording made on an analog console. Anyway, anyoen with a web browser can watch the segment here and judge for themselves: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience...dio_files.html The comments at the bottom of the page may also be on interest. ___ -S "As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy, metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
mike mueller wrote:
This is rec.audio.high-end? Correct? Too the average listener, he or she will not be able hear the difference between analog or digital. And yes they are very happy with that. Two of the subejcts on the TV show were introduced as 'golden ear' recording engineers. In aggregate they did no better than chance (though there was no breakdown into individual scores) It's just a simple fact. Yes, if you play a LP for them, they can hear a few pops and clicks and tell which was the LP and which was the CD. Play a analog recording on tape against a CD and you will hear a big difference. Play a CD recording of that analog tape, and you probably won't. My recording of Oh Brother Where Art Thou sounds completely different on CD that it does on the LP. That's due to a combination of different mastering and the inherent colorations of LP playback. And those who have listened at my house can hear the difference and like the LP better. However, someone with a better "ear" can distinguish Red book from Analog. Isn't that what High End Audio is about? If digital was better than analog, why do studio's still record masters on Analog Tape instead of DAT. Why do musicians still want wind instruments recorded on analog tape instead of DAT. DAT? Studios generally record to hard disc these days. And classical producers and musicians were among the earliest and most fervent adopters of digital recordings. Analog is what the human ear hears. It's natural with all the 3rd and 4th order harmonics the brain senses yet we can not hear. Thank you The audible output of any digital playback system is...analog. And an LP most certainly does not accurately transmit all the '3 and 4th order harmonics' of the 20-20kHz range. ___ -S "As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy, metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason |
#8
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
Years ago a test was done, it as I recall originated on this newsgroup.
A digital recording was made of an lp and the two sources were used in a listening test. Experienced audio folk could not beyond chance determine which was which. If one wants to capture an analog source recording with whatever it adds to the mic feed then a digital recording will capture it just fine. It also then implies that it will faithfully capture what was at the mic feed before the analog recording. As for redbook as source compared to more recent digital formats consider: http://theaudiocritic.com/blog/index...Id=41&blogId=1 Read it for more detail, a recording of a SACD was made using redbook. The two sources could not be distinguished by listening alone. This is rec.audio.high-end? Correct? Too the average listener, he or she will not be able hear the difference between analog or digital. And yes they are very happy with that. It's just a simple fact. Yes, if you play a LP for them, they can hear a few pops and clicks and tell which was the LP and which was the CD. Play a analog recording on tape against a CD and you will hear a big difference. My recording of Oh Brother Where Art Thou sounds completely different on CD that it does on the LP. And those who have listened at my house can hear the difference and like the LP better. However, someone with a better "ear" can distinguish Red book from Analog. Isn't that what High End Audio is about? If digital was better than analog, why do studio's still record masters on Analog Tape instead of DAT. Why do musicians still want wind instruments recorded on analog tape instead of DAT. Analog is what the human ear hears. It's natural with all the 3rd and 4th order harmonics the brain senses yet we can not hear. Thank you Mike Mueller |
#9
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 15:10:25 -0800, Codifus wrote
(in article ): mike mueller wrote: This is rec.audio.high-end? Correct? Too the average listener, he or she will not be able hear the difference between analog or digital. And yes they are very happy with that. It's just a simple fact. Yes, if you play a LP for them, they can hear a few pops and clicks and tell which was the LP and which was the CD. Play a analog recording on tape against a CD and you will hear a big difference. My recording of Oh Brother Where Art Thou sounds completely different on CD that it does on the LP. And those who have listened at my house can hear the difference and like the LP better. That difference is not due to the mediums, though. Take that LP and record it to digital with a good soundcard. Burn an audio CD. I bet if you test that CD against the LP, no one will tell the difference. What does that say? However, someone with a better "ear" can distinguish Red book from Analog. Isn't that what High End Audio is about? If digital was better than analog, why do studio's still record masters on Analog Tape instead of DAT. Because, like all things, there's good and bad. There's bad digital audio and good digital audio. After 20 some odd years digital audio is reaching its mature stage, if it hasn't already. We've had mediums like DVDA, SACD, great DA converters like the DAC1 etc. Pretty soon everything in digital audio will be great. The onboard sound of your cheap computer will eventually sound every bit as good as a DAC1. Why do musicians still want wind instruments recorded on analog tape instead of DAT. Pleasant euphonics of analog, that's all it is. Analog is what the human ear hears. It's natural with all the 3rd and 4th order harmonics the brain senses yet we can not hear. Thank you Mike Mueller Master Although I *believe* that I can hear more "air" around instruments and a richer, more "lifelike" ambience from a DSD recording than I can from the same performance recorded in Redbook, it's hardly scientific and I'd hate to bet the farm on being able to consistently pick which is which. The fact is that the best of today's Redbook CDs are very good indeed. The old cigarette commercials had it right (if I might be allowed to paraphrase) Digital's come a long way, baby. Its not just the recording end that's improved either. Today's D/A sections are much better than they were a decade ago. |
#10
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 15:18:12 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Sonnova" wrote in message I was just watching "Wired Science" on PBS. They just did a "shoot-out" between digital and analog sound. I'm not going to argue with the result, because they so screwed-up the way that they explained what they were doing to the TV audience as to make the entire thing worthless. Ah, the shoe is on the other foot. Do you want to comment on the scientice behind this article: Wired Magazine article: http://301url.com/dbk So. Vinyl is on the upswing. Lots of people like it. I enjoy a good LP myself. At their best, they sound damn musical. First they introduced a recording engineer who's Chicago studio is all analog. He maintains that analog is better than digital (without defining WHAT he means by "digital"). No doubt, he didn't explain what he meant by better, either! Then they interviewed a recording engineer that thought that digital was better than analog (again without explaining WHAT kind of digital: 16/44.1, 24/96, DSD, MP3 whatever). Probably 16/44. Then they thoroughly confused the issue by interchangeably using the terms MP3 and digital recording- as if they were one and the same. MP3 is a subset of digital. No clue?!! Really? They are not, however one and the same thing. All MP3 might be digital but not all digital is MP3. Not by a long shot. So, what's your point? Further obfuscation? Then they picked two other recording engineers and two musicians to listen to a cut from those same musicians' latest recording. Sometimes they were listening to analog, sometimes digital, and they held up paddles with the words "digital" and "analog" written on them, to show whenever they thought they heard a difference. The cut they played was contiguous with no breaks to indicate when or if the media had changed (how did they do THAT without editing the two together onto the same medium??!). Good question. Not hard to do in the digital domain, but I've done similar things with analog, and it takes a lot more skill and work. That's kinda my point. Either way they are diluting the test to the point of meaninglessness. In the end, the two musicians chose correctly 53% of the time, and the two recording engineers chose correctly 55% of the time. In other words, essentially, statistically, no better than blind chance. The conclusion that the TV show producers came to was that digital is indistinguishable from analog. Good digital and good analog are indistinguishable, so no surprise. Again, not the point. The point is that this test, conducted as it was, proved no point at all. The producers of the show claiming victory for digital on the basis of this outcome is hollow and less than meaningless. This "test" basically just confuses the issue. They say that they were testing the widely held belief that analog sounds better than digital. It's not a widely held belief. Actually, it is. Lots of people believe it, that makes it "widely held". It doesn't need to be a ubiquitous belief to be a widely held one. But what they don't differentiate between is PCM digital CD vs MP3. Good MP3 outperforms LP and analog tape. Irrelevant, immaterial, and also mostly untrue. I've never heard an LP or a good analog tape, for that matter make the kind of distorted mess that MP3s can make of music. MP3s made at a high data rate can sound OK, but I'd rather listen to an LP or especially a good recent CD of the same performance. The impression that I was left with is that they were saying that an analog master is statistically indistinguishable from an MP3 digital simply because they made no effort to differentiate between MP3 and RedBook PCM and never said what the listening "panel" was actually listening too, or the circumstances under which the "listening test" was conducted. "Wired Science"? Bogus science is more like it. Compared to the article in Wired, it was really pretty good. ;-) The article was someone's opinion a test is supposed to be unbiased. |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
Sonnova wrote:
On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 15:10:25 -0800, Codifus wrote (in article ): mike mueller wrote: This is rec.audio.high-end? Correct? Too the average listener, he or she will not be able hear the difference between analog or digital. And yes they are very happy with that. It's just a simple fact. Yes, if you play a LP for them, they can hear a few pops and clicks and tell which was the LP and which was the CD. Play a analog recording on tape against a CD and you will hear a big difference. My recording of Oh Brother Where Art Thou sounds completely different on CD that it does on the LP. And those who have listened at my house can hear the difference and like the LP better. That difference is not due to the mediums, though. Take that LP and record it to digital with a good soundcard. Burn an audio CD. I bet if you test that CD against the LP, no one will tell the difference. What does that say? However, someone with a better "ear" can distinguish Red book from Analog. Isn't that what High End Audio is about? If digital was better than analog, why do studio's still record masters on Analog Tape instead of DAT. Because, like all things, there's good and bad. There's bad digital audio and good digital audio. After 20 some odd years digital audio is reaching its mature stage, if it hasn't already. We've had mediums like DVDA, SACD, great DA converters like the DAC1 etc. Pretty soon everything in digital audio will be great. The onboard sound of your cheap computer will eventually sound every bit as good as a DAC1. Why do musicians still want wind instruments recorded on analog tape instead of DAT. Pleasant euphonics of analog, that's all it is. Analog is what the human ear hears. It's natural with all the 3rd and 4th order harmonics the brain senses yet we can not hear. Thank you Mike Mueller Master Although I *believe* that I can hear more "air" around instruments and a richer, more "lifelike" ambience from a DSD recording than I can from the same performance recorded in Redbook, it's hardly scientific and I'd hate to bet the farm on being able to consistently pick which is which. The fact is that the best of today's Redbook CDs are very good indeed. The old cigarette commercials had it right (if I might be allowed to paraphrase) Digital's come a long way, baby. Its not just the recording end that's improved either. Today's D/A sections are much better than they were a decade ago. Even though I've never listened to an SACD or DVD-A, I'm inclined to beleive you about SACD sounding better than CD. I vaguely recall that there is scientific evidence which shows that. SACD seems to handle transients much better than CD and DVD-A, so much so that the DVD-A spec was corrected with a better reconstruction filter technology I beleive by Meridian to make it handle transients better. I wonder if that same technology could be applied to CD, since DVD-A is prety much an evolution of CD audio. Both are PCM with the difference being that DVD-A has the larger word length and sampling rate. CD |
#12
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
Sonnova wrote:
...... Irrelevant, immaterial, and also mostly untrue. I've never heard an LP or a good analog tape, for that matter make the kind of distorted mess that MP3s can make of music. MP3s made at a high data rate can sound OK, but I'd rather listen to an LP or especially a good recent CD of the same performance. ..... There are good and bad MP3 encoders out there. The bad ones tend to be fast, even at 320 kbps. Try hydrogen audio's LAME or even the Fraunhoffer MP3 encoder inside CoolEdit. Both of these encoders do a very good job of making MP3s. They take their time to process but the results are really worth it if you want the best MP3s. CD |
#13
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
Codifus wrote:
Even though I've never listened to an SACD or DVD-A, I'm inclined to beleive you about SACD sounding better than CD. I vaguely recall that there is scientific evidence which shows that. There isn't. SACD seems to handle transients much better than CD and DVD-A, so much so that the DVD-A spec was corrected with a better reconstruction filter technology I beleive by Meridian to make it handle transients better. Where'd you get this from? This sounds like the old 'square wave' demo, or Pyramix advertising, both of which are communly used in flawed arguments. ___ -S "As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy, metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason |
#14
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Nov 11, 7:36 am, Codifus wrote:
Sonnova wrote: ..... Irrelevant, immaterial, and also mostly untrue. I've never heard an LP or a good analog tape, for that matter make the kind of distorted mess that MP3s can make of music. MP3s made at a high data rate can sound OK, but I'd rather listen to an LP or especially a good recent CD of the same performance. .... There are good and bad MP3 encoders out there. The bad ones tend to be fast, even at 320 kbps. Try hydrogen audio's LAME or even the Fraunhoffer MP3 encoder inside CoolEdit. Both of these encoders do a very good job of making MP3s. They take their time to process but the results are really worth it if you want the best MP3s. CD I am transferring my CD collection to iTunes data base on my PC now. I have to ways to do that: - to use internal iTunes codecs and convert my CD's either to MP3 or AAC, - to use WinAmp to convert to MP3 and them import it to iTunes. I guess that they (iTunes and WinAmp) use different codecs because: (1) WinAmp is about 4 times faster for the same bitrate, (2) WinAmp is doing better job on faulty hardware. I had an old fashioned DVD-ROM that caused skips in iTunes codec, at a time when WinAmp was doing perfect 100% of the time. So my question to people who know codecs and their internals is: Do you know what codecs are used in iTunes and WinAmp? What is preferable? Are there significant audible differences say at 320 kbps rate? Again, iTunes is slow as hell in comparison with WinAmp, but it does better job with labels and art covers. WinAmp does a faster and better job (no skips) with MP3 track but requires more time for verification and retyping (sometimes) labels and scanning album cover. thanks in advance. vlad |
#15
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:36:00 -0800, Codifus wrote
(in article ): Sonnova wrote: ..... Irrelevant, immaterial, and also mostly untrue. I've never heard an LP or a good analog tape, for that matter make the kind of distorted mess that MP3s can make of music. MP3s made at a high data rate can sound OK, but I'd rather listen to an LP or especially a good recent CD of the same performance. .... There are good and bad MP3 encoders out there. The bad ones tend to be fast, even at 320 kbps. Try hydrogen audio's LAME or even the Fraunhoffer MP3 encoder inside CoolEdit. Both of these encoders do a very good job of making MP3s. They take their time to process but the results are really worth it if you want the best MP3s. CD I don't want MP3s at all. I use Apple Lossless Compression (ALC) on my iPod. Now, if only iPods had better D/A's and analog circuitry in them.... |
#16
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:36:00 -0800, Codifus wrote (in article ): Sonnova wrote: ..... Irrelevant, immaterial, and also mostly untrue. I've never heard an LP or a good analog tape, for that matter make the kind of distorted mess that MP3s can make of music. MP3s made at a high data rate can sound OK, but I'd rather listen to an LP or especially a good recent CD of the same performance. .... There are good and bad MP3 encoders out there. The bad ones tend to be fast, even at 320 kbps. Try hydrogen audio's LAME or even the Fraunhoffer MP3 encoder inside CoolEdit. Both of these encoders do a very good job of making MP3s. They take their time to process but the results are really worth it if you want the best MP3s. CD I don't want MP3s at all. I use Apple Lossless Compression (ALC) on my iPod. Now, if only iPods had better D/A's and analog circuitry in them.... again, ipods have pretty good DAC and analog circuitry in the, check out Stereophile's bench tests. |
#17
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Nov 11, 4:31 pm, vlad wrote:
On Nov 11, 7:36 am, Codifus wrote: Sonnova wrote: ..... Irrelevant, immaterial, and also mostly untrue. I've never heard an LP or a good analog tape, for that matter make the kind of distorted mess that MP3s can make of music. MP3s made at a high data rate can sound OK, but I'd rather listen to an LP or especially a good recent CD of the same performance. .... There are good and bad MP3 encoders out there. The bad ones tend to be fast, even at 320 kbps. Try hydrogen audio's LAME or even the Fraunhoffer MP3 encoder inside CoolEdit. Both of these encoders do a very good job of making MP3s. They take their time to process but the results are really worth it if you want the best MP3s. CD I am transferring my CD collection to iTunes data base on my PC now. I have to ways to do that: - to use internal iTunes codecs and convert my CD's either to MP3 or AAC, - to use WinAmp to convert to MP3 and them import it to iTunes. I guess that they (iTunes and WinAmp) use different codecs because: (1) WinAmp is about 4 times faster for the same bitrate, (2) WinAmp is doing better job on faulty hardware. I had an old fashioned DVD-ROM that caused skips in iTunes codec, at a time when WinAmp was doing perfect 100% of the time. So my question to people who know codecs and their internals is: Do you know what codecs are used in iTunes and WinAmp? What is preferable? Are there significant audible differences say at 320 kbps rate? Again, iTunes is slow as hell in comparison with WinAmp, but it does better job with labels and art covers. WinAmp does a faster and better job (no skips) with MP3 track but requires more time for verification and retyping (sometimes) labels and scanning album cover. thanks in advance. vlad The built in MP3 encoder for Itunes is lousy. Avoid it. Use the AAC instead. I know you have itunes on the PC but if you had iTunes on a Macintosh, there was offered a LAME MP3 plugin for Itunes. That was awesome. LAMEd MP3s and AAC are very good. They take their time but the results are worth it, and with the itunes interface you can easily setup batch processing and leave the system running/converting overnight etc. CD |
#18
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Nov 11, 4:31 pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:36:00 -0800, Codifus wrote (in article ): Sonnova wrote: ..... Irrelevant, immaterial, and also mostly untrue. I've never heard an LP or a good analog tape, for that matter make the kind of distorted mess that MP3s can make of music. MP3s made at a high data rate can sound OK, but I'd rather listen to an LP or especially a good recent CD of the same performance. .... There are good and bad MP3 encoders out there. The bad ones tend to be fast, even at 320 kbps. Try hydrogen audio's LAME or even the Fraunhoffer MP3 encoder inside CoolEdit. Both of these encoders do a very good job of making MP3s. They take their time to process but the results are really worth it if you want the best MP3s. CD I don't want MP3s at all. I use Apple Lossless Compression (ALC) on my iPod. Now, if only iPods had better D/A's and analog circuitry in them.... The D/A's inside the Ipod arent bad at all, at least the 2nd gen or newer ones. It's the headphones. Try a set of Sennheiser PX100s or Koss Portapros. Inexpensive, like $40, and they will make your ipod sing. I had the PX100s, wire got snagged on the subway, then got the Portapros. If you like bass then the Portapros are the better choice. CD |
#19
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:51:43 -0800, codifus wrote
(in article ): On Nov 11, 4:31 pm, Sonnova wrote: On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:36:00 -0800, Codifus wrote (in article ): Sonnova wrote: ..... Irrelevant, immaterial, and also mostly untrue. I've never heard an LP or a good analog tape, for that matter make the kind of distorted mess that MP3s can make of music. MP3s made at a high data rate can sound OK, but I'd rather listen to an LP or especially a good recent CD of the same performance. .... There are good and bad MP3 encoders out there. The bad ones tend to be fast, even at 320 kbps. Try hydrogen audio's LAME or even the Fraunhoffer MP3 encoder inside CoolEdit. Both of these encoders do a very good job of making MP3s. They take their time to process but the results are really worth it if you want the best MP3s. CD I don't want MP3s at all. I use Apple Lossless Compression (ALC) on my iPod. Now, if only iPods had better D/A's and analog circuitry in them.... The D/A's inside the Ipod arent bad at all, at least the 2nd gen or newer ones. It's the headphones. Try a set of Sennheiser PX100s or Koss Portapros. Inexpensive, like $40, and they will make your ipod sing. I had the PX100s, wire got snagged on the subway, then got the Portapros. If you like bass then the Portapros are the better choice. CD I have a pair of Shure SE420's. Believe me they are very good. I think that the D/A and analog circuitry in my Hi-MD minidisc (playing 16-bit 44KHz PCM) sounds better than the circuitry in my Gen-3 iPod (using the same source material and the Shure phones). |
#20
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
Arny Krueger wrote:
Ah, the shoe is on the other foot. Do you want to comment on the scientice behind this article: Wired Magazine article: http://301url.com/dbk nice ref, thanks. the title ("Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin") is also very amusing and afaik, the end of the 1st paragraph is also very inaccurate: vinyl is NOT re-entering the mainstream i remember when the CD came out the sound was terrible, but most were beyond thrilled that ticks and pops were gone shows you just how much most people don't care about quality sound i can add that current CDs have improved immensely, and that i hope that they don't disappear anytime soon bill |
#21
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Nov 11, 4:30 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
Codifus wrote: Even though I've never listened to an SACD or DVD-A, I'm inclined to beleive you about SACD sounding better than CD. I vaguely recall that there is scientific evidence which shows that. There isn't. SACD seems to handle transients much better than CD and DVD-A, so much so that the DVD-A spec was corrected with a better reconstruction filter technology I beleive by Meridian to make it handle transients better. Where'd you get this from? This sounds like the old 'square wave' demo, or Pyramix advertising, both of which are communly used in flawed arguments. ___ -S "As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy, metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason I can't find that particular article, but there are lots of technical articles to be googled upon showing the superior capability of SACD and DVD-A. Whether those differences can be appreciated by most consumers I think is, or was, really the issue. It is apparently not so given what's happened in the market. Speaking of square waves, here's an interesting article showing the differences between the formats on how well they reproduce a square wave; http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surr.../page_07.shtml By the way, even though the war is pretty much over and CD or MP3 seems to have won, I was always hoping for DVD-A, and even if no one won, CD is fine. Technologies such as XRCD and players like the Consonance linear 120 player which does not rely on oversampling at all, show that CD audio can achieve excellent audio performance with the very good implementation of digital filtering and the mastering process in making a CD. DSD, while being better than CD in most aspects, is actually worse than CD in others, and also seems to be a way for Sony to keep things proprietary. On every single technical aspect, though, DVD-A is better than CD. DVD is CD on steroids, based on the same PCM technology. SACD was better in the transients mainly due to the format not relying on digital filtering at all, and that weakness was addressed in DVD-A. Interestingly, on the really expensive multi-format optical players, reviews tend to show that the differences between the CD, SACD and DVD-A are getting smaller which would tend to suggest that the flaws of a format were mostly in implementation. Anyway, enough rambling on for me CD |
#22
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:01:16 -0800, willbill wrote
(in article ): Arny Krueger wrote: Ah, the shoe is on the other foot. Do you want to comment on the scientice behind this article: Wired Magazine article: http://301url.com/dbk nice ref, thanks. the title ("Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin") is also very amusing and afaik, the end of the 1st paragraph is also very inaccurate: vinyl is NOT re-entering the mainstream No. it is not. But it is still popular enough for places like Music Direct to still sell it, and in my neck of the woods there is a High-End audio store dedicated, exclusively to vinyl called "The Analog Room". They do quite well. i remember when the CD came out the sound was terrible, but most were beyond thrilled that ticks and pops were gone Yes. It was portable, did not degrade with each play, remained quiet and wasn't nearly so fragile as records. These characteristics alone were pretty much enough to insure its success with most consumers. shows you just how much most people don't care about quality sound I doubt if the mainstream consumer cared anything more about sound quality then than they do now. And given the popularity of MP3, I'd say that interest is pretty close to zero. i can add that current CDs have improved immensely, and that i hope that they don't disappear anytime soon I don't think that they are much danger of going away anytime soon. People like to browse for music, read liner notes, and collect things. All of these are things that internet-provided music doesn't allow for as easily or as well as does the CD. And I agree that CD has improved immensely. If anything ever kills SACD it would be that even hardened "golden-eared audiophiles" begin to find it more and more difficult to tell a well made Redbook CD from an SACD. |
#23
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
codifus wrote:
On Nov 11, 4:30 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote: Codifus wrote: Even though I've never listened to an SACD or DVD-A, I'm inclined to beleive you about SACD sounding better than CD. I vaguely recall that there is scientific evidence which shows that. There isn't. SACD seems to handle transients much better than CD and DVD-A, so much so that the DVD-A spec was corrected with a better reconstruction filter technology I beleive by Meridian to make it handle transients better. Where'd you get this from? This sounds like the old 'square wave' demo, or Pyramix advertising, both of which are communly used in flawed arguments. ___ -S "As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy, metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason I can't find that particular article, but there are lots of technical articles to be googled upon showing the superior capability of SACD and DVD-A. Whether those differences can be appreciated by most consumers I think is, or was, really the issue. It is apparently not so given what's happened in the market. What superior capability in the audible spectrum , does DVD-A and SACD have over Redbook? Speaking of square waves, here's an interesting article showing the differences between the formats on how well they reproduce a square wave; http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surr.../page_07.shtml Yeah, that's one of the old standards. But what relationship does it have to hearing? Let's consider what a square wave 'looks like' to the human ear. Hint: not square. The ear is a filter too, you see. By the way, even though the war is pretty much over and CD or MP3 seems to have won, I was always hoping for DVD-A, and even if no one won, CD is fine. Technologies such as XRCD and players like the Consonance linear 120 player which does not rely on oversampling at all, show that CD audio can achieve excellent audio performance with the very good implementation of digital filtering and the mastering process in making a CD. PLayers that do not rely on oversampling must have excellent engineering at filtering stages....if not, they're basically bad CD players. ___ -S "As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy, metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason |
#24
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
willbill wrote:
i remember when the CD came out the sound was terrible Many were bad but a few were excellent. The bad ones were due to mastering and not the system itself. I have a CD of Rossini overtures (from 1983) that still sounds as good as anything released today. ---MIKE--- In the White Mountains of New Hampshire (44° 15' N - Elevation 1580') |
#25
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:23:33 -0800, MIKE--- wrote
(in article ): willbill wrote: i remember when the CD came out the sound was terrible Many were bad but a few were excellent. The bad ones were due to mastering and not the system itself. I have a CD of Rossini overtures (from 1983) that still sounds as good as anything released today. ---MIKE--- In the White Mountains of New Hampshire (44° 15' N - Elevation 1580') The early Sony processors like the 1620, and1630 which were meant to be used in conjunction with 3/4 inch U-Matic recorders for mastering CDs sounded REAL nasty and were probably the main reason that many early CDs sounded so bad (some of the early players were nothing to write home about either). The Sony D/As were filled with first generation 709/741 - quality operational amplifiers and had electrolytic capacitors in the signal path. Almost any CD mastered using this equipment is harsh, strident and distorted - especially on the top-end. CDs using other equipment such as Dr. Thomas Stockham's Soundstream equipment used by Bob Woods at Telarc, and by Delos and others fared better, but the bit-stream needed to be converted to Redbook in order to make a CD (Soundstream was 16-bit, 50KHz sampling rate). Bob told me once that the conversion hardware introduced a lot a of jitter and so it degraded the Soundstream masters considerably. |
#26
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Analog vs Digital- Again
"---MIKE---" wrote: ...
willbill wrote: i remember when the CD came out the sound was terrible Many were bad but a few were excellent. The bad ones were due to mastering and not the system itself. I have a CD of Rossini overtures (from 1983) that still sounds as good as anything released today. ADD or AAD vs. DDD, or uniformly? I think more has a chance to go wrong in the digitizing of analog material than when the recording is straight digital. Take for example most or even all of the early DDD Telarcs, Delos, Columbia, (maybe even most of the Denon). I believe that many were excellent and few were bad, at least in my collection. |
Reply |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Analog vs Digital? | Pro Audio | |||
analog vs digital connection | Tech | |||
analog vs. digital -- not | High End Audio | |||
Analog vs Digital | Audio Opinions | |||
Digital or Analog mixer!??! | Pro Audio |