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Arny Krueger wrote:
"Mike Caffrey" wrote in message oups.com Doc wrote: I've read where supposedly those who are accutely sensitive can hear deficiencies in 44.1 /16-bit CD's. If so, how do those with "golden ears" deal with eternally wallowing in inadequately reproduced sound? I believe that Ruper NEve's comment on Fletcher's site adn Dr Oohashi's research which people have refered to hear are the tip of the iceberg in proving that digital audio is responsible for the dismal record sales that we've seen lately. In fact Oohashi's research is irrelevant to any general presumed failings of digital audio because the whole context of the paper is digital audio. Basically, the paper is about comparing between one flavor of digital to another. As far as Rupert Neve's comments on the Mercenary site goes, how about a URL? I just spent 10 minutes fruitlessly going through it. People listen to music for a reason, and digital audio doesn't deliver as completely as analog audio. Mike, there you are provably wrong. There never was an analog format with the bandpass and dynamic range that we can easily obtain digitally. Apparently you don't know that analog tape has its own brickwall filter due to the width of the head gap. Good high speed analog tape has a brick wall in the 22-28 KHz range, always did, still does. SACD and DVD-A transcriptions of the best analog tapes give a clear picture of this limitation. (And yes, I use ProTools [through and analog board] becuase I have no choice these days) But you do have the choice to record at 192/24 which gives about 4 times the bandpass of the best commercial analog tape, not to mention about 20 dB or more dynamic range. I'm not saying you should do this as a rule, but perhaps you should stop claiming that digital audio has limitations that it clearly doesn't have. I'm not saying that analog tape and digital audio sound the same, but the reasons are due to things analog tape adds, not things that digital necessarily takes way. Here's a theory that's probably ridiculous... Now don't get me wrong, I love my hifi sound, and I love ( well, maybe not quite "love" ) my Pro Tools rig. But. The observation ( however flawed ) about album/music sales dropping because of digital audio got me thinking: what if it's not actually about *more*? What if the reasons for some folks' (over)zealous arguments for analogue audio has absolutely nothing to do with: -dynamic range -frequency response -distortion or lack thereof -any of the other measurable and quantifiable criteria, in most, if not all of which, digital seems to excel What if, alternatively, we as humans just happen to find something inherently pleasing about an analogous reproduction of art ( film vs. DV, anyone)? What if somewhere deep in the right sides of our collective brains we can somehow sense when something has been through a teleporter - broken down into tiny bits and then put back together? Or more likely, what if we can't tell, but it's just that people tend to actually like and want a bit of distortion or limited bandwidth or high noise floor etc. in their recorded music? It would go a long way toward explaining the mass acceptance of that damn mp3 format and those music-cheapening iPods, anyway. Just some ramblings... Cheers, joe. |
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#2
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we grew up with analogue slurring the playback
we think it is right we are doomed to frustration dale |
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#3
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Arny Krueger wrote: "Mike Caffrey" wrote in message oups.com Doc wrote: I've read where supposedly those who are accutely sensitive can hear deficiencies in 44.1 /16-bit CD's. If so, how do those with "golden ears" deal with eternally wallowing in inadequately reproduced sound? I believe that Ruper NEve's comment on Fletcher's site adn Dr Oohashi's research which people have refered to hear are the tip of the iceberg in proving that digital audio is responsible for the dismal record sales that we've seen lately. In fact Oohashi's research is irrelevant to any general presumed failings of digital audio because the whole context of the paper is digital audio. Basically, the paper is about comparing between one flavor of digital to another. I've read two. One compares the different reactions of the brain between analog and digital. The other compare the comfortable listening levels between analog and digital. As far as Rupert Neve's comments on the Mercenary site goes, how about a URL? I just spent 10 minutes fruitlessly going through it. People listen to music for a reason, and digital audio doesn't deliver as completely as analog audio. Mike, there you are provably wrong. There never was an analog format with the bandpass and dynamic range that we can easily obtain digitally. Apparently you don't know that analog tape has its own brickwall filter due to the width of the head gap. Good high speed analog tape has a brick wall in the 22-28 KHz range, always did, still does. SACD and DVD-A transcriptions of the best analog tapes give a clear picture of this limitation. (And yes, I use ProTools [through and analog board] becuase I have no choice these days) But you do have the choice to record at 192/24 which gives about 4 times the bandpass of the best commercial analog tape, not to mention about 20 dB or more dynamic range. I'm not saying you should do this as a rule, but perhaps you should stop claiming that digital audio has limitations that it clearly doesn't have. First, the statment that digital doesn't deliver as competely as analog doesn't necessarily have to do with frequency response, it has to do with the emotional reation in the listener. Whether one delivers hypersonic content that the other doesn't or adds a pleaseing distortion and any other technical difference is irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make. The quelty of digital at 192/24 is irrelevant as far as it's effect on sales are concerned. Two reasons, consumers (where the sales come from) don't listen at 192/24 and second it's still not the standard for recording at this point. It's too early to have enough data to compare the effects of multi track recordings made at 192/24 with either the various common digital rates and depths or analog multi track recordings. As as slight aside, related to dynamic range. I know there's a mathematical calculation how how bit rate affects dynamic range, but my understanding and perception ofbit rate is that it's like having a hirhg resolution frame in a film, or maybe even larger film. Or, to compare to tape, wider track width. So yes, I value higher bit rates, but not for dynamic range. I really don't want to listen to a song change by 120db or even 80db. Geoff Daking was commenting on compression once and siad that you should always have a comrpessor on the stereo buss, even during tracking. He specifically said dynamic range is the enemy. I thought he was being sarcastic. He said he wasn't and clarified that the reason track with the streo compressor on the mix was that's what you will be hearing eventuall and essentailly it a more accurate way to monitor (similar to the argument for mixing with some stereo comopression before mastering beucase compression will change the balances). His point about dynamic range being the enemy, is that the range you have to have so that you're not adjusting the volut throughout a song it's actuall pretty small. I recorded a very long album of acoustig guitar and vocals. This guy had a massive dynamic range during the performce. Easily changes ove 90dB. It was spell binding. But, when I went to listen at home to enjoy it inn the context when I usually listen to music, those changes were horrible. The listening enviorment wasn't as quiet as the studio, so the range went from below the background noise threshold to way too loud. This was right before Geoff's comments, so it really hit home. I think for a live performance, or maybe and audiophile or 5.1 recording - where you can be pretty certain it's someone listening in a proper enviornement, as opposed to drinve a car, washing the dishes or at a party - leave the dynamics natural for their emotional impact and accurac of performance. But for the vast majority of situation, dynamic range is not that much of an asset. I can't find the page on the Mercenary site. It was from a web chat that Fletcher hosted. Here's the relevant section: Fletcher: There has been some measure of debate about bandwidth including frequencies above 20kHz, can we hear them, do they make a difference, etc. Rupert: OK, Fletch, pin your ears back...back in 1977, just after I had sold the company, George Martin called me to say that Air Studios had taken delivery of a Neve Console which did not seem to be giving satisfaction to Geoff Emmerick. In fact, he said that Geoff is unhappy.... engineers from the company, bear in mind that at this point I was not primarily involved, had visited the studio and reported that nothing was wrong. They said that the customer is mad and that the problem will go away if we ignore it long enough. Well I visited the studio and after careful listening with Geoff, I agreed with him that three panels on this 48 panel console sounded slightly different. We discovered that there was a 3 dB peak at 54kHz Geoff's golden ears had perceived that there was a difference. We found that 3 transformers had been incorrectly wired and it was a matter of minutes to correct this. After which Geoff was happy. And I mean that he relaxed and there was a big smile on his face. As you can imagine a lot of theories were put forward, but even today I couldn't tell you how an experienced listener can perceive frequencies of the normal range of hearing. And following on from this, I was visiting Japan and was invited to the laboratories of Professor Oohashi He had discovered that when filteres were applied to an audio signal cutting off frequencies of 20 kHz, the brain started to emit electric signals which can be measured and quantified These signals were at the frequencies and of the pattern which are associated with frustration and anger. Clearly we discussed this at some length and I also would forward the idea that any frequncies which were not part of the original music, such as quantisizing noise produced by compact discs and other digital sources, also produced similar brain waves. |
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#6
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During the early days of 14/12 bit/50k recordings with Sony F1 tape
recorders, I heard a lot of comments about the possibility of having anywhere from headaches to setting off epileptic seizures from listening to digital, and while some of those symptoms may have been noticed during playback, one has to wonder whether the source of the problem was the situation presented at the time or something different. Reportedly most people heard a problem based on the steep cutoff of the anti-aliasing filter in the early days, and even then, at 22.5 kHz, I'd question that as the problem they heard. More likely it was the lack of quality of converters, perhaps introducing subharmonics into the mix that had no apparent attributes to the music recorded. Certainly today I don't know of anyone, based on a properly recorded 16 bit/44.1 kHz recording, that would say they have a problem with the output. Ethan Winer, Arny Kruegar and I have had numerous discussions on just this subject, and for all practical purposes, within a live recording environment, I'd have to agree with Ethan. In much better circumstances, I find somewhat of a larger picture represented by greater word depth and higher sampling rates, but I would agree with Dan Lavry (based on our conversation) that probably a 24 bit/50 kHz setup would cover most anything necessary, and my "proof" would be the reports on the Nyquist converters used in the RADAR (using 24 bit/48 kHz). Having not used such, I've heard enough reports to suggest to me that probably there's no reason to go anywhere else. The above doesn't even address the mis-use of the bandwidth by placing all the information in the last .3 dB of a recording, nor does that address the reverse quality presented by radio stations with their own levels of compression that, inadequately applied, have a detrimental effect on what one hears over the airwaves (another conversation right here on RAP with Robert Orban, the king of radio compression). This, in itself, is one of the reasons I don't listen to radio any more. I don't even have a radio in the house, except as our alarm clock, and every morning the first note of a song or the over-exaggerated voice of the DJ gets me out of bed like a shot and as far away from the radio as I can physically get in this house. But the bad things done to music these days has absolutely nothing on a well recorded set of songs, presented in the correct way, even if it's 16 bit/ 44.1 kHz. Indeed today, it's still a perfectly good solution to recording in a live environment where -55dB is the normal level of noise, what with people and air conditioning, etc. And I invite both Mike Rivers and Scott Dorsey to add to the discussion since they've both worked with me in live jazz recordings, none of which have been the best environments. Without trying to tell them what to report in order to support my experiences, they certainly have more than enough experience to shoot down my theories. -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio "Mike Caffrey" wrote in message ps.com... Arny Krueger wrote: "Mike Caffrey" wrote in message oups.com Doc wrote: I've read where supposedly those who are accutely sensitive can hear deficiencies in 44.1 /16-bit CD's. If so, how do those with "golden ears" deal with eternally wallowing in inadequately reproduced sound? I believe that Ruper NEve's comment on Fletcher's site adn Dr Oohashi's research which people have refered to hear are the tip of the iceberg in proving that digital audio is responsible for the dismal record sales that we've seen lately. In fact Oohashi's research is irrelevant to any general presumed failings of digital audio because the whole context of the paper is digital audio. Basically, the paper is about comparing between one flavor of digital to another. I've read two. One compares the different reactions of the brain between analog and digital. The other compare the comfortable listening levels between analog and digital. As far as Rupert Neve's comments on the Mercenary site goes, how about a URL? I just spent 10 minutes fruitlessly going through it. People listen to music for a reason, and digital audio doesn't deliver as completely as analog audio. Mike, there you are provably wrong. There never was an analog format with the bandpass and dynamic range that we can easily obtain digitally. Apparently you don't know that analog tape has its own brickwall filter due to the width of the head gap. Good high speed analog tape has a brick wall in the 22-28 KHz range, always did, still does. SACD and DVD-A transcriptions of the best analog tapes give a clear picture of this limitation. (And yes, I use ProTools [through and analog board] becuase I have no choice these days) But you do have the choice to record at 192/24 which gives about 4 times the bandpass of the best commercial analog tape, not to mention about 20 dB or more dynamic range. I'm not saying you should do this as a rule, but perhaps you should stop claiming that digital audio has limitations that it clearly doesn't have. First, the statment that digital doesn't deliver as competely as analog doesn't necessarily have to do with frequency response, it has to do with the emotional reation in the listener. Whether one delivers hypersonic content that the other doesn't or adds a pleaseing distortion and any other technical difference is irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make. The quelty of digital at 192/24 is irrelevant as far as it's effect on sales are concerned. Two reasons, consumers (where the sales come from) don't listen at 192/24 and second it's still not the standard for recording at this point. It's too early to have enough data to compare the effects of multi track recordings made at 192/24 with either the various common digital rates and depths or analog multi track recordings. As as slight aside, related to dynamic range. I know there's a mathematical calculation how how bit rate affects dynamic range, but my understanding and perception ofbit rate is that it's like having a hirhg resolution frame in a film, or maybe even larger film. Or, to compare to tape, wider track width. So yes, I value higher bit rates, but not for dynamic range. I really don't want to listen to a song change by 120db or even 80db. Geoff Daking was commenting on compression once and siad that you should always have a comrpessor on the stereo buss, even during tracking. He specifically said dynamic range is the enemy. I thought he was being sarcastic. He said he wasn't and clarified that the reason track with the streo compressor on the mix was that's what you will be hearing eventuall and essentailly it a more accurate way to monitor (similar to the argument for mixing with some stereo comopression before mastering beucase compression will change the balances). His point about dynamic range being the enemy, is that the range you have to have so that you're not adjusting the volut throughout a song it's actuall pretty small. I recorded a very long album of acoustig guitar and vocals. This guy had a massive dynamic range during the performce. Easily changes ove 90dB. It was spell binding. But, when I went to listen at home to enjoy it inn the context when I usually listen to music, those changes were horrible. The listening enviorment wasn't as quiet as the studio, so the range went from below the background noise threshold to way too loud. This was right before Geoff's comments, so it really hit home. I think for a live performance, or maybe and audiophile or 5.1 recording - where you can be pretty certain it's someone listening in a proper enviornement, as opposed to drinve a car, washing the dishes or at a party - leave the dynamics natural for their emotional impact and accurac of performance. But for the vast majority of situation, dynamic range is not that much of an asset. I can't find the page on the Mercenary site. It was from a web chat that Fletcher hosted. Here's the relevant section: Fletcher: There has been some measure of debate about bandwidth including frequencies above 20kHz, can we hear them, do they make a difference, etc. Rupert: OK, Fletch, pin your ears back...back in 1977, just after I had sold the company, George Martin called me to say that Air Studios had taken delivery of a Neve Console which did not seem to be giving satisfaction to Geoff Emmerick. In fact, he said that Geoff is unhappy.... engineers from the company, bear in mind that at this point I was not primarily involved, had visited the studio and reported that nothing was wrong. They said that the customer is mad and that the problem will go away if we ignore it long enough. Well I visited the studio and after careful listening with Geoff, I agreed with him that three panels on this 48 panel console sounded slightly different. We discovered that there was a 3 dB peak at 54kHz Geoff's golden ears had perceived that there was a difference. We found that 3 transformers had been incorrectly wired and it was a matter of minutes to correct this. After which Geoff was happy. And I mean that he relaxed and there was a big smile on his face. As you can imagine a lot of theories were put forward, but even today I couldn't tell you how an experienced listener can perceive frequencies of the normal range of hearing. And following on from this, I was visiting Japan and was invited to the laboratories of Professor Oohashi He had discovered that when filteres were applied to an audio signal cutting off frequencies of 20 kHz, the brain started to emit electric signals which can be measured and quantified These signals were at the frequencies and of the pattern which are associated with frustration and anger. Clearly we discussed this at some length and I also would forward the idea that any frequncies which were not part of the original music, such as quantisizing noise produced by compact discs and other digital sources, also produced similar brain waves. |
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#7
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Roger W. Norman wrote:
And I invite both Mike Rivers and Scott Dorsey to add to the discussion since they've both worked with me in live jazz recordings, none of which have been the best environments. Without trying to tell them what to report in order to support my experiences, they certainly have more than enough experience to shoot down my theories. My personal feeling is that, while the conversion procedure is certainly flawed, it's improved immensely in the past 25 years to the point where it is no longer the bottleneck. I am sure improved converter linearity and maybe even wider converter bandwidth might help things a little. But compared with the amount of help that we'd get from better speakers and microphones, it's hardly even worth spending any development time. As far as increased bandwidth goes (ie. higher sampling rates), I really doubt they will improve anything. But they definitely will _not_ improve anything until the rest of the signal chain also has increased bandwidth as well. If it's not coming out of the mike, being able to record it doesn't do you any good. I have not seen any good studies (no, the Kanagawa Institute studies are not good) showing whether increased bandwidth is actually audible or not. This makes me think that if it _is_ audible, it's not a huge deal although it might be an incremental improvement. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
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#8
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"Mike Caffrey" wrote in message
ps.com Arny Krueger wrote: "Mike Caffrey" wrote in message oups.com Doc wrote: I've read where supposedly those who are accutely sensitive can hear deficiencies in 44.1 /16-bit CD's. If so, how do those with "golden ears" deal with eternally wallowing in inadequately reproduced sound? I believe that Ruper NEve's comment on Fletcher's site adn Dr Oohashi's research which people have refered to hear are the tip of the iceberg in proving that digital audio is responsible for the dismal record sales that we've seen lately. In fact Oohashi's research is irrelevant to any general presumed failings of digital audio because the whole context of the paper is digital audio. Basically, the paper is about comparing between one flavor of digital to another. I've read two. One compares the different reactions of the brain between analog and digital. The other compare the comfortable listening levels between analog and digital. Two what, where? First, the statment that digital doesn't deliver as competely as analog doesn't necessarily have to do with frequency response, it has to do with the emotional reation in the listener. Emotional reaction to what? Knowlege of what he is listening to? Whether one delivers hypersonic content that the other doesn't or adds a pleaseing distortion and any other technical difference is irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make. Any point that is well made is well made based on evidence, not speculation or uncitable papers. The quelty of digital at 192/24 is irrelevant as far as it's effect on sales are concerned. Two reasons, consumers (where the sales come from) don't listen at 192/24 and second it's still not the standard for recording at this point. It's too early to have enough data to compare the effects of multi track recordings made at 192/24 with either the various common digital rates and depths or analog multi track recordings. Balderdash. Evidence can be made in a lab in short order. As as slight aside, related to dynamic range. I know there's a mathematical calculation how how bit rate affects dynamic range, but my understanding and perception ofbit rate is that it's like having a hirhg resolution frame in a film, or maybe even larger film. Or, to compare to tape, wider track width. So yes, I value higher bit rates, but not for dynamic range. I really don't want to listen to a song change by 120db or even 80db. Blather. snip remaining ramblings |
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#9
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Arny Krueger wrote: "Mike Caffrey" wrote in message ps.com Arny Krueger wrote: "Mike Caffrey" wrote in message In fact Oohashi's research is irrelevant to any general presumed failings of digital audio because the whole context of the paper is digital audio. Basically, the paper is about comparing between one flavor of digital to another. I've read two. One compares the different reactions of the brain between analog and digital. The other compare the comfortable listening levels between analog and digital. Two what, where? Two papers. They can bee found if you search for Oohasi. First, the statment that digital doesn't deliver as competely as analog doesn't necessarily have to do with frequency response, it has to do with the emotional reation in the listener. Emotional reaction to what? Knowlege of what he is listening to? To the musical content. Whether one delivers hypersonic content that the other doesn't or adds a pleaseing distortion and any other technical difference is irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make. Any point that is well made is well made based on evidence, not speculation or uncitable papers. I can't find my old intro to logic book to look up the name of the fallacious argument you just made, but there are plenty of points that can be made in life that have nothing to do with evidence or papers, citable or uncitable. Whatever. Let's see if we can stay on topic. The quelty of digital at 192/24 is irrelevant as far as it's effect on sales are concerned. Two reasons, consumers (where the sales come from) don't listen at 192/24 and second it's still not the standard for recording at this point. It's too early to have enough data to compare the effects of multi track recordings made at 192/24 with either the various common digital rates and depths or analog multi track recordings. Balderdash. Evidence can be made in a lab in short order. You watch too much CSI. In this case we need sales data. The point we're arguing about is whether digital audio has affected sales. You could do some lab tests, but you need to compare a listener's reaction to vinyl and casette to their reaction to a CD. You'd also have to use a pretty wide sampling of music, both within the listener's taste and styales they don't enjoy. You'd probably have to play them music they haven't heard and see if one format or the other influenced their likelyhood of enjoying the content. It woudn't make sense to compare their reactions between two inch tape and digital multitrack formats, because that's not what consumer listen to (directly). That would be an interesting comparison as well and brings up another question about whether the multitrack format affects sales. IF you really want to have fun in your lab, you could "make evidence" on both the effect of the sonic properties as well as the effect of the different production processes. |
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