dimare@ucla-cs.UUCP (09/19/84)
Has anybody run a meaningful experiment to decide which is better? Just take some random number of Golden Ears, and hook them up to 2 music sources: one CD and another vinyl. The one that gets the best score is the winner. Adolfo /// P.S. Sorry, I'm not a GE: I'm a TE: trashy ears...
good@pixar.UUCP (04/20/86)
I'm not sure what I did to deserve this kind of flame. You'd think I had insulted this person's lineage or something in my original net.rumor posting regarding album washing. > From: pixar!ucsfcgl!floyd!clyde!watmath!utzoo!utcsri!koko%uthub > To: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!pixar!good%utcsri > Subject: Re: Washing albums > References: <782@ihlpl.UUCP> <3447@sun.uucp> <279@uthub.UUCP> <3484@sun.uucp>, <2660@pixar.pixar> > SINCE WHEN ARE COMPACT DISKS "INHERENTLY INFERIOR IN MANY AREAS ESSENTIAL TO > HIGH FIDELITY!!!?" Give me examples of such areas. It is obvious that either > you have NEVER heard a compact disk, or that you are a disgruntled audiophile >who is upset that these simple, neat and easy-to-use devices are rendering your > $2000 turntable worthless. I, for one, hate to have to keep records as > dust-free as possible, and to have to go through many intricate steps to > get music out of a record. Here are some "inherent inferiorities" of records: > > - need to keep as clean as possible > - wear out with use > - deteriorate with age > - easily scratched > - turntable cartridges tend to be microphonic (i.e. pick up the sound of a bus > going by on the street outside) > - some turntables need special preamps and prepreamps > - records tend to be large, clumsy and delicate > - surface noise is inherent > - the operation of a turntable, even an automatic one, can be frustrating, > especially when an accidently misplaced tone arm puts a gouge in your > new import record for which you paid and arm and a leg and waited for > since the dinosaur age > > Now look at the benefits of compact disks: > > - will tolerate fingerprints and mild scratches (provided they are not > excessive) > - never wear out > - completely insensitive to ambient vibration > - no special amplification required -- line-level outputs are standard > - small, portable and conveniently transported, even in large numbers > - immeasurable (and therefore undetectable) inherent noise in the medium > - no anomalies in frequency response -- almost perfectly flat response > - no measurable wow or flutter > - disk players are easy to operate -- just slip the disk in and press > a button (this is very important for users who are not technically > oriented or who do not have the steadiness of hand that a brain > surgeon has) > - no need to select cartridges > - no need to periodically replace needles > > So next time you try to flame me on the net, bucko, you better back > up your statements! (And please -- no myths about weird distortions > to the sound caused by the compact-disk technology.) Remember -- those > who resisted technical progress ALWAYS lose their battle. This is > a proven historical fact -- e.g.: the industrial revolution, automation, > robotics and computers. > > And one more thing. Tell your other friends who are clogging up my > mailbox with similar bullshit to stop, as I am sure you will do after > reading this. I have more important things to do than educate ignorant > people. Needless to say I'm somewhat taken aback by all this. I promise this person that I have not sent one byte to his mailbox, nor have any of my friends. I think his wild, emotional response and faulty logic rather speak for themselves, but since he did ask I'll address a few of his points. It is not at all obvious that I haven't heard a CD. I've heard some of the best. The author's references to needles and automatic turntables, on the other hand, seem to indicate a certain lack of experience with the state of the turntable art since the mid 1970's or so. Since when have CDs been inherently inferior in areas essential to high-fidelity? Since their inception, I'm afraid. The people designing and selling digital audio are clinging slavishly to the idea that all the bandwidth you need is 20 KHz. This is based on steady-state tone tests done in the 1940's for crying out loud. Recent tests run on modern equipment in Europe have indicated that many people under many conditions can hear sine waves into the 40 KHz range. But even that is irrelevant to a point. The human auditory system is very sensitive to slew rate, or transient response. The steepness of the leading edge of a pulse is very easy to discern. When you translate the transient response needed to reproduce sounds found in real, acoustic music such as bells, plucked strings and other percussive instruments into a sine wave type bandwidth you get numbers way the heck up in the many hundreds of KHz. CD players are falling apart well below 20 KHz, and they rapidly fall into the mush above that figure. Finer phono cartridges behave quite reasonably up to the 500 KHz region in this respect. Also, for what ever reason, when you compare a CD to a good phono reproduction chain the CD sounds very dynamically compressed: dynamics in the music are simply lost. Please don't flame about "96 db dynamic range". For one thing, that is the S/N, not the dynamic range (we aren't talking math, we're talking music, remember). For another, useful information is available deep into the noise floor of an analog system, so the dynamic range can be greater than 100 db without much trouble. As for un-measurable equating to un-audible, this is pure hokum. For years and years new measurements have been coming along and identifying previously audible phenomena. It is still possible to hear things you can't measure. Unless you take an oscilliscope with you to the symphony you should prioritize that which you can hear above that which you can measure. This doesn't mean that measurements aren't an extremely valuable thing. Many of the points made by the above author are quite valid, and I never said they weren't. But most of them indicate that the CD player is a better consumer product than the turntable. No big argument there. CDs do now represent a good value as a convenience medium, and their longetivity is truly one of ther greatest assets. I only object to people touting them as state of the art in audio reproduction, because they just aren't. They are simply an alternative which has both advantages and disadvantages compared to a competing technology. It is sad that the Japanese industrial complex has succeeded in evoking such a religiously zealous devotion to their marketing efforts. If you are spending under half a kilobuck or so on a signal source they are an extremely attractive alternative. If you can afford more money and more hassle you can musically blow them out of the water, surface noise and all, with a costlier turntable system. Ferrari's have always been more of a bother than Datsuns. I respectfully request now that the mail I recieve be of a more civil tone, or I will probably not take the time to answer. Thank you for your time and consideration, --Craig ...ucbvax!pixar!good
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (04/25/86)
This reminds me of a comment seen in some review of CDs a while ago:
"Most people prefer listening to CDs over listening to objections to them."
--
Support the International
League For The Derision Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
Of User-Friendliness! {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henrykoko@uthub.UUCP (M. Kokodyniak) (04/25/86)
> > It is not at all obvious that I haven't heard a CD. I've heard some > of the best. The author's references to needles and automatic turntables, > on the other hand, seem to indicate a certain lack of experience with the > state of the turntable art since the mid 1970's or so. > Wait a minute! I did not say that ALL modern turntables are difficult to operate. Some are, but some aren't. Nevertheless, the ones which the average person can afford are likely not to be entirely state of the art. Furthermore, most average people have turntables which were bought years ago and which ARE awkward to use, compared to the most recent ones. So most CD players, on this point alone, are very attractive to the average person, since they are easy to handle. Furthermore, there are players under $400 that have only the basic features so that those who don't want them don't need to spend the extra money on them. > Since when have CDs been inherently inferior in areas essential to > high-fidelity? Since their inception, I'm afraid. The people designing and > selling digital audio are clinging slavishly to the idea that all the bandwidth > you need is 20 KHz. This is based on steady-state tone tests done in the 1940's > for crying out loud. Recent tests run on modern equipment in Europe have > indicated that many people under many conditions can hear sine waves into the > 40 KHz range. But even that is irrelevant to a point. The human auditory > system is very sensitive to slew rate, or transient response. The steepness > of the leading edge of a pulse is very easy to discern. > Yes, but the human threshold of hearing is several orders of magnitude higher above 20 kHz then it is below 5 kHz. This means that sounds over 20 kHz have to be fairly loud to even be detected by the human ear. Furthermore, the threshold of pain and the threshold of hearing tend to converge over 20 kHz. Keep in mind that people cannot tell between different waveforms waves above 20 kHz because the harmonics of a 20-kHz arbitrary periodic waveform are 40 kHz, 60 kHz, etc. What I am trying to say is that although human hearing may indeed extend past 20 kHz, it is poorly defined at best. In fact, perception of hearing is also poor -- probably no one can discern musical pitch above 20 kHz. But despite all of this, what makes you think that even the best turntable can reproduce signals above 20 kHz accurately? At those frequencies, the instantaneous velocity of the needle becomes great enough to both plastically and elastically deform vinyl. This is evidenced by the scratchy quality a record will attain after even a few plays. Even worse, a maladjusted tone arm and cartridge can damage a record after one play. No such problems occur with compact disks. > When you translate the transient response needed to reproduce sounds > found in real, acoustic music such as bells, plucked strings and other > percussive instruments into a sine wave type bandwidth you get numbers way the > heck up in the many hundreds of KHz. CD players are falling apart well below > 20 KHz, and they rapidly fall into the mush above that figure. Finer phono > cartridges behave quite reasonably up to the 500 KHz region in this respect. > This last statement is nonsense, as I have explained above. Indeed the CARTRIDGE may behave well at 100 kHz, but VINYL does not! Therefore, a system consisting of a cartridge and vinyl will not behave well at 100 kHz. (I could only believe that a cartridge could behave well above 100 kHz if the test signal were directly mechanically coupled from the test transducer to the cartridge.) But even if a turntable behaved better than a compact disk player above 20 kHz, most amplifiers that most average people have cannot handle the extra bandwidth anyway. The filters in most amplifiers and preamplifiers, which incidently protect the power electronics in the amplifier from excessive slew rates or switching losses (as in PWM amps), cause severe attenutation and phase distortion above 20 kHz. Tweeters also do nasty things above 20 kHz, since they behave as electromechanical filters. > Also, for what ever reason, when you compare a CD to a good phono > reproduction chain the CD sounds very dynamically compressed: dynamics in > the music are simply lost. Please don't flame about "96 db dynamic range". > For one thing, that is the S/N, not the dynamic range (we aren't talking math, > we're talking music, remember). For another, useful information is available > deep into the noise floor of an analog system, so the dynamic range can be > greater than 100 db without much trouble. WHAT?!!! The dynamic range of a compact disk far exceeds that of a turntable. Just compare the specs between any CD player and a good turntable. But maybe you like hissing in the background during soft passages in a symphony; maybe you like high-frequency distortion and skipping needles because of overexcursions. I have heard A-B tests done between a record and the same material on a compact disk. I would choose the CD on basis of dynamic range alone. I would also choose the CD on the basis of noise alone. > > As for un-measurable equating to un-audible, this is pure hokum. For > years and years new measurements have been coming along and identifying > previously audible phenomena. It is still possible to hear things you can't > measure. Unless you take an oscilliscope with you to the symphony you should > prioritize that which you can hear above that which you can measure. This > doesn't mean that measurements aren't an extremely valuable thing. This may be true of such things as phase distortion or the like, but immeasurable wow and flutter mean inaudible wow and flutter. But nevertheless, CD's have lower wow and flutter than any turntable. > > Many of the points made by the above author are quite valid, and I > never said they weren't. But most of them indicate that the CD player is > a better consumer product than the turntable. No big argument there. CDs do > now represent a good value as a convenience medium, and their longetivity is > truly one of ther greatest assets. I only object to people touting them as > state of the art in audio reproduction, because they just aren't. They are > simply an alternative which has both advantages and disadvantages compared to a > competing technology. It is sad that the Japanese industrial complex has > succeeded in evoking such a religiously zealous devotion to their marketing > efforts. CD's may be just an alternative now, while many people still value their investments in record collections. But CD's or successive technologies are the way of the future. Turntables are archaic, just like steam engines or vacuum tubes. Just as you cannot make vacuum tubes as small as active elements in an integrated circuit, you cannot make a turntable as good as a compact disk. This is a technological fact. I may sound like I love compact disks with an almost zealous passion while I hate records just as much. But in reality, all of my technical experience and, most importantly of all, my hearing and musical perception tell me that compact disks are, both inherently and in performance, better than records. > > If you are spending under half a kilobuck or so on a signal source they > are an extremely attractive alternative. If you can afford more money and more > hassle you can musically blow them out of the water, surface noise and all, > with a costlier turntable system. Ferrari's have always been more of a bother > than Datsuns. Do you mean that the best turntable can "blow out of the water" the best CD player? I seriosly doubt this. A "costlier turntable system" might be like a Ferrari, but a cheap system is like a Datsun. A CD-based system is not powered by gasoline but by a warp-drive system, and is hence more like a space vehicle out of the future. (You may well argue that the CD standard could be improved, but this is not the point. Besides, you have to draw the line somewhere, between a practical system and one which has specs twice as good and costs twice as much but only seems 1.05 times as good.) > > > --Craig > ...ucbvax!pixar!good Mike Kokodyniak
good@pixar (Craig Good: U.S. Olympic Balkan Dirt Diving Team) (04/30/86)
In article <297@uthub.UUCP> koko@uthub.UUCP (M. Kokodyniak) writes: > Wait a minute! I did not say that ALL modern turntables are >difficult to operate. Some are, but some aren't. Nevertheless, the ones >which the average person can afford are likely not to be entirely state of >the art. Furthermore, most average people have turntables which were >bought years ago and which ARE awkward to use, compared to the most >recent ones. So most CD players, on this point alone, are very attractive >to the average person, since they are easy to handle. Furthermore, there >are players under $400 that have only the basic features so that those >who don't want them don't need to spend the extra money on them. That's just what I said also. CDs make a good consumer product. >In fact, perception of hearing is also poor -- >probably no one can discern musical pitch above 20 kHz. "Probably." I was talking mainly about transients, not steady-state stuff. > But despite all of this, what makes you think that even the best >turntable can reproduce signals above 20 kHz accurately? Which evidence would you like? The stuff I saw on the oscilliscope or the CD-4 quadraphonic standard which used 50 KHz pilot tones and which worked on cheap, consumer-grade gear? > But even if a turntable behaved better than a compact disk >player above 20 kHz... It does, ipso facto, since the CD has nothing but residual garbage above 20K. >...most amplifiers that most average people have >cannot handle the extra bandwidth anyway. The filters in most amplifiers >and preamplifiers, which incidently protect the power electronics in the >amplifier from excessive slew rates or switching losses (as in PWM amps), >cause severe attenutation and phase distortion above 20 kHz. Tweeters >also do nasty things above 20 kHz, since they behave as electromechanical >filters. "Excessive slew rates"? Says who? Anyway, if your amp falls apart in the 20 KHz octave it is worse than cheap, it is a crock. I'll bet a nickel that the $1.39 worth of headphone amp in a Sony Walkman does better than you think most consumer gear does. > WHAT?!!! The dynamic range of a compact disk far exceeds that >of a turntable. Just compare the specs between any CD player and a good >turntable. But maybe you like hissing in the background during >soft passages in a symphony; maybe you like high-frequency distortion >and skipping needles because of overexcursions. I have heard A-B tests >done between a record and the same material on a compact disk. >I would choose the CD on basis of dynamic range alone. I would also >choose the CD on the basis of noise alone. Specs, schmecs. I know compression when I hear it. One of the real weaknesses of all digital audio schemes of which I know is that they have exactly 0 db of headroom. If your music goes, for even a fraction of a second, a mere .5 db above that level you get horrible distortions. Analog systems can, and often do, have 12 to 20 db of dynamic headroom. The distortions increases gradually, and is generally even-order (as opposed to the odd-order you get when digital clips). The distortion is also spectrally related to the music making it even less noticable and objectionable. Analog systems also allow useful listening a good 15 db below the noise "floor". A properly dithered digital system only gets you 2 or 3 db down there. (A note on hiss at the symphony, and skipping needles: You can't go hear a live performance without hiss. It's called room rumble, and there is lots of it everywhere you go. Hiss is a normal, natural part of life, and when it is kept to low levels it is easy to ignore. Everyone values different performance areas when evaluating the musical performance of audio gear. I value dynamic behaviour (range, tracking, damping, etc) very highly. Not even the digital master tapes I heard were as satisfying in those areas as a decent record. They were best described as "really good cassettes without hiss". Also, my system has a stylus, and my stylus never skips unless the record is defective or severely damaged. I might add that the highs are cleaner than CDs I've heard, and that my lowly tweeters work rather nicely to at least 27 KHz, thank you. Good ones hit 35 KHz before even rolling off.) An absolutely perfectly mastered CD could give you 96 db of dynamic range, but since you absolutely cannot afford clipping -- and since the dynamic range of a typical orchestra performance can give you +15db excursions without even breathing hard -- you are going to lower the average level by 15 db. You are now spending most of your time around the 81 db S/N area (still quite good). If you allow vinyl a modest 65 db, with a modest +12 db headroom and an equally modest -9 db useable information below the "floor", you come up with a useable dynamic range of about 86 db. I think I was kind enough to the CD and conservative enough with the phono pickup that we don't have to argue the numbers much. The point is that CDs aren't quite as good as claimed, and records have more spunk than they are credited. > CD's may be just an alternative now, while many people still value >their investments in record collections. But CD's or successive technologies >are the way of the future. Turntables are archaic, just like steam engines >or vacuum tubes. Just as you cannot make vacuum tubes as small as active >elements in an integrated circuit, you cannot make a turntable as good as >a compact disk. This is a technological fact. This is your opinion. Nobody has come close to measuring how "good" something sounds, so I fail to see you you can claim it as a technological fact, whatever a technological fact is supposed to be. > I may sound like I love >compact disks with an almost zealous passion while I hate records just as >much. But in reality, all of my technical experience and, most importantly >of all, my hearing and musical perception tell me that compact disks are, >both inherently and in performance, better than records. >> >> If you are spending under half a kilobuck or so on a signal source they >> are an extremely attractive alternative. If you can afford more money and more >> hassle you can musically blow them out of the water, surface noise and all, >> with a costlier turntable system. Ferrari's have always been more of a bother >> than Datsuns. > > Do you mean that the best turntable can "blow out of the water" the >best CD player? I seriosly doubt this. What can I say? I've heard it. It wasn't even a race. But this brings up an important point, and the reason why I plan to make this my last posting on the subject: I can't play the stuff I hear on the reference system to which I have access on the net. No amount of explaining will convince anybody that A sounds like Q but B sounds like Y. Gosh, it's been fun though. Go out and buy your CDs, enjoy them, take full advantage of the many truly wonderful things they can do. Be happy. Don't listen to master tapes on a $100,000 stereo. It's into the sunset for me and my out-moded relics, hissing and popping our way into the void. -- --Craig ...{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!good
herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong) (05/01/86)
In article <2679@pixar.pixar> good@pixar (You're only as good as your stereo) writes: > Since when have CDs been inherently inferior in areas essential to >high-fidelity? Since their inception, I'm afraid. The people designing and >selling digital audio are clinging slavishly to the idea that all the bandwidth >you need is 20 KHz. This is based on steady-state tone tests done in the 1940's >for crying out loud. Recent tests run on modern equipment in Europe have >indicated that many people under many conditions can hear sine waves into the >40 KHz range. But even that is irrelevant to a point. The human auditory >system is very sensitive to slew rate, or transient response. The steepness >of the leading edge of a pulse is very easy to discern. slew rate and frequency response are the same thing when it comes to modifying a signal. maximum slew rate and rolloff frequency at the upper end is directly related. as for the tests, unless you can prove that subharmonics are not produced by your 40kHz test signals, you haven't proved anything. hearing by bone conduction doesn't count as we never listen that way to our music. > When you translate the transient response needed to reproduce sounds >found in real, acoustic music such as bells, plucked strings and other >percussive instruments into a sine wave type bandwidth you get numbers way the >heck up in the many hundreds of KHz. CD players are falling apart well below >20 KHz, and they rapidly fall into the mush above that figure. Finer phono >cartridges behave quite reasonably up to the 500 KHz region in this respect. according to whom? frequencies produced by instruments such as bells and such may be greater than 20kHz but several hundred kHz is stretching it. and even if it did, if the ear is bandlimited to 50 kHz (in your optimistic case), it matters not at all what happens above that frequency. (nit pickers will insist that IM distortion will play a role.) any CD player will reproduce easily with 0.5dB up until 19kHz with a small amount of phase shift. by design, none have higher than 20.5 kHz. there are very few cartridges that claim response beyond 75kHz. there is only one i know of that claims beyond 100 Khz and it stops at 125 kHz (a discontinued Technics MC). real world measurements indicate that for normal stereo records, almost anything recorded at about 50kHz to about 80kHz is totally swamped by vinyl resonance. (CD-4 records take advantage of this to FM the other two channels with a reasonable amplitude even though the cartridges were physically not able to reproduce flat to 50kHz without the compliance of the vinyl factored in.) couple that with the cutter head resonance somewhere between 35kHz and 50kHz and you have total mismash. add on top of all that the bandlimited master tape used to produce the record and you see that it is just not possible and/or relevant to talk about cartridge behavior above 40kHz except in terms of how all these resonances affect conventional audible frequencies by means of IM effects. > Also, for what ever reason, when you compare a CD to a good phono >reproduction chain the CD sounds very dynamically compressed: dynamics in >the music are simply lost. Please don't flame about "96 db dynamic range". >For one thing, that is the S/N, not the dynamic range (we aren't talking math, >we're talking music, remember). For another, useful information is available >deep into the noise floor of an analog system, so the dynamic range can be >greater than 100 db without much trouble. i have a set of VERY expensive and well kept records. i also have a so so CD player (can't afford a good one yet 8-(). with proper dithering, a usable dynamic range of some 80+ dB can be obtained with the CD system. an extremely quiet record can reach 70 dB (at least some of mine can). close, but no cigar. maybe it's the distortion when a cartridge mistracks that you're missing. also, have you measured the dynamic range of some good DD records? i have. 45 dB. > As for un-measurable equating to un-audible, this is pure hokum. For >years and years new measurements have been coming along and identifying >previously audible phenomena. It is still possible to hear things you can't >measure. Unless you take an oscilliscope with you to the symphony you should >prioritize that which you can hear above that which you can measure. This >doesn't mean that measurements aren't an extremely valuable thing. what people can imagine also far exceeds what people can measure. careful tests have shown that the majority of audible differences come down to frequency response and IM distortion. > Many of the points made by the above author are quite valid, and I >never said they weren't. But most of them indicate that the CD player is >a better consumer product than the turntable. No big argument there. CDs do >now represent a good value as a convenience medium, and their longetivity is >truly one of ther greatest assets. I only object to people touting them as >state of the art in audio reproduction, because they just aren't. They are >simply an alternative which has both advantages and disadvantages compared to a >competing technology. It is sad that the Japanese industrial complex has >succeeded in evoking such a religiously zealous devotion to their marketing >efforts. depends on what you mean by state of the art. they are the highest technology form of music reproduction available to the consumer today. as for the sound quality, well, i'm open to persuasion. most of the flaws i hear are due to poor master tapes and analog sections. the digital sections inherently are better than any currently available analog means of reproduction. and, for what it's worth, i can hear slight differences between CD players. i'm talking magnitude, not importance. (to some, any difference is a significant difference.) i happen to favor the 4x oversampled Philips approach but i think they need to put higher quality analog components in their units. what i objected to in this posting was the amount of nonsense in the "technical discussion". a slight amount of thinking would have made the stupidities obvious. note that i'm not saying that records are better than CD's or vice versa, just that the arguments used above showed no thought and a lot of hearsay. for the anti-digital camp, it just ruins the credibility of any others. Herb Chong... I'm still user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble.... VNET,BITNET,NETNORTH,EARN: HERBIE AT YKTVMH UUCP: {allegra|cbosgd|cmcl2|decvax|ihnp4|seismo}!philabs!polaris!herbie CSNET: herbie.yktvmh@ibm-sj.csnet ARPA: herbie@ibm-sj.arpa, herbie%yktvmh.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu ======================================================================== DISCLAIMER: what you just read was produced by pouring lukewarm tea for 42 seconds onto 9 people chained to 6 Ouiji boards.
caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) (05/04/86)
In article <2743@pixar.pixar> good@pixar.UUCP (Craig Good: U.S. Olympic Balkan Dirt Diving Team) writes: >"Excessive slew rates"? Says who? Anyway, if your amp falls apart in the >20 KHz octave it is worse than cheap, it is a crock. I'll bet a nickel >that the $1.39 worth of headphone amp in a Sony Walkman does better than you >think most consumer gear does. > Show me an LP with a steady 20 kHz sine wave recorded at 0db (100 per cent modulation) at both the outer grooves and the inner grooves after a few plays and I'll be amazed. CD's are quite capable of reproducing 20 kHz at 100 per cent modulation, and the resulting scope trace looks like the ouytput of the signal generator, not a shortwave broadcast. > >Specs, schmecs. I know compression when I hear it. One of the real weaknesses >of all digital audio schemes of which I know is that they have exactly 0 db >of headroom. If your music goes, for even a fraction of a second, a mere .5 >db above that level you get horrible distortions. Analog systems can, and often >do, have 12 to 20 db of dynamic headroom. The distortions increases gradually, >and is generally even-order (as opposed to the odd-order you get when digital >clips). The distortion is also spectrally related to the music making it even >less noticable and objectionable. Analog systems also allow useful listening >a good 15 db below the noise "floor". A properly dithered digital system only >gets you 2 or 3 db down there. > Please show me an LP with any 20 kHz material anywhere near 0db, let alone +12 or +20 db, ticks and pops excluded. > >(A note on hiss at the symphony, and skipping needles: You can't go hear a live performance without >hiss. It's called room rumble, and there is lots of it everywhere you go. Hiss >is a normal, natural part of life, and when it is kept to low levels it is easy >to ignore. Room rumble is easy to ignore because it comes from a different direction and has a spectral content different from most music. Hiss, on the other hand, appears to emanate from the approximate same location as the orchestra; hence the usual comments about a "curtain of hiss" when comparing well recorded CD's to noisier sources. > >An absolutely perfectly mastered CD could give you 96 db of dynamic range, but >since you absolutely cannot afford clipping -- and since the dynamic range of >a typical orchestra performance can give you +15db excursions without even >breathing hard -- you are going to lower the average level by 15 db. You are >now spending most of your time around the 81 db S/N area (still quite good). > Clipping of extremely short transients is vitually inaudible, and thus would be permissible on a digital recording. > >If you allow vinyl a modest 65 db, with a modest +12 db headroom and an equally > Show me an LP with a 82 db dynamic range at 20 kHz or even at 5 kHz before claiming it! > >modest -9 db useable information below the "floor", > I see no reason why the noise on an LP is any less noisy than that generated by dither. If you add 9 db of "useable information below the noise floor" to LP's, then add it to dithered CD's as well! > >wonderful things they can do. Be happy. Don't listen to master tapes on a >$100,000 stereo. > If I had a $100,000 stereo, and assuming that it sounded an order of magnitude better than mine, I'd listen to master tapes, CD's, LP's, Star Trek, or whatever. If the $100,000 stereo were only slightly better than mine, it might be better to get a better listening room for the one I already have, saving a few grand for upgrading the speakers. Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf CIS:70715,131 Author of Professional-YAM communications Tools for PCDOS and Unix Omen Technology Inc 17505-V NW Sauvie Island Road Portland OR 97231 Voice: 503-621-3406 TeleGodzilla: 621-3746 300/1200 L.sys entry for omen: omen Any ACU 1200 1-503-621-3746 se:--se: link ord: Giznoid in:--in: uucp omen!/usr/spool/uucppublic/FILES lists all uucp-able files, updated hourly
rdp@teddy.UUCP (Richard D. Pierce) (05/07/86)
In article <331@omen.UUCP> caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) writes: > >Please show me an LP with any 20 kHz material anywhere near 0db, let alone >+12 or +20 db, ticks and pops excluded. Well, the show us any musical source whatsoever that has 20 Khz material at anywhere near the kinds os levels your talking about first, though. (Careful here, I've done quite a bit of study of musical spectra!) > >Show me an LP with a 82 db dynamic range at 20 kHz or even at 5 kHz before >claiming it! > Show us any musical source with the kind of dynamic range your talking about. The nonsense being perpetrated on the net about orchestras having billion db dynamic range is unfounded. Measurements that I have done when I was involved in this kind of research indicate far less dynamic range is needed. For example, one of my measurements of the Boston Symphony Orchestra doing Stravinsky's "Le sacre du Printemps" showed an average floor noise in excess of 50 db at best, quitest passages in the same general region, and peaks (using impulse measurement techniques) to about 93 db. A big fat 43 db. Rock music is far worse, in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 db. I have chosen to stay as far as possible from the CD issue, but it's this sort of complete misinformation that completely muddies the waters. I have, myself, auditioned both LP's and CD's under far more stringent requirements than it appears anyone here has mentioned. People talk about which sounds more "real", but with, it seems, complete ignorance of what constitutes "real". I have listened to LP's and CD's playing instruments that I know well, harpsichords and organs. Even recordings of specific instruments I have played, and the net result is that both CD's and LP's are spectacularly bad at generating a convincing image of the original instrument. This is a point you are all loosing sight of. The recording techniques are miserable, including bad miking, worse mixing, and terrible EQ. So much information is lost BEFORE the decision is ever made to go to LP or CD. If those of you with your Infinity's and your Polk's and your this's and that's REALLY knew how awfully grim your speakers really were, maybe you might be humbled into the realization of the absolute stupidy of this argument. I have been in the audio field for nearly 16 years. I have seen this shit all before, and it is always the same. You are all barking up the wrong trees, in fact your still wandering around in the wrong forest. Go to more concerts, learn to play some of these instruments yourselves. Then see how much effort you are willing to put in these arguments. If you're reasonable, I suspect the market for used high-end stereo equipment would be flooded. Meanwhile, direct further CD vs. LP discussion to net.audio.anally_fixated Dick Pierce
davidw@sjfc.UUCP (David White) (05/21/86)
In article <6622@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: >This reminds me of a comment seen in some review of CDs a while ago: > >"Most people prefer listening to CDs over listening to objections to them." >-- >Support the International >League For The Derision Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology >Of User-Friendliness! {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
davidw@sjfc.UUCP (David White) (05/21/86)
In article <6622@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: >This reminds me of a comment seen in some review of CDs a while ago: > >"Most people prefer listening to CDs over listening to objections to them." >-- >Support the International >League For The Derision Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology >Of User-Friendliness! {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry MAKING UNIX USER FRIENDLY A Brief "Hands On" Demo of of a program in progress K-330 Kearney Hall St. John Fisher Roch NY Open Wednesday nine to noon [key available @ switchboard] 52 weeks a year You Ought To Be in Rochester!