5121cdd@houxm.UUCP (C.DORY) (05/31/85)
I see/have seen several articles trying to compare the differences between LP and CD. Personally, I think this is silly waste of time for a few simple reasons -- rather, the proper question that should asked is: how can digital audio at the consumer level be made better? You see, CDs have the potential for being a truly exceptional means by which music is stored and distributed to the customer, but I feel that they have, so far, not reached their potential. The LP is obsolete -- I agree that there are several good LPs out there and that the LP will continue to exist. The problem lies in the manufacturing process for the LP. First, the master laquer is cut and plated to form what is called the father. From the father, a metal mother (negative father) is formed. From the mother, then, the stampers are made and the pressings we buy are made from the stampers. IF everything goes right in this father-mother-stamper process (called matrixing) then all you have to worry about is the mastering engineer (there are only a few good ones in the country) and his equipment, how many pressings from each stamper, how many stampers from each mother,...the list goes on and on. In short, we have a process that that has AT LEAST five stages with significant room for error at each stage. I have, on occaision, needed to test what are called "reference disks" (essentially master laquers cut for testing purposes) in comparison with finished product, the pressing. You would be astounded with the difference, even when the matrixing all the way to the quality of the vinyl in the pressing is first rate -- there is a non-trivial amount of loss in this process. The CD, potentially, has many fewer stages to go through. There problem here lies in the equipment used in production. The only digital mastering processor for CDs is the Sony PCM 1610 -- and it has some some significant problems: time delay distortion and crummy i/o electronics primarily. Top engineers, like Tony Faulkner, who own a 1610, generally modify them heavily. What we have to realize is that digital for audio (music) is still in its infancy. Many discoveries and achievments are yet to be made. People like Bob Adams from dbx, Roger Logadec and our own Chuck Podaras from Studer are quite actively persuing better A/Ds and D/As all using more resolution and oversampling techniques. I think if you sit back and look around for a minute, the people that you see and hear saying that "CDs are the ultimate" are those people trying to sell CDs today. The people that are truly interested in the music are saying "digital is the way to go -- let's work on it some more". Maybe I'm totally off base, but I feel that this is an extremely exciting time for audio -- some of the audiophiles are coming "out of the closet" and speaking their peace. To our surprise, they often have something to say: simple is better, soundstage is important too, use the best components can (caps, resistors, wire, etc.), and on and on. This is not in anyway to belittle the importance of the scientists and engineers out there -- we need to get their ears (pardon the pun) so that they can employ expertise to design and build these next-generation systems. Craig Dory
pmr@drutx.UUCP (Rastocny) (06/01/85)
[] I agree with C Dory (and many others) in that LPs are a dying medium. And that more emphasis should be placed on making CDs sound more accurate than flaming back and forth about my CD player is more accurate than your analog nail or vice versa. But some folks don`t agree. They feel that the CD is the best sound possible today. But this is just not true. For some reason, processing or whatever, state-of-the-art (SOTA) in each field, analog still sounds more like the instrument than its digital counterpart (note that we're not comparing apples to apples since the noise floor is different, analog being worse). So let's concentrate on making digital more musical. I have heard many differences between CD playback systems from day one of their introduction. I stopped listening to them since no significant circuit topologies existed until recently. However, there are a few SOTA CD players that now begin to sound like music. These are the Nakamichis, the Meridian, and the Mission (I haven't heard the NAD). Others on the net have stated that they hear no differences and still others side with my statement. So what makes these players different and why do people have different views about CD sound? I feel that there are three parts to this problem: 1) people don't know what instruments sound like 2) people are two egocentric about their playback systems (whatever type it may be, analog or digital, low-end or high-end) to be honest about the system`s ability to accurately reproduce music. 3) people (scientists included, or are they not people?) make rash statements before understanding both sides of a problem There isn't much one can do about problem #1 except go to concerts and memorize the intricacies of each instrument, one at a time. Problem #2 attacts a soft spot of the ego regardless of the price of the system. Learning to be honest is more difficult than learning to recognize an instrument's subtleties. For example, when was the last time you told your spouse/friend/significant other that the meal was rotten? And when was the last time you admitted to yourself that your system stinks and that there are others that sound much more accurate (note that I did not use the word "better")? Problem #3 is characteristic of impatient homo sapiens. Learning to deal with this problem is no less difficult than the above two problems. I feel that all of the opinions stated about the pros and cons of digital/analog are senseless. The move should be to improve the SOTA as my closing has always stated. I know in my heart that some day digital will sound more accurate than analog. Personally, I can hardly wait. Analog has one thing going for it: it's been around for a while and, just as with any piece of electrical or mechanical equipment, it's had time gets the bugs out. The bugs that still remain (wear, noise, dynamic range) cannot be removed with current manufacturing methods. Once digital matures and its inherent bugs are worked out, it too should sound musical. I don't enjoy treating the fragile analog medium with kid gloves, but the most musical signal sources are still in this medium. So until the Nth-generation CD player with 8x or 16x oversampling, and a digital or single- pole or whatever filter is developed, until engineers have had time to understand and take advantage of the potential of the digital medium, I'll just have slowly wear my analog discs out with my esoteric nail and wait. Yours for higher fidelity, Phil Rastocny AT&T-ISL ihnp4!drutx!pmr