[net.audio] CD Don't you just love 'em?

charles@sunybcs.UUCP (05/04/84)

[]
  While haunting audio stores lately looking for a sub-woofer
We walked into one listening room and...
 
  'Gawd that sounds metallic, must be a CD!'
 
   It was.
 
Has anybody even seen an ENTEC sub-woofer?
Harder to find than even a Keith Monks (sp) record cleaning machine.
 

fish@ihu1g.UUCP (Bob Fishell) (05/08/84)

(oo)
I was also walking through an audio shop the other day.  I entered
one room and heard in the background of the music numerous clicks,
pops, scratchy sounds, hiss, and distortion.  I said, "Boy, that
must be a vinyl disc!"

IT WAS!

Face it.  You CD-haters just can't stand the fact that your $1500
Thorens turntables are going to be obsolete.  Any problems with
CDs are in the recording process, not the medium itself.  Vinyl
will hopefully be a dead medium in 20 years, and good riddance.
-- 

                               Bob Fishell
                               ihnp4!ihu1g!fish

lat@stcvax.UUCP (05/08/84)

Hi.
>>  While haunting audio stores lately looking for a sub-woofer
>>We walked into one listening room and...
 
>>  'Gawd that sounds metallic, must be a CD!'

If you listen to a lot of heavy metal music this could
be the unit to have! :-)
-- 
{decvax, hao}!stcvax!lat				Larry Tepper
{allegra, amd70, ucbvax}!nbires!stcvax!lat		303-673-5435

czp@houxa.UUCP (C.PODARAS) (05/09/84)

re: bob fishell's comments (non-antagonistic followup)

>"...any problems with CDs are in the recording process, not the medium 
> itself..."

replace 'recording' with 'playback' or 'reconstruction' and this will be a 
more accurate statement.  digital signal processing works.  sampling theory 
works.  nyquist criterion works.  most current commercial playback d/a's and 
reconstruction filters, however, leave a bit to be desired.  try listening 
to a (technically) good cd on a player that does (technically) correct d/a 
conversion, and the results are pleasing indeed...

>"...vinyl will hopefully be a dead medium in twenty years..." 

it'll probably be a lot sooner than that.  oh, sure, analog discs (sorry about 
the spelling, i'm an ultimate frisbee player) will be around for a long time 
as a very low-cost, low-tech medium.  but when a small, fly-by-night outfit 
like sony invests untold megayen in facilities and research for cd...well, 
you get the picture. (no flames about rca and ced, please. they never knew 
what they were doing) besides, sony has made public statements of corporate 
philosophy which state that they are out to have cd and cassette fully supplant
analog vinyl as the playback medium of choice by the mid-to-late 1980's.  
sounds mildly serious on their part.  now if they'd only up the g*dd*mn 
sampling frequency to make life a little more bearable for the pros and 
the film industry...

hmm... wonder if anyone will ever put lindisfarne or it's a beautiful day on cd?

and, regarding the origional article that bob replied to (cd = metallic sound):
i'm getting awful tempted to post a neo-flame about comparing cd vs. analog, 
which relates here.  so what was the cd? was it fully mixed and mastered 
digitally? or was it from an analog production master?  how about the 
equipment used to play it back? a sony cdp101 maybe (gawd forbid)?  could 
the speakers handle a *mercifully accurate* high end that the digital medium 
provides (digital recorders don't "smooth things out" when you run hot levels, 
like an analog machine always does)?  or the playback electronics (enough 
transient current capability in the power amp)? or, for that matter, are your 
ears used to what real clean, non-rolled off high end sounds like?

this technology is in it's infancy, folks.  it's growing, and it will get 
better as the manufacturers get their act together.  look, a little over ten 
years ago, a four-banger calculater was hot stuff...then came these pc things..
'nuff said.

	yerz trooli from just a little ol' digital audio engineer,

	chuck podaras
	bell communications research
	holmdel, gnu joizee
	{..., ihnp4}!houxa!czp


"lookie here, martha...why, this dang thing ain't got no grooves!"

charles@sunybcs.UUCP (05/21/84)

  ~~8-)
  You have got to be kidding.
  CD's suck.
  They have no place in a home or high end system.
  They would have a place if there existed a truely digital system.
  From CD --> Preamp --> Amp --> speaker  all digital.
  Converting to analogue at the first arrow kills the entire process.
 
  Passible systems of analogue nature deal with the hiss and pop
  problems by simply taking care of the vynal and the stylus.
  Talk to the Keith Monks Company if you need a good record cleaning
  machine.
  The vynal is degraded by dust/dirt and bad care just as computer
  disk drives are damaged by cigarette smoke.
 
  Digital (period) on an analogue system produces bad sound.
  (the purists even hate the digitally recorded vynal)
  The question available for discussion is whether a totally 
  digital system will produce an acceptable sound.
 

rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (05/23/84)

Charles, your opinions are as accurate as your spelling.
hound!rfg

csc@watmath.UUCP (Computer Sci Club) (05/25/84)

A true digital system would go

CD --> Preamp --> Amp --> Speaker --> Listener

with all steps digital.  I have designed such as system but am having
some dificulty with adapting the listener to take digital input.

                                           TTWIAHA

alex@sdcsvax.UUCP (Alex Pournelle) (05/25/84)

I assume that "vynal" refers to the material from which records are made,
commonly known as "vinyl".

pmr@drutx.UUCP (05/25/84)

In reference to the totally digital chain, Bell Telephone Laboratories
has made an advancement in the second to the last part of this chain,
that is, the loudspeaker.  They have invented a 4-bit digital driver
that reasonably reproduces speech.  This approach may not be feasable
for home systems since the driver's piston area is an exponential
function of the word size.  BTL has not undertaken the totally digital
person yet :-)

		Food for thought:
In reference to purists, non-purists will always think that purists
are unrealistic and impractical snobs.  Purists will always think that
non-purist's ears are made of tin.  However, if a non-purist ever gets
hooked on hi-fi, s/he forsakes all and becomes a purist.  I know of no
purist ever returning to the non-purist group.

		Yours for higher fidelity,
		Phil Rastocny
		AT&T-ISL
		..!drutx!pmr

rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (05/25/84)

[]
Thank goodness for Phil on Friday afternoons!
You say you never heard of a purist becoming a non-purist.  Perhaps
that's because you left out (typically) the vast majority of people
who inhabit the real world in between the extremes you cite. The ones who
love to hear music well reproduced, but were neither born rich nor have
had riches thrust upon them. THe ones who buy 95% of all the records and 
equipment, and have other responsibilities, like kids in school.

pmr@drutx.UUCP (05/25/84)

Thank goodness for Dick on Friday afternoons.
Who said that you had to be rich to be a purist?  Your description of
the inner group fits well with mine of a purist.

rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (05/30/84)

How many postings to this group have something substantive to say, and how
many are just grinding axes?...
>  You have got to be kidding.
>  CD's suck.
...well, we've set the stage for some heavy technical discussion.

>  They have no place in a home or high end system.
>  They would have a place if there existed a truely digital system.
>  From CD --> Preamp --> Amp --> speaker  all digital.
>  Converting to analogue at the first arrow kills the entire process.
How many times do we have to hit this idea on the head before it will
die???  Look, the technical principles are simple:  If you start with a
completely analog reproduction chain, and you replace some subsection of it
with a process that goes thru an A/D converter (ADC), digital handling
which preserves the digitized data, and a D/A converter (DAC), you replace
whatever "problems" (noise, distortion) the analog subsection had with the
problems of the ADC-DAC combination.  If the ADC-DAC introduces less noise
and less objectionable distortion, you win.  Generally, this means that the
more stages you replace, the more you're likely to win (since each analog
stage necessarily introduces some noise) BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO REPLACE THEM
ALL.  You can't get rid of the ADC and the DAC (in any practical sense)
because you're dealing with analog signals.
 
>  Passible systems of analogue nature deal with the hiss and pop
>  problems by simply taking care of the vynal and the stylus.
Pardon my humble self for not having perfect media.  (Does anyone know
where I can get a perfectly pressed copy of Mars Hotel?  It's only been out
of print for 8 years or so...)  BTW, the hiss comes mainly from the master
tape (at least, when it's analog:-).  It's hard to get rid of that by
caring for the vinyl and stylus.
 
>  Digital (period) on an analogue system produces bad sound.
Die, foul legend, die!  This sort of a statement conjures up images of
digital gremlins attacking analog sorcerers.  If you can say it's bad, at
least say what's wrong with it!

>  (the purists even hate the digitally recorded vynal)
Even a purist can be pigheaded...the purists will always find someone who
will tell them what they want to hear and take their money, in exchange for
which they will usually get a decent but vastly overpriced audio system.
(The reason the purist systems are generally at least decent, I conjecture,
is that if one sets out with even a vague idea of what to do, and optimizes
enough parameters, one can hit on the correct ones even if only by chance.
Stated somewhat differently, it is possible to reach a valid conclusion
starting from false premises.)

>  The question available for discussion is whether a totally 
>  digital system will produce an acceptable sound.
It may be available for discussion, but I find the possibility so remote
with anything like current technology that it's a fairly academic idea.
(When I think of a totally digital system, it conjures images of trying to
control a speaker mechanism with a bang-bang servo.)
-- 
...Stop to smell the flowers.				Dick Dunn
{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd				(303) 444-5710 x3086