pmr@drufl.UUCP (Rastocny) (01/05/84)
I think that we should put things about digital and analog sound into historic perspective. The most recent analogy of what is happening today between these two formats is the introduction of the Phillip's cassette tape format. When cassettes were first introduced, they sounded fair at best, speech being the only range that these new recorders could handle even moderately well. 15 years later, things have changed and the Nakamichi Dragon is considered excellent in storing the sonic information of an analog disc. Quite an improvement! Now, the digital CD format is the new contender. Although the sound is getting better (new filter designs, improved error correction schemes, etc.), CDs are still inferior to state of the art analog sound TODAY. This is the only issue that the people at SHEFFIELD are making; of course they have a vested interest, but their philosophy at SHEFFIELD is to make the best reproduction as humanly possible regardless of recording format. The day that digital recorders and playback systems become superior to analog, SHEFFIELD will most likely buy a state-of-the-art digital system and gear up to that. It's not that they're anti-digital, but rather pro-quality. Yours for higher fidelity, Phil Rastocny ..!drufl!pmr
spoo@utcsrgv.UUCP (Suk Lee) (01/09/84)
I would like to dispute some of the comments made in the article, namely: -CD recordings are inferior to the best analog recordings -The CD is facing the same teething problems as the cassette. While I must admit that there are a lot of BAD CD's out there, I don agree that Digital Disks in their present form are inferior: many of the problems associated with bad CD's can be traced to producers who press CD's as if they were vinyl. i.e. they leave the treble boosted (to offset vinyl losses), leading to screechy treble, and/or sum the bass (to avoid overcutting the vinyl), etc., etc. A state-of-the-art CD pressing, Telarc for example, beats *ANY* vinyl hands down. The second point: while CD's may not be perfect right now, it is facing opposition that never faced the Compact Cassette. When the cassette was introduced, tape recording had been around for a long time: it was a familiar technology. What the CD is facing is opposition from people who can't or won't accept that music can be "chopped up" and then restored. A fundamental stumbling block must be overcome before CD's become as "intuitively natural" as the analog recording process. I think that the CD is a great step forward: one that *ALREADY* super- cedes vinyl. From the pooped paws of: Suk Lee ..!{decvax,linus}!utcsrgv!spoo
jj@rabbit.UUCP (01/09/84)
WEll, Phil, since we're moving out of the realm of physical <and here I include perceptual) fact and into the realm of unjustified opinion, (in other words, we're starting to talk like Doug Sax) let's move to net.flame. Your comments just don't take account of the research that has gone into digital methods of recording. <The analog disc was perfected ON the market, the digital disc was essentially designed completely before hitting the market. Furthermore, the techniques used on the digital disc are neither new nor untested, they are merely new to the CONSUMER market. The digital signal processing community have been using the same techniques as CD's for (in some cases) up to 20 years. See you in net.flame -- -Diogenes stopped here- (allegra,harpo,ulysses)!rabbit!jj