I agree with TC's take on MP3's...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| happyfeet Nov 21, 2008 12:20 PM EDT |
Quoting:...nasty little lossy MP3s, all crippled and shorn...- poor little lambs! Somebody at work (an Ipod user) kidded me about my stack of CDs, but if I want to listen to a symphony, I want to hear the whole thing, not a crunchified version, or just a selection of songs (although I like those too). Oh, well - as a singer and a violinist, my ears are in the 18th and 19th centuries... |
| DiBosco Nov 21, 2008 2:35 PM EDT |
CDs? What are they? Vinyl is the only thing allowed in my house. (*) As I once saw on a hi-fi advert: Analogue is for music, digital is for satellite. * Not strictly true, but I always buy on vinyl if it's available. Something has got to be very good for me to bother buying one of those horrible digital monstrosities that chop up music into little bits and piece them back together forever damaging that sweet analogue sound. Oooh, not had a good anti CD rant for ages. Thank you and good night. |
| jdixon Nov 21, 2008 2:39 PM EDT |
> I want to hear the whole thing, not a crunchified version, Understandable, but AFAICT or most people, there's really not that much difference. Most people can't hear the differences you can. |
| happyfeet Nov 21, 2008 2:42 PM EDT |
>jd: Right - Good hearing is both a blessing and a curse... |
| techiem2 Nov 21, 2008 2:44 PM EDT |
MP3s? What are MP3s? All my music is in Ogg.....(and I personally can't tell the difference between the CDs and my Oggs). |
| happyfeet Nov 21, 2008 3:04 PM EDT |
>techiem2: The only thing I've done audio-wise so far on Sabayon is listen to internet radio. I'll try converting a few tracks to Ogg - thanks for the tip! Speaking of internet radio, I've had something weird happen - when I have a Firefox tab open with the station I'm listening to (KING FM in Seattle), and Firefox minimized, the power setting (monitor turns off after 10 minutes) doesn't work anymore... |
| gus3 Nov 21, 2008 4:44 PM EDT |
Vinyl? Bah. I have my own orchestra. |
| tracyanne Nov 21, 2008 5:03 PM EDT |
Actually DiBosco, the sound quality of Digital far surpasses that of analogue, or at least can. The dynamic range that can be stored on vynal is a poor second to that of digital, that's one of the reasons why recording studios moved to Digital, and all master recordings are done in digital. The only thing that keeps the sound quality of CDs closer to that of vynal than is possible with CDs is decisions made by the music companies, and the fact that most consumer audio equipment is not capable of reproducing the higher quality sound. |
| phsolide Nov 21, 2008 5:09 PM EDT |
CDs better than vinyl!?!?! No way! What about phase-shift distortion!?! Warmness be darned, that alone should scare you off. |
| tracyanne Nov 21, 2008 5:25 PM EDT |
The quality of consumer CDs does not match the potential quality of CDs, and yet CDs are in fact better quality thab analogue vynal, It's both measurable, and audible. The fact of the matter is that Digital is the better quality, and all of the masters for all music recorded since the late 60s early 70s, of all genres is recorded in digital, and is done so because it is possible to capture the true dynamic range of the music being recorded. Of course it doesn't matter a damn with 99% of popular music, which sounds pretty much the same on an Ipod as it does on a high quality music system. And what about phase-shift distortion? That's an artefact of mp3 compression. If you regularly store music to CD in mp3 format, then your CDs are going to sound like crap, and analogue on vynal is going to be a sweeter sound. |
| gus3 Nov 21, 2008 5:44 PM EDT |
Every transformer, every transistor, every coil, even inter-wire crosstalk, will introduce phase-shift distortion. It's the nature of inductance. Even with a perfectly-synthesized, uncompressed .wav file, as soon as you play it, you're getting phase-shift distortion from the amplifier(s). |
| tracyanne Nov 21, 2008 5:59 PM EDT |
@gus, now you a re splitting hairs. That fact doesn't change the fact that Digital is better quality than aValve nalogue, or that CDs are better quality than vynal. Eventually CDs and vynals get to be heard via either a solid state audio device or a valve device. analogue still has a significantly lower sound quality at the source than is possible with digital? So what's your point? |
| tracyanne Nov 21, 2008 6:08 PM EDT |
posted to wrong thread |
| DiBosco Nov 22, 2008 6:55 AM EDT |
Quoting: Actually DiBosco, the sound quality of Digital far surpasses that of analogue, or at least can. The dynamic range that can be stored on vynal is a poor second to that of digital, that's one of the reasons why recording studios moved to Digital, and all master recordings are done in digital. Actually, and I say this as a semi professional recording engineer, many people prefer the analogue medium, 2", 24 track analogue tape is still sometimes preferred in recording studios, and people still master to half inch two track tape. The sound quality is very much a subjective matter. I have mixed albums on to half inch track and digital simultaneously and the half inch quality is so much better you think you must be listening to a different mix. Dynamic range is only one part of music and a lot of research has been done into why digital audio does sound so different to analogue. One of the theories is that once music is digitised, it goes through an anti aliasing filter that removes content that on its own is inaudible, but does contribute greatly to the sound of the music. Whatever it is, digital audio has a different quality to analogue and no amount theory will make my ears accept the fact that when I listen to vinyl is quite simply sounds better than CDs! I used to work for a company that makes mixing desks and this debate happened a lot! IIRC, the dynamic range of 30ips analogue high quality tape was the same as if not slightly better than 16 bit digital audio. I do believe that many recording system now work at 24 bit, 192k sampling rate which does help, I would (and do) still take an analogue recording medium every time. These hard drive recording systems found in lots of small recording studios these days I really hate. My hope is that eventually someone will come up with a convenient method of recording analogue sound for the masses in a lossless way which vinyl undoubtedly isn't and we'll be rid of this curse of chopping music into bits only to reconstruct it. :~) |
| jezuch Nov 22, 2008 10:12 AM EDT |
Quoting:recording analogue sound for the masses in a lossless way Is this even physically possible? I was under an impression that studios prefer digital because it's like casting in stone - the bits will always stay the same. But for me all this is a non-issue. I'm listening to music, not sounds. [Although of course there are limits to the quality of sounds underlying the music] |
| DiBosco Nov 22, 2008 2:30 PM EDT |
jezuch, I really don't know if it will ever be possible, but I can live in hope! |
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