It depends on what you prefer - both can produce excellent sound. |
Does any digital step in the recording process ruin music forever? What about digitally recorded music that has been mastered to Analog (Vinyl) - is this better than straight CD?
(I guess my question is directed to those that claim Analog is always better than digital. Conversion to Vinyl should, in theory, raise the noise floor and add back some of the distortion that is missing from a digital CD, due to the inaccuracies in the mechanical cutting, presssing and cartridge needle pick up process. Apart from hiss and clicks - most of this added distortion is probably harmonic in nature, and after all, that is what a tube amp does and this effect sounds very good to many people) |
Pauly,
What a shame for those of you who dislike any form of digital, as the audio/video industry seems so hell bent on digital. DVD, Satellite and HD TV are obvious winners againt VHS and old analog signal modulation transmission like AM/FM etc. Online music and video on demand looks likely to kill these older formats forever....even CD, after surviving DVD-A and SACD will probably be displaced by some kind of MP format as the media of choice for audio. Analog will be like cars with carburators....vintage collector's items and increasingly difficult to find. |
Pauly, I find your analogy of the carburetor and prediction of impending shortage of vinyl somewhat misplaced and unsubstatiated Vinyl has never been as available as it is now You are right I did not subtsantiate my remarks...but I suspect the wide availabilty of Vinyl is mainly because average people are clearing out the attic and getting rid of their old Vinyl collections, garage sales etc. The average person has no more use for Vinyl then an old car with a carburetor that won't start on a cold day. I admit that the average person may not be as informed as audiophiles about the poor quality of their choices...but nevertheless progress (if you can call it that) is relentless. |
Arthur, there is nothing quite like the sound of air rushing down the venturi pipes when you accelerate. Fuel injection sounds so mechanical and precise, regimented and digital. LOL. Nostalgia... the gasoline smell of a flooded engine on a cold day....the old floor the accelerator trick to get the 'ol baby to fire up (especially when flooded)....not to mention cleaning spark plugs and warming them up on the kitchen stove (that always worked for me).....and, of course, the manual choke control ....the richness of it all! Cars had indvidual character and temperament back in those days, and they responded to your care! In comparison digital audio certainly lacks character. Boringly consistent perhaps. Where is the fun? |
The art of making an excellent recording seems to be dying. But the mainstream doesn't care - heck, they don't even notice with their poor quality playback systems.
If you check pro audio forums you will see that recording/mastering engineers are often complaining about the demands of clients/producers to produce "loud" (=compressed) CD's. The recording art and technology is not dying (although with all the available tricks in pro tools today there is a growing tendency to over-engineer things). The problem is that artists and producers are demanding loud in your face recordings, stuff that grabs attention but is easily tiresome to the ears! To me that is the problem. Bob Katz has a web page that explains all the issues. |
Shadorne - I say quality recording is dying because that is what the "powers that be" want. And ultimately the consumer doesn't care - and so it goes. We are both saying the same thing. Agreed. We definitely agree. The problem is not the dying of the "art"; skilled people who know what they are doing. Indeed, as you say, the "powers that be" demand what they "think" sells. Do consumers even realize that this loudness escalation has been going on in the music industry since the 50's..."powers that be" deciding that loud and compressed sells better? ....let's not shoot the messenger (the recording/mastering engineers who are just doing their job and giving clients what they want) ...perhaps the decline in CD sales is parly a reflection of poor quality "hot" music.....after all why bother buying a CD if it so heavily compressed/awful sounding and only suitable for an iPod, Car or PC system....might as well download a lossy mp3 as it is cheaper, more convenient and the quality is often just as good compared to an awful compressed CD. |
Such an emotive subject. An old versus a new approach.
I catch myself sometimes saying to the kids, "Well, in my day, things were much better..." but things do move on, and the kids just roll their eyes...
VHS versus DVD.
Carburetors versus electronic controlled fuel injection.
Film versus digital camera
Letter versus an email
Mechanical spring wristwatch versus LCD
A fax versus an electronic file.
Natural fabrics versus man made
Horse versus motor car
Balloon versus aeroplane
Organic food versus industrial production
Pen and ink versus ballpoint pen
Newspaper versus internet news
Coal versus Oil
FM Radio versus MTV
Slide rule versus Calculator
Stone versus concrete
Candle versus lightbulb
Carbon fibre composites versus wood sports gear
Leather Ski boots versus plastic |
In general, the proposition that "digital is better than analog" or viceversa remains undecidable. Exactly, both are great but unfortunately one still has a future ahead of it whilst the other has its best days behind it. No doubt the analog part of digital, as we know it, will be replaced eventually too....something that sends impulses directly to nerves in the brain perhaps...no more speakers...who knows? Very little point in arguing about it, as there is little chance that we go backward 30 years, anyway. |
Pauly, I never said that all new approaches are better than the old. In fact, I never said which approach was better. I certainly never said film is worse than digital camera. Actually, I was just trying to say that a new approach versus an old approach brings change, which often becomes a highly emotive subject. Judging by your comment, (youre obviously quite ignorant). I was right on... |
D_Edwards,
I am not sure if surround is currently better than two channel for music but I don't doubt it will eventually surpass. I think the engineers are not all able to put out consistent stuff for music at the moment. Multi-channel should give engineers tighter control on "ambience" & reverb.
What I have observered, so far, is that movie surround sound, particularly stuff coming out of major studios with a big budget (productions from skywalker sound and the like) are absolutely SUPERB. Far better dynamic range and recording quality than the majority of CD's. These multi-channel sounds (voice, music, or SFX) are some of the most realistic available today from any speaker system.
Part of the reason may simply be due to the adherence to standards of recording level in movie multi-channel. Twenty years ago, Lucas did a lot to promote one set of standards and these appear to be sticking. (Something sorely lacking in the music industry where there are sadly NO recording level standards!).
Another reason may simply be budgets (movies get to spend a lot more on sound quality) |
To kind of add to this thread, moving on from the Analog or digital, surround or stereo divides, I suggest that it is hard to create reality from a few squiggles (Analog or digital, mono, stereo or 7.1). There are a couple of areas that can be improved though...
IMHO, the most obvious difference between live sound and playback is dynamics. Music loses impact without dynamics and detail is less audible too. A very good system in a good room can usually produce timbre so well that it hard to tell the difference tonality (at least not without a direct A/B comparison; instrument versus speaker). Unfortunately most recordings (even some of the best) are compressed ...so even on a good system they often won't sound anything near life-like.
There may be good reasons for mild compression; it is more comfortable to listen to and it limits distortion/speaker damage from nasty high SPL transients. Some soft sounding instruments and some vocals may fair quite ok with compression, but most music/instruments are played to be heard at a distance, such as the piano forte, and in real life these instruments have huge dynamics and one can easily sense the lack of convincing dynamics on a stereo playback.
A good system test for dynamics is Yim-Hok Man "Poems of Thunder" CD (Naxos).....plenty of transients and dynamic range on this one. This recording is one of the more convincing life-like ones; Yim-Hok appears to be playing live, in front of you. The drumming is alternately soft and then loud and the transients will make your heart jump. Totally exhilarating, somewhat deafening and a litle tiring to listen too for anything but brief periods ....just as it would be with Yim Hok and a real drum set brought into your living room, six feet in front of you. This drum recoding comes across without the slightest hint of boominess...nearly all transients.
The second big difference, IMHO, between live sound and playback is the room itself....more often than not our ears are well aware of the room size from the reverberant sound field and this tells us that the orchestra playing from the stereo does not fit or else there is some reverberant sound in the mix that cues us that the real venue was indeed much larger than our living room or, in most cases, we get some combination of the two reverberant fields (confusing/conflicting information).This may explain why we close our eyes when we want to listen critically and why a great mix can make us feel that we are there in a larger room. Surround sound, I suspect, can help to counteract this reverberation problem, but it won't completely eliminate the room. Anyone who is skeptical of our ability to detect spatial clues, needs only walk through a church door to immediately recognize that our hearing is capable of sensing the dimensions and space from the reverberant field. Blind people use this everyday to get around; they sense their surroundings by using a stick tapped on the pavement as well as the reverberation of natural sounds. This phenomenon also allows us to sense when someone has quietly crept up from behind because they alter the reverberant sound from behind us.
BTW: An anechoic chamber makes most people feel nauseous, due to the complete lack of spatial clues to match what is seen with the eyes...the brain struggles to reconcile the conflicting information. |
I am surprised by the vehemence of the arguments against surround sound. It is patently obvious that surround can create the ambient sound of a real venue better than two channel. Two channel can add cues using special techniques in the mix but it is just not as convincing as surround. If the majority of the sound is coming out of the left, right and center channels it will be close to stereo anyway. I think most audio engineers are more comfortable and still better at producing two channel stereo mixes.....but it is only a matter of time before they become as good at multi-channel as they are with stereo....and then multi-channel will begin to consistently surpass stereo for music, IMHO.
If surround was not more convincing than stereo, then big movie theatres would never have adopted these expensive systems... |
I'm all for surround in my HT system, it's great with movies.
It's just not for music. What is the difference between movie sound and music sound? Many movies contain up to 50% music. If it is realistic for a movie than why not for music. Have you listened to Amadeus in 5.1? I will grant you that there is a drawback to surround....it is extremely expensive to get the same level of quality as in two channel. This is very simply because you need FIVE high quality speakers (and sub) instead of two. To me this is the crux of the problem with surround; it is roughly three times as expensive to maintain the same quality timbre matched speakers compared to a stereo setup. If a good set of main speakers are $10K, then a similar quality surround system will be at least $30K. Most people compromise and don't even get matching speakers (or sub) and, no surprise, they find the comparison of surround to stereo is unfairly biased towards stereo. Our ears are not fooled...you need the same quality matching surround speakers to get the full advantage of surround....or else all you get is special effects. |
Taking a Doors tape and mixing in in 5.1 does not change how it was recorded. Music can be gimmicked to sound surround when it really isn't... No one is fooled by this kind of compromise! This is such a true statement....gimmicked sound is not good, Depending on the master tapes it may be difficult to get something decent in 5.1 if the studio recording was not planned that way (for example you don't have all the separate tracks for each instrument/microphone). However, not many people realize the amount of "gimmicking" going on in order to produce good stereo sound and a good stereo image. Artificial reverb and the like is almost always added to certain tracks. Voice is often doubled. Check out Sergeant Pepper on Wikipedia for an example of severe messing around in stereo.... |
