Rightoo Tvad.
Since the soft ware for our primary listening, (Winston Ma's are in short supply unfortunately)are redbook with limited other's in various states of supply I want to know, is there a new 'game' out there that allows us to extract 'more' from them? As pointed out quite well by Kijanki,(though he may have erred in his math on the one post) and he certainly trumps any pretense of my digital knowledge, we're limited by the amount of data on the CD's to 'x' bits of information.
I was under the illusion, (make that dillusion) that we might be able to extract more 'base data' by a better read mechanism, i.e. the blu-ray which is far more sophistocated in terms of pure functionality. Now, I am to understand that the benefits of the blu-ray are almost exclusively advantageous for only reading 'more data for programming not more data for listening'.
This is disappointing to me.
Years ago, in conversations with the long departed John Iverson (of Eagle not Stereophile) who designed the Eagle Amplifiers and other than Jim Thiel, may be the smartest engineer I have ever met; I was told that we were in for something much greater (keep in mind that this was in perhaps 1984 '85, not long after CD's came into the public domain, ((run on sentence)) ), when a 'better laser was developed. He then said that the 'blue laser' would be the next step.
I contended that eliminating a mechanical read altogether, as in time domain digital release, would be infinitely better. He agreed, but said that the issues of that would take years to sort out, after all, and he said, and I quote, "After all, we aren't the Krell", in a reference to D'Agistino's fav sci fi Forbidden Planet's race of advanced civilization on the planet Altair (2, 3, 4, whatever), who had developed miraculously superior 'toys'of the future.
He, though right in some ways, was perhaps wrong about this. I've waited almost a quarter of a century for this to find out that it's principal advantage is that we can hear Ron Howard and Tom Hanks discuss his make up, or have the latest incarnations of a simultaneous video game release included on our movies. DRAT!!
Somebody give us hope that this isn't all that blu-ray portends. |
Kenny,
I've been out of the digital loop, so you'll have to excuse my ignorance here.
Of course the blu will play regular cds, but are there to be separate blu ray 'cd's? Music only cd's that are only encoded for blu ray?
I know that most of us here have owned "Bridge Over Troubled Water", in how many formats, and therefore perhaps reluctant to purchase again. So far, vinyl, cassette, elcassette, 8 track, reel to reel, hq cd, the various remakes, remasters of Hi quality cd.
Now, having said that, as dramatically better as blu ray video is, if blu ray audio is up to that qualitative differential maybe, I'm buying Art and Paul one more time. |
Kr4,
Yea the processing is the same, but the claim to fame is that the blu lazer reads more data, therefore the information going into the processor would be greater,no? |
The question was (is) are they BETTER at audio playback, better resolution in the audio domain, as they read more data because of a shorter wavelength of light?
It only seems logical, and maybe someone on this site can set me straight, that if it's reading more information then it's sending that information to the processor, so we should have better resolution of detail, therefore more harmonic structure and low level detail, all of which could or should portend more realistic sound quality. And further, once again, are any mfgrs looking to do audiophile quality blu-ray disc players aimed at both markets? Lexicon, for example, masters of digital manipulation in the studios, putting out a blu-ray player to replace their dvd player? Countless others...does anyone know? |
OK,
Maybe this whole concept of blu-ray has taken the debate into liscencing, and hardware dead ends. My questions are of a more fundamental nature.
1) Would employing a Blue Laser as opposed to a red one, which is to say, a laser which offers a shorter wave length of light, therefore can track the pits and such in a cd/dvd storage unit, more adroitly--is this laser an option for reading current red book cds? I KNOW it will read them--the overarching question is...does it when used, compared to a typical cd player SOUND better?
Is there hope that the typical audiophile out there can buy a $399 blue ray, and end up with sound quality which is better than even the very expensive (red laser) cd players which are audiophile grade?
Again, and I know this is getting tedious...years ago, everyone in the industry talked about the 'blue laser' and how the shorter wavelength would allow it to give a better read, with the assumed accomanying, more information for the processor to work with. Now that we have the blu-ray, is it a viable step up from a typical player sonically?
Surely someone has tried this comparison.
Also, any manufacturers talking about an audiophile version of blu ray...not for the extras on discs and such, but just improved sound? |
Thanks Kijanki,
But I am aware of the breadth of variables which effect sound reproduction.
"If you want to use it as a transport to play redbook DCs then you'll perhaps get a little better tracking, but you can get it as well with a DVD player."
The shorter wave length of the blu-violet light spectrum laser, versus the red end of the light spectrum (endemic to the typical CD and DVD players, until the advent of blu-ray) have a stated wavelength of approximately, and it varies, 400nm compared to 650nm.
This shorter wave length would seem, at least to my little brain, to not only, not only allow for more compression of information onto the disc, but to also allow for a 'better read' of the existing information on a typical red book cd. If the laser successfully reads more data, wouldn't this, or shouldn'this translate into greater information taken into the processor, allowing for greater resolution of detail, low level resolution, with all of the mentioned benefits therein?
Analogous to a moving coil cartridge, whose claim to fame was that it could navigate more quickly within the grooves of the record, (with less mass to the tip of the stylus) picking up more information from the source, a vinyl piece in those days. Wouldn't a 'quicker, more adroit read' make for more low level resolution, more detail, improved harmonic structure, better soundstage, spatial information, and such...what is it that I am not understanding, or unable to convey to those answering the question here?
While it is true that 'better cd players and dvd players' offer better, 'tracking as Kijanki called it'; all things being equal wouldn't a more powerful telescope (think quicker better reading laser) read more data?
I would have thought that some manufacturers of fine cd players would have jumped on the blue laser for their audiophile cd players, early on. Since they appear not to have done so, does anyone know why. Is the liscencing for the new laser cost prohibitive, or are there other issues which haven't been brought to light?
Also, would the additional 1's and 0's read' does the additional amount of information require a different sampling, or higher quality, read faster D/A converters?
Hopefully someone who is in manufacturing can help educate me on this question as to whether or not the blue laser, as it is superior would be be a bette device for simply retrieving more data from a redbook.
Thanks. |
Mark,
I think in this example, we should make the general assumption that 'more' IS better. Let's look at it this way. Less would almost universally have to be thought of as 'worse'. If the goal is to gather as many of the 1's an 0's as is possible, and the stated value of the shorter wavelength blue laser is that it can, hence it can read information more closely crammed together in the new blu-ray format, then it would also mean to me, if I can take a logical step here, that it reads more of the existing, again.
The only reason that blue lasers weren't used from the beginning, was (I was told by several inside folks, designers) was that none were available. No one ever doubted the advantage of the blue laser, they just didn't exist.
Certainly discs with mega information on them, makes blu-rays very desirable, I am just still wondering about it's other intrisic values as an audio tool. |
Thanks Mark, and Kijank, (and everyone)
Let me give one more lame brained, and half assed analogy.
If we're scanning a photo and we have a scanning potential of 'X', then technology changes and we have a scanning potential of 'y' which represents a magnitude of information gathering which is (arbitrarily) 25% greater; the question is, would the picture in the second example look clearer, and more accurate? More data, is more data. The gathering mechanism is the key--of course read error, a nasty thing effects it, but in a linear way--jitter, etc, let's call both of those factors a wash. Let's say that our D/A's are up to the task (at least the same for both, and adequate to the additional information presented by the better read), would this not give us a more realistic presentation of all that is music?
The distance, (if single miked) that exists between the drummer and the bass player, over to the piano, or in an orchestra, the extraordinary amount of complex harmonic structure that exists when multiple violins pay in harmony.
Converting that musical information into a visual medium for the sake of example may be the best way for me to imagine the difference. |
So,
We're reading every last bit of information that exists on a cd at this moment? I know you say 'fixed at 16 bits'. Realizing that the picture analogy is inaccurate, but just for example, I use that to make the larger point of potentially more data which was not extracted. You're saying emperically that there is no more information to be had from a disc, that that which can be read by a regular, red laser? So the only improvments not in the read domain? |
Thanks, Kijanki,
So, in talking to some of the digital 'masters',(people not tapes), their confusion is real in deciding for many years, how to try to improve digital, as it has or had nothing to do with read potential. Some companies in years gone by, using three lasers had to do with external factors such as mechanical issues maybe, say vibrationally induced error read? Was it just hype in your opinion?
When you say "That's what I think", does this mean that the 'jury' is still out?
Reflections on the disc internally, causing, I suspect read error, and interpolation all degrade the sound, but we're working with all known data; so converting to analog is the issue of most 'chance' and degradation?
Years ago I was speaking to Mike (God, what's his name) one of the first at Theta, if not it's founder. He was in his lab when I called, and he was shaking his head trying, in his words, 'to understand why a 22bit dac sounded less like music than a 18bit dac'.
I never at any time in the twenty odd years of reading about digital, thought that we were extracting, correctly, all the data, in time domain, without error. And to that point, have forever wanted to eliminate the mechanical aspects of a cd player, thinking that we were only 'slightly' ahead of a turntable (not from an audio standpoint, but technical standpoint), in that we still had a read mechanism, and a spinning device, which could be (and is) acted on by external, and frankly it's own internal energies. So, to me the question became one of proper time domain sequencing of data through clocking, rather than reading from a spinning device.
This digital mess is as bad as the 'weather' or stock market. It seems that we all know 'something' but none of us really has an answer to how to make a digital disc sound like a SOTA table with a Zeta Arm, and a Koetsu Rosewood cartridge of 24 years ago, or today, for that matter. Viva, la ticks and pops, no Kijanki? HA!
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One could say that digital recreation is not analogous to the sound represented though other less manipulated efforts? |
Well, we divide there...there is something inherently wrong with music reproduction digital, probably because,as you point out, it is such an approximation of the original event.
I wasn't kidding when I said that about a SOTA table, a Zeta Arm and a Koetsu cart. I have yet to hear any digital which sounds as much like real music as that. This will no doubt spark all kinds of controversy, but TO MY EARS ONLY, I haven't hear that kind of fidelity on a CD player, or other device which plays discs.
Keep in mind that I've heard really good digital, and own an Exemplar (now somewhat dated) with a Denon Chassis, and active tube loads by John Tucker. I've also, in years gone by been infatuated with the Goldmund Digital during certain eras. There are too many to name--yet I still don't get the 'goosebump' factor with digital that I have with really good analog.
The early CD's were just awful. Back in the early days of, "Oh, it's perfect, it's digital, died quickly in all but the 'ticks and pops suck' camps. And I get that the noise floor is unacceptable to some if not many listeners. It's just that what's added by the turntable experience in this noise floor, is not nearly as bothersome TO ME, as what's missing, that being greater harmonic purity and presence.
It would be interesting to let a group of the youngers of us to compare a really good table, arm and cart, to a really good player of today's offerings. I haven't seen that done lately.
How do you compare these two, K? |
Your point about digital tape masters leads me back to the original query here...what is it about the 'read' of CD's, or vibrations, or reflections, or poor pressings, or whatever, that makes the 'mechanical act of a cd', less desirable, to me at least than digital tapes?
I completely understand the theology behind 16 bit limited, but somehow that isn't the whole issue with CD's.
Why are 'gifted and talented' producers like Winston Ma using gold and silver, I believe CD's? What difference would that make??? What difference SHOULD that make, and why.
Why, if we're reading all the data with a laser, would cleaning the disc, have such a profound effect on the sound? I know it does, I've done blindfold listening sessions with friends who are music lovers and they correctly identify a 'cleaned' disc versus a not cleaned disc.
Before we get too basic with the answers, think about the implication of 'we're reading all the data', when Digital Tapes sound, (to me) different, and sometimes completely, than the mechanical CD or DVD players.
"All disc's are created equal, some are just more equal than others." paraphrase from G. O. 1984
Sorry, I couldn't help myself |
Yes, duh Animal Farm by Orwell, not the book '1984'. Damn those dead brain cells! |
Consensus, too strong. Has anyone compared blu-ray to a regular player in terms of overall sound quality? Are there differences? Again, any word on a high end audio company making an audiophile version? |
True Tvad, but if we're to be realistic, everything digital is obsolete in, well, less than 5 years.
Though, of late, the improvements seem to be slowing and more incremental. Think of when, other than blu-ray, we had a so called revolutionary change.
Also, no one has commented on Winston Ma's silver and or gold coated CD's for his remasters. I know his 'regular' CD's are fantastic, as I have, I think, all of them up to about a year ago. How about those with gold or silver, anyone heard them? |
Redbook may have been around, but because of improvements in digital reproduction, the sound we get from those discs has changed rather dramatically over the past 5 years.
Someone else who is more digitally savvy than me could address it more clearly, but I believe that the technology has increased exponentially over the past several years, (computer), not that CD reproduction has, even if it could be quantified in this mannner, but it has certainly gotten better.
My point wasn't that the sources were obsolete, but the playback devices seemingly make products of a certain age, obsolete; that is why I posed this post--is blu-ray the next step in terms of resolution, which according to some, so far answering the question, it is not. |
Grant,
So do I--and ironically, some are the oldest among the recordings. Nancy Wilson, circa 1962, her comming out album with Cannonball, is terrific. (This is right before some engineers discovered all those wonderful 'knobs' on the control panel, and when they stupidly turned on the mics and simply said 'Columbia, Nancy Wilson, Cannonball Adderley, Save Your Love For Me, 'Take one')."
Also of that ilk are some of the classic Nat Cole albums. Some were buried in 'echo', but for the most part, he was out front and unspoiled. Only in his more commercial recordings was the 'magic' of his voice spoiled.
There are many wonderful recordings, I guess I'm just an audiophile malcontent, always wanting something more.
Years ago I said to a friend, who was a conductor of some renown, "Wouldn't it have been wonderful to have heard Mozart's very own rendition, playing or conducting of his own work from the 18th century? (Alcohol may have been involved with that one.)
He said, "Umm, no. If we had heard that then maybe we wouldn't have had so many beautiful interpretations."
Gosh, that, I thought was a brilliant perspective. Of course, he being a conductor, could appreciate musical license more than most of us. |
