I have to ask this(actually, I thought I mentioned this in another thread.). It's been at least 25 years of digital. The equivalent in vinyl is 1975. I am currently listening to a pre-1975 album. It conveys the soul of music. Although digital may be more detailed, and even gives more detail than analog does(in a way), when will it convey the soul of music. This has escaped digital, as far as I can tell.
"You're missing the point completely" - I'm not sure what point it is since you use a lot of words with just one conclusion that current CD format is not as good as LP. I never said it is, and there is no need to jump at me such unpleasant way. I merely reacted, if you read the tread, to statement that digital will never rival analog. I don't understand logic behind it - that's all. Many of my friends claimed the same at the beginning of digital photography and now all have digital cameras. I am not an angry person - just read my other post but it seems to me that with claimed experience and amount of dollars you "throw" at me you are a little arrogant. It might be better if you will not respond to my posts and I will do the same for you.
The reason I responded the way I did is because of your comments:
And the LPs are made from digital master - that's funny...
Yes, some LP's are made from digital masters, just as some CD's are made from analog masters. Again, the master is not the issue, it's a failure of the music business to deliver a high quality product.
And mostly this:
Albertporter - I agree. CD sampling rate of 44kHz is a joke but it has nothing to do with being analog or digital. Imagine fast internet downloads in true 24bits/192kHz (around the corner). Would analog made from this material still be better?
Sorry if I took it wrong, but it appears from that comment that you believe "converting" to analog is what this is all about. I have no interest in the format, only the quality. My reason for being angry is not at Audiogon members but the 20 year plus promise that "just around the corner" the "perfect sound forever" format will deliver as promised.
I've had at least a hundred thousand dollars worth of digital through my system, most on loan or product that was a perspective item for review. I also bought a lot.
When a promise is made over and over and disappointment follows there are a couple of reactions a person can have. Sadness that it's not what you were expecting, and later (after the same things happen fifty times), anger that you were taken advantage of.
I've had this enough times to be angry, I've given up on digital other than for background or breaking in components. Happy for others that have made it work, perhaps we hear differently or it's a system thing.
This may be part of the contributing problem to the debate. When there was only vinyl, the recording/engineering/pressing of the album was either good or bad, and it was usually pretty obvious. Now, we have many choices of sources to go along with our dizzying choices of amps, pre-amps, speakers, DACs, etc ad-nauseum. Add to that the fact that we listen to music everywhere (home, car, work, outside, in bed, etc) and in every way (two channel, multi-channel, iPods with ear buds, computer audio with headphones, boom boxes, car stereos, hotel lobbies, etc) it's near impossible to produce music in manner that suits all venues equally.
There are a lot of modern pop and rock albums that I really like that are hard to tolerate on my $20,000 hi-fi but sound great on the stock system in my car. Just the opposite is true for some of my favorite jazz albums - too much ambient noise in the car to really enjoy it.
Yes, the soul of music is the music itself; the performance. But being able to get to it - to connect to it? It's unfortunately become somewhat medium and venue dependent for a lot of music. Buying multiple versions of an album to find the one that you connect with gets expensive. I mean, how many of us own at least three versions of 'Kind of Blue?' Worth it for a handful of recordings, but near impossible for modern recordings.
Albertporter - I'm sorry for my sharp response and my words toward you. We both feel the same dissapointment.
Maybe lack of better digital media is related to quite large number of audiophiles claiming that they will never buy digital or the greed of the companies selling SACDs for over $30 or the lack of the will from government to push for the standard. (We have in US many different cellular companies and two different non-compatible standards while whole Europe has one unified standard/billing and much better coverage).
My experience is very limited and more oriented toward electronics than audio but I enjoy good sound and practicallity of digital media. Better, smoother digital format is around the corner, I'd like to think, but the same time I'm buying a lot of standard CDs I will be stucked with.
I know, we should concentrate more on music than audio, but when I listen to thin sounding Julian Bream CD with hiss of analog recording in the background I don't enjoy it as much as I should especially after listening to beautiful recent Telearc DSD recording of David Russell with completely black and quiet background and full round reverberating sound.
Tvad, Shadorne, Albertporter, you guys have made my arguments much clearer than I did, and I appreciate it. Once again, I am glad that I decided to become a professional musician instead of writer. You guys both make great points, Newbee as well.
Oh, and by the way, Kijanki, just to clarify, I am not the sort of "music teacher" you so disparage. I play full time in a major professional orchestra, and am blessed to play almost every day in one of the great concert halls this country has to offer. I do teach on the side, both privately and at a major university. I have also been interested in high end audio ever since my college days, and know a little about recording, though more from the acoustical rather than technical standpoint.
Speaking of ears again, Mapman brings up an interesting point about the human ear hearing above 20000Hz. Recent research has actually proven that the brain IS sensitive to these extremely high frequencies, it just doesn't process them the same way, so we don't "hear" the actual pitch of those tones. One of the very biggest differences between digital and analog, and why digital sounds like it has something missing to many of us, is that digital processing deliberately cuts out these supposedly inaudible frequencies. Engineers have claimed so far that we won't miss what we can't hear, but it has finally been proven that this is simply not the case - the human ear is most definitely more sensitive to sound than any machine yet invented. So I continue to urge everyone to use their ears and not rely on some engineer's specs - the better your ears become, the more enjoyment you will receive from your music, no matter what type it is, or what form it shows up in, or what type of equipment you are using.
Maybe lack of better digital media is related to quite large number of audiophiles claiming that they will never buy digital or the greed of the companies selling SACDs for over $30 or the lack of the will from government to push for the standard. (We have in US many different cellular companies and two different non-compatible standards while whole Europe has one unified standard/billing and much better coverage).
I agree with your comments, except I wouldn't object to $30.00 or even $50.00 for a perfect digital copy of the master file.
Perhaps that's the amount of money required to make it worthwhile for the music people. I'm already paying that much for the new Music Matters Blue Note LP's, so why not new artists as super digital files?
I've bought a few SACD's and contrary to many, my experience is quality is all over the place. Some are better than CD and some are worse, not much confidence instilled for the extra money they cost. I had hope for the format until I realized it was just another "huge-tiny, digital step."
I refer to it as the "huge-tiny, digital step," because of all the fanfare around each new software and equipment introduction, generally a minor improvement if any. Much like some of the overpriced audio gadgets that we spring for in other places in our systems.
I don't object paying for tweaks that work, I have stuff in my system (footers for instance) that cost $10.00 and I believe they are better than those that cost ten or twenty time more.
Then again, I have a phono cartridge (Air Tight PC-1) that's retail price was just increased to $6000.00, yet I believe it's worth every penny.
Still, it frustrates me that many of the new artists are CD only when other high quality choices could be available. Sure, many are on LP and that fixes it for those of us that are vinyl fans but what about fixing the problem so we don't need vinyl at all? I would gladly switch and enjoy storing the smaller software and convenience of remote control if they would just get the quality right.
Did they consider they could then get money from ALL of us?
Learsfool - could you clarify how do you know that digital processing cuts frequencies around 20kHz? I run test frequencies at different levels from standard CD and 20kHz is present at about 0dB (in relation to 1kHz level).
Albertporter - you are probably right - I would pay more than $30 if for many recordings but not for some of the popular music - classical and jazz hits last longer. It takes marketing campain and often break-even prices to establish and popularize standard. Do you remember Iomega computer Zip drives? It never became standard because Iomega didn't want to lower media price and sued everybody who made compatible media.
Would recent digital masters in DSD improve SACD? (pretty much the same format). I remember Stereophile's very positive reviews of SACD.
I don't remember claimed equivalent of 2.8MHz bitstream but I thing it was something around 20bit/90kHz (with quantization noise pushed outside of audible range). Wouldn't CODE with 24bit/96kHz be better? Most of people have DVD players and my Benchmark accepts 24bit/192kHz.
Kijanki, as you no doubt are aware, every digital processer is totally different, so it is impossible to generalize about all of the different designs. I see, re-reading my post, that that was not worded very well, and was too broad a generalization. Many designers do in fact cut off many of these supposedly inaudible frequencies, however, considering them extraneous. And even in the very best products, the processing itself has unintended effects that they have yet to figure out. Many believe that it is not ultimately possible to take sound, turn it into ones and zeros, change it back again, and have it come out the same. Without turning this into a very boring technical discussion, two common examples are harmonic overtones being removed, and the disappearance of the sense of the surrounding air. Digital processing, again very generally speaking, tends to take away, or at any rate cloud the differences between the timbres of individual instruments (especially acoustic instruments), and also tends to blur the soundstage, making it harder to determine exactly where the instruments are located in the original space. This accounts for why many people find digital sound sterile or fake. The very best digital is getting better at presenting a three-dimensional space, but it is incredibly difficult for digital to do this, and they are still working on it. Analog does all of these things with ease. And I am a little surprised no one has mentioned the jitter factor, which is a huge degradation in sound quality, and which even the very best products you mentioned with 24 bit/96kHz sampling have failed to eliminate entirely. I think I've said enough on the subject, I hope that was more clear.
Learsfool - everything depends on the quality of processing. It does not remove high or any other frequencies (it can be easily proved) but suffers on details of conversion. It might be, I hope, one day possible, to get perfect quality of digital master at home. It is getting better and better. Jitter you mentioned is just noise in time domain and now is effectively removed in some DACs. There is also another type of jitter - one in A/D processing and that one cannot be removed. A lot of older recording were transfered to digital media for storage with poor A/D clock and jitter stays forever unless analog recording still exists somewhere.
I probably don't have as good ears as yours because top quality gear and great SACD recording would make me very happy. One compromise I agree on is practicality of digital media while the other is my limited budget. I don't want to invest now a lot of money in analog - it's just to late for me and my priorities are quite different now than 20 years ago. I have long way to go in audio from where I am now and when I get "there" technology will improve greatly, I'm sure.
I was not aware that digital had these inherent flaws. I always thought that given sufficient sampling rate, it would eventually sound like analog.
I have quite a few LP's pressed from digital masters and some of them do very well, sounding as much like analog masters as not.
I'm saying this, assuming Alison Krauss, "live" (2002) and Radiohead, "Kid A" would be samples of digital masters. I cannot imagine either would be analog considering when they were recorded.
I have some recordings, ECM in particular that sound digital, even though they are LP's. The one's that come to mind are older stuff from the 1980's.
This is why I made the claim that a great digital master converted to analog at the studio and pressed as an LP can be wonderful.
I do believe that the highest frequencies that can be heard are the hardest to get right regardless of the technical approach used (digital versus analog). This is because small errors in reproduction are more significant in relation to the high frequency harmonics at that range, so people who can hear in that range are more likely to notice the distortion if present.
When I have an audible issue with a particular CD recording in terms of noise or distortion, its usually in the upper range of frequencies that I can actually hear.
The only artifact I hear regularly that bothers me is slight tonal variations in long passages in orchestral CDs that should not vary much in pitch but in fact do sound sometimes like an audible high frequency warble that impacts the purity of the sound of the instrument. Passages by string sections in orchestral works are the common culprit. Even this does not occur in all CD recordings, the better ones are usually pretty good, but I so suspect they might be improved yet with a different player or DAC that is clearly designed to reduce jitter. I am looking into that.
OTher than this, I believe most other aspects of digital sound that people tend to not like is more due to personal taste than technical issues, which is fine, because that's what its all about. Chose your high quality tubes or SS and speakers here as needed to get the sound you like.
Mapman, Out of curiosity, this 'pitch warble' you are hearing, is this from an analog source remastered to digital or was it a digital recording in the first place? One of my few dis-satisfactions with vinyl was related to constant pitch, even with TT's that had excellent wow and flutter spec's. I assume it might have been sourced to the recording processs as well as playback. Interestingly, amoungst my complaints about digital, maintaining pitch is not one of them.
I agree with your comments, except I wouldn't object to $30.00 or even $50.00 for a perfect digital copy of the master file.
Unfortunately, the "master tapes" are not always that great. Lets face it, you can only use up so much studio time and session musicians or a band may have just a week with the studio rented (often at night if they can't afford it). With classical it is even worse - you may only have a couple of days to get everything you need and live is the absolute worst - you maybe get as much as three inadequate recordings in a venue to work with.
The reality is that if the band is serious about audiophile quality sound then you generally get it - INXS, Pink Floyd, Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music, Mark Knopfler, The Eagles, Tom Petty, Toto and many others pay great attention to sound quality coming out on their studio releases (and hire the best of the best). However, those who take such care - re-dub things and if necessary and spend extra money to go back to the studio or go to several studios and do extra takes - these musicians are in a great minority. Unless you have such stubborn musicians that stand up to the producer and push for a great recording then a great recording is often simply a one off stroke of luck!!
Poor master tapes can be cleaned up - but you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse!
Warble was not a good choice of words. MAybe graininess would be better.
Its only on some recordings , not all, so its not an inherent issue with equipment or format.
I tend to agree with Shadorne's view that in most cases these issues are due to the imperfect process that goes into making recordings in many cases. In cases where attention is paid, the sound is fine in either medium with good quality equipment. No playback system at any cost can correct problems when they exist in the recording.
Would that be high quality NOS analog lipstick, or some of that new compressed digital stuff with fizzies and sparkles? I's just concerned about the 'soul' of the poor pig, you understand Grant?
It makes sense to me that people typically tune their system around the source material they use.
Those with large vinyl collections tune their systems primarily around this. Introducing a second source that inherently sounds different may now become a problem, especially for those with highly tuned ears: how do you get that second or third source that is now inherently different to sound equally as good?
I think the answer in many cases is you can't, at least not to the extent that you have for your primary source, whatever that is.
So those who own mostly CD tune to that. Those who own vinyl tune to that. Others like, me who are source agnostic, will try to get the sources to sound as good and as similar as possible and tune in each source as best as possible, but they will never sound exactly the same or equivalent when playing the same music for many reasons. I'm sure there are audiophiles out there that could never live with the fact that not all their sources sound equally good to them, because the fact is they will always sound different.
So one of my theories is that the preference people have for whatever is mainly because that is what serves them best, which is the way it should be.
But one person with a bias towards one medium telling another with a bias towards something different that theirs will never sound as good does not carry much weight.
Each has tuned their system the best they can within their means for their source material and different sources will always sound different. Which is better? It really doesn't matter. Neither is perfect and both deliver good but not perfect sound.
Both my vinyl and CD sources are Denon. This is not by chance. My hope is to make both sound equally good but also as similar as possible so that I can live with both without resorting to tone controls and such. But I have to say that getting two distinct sources for two distinct source media is not an easy task. Many audiophiles will chose to punt, I would guess.
Mapman, Good observations about fine tuning your system to two different formats. Very difficult. Hell, I've had a hard time just trying to tune one system to accomodate two different digital systems, let alone vinyl. Everything compromises something else, IMHO.
Mapman, to my mind and ears it is very much like you say. I've tuned the LP part of my system to LP, the digital part to digital, using software which I know well in the process. Ty my ears both sound good, however different, which does not bother me in the least as long I get drawn into the music and can forget my rig.
I have 5 sources to deal with on my system (in order of general priority):
1) CD 2) vinyl LP 3) Internet radio (Roku Soundbridge) 4) Fm Radio/tuner 5) Cassette
99% of my listening these days is with the first 3. I hardly ever listen to FM anymore and I only use the cassette for old cassettes I recorded years ago and still like but haven't replaced on vinyl or CD.
Even my $129 pure digital Roku Soundbridge sounds very satidfactory to me in more cases than not. I accept the sound quality of internet radio for what it is, which ain't half bad these days...better than FM for sure, and the variety of music to listen to is unlimited.
I agree with all the comments about tuning for source. Admittedly my system is driven by LP, but open reel tape seems to fare very well with the same tweaks.
There was a time when I put all my effort into making digital right and at one time I had my system where digital and analog were very close. One day a friend who had not visited in a long time, a guy with excellent ears, listened with me and pointed out the fact that I had managed to "down grade" the analog source to make the digital warm and friendly enough to enjoy.
After that, I returned to my quest to make the music as dynamic, transparent, resolved and emotionally involving as possible and when that formula is applied, analog excels and CD falls.
These comments apply to my system for the last (approx.). 20 years, with multiple analog rigs and multiple digital rigs.
Oddly enough, the comments by Mapman about Denon digital hit home. I've found it's easier to live with a Pioneer Elite, Denon or Sony CD player and let it fall where it may. These lower end machines error on the side of softer and warmer, making it possible to press the resolution of analog to the max without the digital driving me crazy.
When I go for super high end digital, I fall on either side of a line. Tune to throw away resolution so it's less offensive, or press for resolution that tries to approach analog and wind up with uncomfortable sounding music.
Again, maybe it's an equipment thing, but this formula has held true for dozens of analog and digital front ends, as well as four preamps, five amps and two very different speaker systems.
Relating capturing the soul of the music to sound quality is only relevant to audiophiles.
Young ears, for instance, are, in general, oblivious to the digital artifacts that some audiophiles find so offensive, unless the young person in question has trained his ears to hear these artifacts and judge them to be objectionable.
Sophisticated musicians, not rock, hiphop, etc., must train their ears to be able to play proper pitch, tone, etc. To other people, this practice will interfere with your finding the soul of the music.
Most people my age can probably recall being lost in the music coming out of a cheap AM radio with a cracked speaker, blissfully singing along, dancing, or playing air guitar. Distortion measurements were probably in the 25 - 50% range, but man, did that music sound good.
I have no doubt that the golden eared, analog only, perfectionists' systems sound better than mine, way better. But I don't want to have to buy a system like that, tweak it constantly, hunt down audiophile recordings (old or new), wash them a couple of times and turn off the refrigerator and A/C to enjoy my music. If you enjoy doing all that though, it's fine with me.
I want to be able to listen past digital grunge, or analog grunge for that matter, and feel the joy or sadness or anger or whatever, expressed in the music. I need a much better system now to be able to do that than I used to, but I don't want to make it harder than it has to be because I have trained myself to be a human distortion detector.
So no offense to the Lp fans, but it is possible to get to the soul of the music by listening to cds. In many cases it may be easier.
Alberporter, I would not listen to the Denon, unless it was an APL, and then only briefly. As for Sony, or Pioneer Elite, no thank you.
In my system NOS digital reigns supreme, and I would not change it for all the vinyl rigs in the world.
Here, oversampling just ruins the signal, and makes music sound unlistenable. There should be no surprise. There is no way a device can cull distortion from a stream of complex waves without leaving damaged signal waves behind. Most systems are too dull to reveal this phenomenon.
Tomcy6, no reason we can't listen to a broken AM radio, our iPod, car radio, satellite music, Labtec computer speaker and Panasonic bedside FM.
What's wrong with having all these mediocre sources and a couple of excellent ones as well?
I own all these listed above, as well as an old Cathedral Radio that sits on my roll top desk. If you think any of those get you closer to the emotion and passion of music than a really excellent high end system, then you have not listened to the right high end system.
If it's not worth it to you, no need to be defensive. Audiogon is a high end site and you can expect some of us are pretty happy with the energy we've put into our systems and the rewards we reap from the work.
Audiogon member Logenn owned the same Audio Note unit as you, it's a great sounding DAC. This is a musical DAC not hard sounding like many. In some ways you've chosen the same path I'm discussing but with better resolution than the cheap entry level CD players I mentioned.
I think you would be surprised at the acceptable level the new Pioneer Elite Blue Ray does with common CD's. Sure your rig is better but neither is up there with LP and my player was $435.00.
That's were I differ, I either want it to be as perfect as possible or not spend much money. If there was a digital that was equal to my LP rig I would pay whatever the asking price is.
Tomcy6, let me quote part of your last post - "Sophisticated musicians, not rock, hiphop, etc., must train their ears to be able to play proper pitch, tone, etc. To other people, this practice will interfere with your finding the soul of the music." I have a serious disagreement with the second sentence here. As I stated a couple of times earlier in this thread, ear training always increases people's involvement with and enjoyment of music. The more you can hear of the details, the more you can appreciate and enjoy them. I have helped laymen (for lack of a better term) as well as music students with ear training, and in every case they were and are still very appreciative, saying that it opened up new worlds for them in their listening. This is not just for classical music - understanding harmony enhances the enjoyment of all types of music. One can be much more appreciative, for instance, of a great jazz artist's live or recorded improvisations if you have more understanding of what he is doing. The more you understand of rhythm, the better you can appreciate a great drummer in a rock band. I helped one lady in particular who now cannot help harmonizing along with her favorite country singers when listening to the radio in her car. Music is the universal language, and the more you can speak it, the more it will communicate to you.
I heard a Puccini recently in a limited audition and have to say I was impressed with how vinyl like the resulting sound was.
Of course if the reference standard for you is the ultimate real vinyl sound, then I would expect that nothing else can approach it in all practicality because it isn't really vinyl no matter how similar it sounds, but in the brief audition I did, I think I would have had difficulty identifying the Puccini sound as CD.
I thought it ironic though that the Puccinni was most expensive CD playback system I had ever heard and sure enough, hey, it sounded pretty much like a good vinyl recording.
This was on a very high end VAC/VTL tube system with top of the line Nordost cabling. The speakers were Magico Minis.
No DCS or Meitner in my system recently. I did hear the old DCS from a few years ago but assume they are much better now.
Doing show coverage, I've heard all the hot models multiple times at various venues but I guess that really does not count.
I've have had the Levinson two piece system, the Lindemann, Audio Note, Wadia, Theta and recently the Stahl-Tek in my system in the last three or so years.
My good friend Louis, who is part of my audio group has owned several digital players recently. A CEC transport with two different Audio Note DAC's, one single ended and one balanced. The Stibbert, Cary and another one that I can't recall right now.
His system is very familiar to me, he has same preamp and phono, Walker table, a Garrard 301 with Triplanar and a Technics SP 10 MK3 with SME 312S (same as me). Also a Dynavector XV1S, Air Tight PC-1, Schroeder reference and Allaerts cartridge.
So, by comparing all these tables, arms and cartridges against my own and against the players in my system and the ones he's previously owned, I get a good idea about performance.
I agree there is better sound with these more expensive players and DAC's. I guess my problem is spending $15K or 20K (or whatever) to get sound that's not as pleasing as my LP rig. I've said it before and I'm not kidding. If I could find a digital player that was equal to my vinyl rig I would buy it, assuming I could afford it.
I should confess here and now, I just ordered a new Air Tight cartridge that's coming into the market. Valin has one already and Jacob at Absolute Sound and I are both getting one of the five that arrive in the USA next week.
This new Air Tight is called the Supreme and according to all my reliable sources this will be one of the finest phono cartridges ever. The importer says it's a good 30% better than my PC-1, which I cannot imagine, since the PC-1 killed my Koetsu Jade Platinum Signature.
Mapman - Puccini is an oversampling player. It uses Ring-DACs - same DACs DCS sold license to ARCAM (FMJ-23). Arcam stopped making it because of DAC manufacturing yield problems (and stopped making FMJ23). Ring DAC possesses additional 4 current sources generating randomly 16 different sub LSB levels - basically noise. Adding noise to signal increases its resolution (dithering). Just a little bit tech info.
Kijanki, that end to the sound I was describing about cd's might be dither, and if it is, I'm not sure that digital will ever fully satisfy me. Although, if I like the song(like Paula Cole's, "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" on the 1998 Grammy Nominee's cd), I don't object-or even hear-the end to the sound. Alberporter, do they add this dither to the digital master tapes? Could that be why it takes more "plays" to understand the song on cd, compared to understanding the song on analog? Tvad, I've got a conspiracy theory and/or an excuse that leaves me totally blameless for not reading Albertporter's posts. The conspiracy theory(which might just be an error in processing by Audiogon) is that Audiogon has decided to review my posts before they are posted. The excuse is that I'm getting old, and missed a complete page of postings when I posted. If none of these work, how about the male tendency to not listen, in order to get what we want to say in? I could try Guidocorona's humor distracting me, if you like. That part about the high frequency cut off intrigues me, as I believe allowing the super-high frequencies in was why I got so high listening to cd's at APL. I also want to point out that the true experts on digital(at least here) are those that have heard those digital master tapes. So therefore, what about analog being more relaxing than digital(I think Albertporter said something about this.)? What about dither being what we hear in the deep backgroung? And does it take more "plays" to understand the whole song on digital versus on analog?
Albertporter, There is nothing soft sounding about my system. It can whack an attack, sear a violin, and bloom a sax. AN, or any other NOS player is the perfect mate to Class D, and I might add SET systems.
You should hear the convincing live volume Grand here.
I've implemented oversampling and dithering algorithms in software for both commercial and federal imaging applications. Less familiar with application in audio, but I suspect it is analogous.
I suspect it can make digital sound smoother and more acceptable maybe to an analogue lover, but I know that it cannot add detail that was lost upstream, as you have correctly pointed out before.
That is one of the reasons I hesitate to spend a lot on a CD player, I believe a lot of it is valid trickery played to achieve a particular sound.
It's the best you can do if that is the sound you want, but I would agree with Albert that it will never completely equal or surpass the detail possible with analog source, at least technically on paper.
Despite the clear technical limitations, I still find that most well recorded CDs meet my listening needs on my system (which I have tuned considerably as well) just fine, even though I know some more bits of real information in that stream could certainly never hurt.
I am of the long time opinion that the value in many high end CD players is providing a certain sound that someone is looking for, but it is not required just to get the best sound possible off off a CD in terms of information content.
As a result, I still live happily with my oversampling Denon player/recorder, whose sound matches my Denon phono cartridge quite well.
Learsfool, I will defer to your obvously superior knowledge.
My concern was that many audiophiles tend to overanalyze music to begin with. If you add to that a trained ear and the fact that most albums are poorly recorded, it just seems that it might be harder to focus on the music and not on the problems with the recording and playback system. I guess that we just have to learn to enjoy rather than critique.
Mmakshak - Dithering is a postprocessing technique that came, as Mapman pointed out, from imaging. It ads noise on sub-LSB level just before filtering. Master tapes are recorded in 24bit and it is not needed there.
Mapman - Trickery is used mostly to fix deficiencies of the format (resolution and sampling rate). Benchmark is using equivalent of 1 million times oversampling again with a trickery but many people prefer NOS DACs' sound. Too much of the tech info, I'm afraid, but I just mentioned ring-dacs since you enjoyed the sound.
This has turned out to be a wonderfully informative thread for me. I may need to read this several times to fully absorb.
Mmakshak, regarding:
Tvad, I've got a conspiracy theory and/or an excuse that leaves me totally blameless for not reading Albertporter's posts. The conspiracy theory(which might just be an error in processing by Audiogon) is that Audiogon has decided to review my posts before they are posted. The excuse is that I'm getting old, and missed a complete page of postings when I posted. If none of these work, how about the male tendency to not listen, in order to get what we want to say in?
I hope that's just humor and Audiogon is not editing your posts.
Mapman - I looked into DCs Ring Dacs to see how they get more detail thru dithering and found out that they don't. Addition of noise in not intentional - it's just byproduct of their scheme. If I understand it correctly now, they use number of current sources at lower bits and rotate them constantly to even out bit-weight. Extra resolution they try to preserve comes from digital oversampling filter. I found this description of differences between Multibit, Onebit and Ring Dacs :
"Multi-bit Nonlinearity — In multi-bit DACs there is a resistor associated with a current source for each bit. Each resistor is half the value of the one before it. So the ratio goes something like this 1 : 0.5 : 0.25 : 0.125 : 0.0625 etc. By the time we divide by two 24 times, the theoretically correct value of the last resistor is 0.000000119209289550781 of the first. Because it is physically impossible to achieve this type of accuracy, all multi-bit DACs suffer from some non-linearity (they distort the signal). This distortion becomes greater as you move from more significant bits to less significant (loud stuff to background detail). Typically, somewhere around the 20th bit the ability to resolve any additional detail is lost.
One-Bit Noise — In Bitstream (1-bit) DACs the resistor matching problem is eliminated and linearity is very good. However, the signal to noise ratio is terrible (6dB). A technique called oversampling is used to improve the signal to noise ratio to acceptable levels. However, the high oversampling frequencies result in narrow pulse widths. Timing errors now become significant, jitter increases, and the end result is thesame. The signal is distorted and the resolution of low level detail is degraded.
dCS Elgar Ring DAC — The dCS Ring DAC uses a patented 5-bit unitary weighted design (i.e., all the resistor values are the same). Oversampling frequencies are low (i.e., it’s less vulnerable to clock frequency errors). But, even this design isn’t perfect. Small variations in resistor value could still have an adverse effect on performance. Even with the carefully matched resistors used in the Elgar their resistance can change with age or temperature. To address this the Ring DAC, instead of using one resistor per bit, uses a large array of resistors. By using a proprietary algorithm (or is it Elgar-ithm) to continuously vary the number and positions of the selected resistors from sample to sample, as though around a circle (hence the name "Ring DAC"), the inevitable slight variations in the values of the resistors are randomly distributed throughout the quantizing range. This effectively turns any tolerance errors into random white noise, which is far more benign than the distortion that would otherwise have occurred. Finally, sophisticated noise shaping is used to move the bulk of the random noise into the high frequency spectrum above 100 kHz, where it is easily removed with analog filtering."
So, previous description I read (from Arcam if I remember correctly) was claiming extra resolution by random switching of current sources and dithering (adding noise). Now I found that they only try to preserve resolution coming from low order oversampler by rotating resistors in multibit converter (that follows) to keep necessary linearity - that would make more sense.
I'm not an electrical engineer, but what you are describing does make sense to me based on my experience. It is a very sophisticated approach from the description.
I would expect that it helps deliver some of the distinctive "smoothness" I heard with this particular unit. Other aspects of the d/a conversion performed may account for the good resolution I believe I heard in conjunction.
It was a short but enjoyable audition with just a couple different source recordings. I would like to a/b compare it against various other designs to tell for sure how different it was. The technology applied is very unique and sophisticated for certain.
Kijanki, thanks for the info, and Albertporter, it was a feeble attempt at humor. I went to the live versus recorded event hosted by BAAS on Saturday. It was held at Cookie's studio(She formerly worked for Windham Hill.). A wonderful musician played acoustic guitar. Unfortunately, we didn't compare digital versus analog recording as I had hoped for. Cookie records to 2-inch analog tape. 5 microphones were used, and it was pointed out that using just 2 microphones has some problems(room, other instruments, etc.). The highs were the area that really stood out, as far as losses are concerned. The complexity of the highs was lost even on the best speaker we had in reproducing the highs( A Lowther cone with a ribbon tweeter. I still don't care for most ribbon tweeters, even after this demonstration.). It was also pointed out that many people in the recording chain may change the sound of the final product. It has me wondering if this is why Linn says it's the beat(foot tapping) we should look for when evaluating audio equipment. For those that are looking for the absolute sound, I would suggest that you only use perfectionist recordings, or ones where you were there, to determine the "absolute sound". After you've done this, let the chips fall where they may. In other words, don't try to optimize your system based on other recordings, because those other recordings may be wrong. I don't know if this technique will work, but theoretically that is what should be done.
It's the best you can do if that is the sound you want, but I would agree with Albert that it will never completely equal or surpass the detail possible with analog source, at least technically on paper.
On purely "technical grounds" or "on paper" - the CD is extremely good - far superior - perhaps it just doesn't sound as pleasant or as detailed.
FWIW - Dither is used to reduce/randomise "quantization errors" - it is especialy important when taking a 20 or 24 bit master and converting it to 16 bit. It is most important for the least significant bits where quantization error becomes important. Quantization error is due to the fact that the least significant bit (LSB) is only known to an accuracy of half of the LSB (the maximum digital resolution). When these errors are correlated with an input signal you can get some unwanted harmonics which dither eliminates by "randomizing" this resolution error to become white noise (raises the noise floor slightly rather than create an unwanted harmonic which might be audible).
For sure - if a studio makes some errors in the mixing and mastering they can create these unwanted harmonics and it can get onto your CD. A possible explanation for bad CD sound is that "sound engineers" are anything but "engineers" (most often they have a musical background rather than math and science) - it is very rare that they have a degree in time series analysis and signal processing. They may not fully understand what they are doing and generally learn by trial and error (sound engineers often start out in the tape room as a "gopher" and eventually work their way up to the mixing console).
The generalizations of 1 bit versus multi-bit are kind of correct - but they make it sound awful - remember most of these DACS are achieving very low distortion levels (way way way lower than your speakers) - even the old multi-bits (and dynamic range way way beyond Vinyl, which is limited to about 60 db SPL on a good day with an ideal setup).
Initially, high clock speeds were difficult to achieve - so the resitor network DAC's were popular. These have been mostly replaced by delta sigma one bit DAC designs which became possible with higher clock speeds. (eventually higher speeds led to the concept of DSD and SACD technology being possible - essentially SACD is like a one bit DAC in a mathematical sense) The bleeding edge is now pushing the limits of clock speeds/circuit design and there is once again interest in a resitor network type DAC solutions (or a combination of both by a reduced rsitor network AND a high delta sigma clock speed) to improve S/N ratios above 110 db SPL (bear in mind that 110 db SPL S/N is stupendous already)
The ring DAC does sound like a form of variation on the latest DAC designs (astounding 120 db SPL S/N ratios are now becoming possible). AKM makes chips like this but they don't call them "ring DAC's", but they do use a "random" selection from a resistor network in order to solve the issues of non-linearities in resitor network DAC designs.
One thing to bear in mind is that digital technology is so extremely accurate that it is pushing the limits of both clock speeds and circuit design. The nice thing is that designers are now able to use clever mathematics to overcome even the limitations of both analog resitor network accuracy AND clock speeds to create extremely linear devices through a "random selection" which eliminates 'systematic errors' from real world devices by employing mathematical solutions.
I'd quality my statement you quoted by stating that both analog and digital are capable of great things and each have their issues to address t get it right.
Sound is inherently analog, but the recoding and playback process for both analog and digital each face distinct and different challenges that must be met to reproduce this accurately.
Each introduces their own distinct artifacts to the sound that will lead different people with different listening preferences to prefer either depending.
I do think that the vinyl playback process is harder to do really well but is very good when done right.
There have always been a lot of really crappy record players out there and still are, right?
I believe digital payback can be achieved more cost effectively by the average Joe today than vinyl. The issues are more subtle but less severe when things are not going well overall.
Although I think players like the DCS do sound very good, but I do not think it should cost $20000 + up to achieve these results. This is out of line with most other applications of digital that have been around for a while today from what I can see, so that raises a red flag for me.
Still, if you can afford it and you want no compromise sound delivered by a no compromise approach, it may well be worth the entry price.
Sound is inherently analog, but the recoding and playback process for both analog and digital each face distinct and different challenges that must be met to reproduce this accurately.
Exactly. And for that reason it makes sense to say you prefer the sound of one or the other (as they are quite different and have quite different qualities). I much prefer your more measured response in this last post - pros and cons of each if you like. To me this is a better way to judge the two. I guess I object to dismissing digital as something that will never ever sound good on "trumped up technical" grounds as without merit - that is all. Digital is progress on pure technical measures - but that it sounds worse of less preferable to many ears is undeniable - IMHO, there is no need to prove it is "bad" from a technical angle - leave that to lab intruments and technicians.
BTW - Our ear and hearng system is a copmbination of analog AND digital!! I bet you did not know that - if you research it you will be surprised to find this fact. Hairs in the ear trigger bundles of nerves sening impulses to the brain. These nerves have a finite recorvery time before they can be reactivated - in essence there is a whole level of detail in music that we CANNOT hear precisely because of the digital or "sampled" way in which our hearing works. (One of the effects of this behaviour is called "masking" - we can't hear certain sounds when they are masked by others (no matter that our analog ear membrane may actually sense the air vibarations and hairs may move in the inner ear) - it is the basis for MP3 and other compression algorithms)
"I guess I object to dismissing digital as something that will never ever sound good on "trumped up technical" grounds as without merit - that is all."
Agreed.
Also agree regarding the digital aspect of how the ear works, though I had not thought of that in the context of this particular debate before. Good point.
There is a wonderful IMAX film out in IMAX theatures on how the human body works that does a wonderful job of demonstrating this exact point regarding how we hear.
I cannot quote any statistics or measurements offhand to to support this, but it is also usually the case though that mans practical attempts still at this point in time to match the capabilities of organisms in nature in regards to how they register and process things in a binary manner cannot compare in regards to level of sophistication. Maybe some day.... or maybe never.
Shadorne, Interesting point you make about the masking effects in our hearing. I will only worry me, I suppose, when the masking effects our rigs have vis a vis the real thing will be no more. Doubt though, that this will ever happen.
My ribbon speaker cable is .003" thick. What travels through them has to be very very small. The powerful deep bass licks make that hard to visualize. I have read the music signal travels near the speed of light and is comprised of properties pertaining to both wave and particle.
Now, the 1,s and 0,s can be moved about, or preserved accurately enough by engineers. It is when they start fooling with the signal that ruins things. At least that has been my experience listening to my system.
We can agree the signal is not a neat sine wave, or square wave. We have seen our best, poor as that being, measure of what a music wave may look like. I think that look is a far cry from the true three dimensional complexity music waves are really comprised of.
I just wonder how on earth engineers think they can cull distortion from the body of the speed of light music without affecting the subtleties of the music itself? How is distortion plied away from that complex bundle of pulses without disrupting it's flow? Quantum Physics says no way. My system proves it.
Producing music by interpolation of 1's and 0's is not a perfect thing. Winding a diamond stylus mechanically along a soft groove is not a perfect system either. I don't care how limber the cartridge is, a high magnification should prove the marriage is microscopically a clumsy and dirty affair. Despite deficiencies, both really can be immensely pleasing to the ear.
It has been said time and time again, industry does not care about our angels on a pinhead discussion. We audiophiles are too tiny a minority for them to do the things that try to satisfy our cravings. No matter. The deeper I peer into 16 bit, the more amazed I am just what subtleties those bits encompass.
"Producing music by interpolation of 1's and 0's is not a perfect thing. Winding a diamond stylus mechanically along a soft groove is not a perfect system either."
That is for sure and a big part of why the two sound inherently different.
By the way, I'm fine with CD format but am not a fan of CGI generated effects in movies for the most part. I prefer Dynavision.
It's very strange that audio is so difficult to reproduce in digital. We are able to make beautiful real like HDTV but not the perfect audio. I suspect that in the future audio DACs will become so complicated (sound processors) only designers will be able to understand principles of operation. Maybe it is time to stop asking. Computer users stopped asking questions long time ago.
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