Analog vs Digital - Pop Science for a Day

[admin]

In last week’s episode, PBS pop-science magazine show Wired Science covered the issue of analog vs digital sound – predictably, the piece was highly compressed and lacked dynamic range.

Discuss "Analog vs Digital - Pop Science for a Day" here. Read the article.

 

[gliz]

what does to take to be a "golden ear"? what are the qualifications for that moniker? I am only asking because I think I would like to try this myself in controlled environment. I have been legally blind all my life (am 41 now). my vision is 20/400 in my left eye and 20/1000 in my left. Why do I bring that up here, because I have had to rely on my ears for a lot, a lot more than most folks, that is why I like audio so much. it is my personal opinion that the differences in the two are negligible at best. I saw that program on my local PBS station here n Dallas and I think that the "golden ears" got it correct about 53% of the time.there are good and bad examples of both types of recordings. I think that it all boils down to preserved differences, and the fact that most folks don't like change, myself included. I hear more detail in digital, not as much in analogue. Anyway that is my to cents

 

[davidtwotrees]

I thought that was an excellent little video. But the test was a bit fast, no? They were supposed to tell verse to verse while the song was playing....the one golden ear mentioned he felt like he was guessing most of the time. Also, at the beginning, the Analog recording engineer says that a record will always sound better than a "severely compressed" mp3. So in the test, what was the bit rate of the digital used? Was it severely compressed, or lossless?

Nonetheless, the digital recording engineer and the artist hit the nail on the head- the whole recording process is much much easier digitally. There are just so many levels of digital recording quality that it depends on what the end user receives. Trends seem to say recordings sold will be of lesser quality.
And that is sad.

 

[yettitheman]

In last week’s episode, PBS pop-science magazine show Wired Science covered the issue of analog vs digital sound – predictably, the piece was highly compressed and lacked dynamic range.

Discuss "Analog vs Digital - Pop Science for a Day" here. Read the article.

All I know, is that the audio has to be transmitted through the speakers anagolusly. If the digital to analog conversion can be as good as a analog source, then it'll sound the same.

Who's ready for digital speakers????

 

[no. 5]

Then, the narrator makes the blanket statement that audiophiles find sampled sound to be a cheap imitation of the original.

That depends on your definition of audiophile!

You bet!

By the dictionary definition of "audiophile", I am one, by the more common definition... not a chance.

 

[gliz]

I thought that the comment " a well recorded LP will sound better than a mpe downloaded from a bogas sight" was a obvious DUH!!

 

[krabapple]

An ABX test is taken by self-professed “golden ears” and members of Great Northern. The test is between an analog studio recording and a digital studio recording. No spoilers here, you’ll have to watch the clip for the result.

It wasn't an ABX test. An ABX test allows you constant reference to A and B, while you attempt to identify X.

It was a blind A/B test. Of two recordings, one made on a digital console, one on an analog console. Still wondering how they actually implemented it. Did they exactly synch up an analog vs digital playback, or did they convert the analog to digital to make a single 'tape' for playback? Or what?

The statistical analysis is also incomplete...I'd want to see if any individual scored within the 95% confidence interval (>15/20, if they did 20 trials) and then retest them if they did. Clearly neither team could tell the difference, though, between whatever it was they were actually comparing.

 

[mtrycrafts]

what does to take to be a "golden ear"? )

This term is used and applied to listeners who claim to hear all sorts of differences between anything they compare, in a sighted test, yet this gift disappears when bias controls are implemented, DBT

 

[BMXTRIX]

I thought that the comment " a well recorded LP will sound better than a mpe downloaded from a bogas sight" was a obvious DUH!!

Really, I think it's baloney. What you download will be as good as it was ripped at. It isn't inherently bad because it's a download (potentially illegal), and to get GOOD audio out of an LP, you often have to spend a good bit of cash on a decent analog decoding device (record player), and be extremely careful of the overly fragile disc - that you can't take anywhere.

But, to turn the mysticism of the LP into a claim of actual quality is, by far, the more bogus statement. The LP is as good as the LP is, and the better the gear is that plays it back, the better the sound - and every time it is played back, it will sound a bit different and the LP will be wearing out.

Even with the worst mp3 files, at some point, the LP will actually sound worse than the mp3 counterpart which will play for all eternity with the same quality as the day it was originally made.

Then we get CD audio and HD audio formats.

Don't confuse 'lossless' CD audio with HD audio which offers far more range than even CDs deliver. Anything digital will have some bit of loss, but 99.99% of the world wouldn't notice.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Don't confuse 'lossless' CD audio with HD audio which offers far more range than even CDs deliver. ..

Yes, but the recent published test of hi-res audio and its analog out A/D/A to a CD RedBook quality showed no audible difference.

 

[Wayde Robson]

"a well recorded LP will sound better than a mpe downloaded from a bogas site"

I loved that quote btw. It is obvious but funny the way he said it was with such derision, the way he practically spat 'bogus website' I had to wipe the spittle from my glasses to the watch the rest of the piece.

Some people are pretty passionate about their sound.

 

[TLS Guy]

Really, I think it's baloney. What you download will be as good as it was ripped at. It isn't inherently bad because it's a download (potentially illegal), and to get GOOD audio out of an LP, you often have to spend a good bit of cash on a decent analog decoding device (record player), and be extremely careful of the overly fragile disc - that you can't take anywhere.

But, to turn the mysticism of the LP into a claim of actual quality is, by far, the more bogus statement. The LP is as good as the LP is, and the better the gear is that plays it back, the better the sound - and every time it is played back, it will sound a bit different and the LP will be wearing out.

Even with the worst mp3 files, at some point, the LP will actually sound worse than the mp3 counterpart which will play for all eternity with the same quality as the day it was originally made.

Then we get CD audio and HD audio formats.

Don't confuse 'lossless' CD audio with HD audio which offers far more range than even CDs deliver. Anything digital will have some bit of loss, but 99.99% of the world wouldn't notice.

HD is a misleading trademark of iBiquity. Their system has been selected for the sideband digital broadcast to the FM and AM broadcasts in the US. HD has been chosen as a deliberate fraud. Even iBuquity admit that HD does not stand for "high definition". It has a maximum data stream of 300 kbits/sec. A CD has 1400 kbits/sec. Worse this 300 kbit/sec stream can be divided between several programs on the same carrier. So if three programs are sharing the same carrier, each will get 100 kbits/sec. In think you can all see were this will lead in this money grubbing age.

HD is just one more lousy low fi lossy codec, and we have far to many of those already.

I'm going to start a thread on codecs, and the hope offered by the available lossless codecs, that really do deliver CD quality. This likely will be quite a long post, and will take me a while to put together.

As far as The LP is concerned, it is actually a very durable medium. I collected LPs from around 1957 into the early CD era. I even still pick up the odd one on eBay. I have always had good playback equipment, and have taken good care of my discs. Even the discs in my collection that have had a lot of playings still play very well. The best LPs are on a par with good CDs. Better, that is going too far. However they are much better than lousy lossy codecs that need to be relegated to speech only ASAP.

 

[MDS]

I'm going to start a thread on codecs, and the hope offered by the available lossless codecs, that really do deliver CD quality.

A lossless codec delivers the original source as it was before encoding just as WinZip delivers the original source after unzipping. The only hope a lossless codec delivers is the ability to shrink file sizes without altering the original recording in any way.

I'm not implying you are stating that lossless codecs are something special but too many people seem to think that a lossless codec does something to the audio that makes it 'cd quality' or whatever. It does not alter the original recording in any way - if it did, it would not be 'lossless'.

 

[mtrycrafts]

... It has a maximum data stream of 300 kbits/sec. A CD has 1400 kbits/sec. Worse this 300 kbit/sec stream can be divided between several programs on the same carrier. So if three programs are sharing the same carrier, each will get 100 kbits/sec. In think you can all see were this will lead in this money grubbing age.
HD is just one more lousy low fi lossy codec, and we have far to many of those already.
.

Are you implying that the Hi def audio formats on hi def DVDs are low def in reality? Or, you are talking here about AM and FM broadcasting audio?

Wikipedia states that this for the hi def audio on DVDs

HD DVD discs support encoding in up to 24-bit/192 kHz for two channels, or up to eight channels of up to 24-bit/96 kHz encoding.[44] For reference, even new big-budget Hollywood films are mastered in only 24-bit/48 kHz, with 16-bit/48 kHz being common for ordinary films

 

[MDS]

One thing I find disturbing is when people equate bitrate to fidelity. Just because a CD (16 bit / 44.1 kHz PCM) requires 1411 kbps does not necessarily mean it is of higher fidelity.

In the same vein, folks will say that a 192 kbps MP3 'threw away' 80% of the bits. It does not work that way! For all intents and purposes an MP3 or other lossy encoder does digital to analog to digital conversion. It converts the origninal digital data to analog, analyzes it and discards any information that its model deems unhearable, and then re-encodes it to digital. It works well in many cases, but naturally there are exceptions. It is a general purpose codec and by definition cannot be optimal for every single case.

It's funny that nobody ever complains about the fidelity of Dolby Digital or DTS even though it is the exact same principle!.

 

[no. 5]

It's funny that nobody ever complains about the fidelity of Dolby Digital or DTS even though it is the exact same principle!.

That's because they are too distracted by the flashy audio effects coming from the surrounds them to care.

 

[krabapple]

I'm kinda wondering what the 'lousy low quality lossy' codecs being referred to, are. Because the mp3 codec I use -- LAME -- can create lossy versions of .wav music files, that are transparent to me, and lots of other listeners, in ABX comparisons.