Warren and Robbin - who is Left and who is Right?

[Rupe]

Sure, we'll talk in 50 years...

It's a pretty dumb thing to say that "record industry people who worked in production hated CD and digital recording when it came out because it sounded like shit to them" since when CDs came out most studios were still recording with analog gear and you ended up with analog-sounding records pressed onto CDs.

This whole analog vs. digital debate is so tired and usually involves individuals who have very little understanding of audio in the first place. The fact that a CD can carry audio information more accurately (i.e.: transparently) than a vinyl is an irrefutable fact. Did you know that when mastering for vinyl you have to reduce the stereo separation of lower frequencies? Whereas for CDs this is not needed. The age-old dumb argument that analog sounds 'warmer' isn't some magical obscure thing that can't be replicated, it's due to the inherently non-linear frequency response of the format. Any audio engineer who knows what he's doing can make a digitally recorded album sound just as 'warm'.

EDIT: And if you press a 'warm'-sounding album onto CD it will sound exactly how you mastered it because CD audio is transparent.

That's mostly a load of shit you just slung there. Anytime you go from analog to digital, you lose something...everything that's "in between" the digitized quantities is lost. You may not hear it, but you brain recognizes it. Read some studies on digital listening fatigue...it's real.
And a cd will not sound the same as the album without being remastered for the limitations of digital. I first noticed this with 5150...the cd sounded like absolute shit when compared to the album.
Cd/digital audio is cheap and convenient, and much easier to care for than albums...it does not sound better...especially through an audiophile grade system.

[CowboyFromHell]

God, I just love how people present opinion as fact.

[toejam]

Well, i wasn't talking about audio quality. I am talking about how Blizzard of Ozz on cd is not the same as the record because they rerecorded the bass and drums for the cd.

That was only on the re-remasters where they had Mike Borden and Robert Trujillo play drums and bass so they wouldn't have to pay royalties to Lee Kerslake and Bob Daisley.

[Devotee]

That's mostly a load of shit you just slung there. Anytime you go from analog to digital, you lose something...everything that's "in between" the digitized quantities is lost. You may not hear it, but you brain recognizes it. Read some studies on digital listening fatigue...it's real.
And a cd will not sound the same as the album without being remastered for the limitations of digital. I first noticed this with 5150...the cd sounded like absolute shit when compared to the album.
Cd/digital audio is cheap and convenient, and much easier to care for than albums...it does not sound better...especially through an audiophile grade system.

Uhhh... It's not shit buddy boy, it is a fundamental concept in audio engineering. Human hearing has an range of 20Hz - 20Khz (if you're lucky). The Nyquist theorem states that an audio wave can be perfectly reproduced if the sampling rate is double the highest frequency of that wave. Since the highest frequency of human hearing is 20Khz, then to accurately represent any sound digitally the sampling rate must be at 40Khz. CD audio has a sampling rate of 44.1Khz which is far more than required by the Nyquist theorem to represent any audio wave...

Listening tests are entirely subjective and dependent on any number of factors, so listening fatigue can also be dependent on many things, including mixing, mastering and that's even before you get into the question of format. Either way, do you honestly think that that the average human being can detect the difference between a continuous analog sound wave and the same wave represented by 65,536 bits sampled 44,100 times every second? Research says otherwise.

I hate to break it to you but the "limitations" of digital audio (i'm talking about CD audio specifically here, not mp3 or any other format) are far less than that of analog formats. Like i said in my last post, the frequency response of vinyl is not as accurate as that of CD, so many releases recorded digitally have to be remastered for vinyl. On the flipside, if i rip a vinyl and burn it onto a CD, it will *sound* exactly like the vinyl (of course within the limitations of the ADC being used). If you heard a CD that sounded like shit compared to a vinyl - as i have as well - that's because the guy who remastered it fucked it up, not because it's on a CD.

Recording in digital audio isn't necessarily cheap nor convenient, but of course it is both of those compared to reel-to-reel or tape. Whether it sounds better or not is entirely subjective, i never said that it does - i just said it's more transparent, i.e.: more accurate at representing the actual audio without colouration inherent to the format.

Just to be clear: i am an audio systems engineer who collects vinyl as well as CDs and i prefer the former for many reasons - but not because of audio quality.

[pianoguyy]

That was only on the re-remasters where they had Mike Borden and Robert Trujillo play drums and bass so they wouldn't have to pay royalties to Lee Kerslake and Bob Daisley.

That's the point.
they were different.

[pianoguyy]

I never blamed one format over the other.
I blamed the other equipment.

The music computer that perfectly levels each note. Or syncs the drum beat to perfect timing.
No expression whatsoever. Sterile.
Doesn't matter if you put it on vinyl or not, original takes are flawed.

*
*
*

interesting tidbit
the dogs don't bark on certain non-analog versions of sgt pepper.

[CowboyFromHell]

Not different because of analog vs digital like we were discussing, but different because it was a different recording using different artists.You might want to try comparing apples to apples, not to oranges.

[pianoguyy]

Not different because of analog vs digital like we were discussing, but different because it was a different recording using different artists.You might want to try comparing apples to apples, not to oranges.

i was talking about the original topic of
who is left and who is right, and why which version you hear makes a difference in the answer.


But it probably applies to analog vs digital
because you can't always compare the same cd to the same record

they change things

[Rupe]

Uhhh... It's not shit buddy boy.

You promised you'd never go public with our pet names...I'm very disappointed in you, Cupcake

[veemagic]

Hey buddy boy and cupcake, its me, your little marshmallow peep!

Don't you guys think your debating two different arguments? I mean of course digital is transparent, cold, non-coloring, whatever you'd like to call it. Analog has the "warmth", or the color added from every connection and angle. Comparing the two is ridiculous. You both are correct! Cupcake is arguing how accurate digital is, and buddy boy is saying digital sounds like ass! You both are correct!

[pianoguyy]

Cupcake is arguing how accurate digital is, and buddy boy is saying digital sounds like ass! You both are correct![/QUOTE]


and i am talking about listening to
dark side of the moon
in 5.1 surround sound.

Left and right?
What's that!

[leftykingv2]

God, I just love how people present opinion as fact.

+1 Brother!

[leftykingv2]

Uhhh... It's not shit buddy boy, it is a fundamental concept in audio engineering. Human hearing has an range of 20Hz - 20Khz (if you're lucky). The Nyquist theorem states that an audio wave can be perfectly reproduced if the sampling rate is double the highest frequency of that wave. Since the highest frequency of human hearing is 20Khz, then to accurately represent any sound digitally the sampling rate must be at 40Khz. CD audio has a sampling rate of 44.1Khz which is far more than required by the Nyquist theorem to represent any audio wave...

Listening tests are entirely subjective and dependent on any number of factors, so listening fatigue can also be dependent on many things, including mixing, mastering and that's even before you get into the question of format. Either way, do you honestly think that that the average human being can detect the difference between a continuous analog sound wave and the same wave represented by 65,536 bits sampled 44,100 times every second? Research says otherwise.

I hate to break it to you but the "limitations" of digital audio (i'm talking about CD audio specifically here, not mp3 or any other format) are far less than that of analog formats. Like i said in my last post, the frequency response of vinyl is not as accurate as that of CD, so many releases recorded digitally have to be remastered for vinyl. On the flipside, if i rip a vinyl and burn it onto a CD, it will *sound* exactly like the vinyl (of course within the limitations of the ADC being used). If you heard a CD that sounded like shit compared to a vinyl - as i have as well - that's because the guy who remastered it fucked it up, not because it's on a CD.

Recording in digital audio isn't necessarily cheap nor convenient, but of course it is both of those compared to reel-to-reel or tape. Whether it sounds better or not is entirely subjective, i never said that it does - i just said it's more transparent, i.e.: more accurate at representing the actual audio without colouration inherent to the format.

Just to be clear: i am an audio systems engineer who collects vinyl as well as CDs and i prefer the former for many reasons - but not because of audio quality.

I called that shit from jump street!! I knew you were an engineer because you write like my buddy Chris Lorre talks and he's one of the best engineers in Pittsburgh.

[javert]

I keep telling myself to stay out of these discussion, but I can't help myself Anyways, Devotee is correct. You can, in principle, get as accurate a description of a continuous signal as you'd like (or are willing to pay for) with a digital representation. It is mathematical fact. The practical limitations are basically due to the analog hardware involved in A/D or D/A conversion. However, you can of course do bad digital hardware just as you can do bad analog hardware, so one piece of digital hardware may sound poorly compared to your favorite analog unit (just think Behringer). Anyways, the basic question in relation to sampling and quantization is at how high a frequency you need to sample and how many bits you need to use per sample. That's it. On that matter, I would like to point the curious this paper http://drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf. In the paper, they basically demonstrate that the higher sampling frequencies and word lengths of super audio CD and DVD audio are a waste of ressources compared to regular CDs. People cannot hear the difference in blind tests. The reason that people hear differences in SACDs and regular CDs is that the material has been altered, for example remastered. Also, as I've pointed out in other threads on similar matters, there are auditive equivalents of the placebo effect, so you can get fooled into thinking your hear differences where there are none.

/Mads (full professor in audio processing)

[leftykingv2]

I keep telling myself to stay out of these discussion, but I can't help myself Anyways, Devotee is correct. You can, in principle, get as accurate a description of a continuous signal as you'd like (or are willing to pay for) with a digital representation. It is mathematical fact. The practical limitations are basically due to the analog hardware involved in A/D or D/A conversion. However, you can of course do bad digital hardware just as you can do bad analog hardware, so one piece of digital hardware may sound poorly compared to your favorite analog unit (just think Behringer). Anyways, the basic question in relation to sampling and quantization is at how high a frequency you need to sample and how many bits you need to use per sample. That's it. On that matter, I would like to point the curious this paper http://drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf. In the paper, they basically demonstrate that the higher sampling frequencies and word lengths of super audio CD and DVD audio are a waste of ressources compared to regular CDs. People cannot hear the difference in blind tests. The reason that people hear differences in SACDs and regular CDs is that the material has been altered, for example remastered. Also, as I've pointed out in other threads on similar matters, there are auditive equivalents of the placebo effect, so you can get fooled into thinking your hear differences where there are none.

/Mads (full professor in audio processing)

Well said and very educational.