ralphpnj;614692 Wrote: > The second paragraph above states some useful numbers (70dB, 30dB) > whereas the previous paragraph uses terms like "copious amounts" and > "oodles", which whether true or not, can not be argued or, for that > matter, defended. In addition to all this a high signal to noise ratio > does not necessarily a good recording make. There are those who feel > that the sampling frequency of digital, be it 48kHz or 192kHz, is in > and of itself, the main reason the digital is inferior to analog. > > Both arguments (signal to noise ratio & sampling frequency) are valid, > up to point. Almost all listening environments have low level > background noise which can obscure low level signals and high sampling > rates can bring digital very close to the resolution of analog. > > And the issues get even more complex since what we're discussing above > are digital versus analog recordings. However what is to be done with > all the very fine analog recordings out there or the many early and > rather poor digital recordings? Just has the hiss cannot be removed > from an analog recording without altering to some degree the high > frequencies, the sampling frequency of an older digital recording can > not be fundamentally increased. Oh sure one can upsample all one wants > but that just adds meaningless data and does not and can not improve > the sound. > > I find that it is more useful to accept the fact that digital is here > to stay and instead of ignoring digital's shortcoming one works to > minimize or eliminate these shortcoming and continue to improve the > sound of digital. And I fairly sure that on this we can all agree.
Sorry for assuming as I did, Ralph. My pointing out noise and hiss is but one small part of the rather un hi-fi nature of vinyl. Add the following distortions and noises and hiss to the equation, further degrading vinyl as a true hi-fi medium. And this isn't even taking into considerations huge distortion issues with analog master tape. Just vinyl specific. For one thing the lathe that cuts the master in the first place adds noise and distortion from the get go. And when have you ever seen a perfect stamper yield a perfect, virgin vinyl, copy of what that lathe cut? Never happens so you are already starting out with a noisy and distorted reference before you even drop a needle onto the slab. Next, a stylus and entire mechanical assembly has to accurately trace the vinyl cutout without adding distortion. It is proven to be impossible for this to happen without any degradation of signal. And, unless you use a linear tracker as I did for much of my vinyl years, you are dealing with a tracking arc made by the stylus as it tracks across an LP (worse towards the LP centre) causing inordinate amounts of distortion further degrading the signal. You've got wow and flutter and motor speed issues which are incompatible with the original cutting lathe and its mechanical system which degrades and distorts the signal even more. You've got good ole RIAA equalization artifacts..... further signal degradation. Further, I am not aware of a single vinyl person who doesn't use a table with arm and cartridge (adding their own distortion and colourations) when they play vinyl. And I haven't even touched on what might be the worst of the worst signal degradation factor in all of this ...... degraded vinyl caused by styli that wears unnatural grooves into the vinyl where they aren't supposed to be. And, gawd help you if you are playing vinyl which was previously used (ie degraded) as it'll have added noise and distortions that are off the chart. You want to talk about added distortion. Toss this up on a spectrum analyzer and have a look! Digital, and any anti aliasing/imaging Nyquist issues that may be problematic, pales by comparison. -- Pneumonic Main: Slim Devices Transporter > Metric Halo ULN8 Modwright Sony SCD 777ES Sonic Frontiers SFL-2 Preamp Audio Research Classic 120 Mono Power amps Martin Logan CLS IIz Speakers ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pneumonic's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10091 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=85590 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
