As an audiophile (Krell+Levinson+Thiel gear at home), I definitely don't
want to grab an analog signal. Doing that the signal is sure to retain
characteristics of the extracting gear. But the vast majority of P2P kids
won't care one iota that their file was analog for half a second.
-TD
I'll ditto that - my brother is an extremist audiophile - he writes reviews for the high-end stuff (google "Mike Trei"). Many (by no means all) top end audophiles prefer all-analog equipment, and direct-cut vinyl records (ie, the master disk was cut directly at the performance, without a magtape master). I've listened to some of this stuff, and it just blows digital away.
What else do you expect, when any audiophile who denies that inaudible frequencies make the music "warmer" proves himself to be a philistine with ears of tin?
Remember, it was the fashion and clothing EXPERTS who were the most insistent that the emperor's new clothes were absolutely marvelous.
The harshness of a digital bitstream can be softened by operating LED clocks in the same room as the bitstream. The Tice Clock, for example, works by plugging in to any electrical socket in the room where the listener is located...of course, all that matters is that he _sees_ the Tice Clock plugged-in, and remembers that he paid $399 for this piece of wondrous technology, for the effect to work.
That the bitstream as measured with a logic analyzer is unchanged with any of these "digital enhancers" is beside the point.
Monster Cable, by the way, is doing a nice business selling Extra Special, Oxygen-Free Copper Shielded, Insulated with Rubber Hand-Rolled on the Thighs of Taiwanese Virgins cables for _USB_. Yep, for USB. Never mind that the bitstream either is there or it isn't...some people think they get superior data with special $80 cables.
As for hearing heterodyning in 28 KHz and 30 KHz signals, maybe. CD players have brickwall filters to of course block such frequencies. Some analog groove-based systems can have some kind of signal up there at those frequencies, but not much. Very, very few microphones are rated at 22-25 KHz, so I have to wonder just where this signal is coming from. If not coming from actual musical instruments, and detected by the microphones, why bother?
Sure, we may as well push the CD spec up to 24 KHz or so. That will probably even satisfy Neil Young.
--Tim May
