To the extent that LPs sound "better" than CDs to some people, I'd say that effect can be attributed almost entirely to "euphonic distortion" -- inaccuracies in sound reproduction which nevertheless have a pleasing quality, and which may contribute, for some listeners, to an illusion of greater audio realism.
You should be able to digitize the distortion of LPs and retain it, hence have a digital recording which sounds, for all practical intents and purposes, exactly like an LP. I sincerely doubt that in a proper double-blind test many, if any, vinyl afficionados could consistently distinguish direct analog LP playback from LP playback passed through A/D then D/A, using 16-bit 48 kHz linear sampling and good, mostly digital, high frequency cut-off filtering. I consider it highly unlikely that properly done digital sound has any "sonic signature" of its own, some pecular distortion or lack of transparency which would somehow kill off the "analog magic" of LP sound.
Digitising LPs results in lower quality (CD like) sound. You are talking without any listening experience - do you ever listen to stuff or is all this just theoretical to you? Listening to you talk about this stuff is like listening to a 10 year old talk about sex.
Digitising LPs results in lower quality (CD like) sound. You are talking without any listening experience - do you ever listen to stuff or is all this just theoretical to you? Listening to you talk about this stuff is like listening to a 10 year old talk about sex.
I have digitized LPs before, to have CD copies of things that weren't out on CD. I was pleased with the results, except for the fact that I could still hear the damned surface noise of the LPs. I replaced all of that with CDs as soon as they were available.
Of course, I'm sure you could question the quality and price of kind of equipment I used, or the golden-ness of my ears, but I'm still not going to buy into the purely anecdotal "evidence" of people who believe in Mpingo discs and $1000/meter rhodium plated, yak-fur insulated wonder wire, whose "experience" tells them damn near everything you can possibly imagine makes a difference in sound quality.
Of course, I'm sure you could question the quality and price of kind of equipment I used, or the golden-ness of my ears, but I'm still not going to buy into the purely anecdotal "evidence" of people who believe in Mpingo discs and $1000/meter rhodium plated, yak-fur insulated wonder wire, whose "experience" tells them damn near everything you can possibly imagine makes a difference in sound quality.
Yup. There is a bit of a United Church of Audiophiles when it comes to this sort of thing, who caste smite upon those mere mortals who don't spend enough on their hifi experience, or dare to use such things as the wretched transistor!
Just like sex, audio experience comes in countless forms in reality.
I've got very treble sensitive hearing myself (perhaps related to my photosensitivity and general case of the borderline albino!) and I've put on the cans and sat *just* so between the speakers while people have had these arguments and tried to demonstrate to me that CD < LP and even transistors < valves. My conclusion is that there is essentially no clear conclusion, ever, if the equipment is good and the owner isn't such a total jerk as to delude themselves they have better kit than they've really got. Of course you can criticise my hearing as I do indeed over-hear high treble at the cost of low mids and bass, and I've no right to claim to be a better judge than the next guy. But guess what? No one has all the answers. It is as we say ... SUBJECTIVE.
As for MS's Valve/Verve/Urge/Spleen or whatever its called (I've long forgotten already!) it has a hill to climb. Hell, it has some mountaineering to do! In my opinion it's a shame they didn't just call it the iPod Killer like the media does. Or if S.J. didn't get the joke, simply "The Killer".
Digitising LPs results in lower quality (CD like) sound. You are talking without any listening experience - do you ever listen to stuff or is all this just theoretical to you? Listening to you talk about this stuff is like listening to a 10 year old talk about sex.
I can't speak for the others in this brief discussion but of course I listen to them, otherwise how could I say I can hear the difference between a CD and an LP? It is amazing if you do an A/B comparison on the same recording from CD and LP as I just did.
As to 'is this just theoretical' ... I ran a recording studio in the 80's working with multi-track tape machines making ... yes LPs and in the 90's I produced many TV shows for ESPN 100% digitally edited (sound is often harder to deal with than video) and now I produce High Definition DVDs using Apple and Sony equipment, so I have a little practical experience in these matters.
The point is LPs in perfect condition are fabulous quality. To preserve them is important to me. Over the last twenty years there have been several ways I could have done that. If I had settled for audio cassettes for example and thrown away the LPs I would have been an idiot. Personally I think settling for CD quality would have been a mistake. DVD quality is as good if not better than the LPs I would guess (but I'm still checking) so now I am going to transfer them to that.
I appreciated the educated responses and advice I got here on this thread, sorry you found it ... what like a "10 year old talk about sex" ... strange 10 year olds you must know!
Yup. There is a bit of a United Church of Audiophiles when it comes to this sort of thing, who caste smite upon those mere mortals who don't spend enough on their hifi experience, or dare to use such things as the wretched transistor!
Just like sex, audio experience comes in countless forms in reality.
I've got very treble sensitive hearing myself (perhaps related to my photosensitivity and general case of the borderline albino!) and I've put on the cans and sat *just* so between the speakers while people have had these arguments and tried to demonstrate to me that CD < LP and even transistors < valves. My conclusion is that there is essentially no clear conclusion, ever, if the equipment is good and the owner isn't such a total jerk as to delude themselves they have better kit than they've really got. Of course you can criticise my hearing as I do indeed over-hear high treble at the cost of low mids and bass, and I've no right to claim to be a better judge than the next guy. But guess what? No one has all the answers. It is as we say ... SUBJECTIVE.
As for MS's Valve/Verve/Urge/Spleen or whatever its called (I've long forgotten already!) it has a hill to climb. Hell, it has some mountaineering to do! In my opinion it's a shame they didn't just call it the iPod Killer like the media does. Or if S.J. didn't get the joke, simply "The Killer".
Yeah, Death by Microsoft. Has a ring to it.
You can actually measure the difference with scientific equipment. However I grant you, CDs were damn good in their day ... free of surface noise etc. but the industry rushed them out when sampling rates and frequency response was not all it could have been and once the standard was there it stuck. If CDs had come out a few years later I'm sure they would have been LP quality but technology back then was not what it was a few years later in the digital domain. CDs were a compromise by manufacturers eager to make $s.
To the extent that LPs sound "better" than CDs to some people, I'd say that effect can be attributed almost entirely to "euphonic distortion" -- inaccuracies in sound reproduction which nevertheless have a pleasing quality, and which may contribute, for some listeners, to an illusion of greater audio realism.
(...)
I consider it highly unlikely that properly done digital sound has any "sonic signature" of its own, some pecular distortion or lack of transparency which would somehow kill off the "analog magic" of LP sound.
In my opinion and my experience it everything boils down
which monitoring system you are used to. For example a 128 k/s
ACC file (well, iTunes files) sounds pretty good played on, say, iPod
HiFi, but the same file sounds pretty awful played on a decent,
say, Linn system. A lot of people really don't care about the
monitoring. If people ask me for advice regarding sound systems,
i tell them, don't spent 1.000+ and more $s on a High Class system,
because you won't hear the difference, but get yourself a decent
active speaker system (Tannoy, Yamaha, Genelec, something like that)
und you will satisfied thoroughly for a long time.
Also, regarding the LP/CD difference, it is up to the monitoring system,
the better the system is, the less you'll notice the diference. Assuming
you are comparing CDs of high quality. Well it is very true, that some
In my opinion and my experience it everything boils down
which monitoring system you are used to. For example a 128 k/s
ACC file (well, iTunes files) sounds pretty good played on, say, iPod
HiFi, but the same file sounds pretty awful played on a decent,
say, Linn system. A lot of people really don't care about the
monitoring. If people ask me for advice regarding sound systems,
i tell them, don't spent 1.000+ and more $s on a High Class system,
because you won't hear the difference, but get yourself a decent
active speaker system (Tannoy, Yamaha, Genelec, something like that)
und you will satisfied thoroughly for a long time.
Also, regarding the LP/CD difference, it is up to the monitoring system,
the better the system is, the less you'll notice the diference. Assuming
you are comparing CDs of high quality. Well it is very true, that some
CDs today are pretty bad in sound quality.
LP / CD difference... Quite the reverse. The better the system (and I guess your ears) the more you can hear the limits of 8/16 bit 44.1 KHz i.e. a CD. It is a simple fact that CDs are a standard of audio quality that is well below that of LP's, DVDs and any modern digital system. They were created back when digital audio was new and wonderful and quite limited in cost / performance.
I appreciated the educated responses and advice I got here on this thread, sorry you found it ... what like a "10 year old talk about sex" ... strange 10 year olds you must know!
I was replying to shetline, not to you - I think that you have mixed the two of us up. Shetline and I have a history on this topic that is older than this thread.
I fully appreciate the differences that you hear between LP and CD, and I hear them too and I know for a fact that they are not added distortion (because the magic goes away when you digitize an LP at 16/44.1, and it sounds tinny and non-musical) - shetline thinks that 44.1/16-bit samples are perfect, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a kook.
I said "like a 10 year old talking about sex" because I don't think that he listens to stuff in order to make up his mind, he just repeats what he learned in electronics class or whatever.
I was replying to shetline, not to you - I think that you have mixed the two of us up. Shetline and I have a history on this topic that is older than this thread.
I fully appreciate the differences that you hear between LP and CD, and I hear them too and I know for a fact that they are not added distortion (because the magic goes away when you digitize an LP at 16/44.1, and it sounds tinny and non-musical) - shetline thinks that 44.1/16-bit samples are perfect, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a kook.
I said "like a 10 year old talking about sex" because I don't think that he listens to stuff in order to make up his mind, he just repeats what he learned in electronics class or whatever.
I can't speak for the others in this brief discussion but of course I listen to them, otherwise how could I say I can hear the difference between a CD and an LP?
Quote:
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
Also, regarding the LP/CD difference...
I was talking about comparing an LP to a good digitization of the signal output from that very same LP, NOT comparing LP to CD. Of course LP and CD sound very different!
Quote:
Originally posted by e1618978
I fully appreciate the differences that you hear between LP and CD, and I hear them too and I know for a fact that they are not added distortion (because the magic goes away when you digitize an LP at 16/44.1, and it sounds tinny and non-musical) - shetline thinks that 44.1/16-bit samples are perfect, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a kook.
I said "like a 10 year old talking about sex" because I don't think that he listens to stuff in order to make up his mind, he just repeats what he learned in electronics class or whatever.
I never said 16/44.1 is "perfect", but it's so close that the number of listeners who could hear the effects of such a digitization when done with moderately decent equipment, and the listening conditions under which even those few true golden ears could detect such an effect, are going to be far, far fewer than the number of reports to the contrary.
If the effect can be heard at all, it's terrible unlikely to account for total loss of LP's "analog magic".
As for "what I learned in electronics class"... let's consider psychoacoustics and Occam's Razor instead. The influence of psychology on human hearing is well known and easily demonstrated. Give a bunch of people a switch to play with or a knob to twiddle, make up a suggestive story about some effect the switch or knob is supposed to have, and even if that switch or knob is wired to absolutely nothing you'll consistently get people reporting effects and describing differences produced by such completely functionless devices.
Then consider the following:
1. From what's known about the limits of human hearing, and from what can be calculated based on known theory, the effect of good quality digitization (low-noise, low jitter A/D-D/A conversion with properly done and mostly digital cut-off filtering to minimize phase shift effects) is highly unlikely to be audible, and if audible, is highly unlikely to be perceived as very significant.
2. As far as I know (please, present data otherwise if you have it) no well-conducted double-blind study has shown any significant detectable audible effect from such digitization. (Even a 10 y/o should be suspicious if teens and adults tell him that having sex can literally make you fly like Superman, for instance. Experience does not always count for everything.)
3. Audiophiles who claim such effects routinely dismiss all negative results as a failure of the listener or a matter of inadequate equipment. Only positive results are considered valid.
4. The types of effects such audiophiles claim to hear fall well within what can be expected from known effects of the power of suggestion on hearing.
Now apply Occam's Razor. Which is more likely?
A. Under horribly uncontrolled circumstances, validated only by anecdotal evidence, audiophiles have discovered acoustic and/or electrical effects indicating a major failure in currently known science regarding audible phenomena and the functioning of electronic devices.
B. Said audiophiles are suffering from a well-known, well-documented effect of the power of suggestion on hearing (which effects sane people -- you don't have to be crazy to be affected!).
If there is any kookiness here, it's not in thinking one hears these things, it's the far more common problem of insufficient skeptical thinking.
Has anybody seen the Zune promotional page (www.comingzune.com). I was watching the short animation and I was really confused how it relates to anything. It reminds me of the poptart commercials, but those at least had a point to them.
Wait, so you think they're going to find some way to take an entire computer and somehow make it the size of an iPod?
This is not really an entire computer. It is more a tablet PC. Here is a link to a video ad showing it used for games, photos, gps, video, etc. It is shown with a dock-able station as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV1WG...ject%20origami Here are some picts to give you an idea of the current size.
Hmmm. Pardon my ignorance, but how do I get these photos to show up in this post?\
For anybody who is saying it's too late I have to disagree. I just bought my first iPod back in February. A 5G. I love it as it is of course an Apple. But I didn't buy until then because it's only until then that the technology has gotten to the point where I'm willing to buy into it. Big storage capacities, color screens and video playback being the big things for me.
Even though I love my iPod I would be willing to give Zune a serious considering so long as it didn't look like crap. But the truth is Microsoft builds some quality hardware. I've never owned an Xbox but I have owned their keyboards and mice and they are quality stuff. And even though I've never owned one of these other music players that runs the Microsoft OS I wouldn't discredit it too soon. It is a modern operating system with no legacy software or hardware to support. It proably runs as good as the iPod OS. I know I've had to reboot my iPod a few times so it's not perfect either.
LP / CD difference... Quite the reverse. The better the system (and I guess your ears) the more you can hear the limits of 8/16 bit 44.1 KHz i.e. a CD. It is a simple fact that CDs are a standard of audio quality that is well below that of LP's, DVDs and any modern digital system. They were created back when digital audio was new and wonderful and quite limited in cost / performance.
Yes and no
I was strictly refering to CDs of high quality production,
eg, some classic music cds.
Of course LPs and CDs sound differently, but there is
no quality judgment implied. It is just a matter of taste, imho.
As a sidenote:
Whenever i listen to music from a LP i am pretty amazed,
but i have to admit too, whenever i listen to music from a LP
they are almost always played back by a very sophisticated monitoring
system. Maybe it just happens accidently, but in my experience
people who love LPs are the same who highly appreciating
good monitoring.
Actually i believe i am able to hear the difference regarding LP/CD,
IF THEY ARE PLAYED on the very same system. LPs neither sound better,
nor worse than CDs, they sound differently. (Some people are refering to
some particular (analog) warmness of the LPs. This is true, IF you have the
soundsystem to reproduce this particular (analog) warmness.
Has anybody seen the Zune promotional page (www.comingzune.com). I was watching the short animation and I was really confused how it relates to anything. It reminds me of the poptart commercials, but those at least had a point to them.
If that really is legit, then it's the clearest sign I've seen yet that MS don't know what they're doing!
To sell this thing, they've got to rival the iPod ads, overcome the iPod name, climb all the way up to the iPod's marketshare, and provide an ecosystem broadly competitive to everything you can wrap / connect / stick to your iPod now.
It's tough, and they need to do it just right. Marketing something as misplaced as that little site seems to show could well kill it all of before it's even begun.
That's the thing about consumer awareness: word of mouth + hands on wow factor <raised to the power of> advertising slick. A little Paranoid Android sort of theme (I'm well out of date with regards to the Indie scene so forgive me!) isn't going to click with most people. Apple's dancing silhouttes meanwhile seem strangely effective with every kind of music the ads have featured so far, from Eminem to Jazz. I think Apple's iPod branding has succeeded in a very deep way ... which is to say they've dug down into the collective soul and struck gold. Beating that AND overcoming the iPod's other entrenched advantages is a massive, massive task.
MS couldn't do it against the PS2, which in its respective market was not as strong as the iPod is now. And I doubt Apple are about to hand MS a helping hand with the iPod equivalent of the PS3.
Microsoft coming late to a party does not mean they won't dominate. GUI, web browser, video on the web, networked OS; they came late to each of those technologies and with an arguably inferior product. However, they have dominated in each case. I don?t understand how the consumer is duped this many times but they do. On the LP/CD argument, although you can argue scientifically either side, I know that I hear a difference on a cheapo system, and put me down as preferring the LP sound.
Comments
Originally posted by shetline
To the extent that LPs sound "better" than CDs to some people, I'd say that effect can be attributed almost entirely to "euphonic distortion" -- inaccuracies in sound reproduction which nevertheless have a pleasing quality, and which may contribute, for some listeners, to an illusion of greater audio realism.
You should be able to digitize the distortion of LPs and retain it, hence have a digital recording which sounds, for all practical intents and purposes, exactly like an LP. I sincerely doubt that in a proper double-blind test many, if any, vinyl afficionados could consistently distinguish direct analog LP playback from LP playback passed through A/D then D/A, using 16-bit 48 kHz linear sampling and good, mostly digital, high frequency cut-off filtering. I consider it highly unlikely that properly done digital sound has any "sonic signature" of its own, some pecular distortion or lack of transparency which would somehow kill off the "analog magic" of LP sound.
Digitising LPs results in lower quality (CD like) sound. You are talking without any listening experience - do you ever listen to stuff or is all this just theoretical to you? Listening to you talk about this stuff is like listening to a 10 year old talk about sex.
Originally posted by e1618978
Digitising LPs results in lower quality (CD like) sound. You are talking without any listening experience - do you ever listen to stuff or is all this just theoretical to you? Listening to you talk about this stuff is like listening to a 10 year old talk about sex.
I have digitized LPs before, to have CD copies of things that weren't out on CD. I was pleased with the results, except for the fact that I could still hear the damned surface noise of the LPs. I replaced all of that with CDs as soon as they were available.
Of course, I'm sure you could question the quality and price of kind of equipment I used, or the golden-ness of my ears, but I'm still not going to buy into the purely anecdotal "evidence" of people who believe in Mpingo discs and $1000/meter rhodium plated, yak-fur insulated wonder wire, whose "experience" tells them damn near everything you can possibly imagine makes a difference in sound quality.
Originally posted by shetline
Of course, I'm sure you could question the quality and price of kind of equipment I used, or the golden-ness of my ears, but I'm still not going to buy into the purely anecdotal "evidence" of people who believe in Mpingo discs and $1000/meter rhodium plated, yak-fur insulated wonder wire, whose "experience" tells them damn near everything you can possibly imagine makes a difference in sound quality.
Yup. There is a bit of a United Church of Audiophiles when it comes to this sort of thing, who caste smite upon those mere mortals who don't spend enough on their hifi experience, or dare to use such things as the wretched transistor!
Just like sex, audio experience comes in countless forms in reality.
I've got very treble sensitive hearing myself (perhaps related to my photosensitivity and general case of the borderline albino!) and I've put on the cans and sat *just* so between the speakers while people have had these arguments and tried to demonstrate to me that CD < LP and even transistors < valves. My conclusion is that there is essentially no clear conclusion, ever, if the equipment is good and the owner isn't such a total jerk as to delude themselves they have better kit than they've really got. Of course you can criticise my hearing as I do indeed over-hear high treble at the cost of low mids and bass, and I've no right to claim to be a better judge than the next guy. But guess what? No one has all the answers. It is as we say ... SUBJECTIVE.
As for MS's Valve/Verve/Urge/Spleen or whatever its called (I've long forgotten already!) it has a hill to climb. Hell, it has some mountaineering to do! In my opinion it's a shame they didn't just call it the iPod Killer like the media does. Or if S.J. didn't get the joke, simply "The Killer".
Yeah, Death by Microsoft. Has a ring to it.
Originally posted by e1618978
Digitising LPs results in lower quality (CD like) sound. You are talking without any listening experience - do you ever listen to stuff or is all this just theoretical to you? Listening to you talk about this stuff is like listening to a 10 year old talk about sex.
I can't speak for the others in this brief discussion but of course I listen to them, otherwise how could I say I can hear the difference between a CD and an LP? It is amazing if you do an A/B comparison on the same recording from CD and LP as I just did.
As to 'is this just theoretical' ... I ran a recording studio in the 80's working with multi-track tape machines making ... yes LPs and in the 90's I produced many TV shows for ESPN 100% digitally edited (sound is often harder to deal with than video) and now I produce High Definition DVDs using Apple and Sony equipment, so I have a little practical experience in these matters.
The point is LPs in perfect condition are fabulous quality. To preserve them is important to me. Over the last twenty years there have been several ways I could have done that. If I had settled for audio cassettes for example and thrown away the LPs I would have been an idiot. Personally I think settling for CD quality would have been a mistake. DVD quality is as good if not better than the LPs I would guess (but I'm still checking) so now I am going to transfer them to that.
I appreciated the educated responses and advice I got here on this thread, sorry you found it ... what like a "10 year old talk about sex" ... strange 10 year olds you must know!
Originally posted by fuyutsuki
Yup. There is a bit of a United Church of Audiophiles when it comes to this sort of thing, who caste smite upon those mere mortals who don't spend enough on their hifi experience, or dare to use such things as the wretched transistor!
Just like sex, audio experience comes in countless forms in reality.
I've got very treble sensitive hearing myself (perhaps related to my photosensitivity and general case of the borderline albino!) and I've put on the cans and sat *just* so between the speakers while people have had these arguments and tried to demonstrate to me that CD < LP and even transistors < valves. My conclusion is that there is essentially no clear conclusion, ever, if the equipment is good and the owner isn't such a total jerk as to delude themselves they have better kit than they've really got. Of course you can criticise my hearing as I do indeed over-hear high treble at the cost of low mids and bass, and I've no right to claim to be a better judge than the next guy. But guess what? No one has all the answers. It is as we say ... SUBJECTIVE.
As for MS's Valve/Verve/Urge/Spleen or whatever its called (I've long forgotten already!) it has a hill to climb. Hell, it has some mountaineering to do! In my opinion it's a shame they didn't just call it the iPod Killer like the media does. Or if S.J. didn't get the joke, simply "The Killer".
Yeah, Death by Microsoft. Has a ring to it.
You can actually measure the difference with scientific equipment. However I grant you, CDs were damn good in their day ... free of surface noise etc. but the industry rushed them out when sampling rates and frequency response was not all it could have been and once the standard was there it stuck. If CDs had come out a few years later I'm sure they would have been LP quality but technology back then was not what it was a few years later in the digital domain. CDs were a compromise by manufacturers eager to make $s.
Oh yes and death to Microsoft
Originally posted by shetline
To the extent that LPs sound "better" than CDs to some people, I'd say that effect can be attributed almost entirely to "euphonic distortion" -- inaccuracies in sound reproduction which nevertheless have a pleasing quality, and which may contribute, for some listeners, to an illusion of greater audio realism.
(...)
I consider it highly unlikely that properly done digital sound has any "sonic signature" of its own, some pecular distortion or lack of transparency which would somehow kill off the "analog magic" of LP sound.
In my opinion and my experience it everything boils down
which monitoring system you are used to. For example a 128 k/s
ACC file (well, iTunes files) sounds pretty good played on, say, iPod
HiFi, but the same file sounds pretty awful played on a decent,
say, Linn system. A lot of people really don't care about the
monitoring. If people ask me for advice regarding sound systems,
i tell them, don't spent 1.000+ and more $s on a High Class system,
because you won't hear the difference, but get yourself a decent
active speaker system (Tannoy, Yamaha, Genelec, something like that)
und you will satisfied thoroughly for a long time.
Also, regarding the LP/CD difference, it is up to the monitoring system,
the better the system is, the less you'll notice the diference. Assuming
you are comparing CDs of high quality. Well it is very true, that some
CDs today are pretty bad in sound quality.
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
In my opinion and my experience it everything boils down
which monitoring system you are used to. For example a 128 k/s
ACC file (well, iTunes files) sounds pretty good played on, say, iPod
HiFi, but the same file sounds pretty awful played on a decent,
say, Linn system. A lot of people really don't care about the
monitoring. If people ask me for advice regarding sound systems,
i tell them, don't spent 1.000+ and more $s on a High Class system,
because you won't hear the difference, but get yourself a decent
active speaker system (Tannoy, Yamaha, Genelec, something like that)
und you will satisfied thoroughly for a long time.
Also, regarding the LP/CD difference, it is up to the monitoring system,
the better the system is, the less you'll notice the diference. Assuming
you are comparing CDs of high quality. Well it is very true, that some
CDs today are pretty bad in sound quality.
LP / CD difference... Quite the reverse. The better the system (and I guess your ears) the more you can hear the limits of 8/16 bit 44.1 KHz i.e. a CD. It is a simple fact that CDs are a standard of audio quality that is well below that of LP's, DVDs and any modern digital system. They were created back when digital audio was new and wonderful and quite limited in cost / performance.
Originally posted by digitalclips
I appreciated the educated responses and advice I got here on this thread, sorry you found it ... what like a "10 year old talk about sex" ... strange 10 year olds you must know!
I was replying to shetline, not to you - I think that you have mixed the two of us up. Shetline and I have a history on this topic that is older than this thread.
I fully appreciate the differences that you hear between LP and CD, and I hear them too and I know for a fact that they are not added distortion (because the magic goes away when you digitize an LP at 16/44.1, and it sounds tinny and non-musical) - shetline thinks that 44.1/16-bit samples are perfect, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a kook.
I said "like a 10 year old talking about sex" because I don't think that he listens to stuff in order to make up his mind, he just repeats what he learned in electronics class or whatever.
Originally posted by e1618978
I was replying to shetline, not to you - I think that you have mixed the two of us up. Shetline and I have a history on this topic that is older than this thread.
I fully appreciate the differences that you hear between LP and CD, and I hear them too and I know for a fact that they are not added distortion (because the magic goes away when you digitize an LP at 16/44.1, and it sounds tinny and non-musical) - shetline thinks that 44.1/16-bit samples are perfect, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a kook.
I said "like a 10 year old talking about sex" because I don't think that he listens to stuff in order to make up his mind, he just repeats what he learned in electronics class or whatever.
OK, sorry i didn't know about the history.
Originally posted by digitalclips
I can't speak for the others in this brief discussion but of course I listen to them, otherwise how could I say I can hear the difference between a CD and an LP?
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
Also, regarding the LP/CD difference...
I was talking about comparing an LP to a good digitization of the signal output from that very same LP, NOT comparing LP to CD. Of course LP and CD sound very different!
Originally posted by e1618978
I fully appreciate the differences that you hear between LP and CD, and I hear them too and I know for a fact that they are not added distortion (because the magic goes away when you digitize an LP at 16/44.1, and it sounds tinny and non-musical) - shetline thinks that 44.1/16-bit samples are perfect, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a kook.
I said "like a 10 year old talking about sex" because I don't think that he listens to stuff in order to make up his mind, he just repeats what he learned in electronics class or whatever.
I never said 16/44.1 is "perfect", but it's so close that the number of listeners who could hear the effects of such a digitization when done with moderately decent equipment, and the listening conditions under which even those few true golden ears could detect such an effect, are going to be far, far fewer than the number of reports to the contrary.
If the effect can be heard at all, it's terrible unlikely to account for total loss of LP's "analog magic".
As for "what I learned in electronics class"... let's consider psychoacoustics and Occam's Razor instead. The influence of psychology on human hearing is well known and easily demonstrated. Give a bunch of people a switch to play with or a knob to twiddle, make up a suggestive story about some effect the switch or knob is supposed to have, and even if that switch or knob is wired to absolutely nothing you'll consistently get people reporting effects and describing differences produced by such completely functionless devices.
Then consider the following:
1. From what's known about the limits of human hearing, and from what can be calculated based on known theory, the effect of good quality digitization (low-noise, low jitter A/D-D/A conversion with properly done and mostly digital cut-off filtering to minimize phase shift effects) is highly unlikely to be audible, and if audible, is highly unlikely to be perceived as very significant.
2. As far as I know (please, present data otherwise if you have it) no well-conducted double-blind study has shown any significant detectable audible effect from such digitization. (Even a 10 y/o should be suspicious if teens and adults tell him that having sex can literally make you fly like Superman, for instance. Experience does not always count for everything.)
3. Audiophiles who claim such effects routinely dismiss all negative results as a failure of the listener or a matter of inadequate equipment. Only positive results are considered valid.
4. The types of effects such audiophiles claim to hear fall well within what can be expected from known effects of the power of suggestion on hearing.
Now apply Occam's Razor. Which is more likely?
A. Under horribly uncontrolled circumstances, validated only by anecdotal evidence, audiophiles have discovered acoustic and/or electrical effects indicating a major failure in currently known science regarding audible phenomena and the functioning of electronic devices.
B. Said audiophiles are suffering from a well-known, well-documented effect of the power of suggestion on hearing (which effects sane people -- you don't have to be crazy to be affected!).
If there is any kookiness here, it's not in thinking one hears these things, it's the far more common problem of insufficient skeptical thinking.
Originally posted by gregmightdothat
Wait, so you think they're going to find some way to take an entire computer and somehow make it the size of an iPod?
This is not really an entire computer. It is more a tablet PC. Here is a link to a video ad showing it used for games, photos, gps, video, etc. It is shown with a dock-able station as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV1WG...ject%20origami Here are some picts to give you an idea of the current size.
Hmmm. Pardon my ignorance, but how do I get these photos to show up in this post?
Originally posted by ALPICH
Maybe that should be connedsumers
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
*snif* ReComp you are my new man. This statement touches
my heart directly.
It is equally nice to know I am not alone in this vast cyberspace. 8)
Pretty much what Microsoft is saying to its "plays for sure" partners.
Zune is no iPod killer. It is a killer of the rest of the marketshare leftover. And even there maybe not.
Even though I love my iPod I would be willing to give Zune a serious considering so long as it didn't look like crap. But the truth is Microsoft builds some quality hardware. I've never owned an Xbox but I have owned their keyboards and mice and they are quality stuff. And even though I've never owned one of these other music players that runs the Microsoft OS I wouldn't discredit it too soon. It is a modern operating system with no legacy software or hardware to support. It proably runs as good as the iPod OS. I know I've had to reboot my iPod a few times so it's not perfect either.
Originally posted by digitalclips
LP / CD difference... Quite the reverse. The better the system (and I guess your ears) the more you can hear the limits of 8/16 bit 44.1 KHz i.e. a CD. It is a simple fact that CDs are a standard of audio quality that is well below that of LP's, DVDs and any modern digital system. They were created back when digital audio was new and wonderful and quite limited in cost / performance.
Yes and no
I was strictly refering to CDs of high quality production,
eg, some classic music cds.
Of course LPs and CDs sound differently, but there is
no quality judgment implied. It is just a matter of taste, imho.
As a sidenote:
Whenever i listen to music from a LP i am pretty amazed,
but i have to admit too, whenever i listen to music from a LP
they are almost always played back by a very sophisticated monitoring
system. Maybe it just happens accidently, but in my experience
people who love LPs are the same who highly appreciating
good monitoring.
Actually i believe i am able to hear the difference regarding LP/CD,
IF THEY ARE PLAYED on the very same system. LPs neither sound better,
nor worse than CDs, they sound differently. (Some people are refering to
some particular (analog) warmness of the LPs. This is true, IF you have the
soundsystem to reproduce this particular (analog) warmness.
Originally posted by trtam
Has anybody seen the Zune promotional page (www.comingzune.com). I was watching the short animation and I was really confused how it relates to anything. It reminds me of the poptart commercials, but those at least had a point to them.
If that really is legit, then it's the clearest sign I've seen yet that MS don't know what they're doing!
To sell this thing, they've got to rival the iPod ads, overcome the iPod name, climb all the way up to the iPod's marketshare, and provide an ecosystem broadly competitive to everything you can wrap / connect / stick to your iPod now.
It's tough, and they need to do it just right. Marketing something as misplaced as that little site seems to show could well kill it all of before it's even begun.
That's the thing about consumer awareness: word of mouth + hands on wow factor <raised to the power of> advertising slick. A little Paranoid Android sort of theme (I'm well out of date with regards to the Indie scene so forgive me!) isn't going to click with most people. Apple's dancing silhouttes meanwhile seem strangely effective with every kind of music the ads have featured so far, from Eminem to Jazz. I think Apple's iPod branding has succeeded in a very deep way ... which is to say they've dug down into the collective soul and struck gold. Beating that AND overcoming the iPod's other entrenched advantages is a massive, massive task.
MS couldn't do it against the PS2, which in its respective market was not as strong as the iPod is now. And I doubt Apple are about to hand MS a helping hand with the iPod equivalent of the PS3.