maxg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Sf, Did you see the two posts I made immediately preceding your reply - they explain the issue better than I did or could. The basic conclusion is that actually neither of us were wrong - you are right for some hardware implementations and I was right about the concept - I think - this is not really my strong point - the technicalities - but I did get into this rather heavily some years back for a bank looking to store its history files on CD and wanting figures on accuracy. during the research for that I discovered that Audio CD error handling was more basic than for data and saw the "therefore dont make copies of copies warnings". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Dodger, " Now another question, some CD writers take up the information then spit it out at high speed. Would that not put some of the frequencies above the human hearing level?" They are just reading faster and buffering the data, that doesn't change the data that they are reading. It doesn't work the same way as it would on analog tape. CDs already have material above the majority of peoples hearing.... very few people can hear to 22kHz... the more typical limit is in the 14kHz to 18kHz range. If anyone was curious about their upper hearing limit an audiologist can test this with them. Worth noting too for Heritage owners K77 tweeters (at least the ones I've measured) are rolling off pretty quickly above 10kHz. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Mark, I understand what both you and Shawn are saying - but I think you are both ignoring the fact (?) that there is more error correction on a data CD than on an audio CD as explained in the extracts above. It seems to me from that info that data is handled differently (is this red book Vs yellow book - I am getting confused again) in terms of error correction. Interestingly I have a number of backup CD's that have failed too - more to do with the media than the error correction no doubt but all the same - isnt that what the error correction is supposed to fix? And how the hell do the utilities recover that bad info if the error correction cant? You dont have to answer that one - I am just VERY VERY glad it did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Max, "- but I think you are both ignoring the fact (?) that there is more error correction on a data CD than on an audio CD as explained in the extracts above." That is true but you are ignoring the fact that the error correction on the CD actually works very well. The big difference is what Mark mentioned... real time playback vs. non-real time. With non-real time playback (such as ripping a song) the drive can re-read the CD many times to get the data perfect if needed if the software you are using supports that. And like I also said some equipment does this for real time playback... ala some Meridian CD players for example. The reality though is even with real time playback on standard equipment the overwhelming majority of the time the data is accurately read/recovered. Vinyl has order of magnitudes more errors on playback.... hence CD is a more accurate delivery format. Doesn't mean you have to like how it sounds though, it is perfectly fine to prefer the sound of vinyl. "- more to do with the media than the error correction no doubt but all the same - isnt that what the error correction is supposed to fix?" It does correct many media errors but if the scratch or whatever is big enough it can't do all of them. Having damaged media isn't exactly a fair test on if the delivery format is accurate. Put some scratches in vinyl and see what happens there. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 "Vinyl has order of magnitudes more errors on playback.... hence CD is a more accurate delivery format." Good grief - I had totally forgotten the subject of this thread - sorry - was getting carried away with multiple copying of audio CD's. Agreed! Pops, clicks and hiss being the most obvious manifestations of this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Songer Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Give your brain a chance! It can filter out most of those pops and clicks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Allan, Vinyl is 95% of my listening - and that is now that I have SACD - it used to be 100%. My brain filters out the noise no problem. I just accepted that there were less errors inherrent in CD than in vinyl - not that is was the better listening environment! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCFine Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 ---------------- On 12/8/2004 11:03:48 AM Allan Songer wrote: Give your brain a chance! It can filter out most of those pops and clicks! ---------------- You are right about that. Impulse noise inherent in the medium may obscure information on some discs or when played with certain cartridges for example, but that is not a scientific basis on which to make the ridiculous statement that the format is fundamentally less accurate. Much study and testing was done a few years back to answer the question, do record club discs sound as good as store bought. The results were very interesting and proved yet again that the widely held belief that bits is bits is unfounded and naive. I will try and locate my print copy of this and will post. WCF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 "but that is not a scientific basis on which to make the ridiculous statement that the format is fundamentally less accurate." How about the interchannel phase errors in the format? What about the need for the music to be dramatically EQed (20x the power at some points) for the format to store the music and then have the inverse of that EQ applied on playback to overcome fundamental limitations in the storage ability of the format? What about the inability from most playback to track stereo bass properly? This is so bad most mixers took to mixing bass in mono to work around this limitation. Etc..etc... "Much study and testing was done a few years back to answer the question, do record club discs sound as good as store bought. The results were very interesting and proved yet again that the widely held belief that bits is bits is unfounded and naive." You are arguing for preference which is not the question at hand. If a CD spits out the bits that were put into it it is an accurate delivery system. Period... end of story. You are stuck in the common audiophile supposition/myth that just because you like/prefer something it therefor *must* be the most 'accurate' or have the 'least distortion.' That simply isn't the case. Some of what gives vinyl its pleasant playback isn't in spite of its inaccuracys... it is directly because of them. There have been tests done where an A/D and D/A stage were put into the middle of an analog playback system and very outspoken analog supporters were tested to see if they could determine when the 'digital' was in the middle of the chain vs. when it was bypassed. That they failed to be able to hear the difference again points to the accuracy of digital. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Songer Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Remind me again why any of this matters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Mark, "My intuition is that accuracy of the medium per se is a red herring vis a vis why does one prefer the sound of one over the other. " I have said multiple times that just because one format may be more accurate has no bearing on which format a person may prefer to listen to. I was just pointing out that as a delivery system (defined as delivering what it was given ) CD trumps vinyl....easily. The problem arrises because some people can't admit to themselves that they might enjoy what is technically an inaccurate delivery format and therefor try to come up with reasons why that isn't the case. That is where the red herring comes in... accuracy alone does not equal preference. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodger Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Thanks, Shawn for answering my earlier question. This post was put after yours and may seem sarcastic. Thus clarification. dodger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 ---------------- On 12/7/2004 7:48:04 PM tkot wrote: look at what "they" are doing to the tv set. "they" will soon force everyone to upgrade to a hi-def set, because all available signals will be hi-def. so get a hi-def set or dont watch. ---------------- Actually, they're not. The addendum to the Patriot Act that just passed the House by a margin of 338 to 75 includes a little provision for government financial assistance to install D/A downsampling converters for people with old television sets. The big lie that Best Buy and Circuit City perpetuated on the undereducated buying public about HDTV is finally exposed. 1) Your old TV won't stop working when all signals go to digital. 2) Most signals on the new digital transmission systems will not be Hi-def, nor will they be in 16:9 format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 ---------------- On 12/8/2004 1:23:02 PM Allan Songer wrote: Remind me again why any of this matters? ---------------- Allan, It has taken two pages to establish it doesnt, musically. You can go back to Jazz now - normal programming has been restored... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted December 8, 2004 Author Share Posted December 8, 2004 ---------------- On 12/7/2004 10:35:48 PM Allan Songer wrote: I have spent quite a bit of time working out the problems of turntable isolation with both suspended and non-suspended designs ---------------- Feel free to post pictures of your record player and isolation device(s). All of us here will benefit more if you show them in situ vis-a-vis your room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodger Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 ---------------- On 12/8/2004 1:46:33 PM maxg wrote: ---------------- On 12/8/2004 1:23:02 PM Allan Songer wrote: Remind me again why any of this matters? ---------------- Allan, It has taken two pages to establish it doesnt, musically. You can go back to Jazz now - normal programming has been restored... ---------------- You mean that this has just been an episode of the "Outer Limits?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCFine Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 ---------------- On 12/8/2004 1:17:22 PM sfogg wrote: "but that is not a scientific basis on which to make the ridiculous statement that the format is fundamentally less accurate." How about the interchannel phase errors in the format? What about the need for the music to be dramatically EQed (20x the power at some points) for the format to store the music and then have the inverse of that EQ applied on playback to overcome fundamental limitations in the storage ability of the format? What about the inability from most playback to track stereo bass properly? This is so bad most mixers took to mixing bass in mono to work around this limitation. Etc..etc... "Much study and testing was done a few years back to answer the question, do record club discs sound as good as store bought. The results were very interesting and proved yet again that the widely held belief that bits is bits is unfounded and naive." You are arguing for preference which is not the question at hand. If a CD spits out the bits that were put into it it is an accurate delivery system. Period... end of story. You are stuck in the common audiophile supposition/myth that just because you like/prefer something it therefor *must* be the most 'accurate' or have the 'least distortion.' That simply isn't the case. Some of what gives vinyl its pleasant playback isn't in spite of its inaccuracys... it is directly because of them. There have been tests done where an A/D and D/A stage were put into the middle of an analog playback system and very outspoken analog supporters were tested to see if they could determine when the 'digital' was in the middle of the chain vs. when it was bypassed. That they failed to be able to hear the difference again points to the accuracy of digital. Shawn ---------------- One can not dismiss the damage done from the very beginning of the chain, simply to support an over simplified view of the virtues of what is obviously your preference. I clearly acknowledged that both are merely facsimiles of the real time event and are both therefore flawed. I understood the debate to be to what degree. Now you are extolling the strenghs of the mechanism encountered by the end user, but in fact, you are merely defining the differences between digital and analog, ie: the LP vs. CD. I am not stuck in any supposition/myth. I am merely making observations of fact. If I am, and I am not, arguing my preference as you accuse, then what exactly is your point? You said, "That they failed to be able to hear the difference again points to the accuracy of digital", you also state,"some of what gives vinyl its pleasant playback isn't in spite of its inaccuracys... it is directly because of them". You can't be serious, anecdotal subjectivity is science when it supports your obvious bias but in the other incident is used to explain away those sort of fuzzy thinking LP fans as conosseurs of impulse noise and even order distortions. You are the one that sounds like the "audiophile". It is beyond me to imagine how anyone can be so pretentious as to base points of debate upon what other people said they did or did not hear, and expect to be taken seriously. WCF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 "I am merely making observations of fact" This statement is an observation of fact? "If you think digital beats LP hands down even in theory you must be deaf. " Or: "It never ceases to amaze me the reluctance in todays people to acknowledge the superiority of old technology. In this case 100 years old." Sure looks like nothing more then an opinion to me. "anecdotal subjectivity is science" Actually they were controlled double blind listening tests and the subject under test was Ivor Tiefenbrun who if you don't know is the director of Linn and designed things like the highly regarded LP12 turntable. He failed to identify when there was an A/D and D/A chain in his equipment. "It is beyond me to imagine how anyone can be so pretentious as to base points of debate upon what other people said they did or did not hear, and expect to be taken seriously." Said from the guy that also said.... " Much study and testing was done a few years back to answer the question, do record club discs sound as good as store bought. The results were very interesting and proved yet again that the widely held belief that bits is bits is unfounded and naive." Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben. Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Shawn, Thanks for clarifying quite a bit there. I think many of us are on the same page as to "accuracy" being an overrated indicator of quality.m nvb tfnvgb bcbngfvcx 6ddfxgt5r8,i/tx zccc,/ cvo///h/nnnnnnnnnhhheee/ccc0, cccc mA! UK< UJM&JJM cx ,0 , 0 . .... , N That last part was my son's input on the matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCFine Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 ---------------- On 12/8/2004 5:28:34 PM sfogg wrote: "I am merely making observations of fact" This statement is an observation of fact? "If you think digital beats LP hands down even in theory you must be deaf. " Or: "It never ceases to amaze me the reluctance in todays people to acknowledge the superiority of old technology. In this case 100 years old." Sure looks like nothing more then an opinion to me. "anecdotal subjectivity is science" Actually they were controlled double blind listening tests and the subject under test was Ivor Tiefenbrun who if you don't know is the director of Linn and designed things like the highly regarded LP12 turntable. He failed to identify when there was an A/D and D/A chain in his equipment. "It is beyond me to imagine how anyone can be so pretentious as to base points of debate upon what other people said they did or did not hear, and expect to be taken seriously." Said from the guy that also said.... " Much study and testing was done a few years back to answer the question, do record club discs sound as good as store bought. The results were very interesting and proved yet again that the widely held belief that bits is bits is unfounded and naive." Shawn ---------------- Yes, I know of Ivor. So am I to understand that you, like many, subscribe to the fallacy of "Golden Ears". That insecurity is the basis upon which all hi-fi marketing is founded, as well as an inordinate bulk of the ink spilled in the audio press. Secondly, as of this posting, I have not yet provided you with the study. You must be assuming that it supports what you perceive as my position. You might be suprised. Blind testing, A/B testing etc. etc. etc. has been as hotly debated as tube vs. transistor, push-pull vs. SET,and so on, and is an equally frivolous waste of time. Of course I have my opinions and preferences, I am human. But I do not see the point, regardless of which camp one may find himself in, to make proclamations with regard to a technology and equipment that is subject to, and flawed by immeasurable variables and compromises. For the third time, FROM BEGINNING TO END! "It never ceases to amaze me the reluctance in todays people to acknowledge the superiority of old technology. In this case 100 years old." What is wrong with this statement, it is most certainly true? Today's media driven culture, in general frowns upon anything that isn't new and improved, digital or new millennium. I was simply trying to point out how vociferous and frenzied many people today react when confronted with the prospect that just because something is "old" it need not be suspect and in need of upgrade or replacement with the new and better incarnation, and that my friend is naive. That is all. WCF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.