| From: | greenboy |
| Date: | 5 Aug 2000 at 10:48:23 |
| Subject: | RE: Fudge, No Recipe x:Mpeg 3 playback. |
>>>Of course, you could listen to Vinyl and then you would get an infinite
>>>sample rate, as well as all those inaudible frequencies below 20Hz and
>>>above 20KHz (which is why vinyl sounds better ;-) )
>>Joke, right? Vinyl is a poor medium to dub "infinite"; it may be better
>>described as troublesome, sporadic and random. As far as frequency
>>response is concerned vinyl lathe and turntable playback process makes
>>it grossly inadequate at low frequency response and linearity. And highs
>>may sound somewhat "natural", but are incapable of the emphasis that
>>CDs can routinely carry. Not to mention the lovely artifacts induced
>>in manufacturing, shipping, storage, and playback. Screeetch. Bump.
>>Scrsssshhh.
> Steve Jordan :
>No Joke! All audio information is stored on a vinyl disk, even the quiet
>sounds during a loud section
Cassettes do that. Hell, even some of them old 8-track tapes do THAT!
Even the old victrola does that. Anything between the noise floor and
the ceiling, which by the way is a bigger distance on CD than turntable
and vinyl. I suppose you could stretch that a few decibels with an
acoustically-isolated turntable [in another room] and a virgin pressing.
Still not there though. BTW, many modern CDs are taken down from 24- and
20-bit masters, though some are still using 2" at 30 IPS and maybe Dolby
SR. Advanced dithering algorithms take care of the job pretty well these
day, even in the cheaper chips.
>plus sounds below 20 hz and above 20Khz.
Wrong. Way wrong on the bass bump, baby. A cartridge may be electrically
capable, but by the time it is loaded into a tone arm, set on a gimbal
on a platorm that houses a turntable, and plays a sonically compromised
recorded product... You can find info about this - read up on cutting
lathes and RIAA curves. There's not much that much bass below 60hz on
vinyl (variable, based on total bass content and desired playback time),
and the tonearm/cartridge combo is pretty maxed-out when too much is
attempted in "club mixes".
High frequencies can be pretty sweet, but are subject to the vagaries
of the vinyl, the care of the vinyl, and the tone arm's median accuracy.
The CD player on the other hand needs only a small amount of isolation
from resonance and thus can have rich information in the lowest octaves
(BTW, though in the past there wasn't much recorded content below 40 Hz
attempted anyway, due to conventions in the industry based on speaker
inefficiencies and other factors, most engineers are working it more to
31 Hz these days).
>Also companding on a vinyl disk is much less than on a CD, therefore
>you get better 'Light and Dark' sections (loud/soft)
Wrong. It's called compression by the way - and includes limiting. BTW,
"companding" implies also "expansion" which is typically applied during
playback by playback equipment and is not used in mastering. Theoretical
16-bit CD s/n is about 96 db (figured at 6db a bit). Vinyl is down
around Dolby B cassette, and the figures are highly variable based on
what a typical turntable (I'm not talking those $2000-$14,000 jobbies)
in its listening environment introduces at higher levels (there goes
that tonearm/platform rumble at resonant frequencies) and the grade of
vinyl. It's been so long since I looked at the figures, but it is way
down there, maybe 76 with the *best* acoustic isolation and the best
vinyl and lathing work.
The signal-to-noise ratios of the two mediums are magnitudes apart. You
might not realize dbs are logarithmic; a 10 db difference is typically
equated as being twice as loud (or as soft). The difference between 76
and 96, 20 db, is 4 times. This is similar in contrast to musical peaks
produced by a 10 watt amplifier and a 1000 watt amplifier (though that
is only to give an idea about what kind of dynamic range we are talking
about).
That's why the "classical" and "chamber" music communities embraced CD.
Much of the repertoire requires dynamic range in excess of 90 db. Rock
and pop formats on the other hand typically are compressed during
tracking and mixing to stay within 20 db or so except during fadeouts.
Radio mixes are even more "mashed".
The other odd spec one might consider is separation. CD's may have 60
db of separation (stereo image). The crosstalk in a really good phono
cartridge might be 30 db at 1KHz and 20 db at 10KHz. Magnitudes apart.
This is not to say that some vinyl-oriented systems and recordings
might not be considered by some ears as more pleasing to listen to. But
in terms of linearity, *presented* frequency response, and dynamic
range, the typical consumer cheapie CD these days has it aced over even
the multi-thousand dollar audiophile turntable equipment.
<-- greenboy ---<<<
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