Re: [linux-audio-user] Digital Fidelity

On Sun, 2006-02-26 at 21:46 -0800, Maluvia wrote:

> Look - I do understand what you guys are trying to say, and respect the
> fact that you have some science and experience to back it up.
> I will just say this:
> We have an old Tascam portable 8-track, which is now ready for the junk
> heap, but we got close to perfect fidelity (after a lot of hard work) of
> what we recorded on it with respect to the live sound.
> If I wasn't looking, I couldn't tell if my husband was playing live, or
> playing back his recordings.
> Our early attempts to record that live sound through our Gina card directly
> to the hard-disk sounded just plain bad: harsh, strident, thin - cold, but
> more to the point - not at all like the live sound.
> The analog recordings have a warmth to them - a midrange 'fullness' that I
> don't hear digitally.
> Digital can sound very sterile.
> (When we attempted this through our earlier Pinnacle Multisound, it sounded
> like a midi guitar.)
>

    Did you take a look at this page?

http://www.endino.com/graphs/index.html

There are two 16 track Tascams listed there. Neither of them looks very
good. When you have finished looking at the Tascam curves take a look
at the digital curve at the bottom. I tend to think Gene is correct.
You're not looking for fidelity, you want that "analog sound" which is
generally nothing more than the way the tape recorder distorted what was
input. Personally, I like the way analog tape sounds. I've recorded in
Nashville on 24 track 2 inch and I loved the sound - I just can't afford
it ;-)

-- 
Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner
The Fuzzy Dice
http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/fuzzy.html
"As we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be 
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and 
this we should do freely and generously."
Benjamin Franklin, on declining patents offered by the governor of 
Pennsylvania for his "Pennsylvania Fireplace", c. 1744