Re: [LAU] Pro Audio? OT rant.

From: Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf@email-addr-hidden-dsl.net>
Date: Thu Dec 27 2012 - 15:57:43 EET

On Mon, 2012-12-24 at 10:38 -0600, Brent Busby wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Dec 2012, Thomas Vecchione wrote:
>
> > Your McDonalds analogy would be a better analogy if applied to lossy
> > compression, and MP3 in particular, rather than Digital vs Analog. A
> > more suitable analogy for digital vs analog is going to the fine
> > restaurant, having an amazing meal, and then being able to reproduce
> > the exact same meal every time(Digital), whereas a chef might make
> > small changes to the recipe(Analog).
>
> Actually I think the thing with analog is that while it's not sonically
> accurate, the inaccuracies are often musical and pleasant (though that
> may be more true to older people who are used to the sound of tubes and
> tape than younger people who are used to MP3's and digital aliasing
> artifacts). A lot of the warmth that people associate with an analog
> signal is harmonics that were not even in the original signal to begin
> with -- but few can argue that they sound good! That's the whole point
> of tube compressors and preamps...not to sound accurate, but to sound
> even better than accurate.
>
> After a lifetime of listening to tape saturation and harmonics from tube
> coloration, accuracy is so...boring.

Correct, accuracy isn't wanted, but it's possible with analog gear too.

> > The Shannon-Nyquist theorem was absolutely the primary inspiration
> > behind the choice of sample rates of CD. The theorem states that you
> > can reproduce exactly any frequency that you sample at over twice the
> > frequency. So when 44.1 was chosen, it allows for any frequency up to
> > just above 22kHz to be reproduced exactly. The limits of the average
> > undamaged human hearing is 20kHz, and the average limit for typical
> > adult hearing is probably closer to the 18k range if the ears were
> > well taken care of. For most people that listened to loud music, etc.
> > that limit is probably much lower.
>
> The really nice part about that (especially for people like me who
> actually have damaged their hearing in some frequency zones due to
> unwise loud playing of the ride cymbal bell and such things as that) is
> that fortunately, most of the frequencies that really make people groove
> aren't up in the >10kHz range anyway. People really respond to bass and
> mids, even upper midrange, but if you give people too much high treble,
> unless it's really smooth, it can be described by so many fairly
> negative adjectives: metallic, harsh, cold, tinny, abrasive, clangy.
> Most people like warm recordings. Those near ultrasonic frequencies
> usually just aren't that big a part of the music.

12 KHz, 14 KHz etc. are needed for transparentness, to add room to the
sound.

Regards,
Ralf

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Received on Thu Dec 27 16:15:04 2012

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