The dichotomy

Dear Members of the tuning digest,

I do not want to appear stupid, or to make a fool of myself, and indeed,
this may seem like an obviously awnsered question, so if you feel that you
don't have time to respond to it, then don't.

What I am woundering is as to the difference between analogue and digitally
manipulated, recorded, and created sound.

I have heard time, after time, after time, after time that CD is inerior to
vinyl, and I would like to be tested, formally on this with live analogue
speakers, and digital equipment.

I was actually thinkign the other day about the possibility ot an analogue
CD, which had a lazer refelected off a smoothly undulateing sorface with
roll and bulge, and thus may give a CD which is different every time, as vinyl.

I have heard also that much interesting analogue recordings, and
experimental work came about by accident.

Perhaps also these two could be used in combination, and combined, squarely
callibrated steps vs roll/bulge.

The next part of this question deals with the ability of a widely available
computer to utilize and
To store, and to manipulate sounds using analogue electronics, and analogue
internal workings….

Would it be possible to use specially reserved instructions for ustilzeing
analogue equipment from you're PC?

Or, areall intructions BY DEFAULT digital???

The reason that I ask is that I wanted to make myself, as a small project,
as trinary sampling system, based on 3^n in a power series, giving a hybrid
form of sampling:

0--à1 as digital, 1---à2 as a hybrid, made from the square root of two in a
superpower stack which converges towards the number two, and also2---à3
which is entirely analogue.

As I may have said before on this tunign digest: [2^(1/2)] superpower n
converges towards the number two, ad the novel thing about 2^(1/2) is that
it can be made with analogue and/or digital electronics.

Ultimately I would like to have the ability to manipulate and to manipulate
what came between two samples, thus for a sampling depth between 27 and 30,
of say , we could have:

3^0 3^1 3^2
1 3 9
1 + 3 + (9)+ (9*(2^(1/2)&4))) =

1+ 3 + 9 + (9*1.840910869291…..Anagloue or digital) =

29.56819 rather than 1+3+9+9*2=22 or 31.

The beauty of the square root of two is that it can be made either with
electronics that are analogue or digital.

Can the PC be instructed to work this way????

Sarn.

At 22:33 15/04/01 +1200, Sarn Richard Ursell wrote:
>Dear Members of the tuning digest,
...

>What I am woundering is as to the difference between analogue and digitally
>manipulated, recorded, and created sound.

Analogue equipment transmits sound using representations which can be continuously varied without discrete steps, for example a continuously variable voltage or the depth of a groove in a vinyl disk. Because the representation is continuously variable like the waveform of the original sound the analogue system follows the sound quite faithfully but it is subject to problems such as stretching or squashing of either the time axis (wow and flutter in a recording) or of the vertical axis (waveform distortion).

Digital equipment represents audio information using variables that can assume only separate discrete values which are usually very close together. The sound is represented by a series of samples, for example a CD uses 44,100 samples per second each of which may be one of 65,536 different values (2^16). Because the sound is being represented as discrete samples of step like sizes at fixed times it has a step like wave form which is then smoothed out by analogue electronics in the final output stage. The highest frequency which can be represented is half the sampling rate, i.e. 22,500 hertz for a CD. The maximum dynamic range in dB is 6 times the number of bits, i.e. 96 dB maximum for a CD.

>I have heard time, after time, after time, after time that CD is inerior to
>vinyl, and I would like to be tested, formally on this with live analogue
>speakers, and digital equipment.

This is usually a complaint about the dynamic range. Each bit in a digital system gives a doubling of possible output level which is a 6 dB increase. Hence 16 bits gives a maximum theoretical dynamic range of 96Db. But the dynamic range of a single acoustic guitar is said to be 110 dB, a full orchestra 120 dB and a rock band 140 dB in rough terms. So the dynamic range of a CD is limited in a way that vinyl disk or FM radio is not.

I used to be amongst those who refused to buy a CD player for many years on the grounds that the dynamic range was too limited. I once spoke to a man who worked for Linn Audio, a high quality equipment manufacturer in the UK and he said ' Oh, yes, the CD standard has ruined recorded music for an entire generation.' However, when I resort to vinyl disk listening these days I am mainly struck by the huge amounts of background noise and have come to tolerate CDs.

I am not sure what the audio standard for DVDs is. Last time I heard it had not been finalized.

Hope this helps,
Peter.

Peter Frazer wrote:

> I am not sure what the audio standard for DVDs is. Last time I heard it
> had not been finalized.

It's 24 bit. I think it's still 44 kHz, though. Could be wrong about that. 16 bits is plenty if one
is knowledgeable, skillful, and careful. I don't know half a dozen people who are certain they can
tell the difference.

Nice job answering that post, about analog/digital. But S/N (signal to noise ratio) is the key to
understanding practical dynamic range. While it's true that an orchestra or live rock band can push
the threshold of pain, it's important to recognize that the ambient noise in even an empty concert
hall (I mean the audience seats are empty, not the stage, of course) is going to be at least 40 to 50
dB. More for a rock band. Heck, a Marshall stack with a Strat plugged in is going to put out that
much (at one meter) by itself with no notes being played. Time all is said and done, you have
considerably less than 96 dB of usable dynamic range. Even if you somehow used the full 96, the
typical listening environment is going to going to mask several dB of it once the volume is set to a
tolerable listening level. The only really significant advantage of 24 bit recording is that you can
set your levels lower and not have to worry about "overs." The fact that it consumes 50% more system
resources and disk space is not a worthy trade off for me.

--
David J. Finnamore
Nashville, TN, USA
http://personal.bna.bellsouth.net/bna/d/f/dfin/index.html
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