Why doesn't digital sound as good as analogue?

[Saint Johnny B]

Simple question. It's been 20 or more years, and yet, people like Bruce the Viking still are not completely satisfied. Why?

 

a. Bad SRC converters?

b. Bad implementation?

c. Bad filters?

d. Inherent digital math flaws?

e. Frequency range too limited?

f. Too slow?

g. Other?

[Lee Flier]

I think it probably has to do with phase/timing issues, but at this point, I don't really care. I am not a designer or manufacturer of digital gear, and the day one of those guys comes up with something that blows me away, I'll be anxious to hear their take on what made the difference. Until then, after years of arguing with people about this stuff and trying to figure out how to get digital to sound better and futzing around with different converters and latency correction and dither and other crap, and not getting the results I want, and not hearing anybody else getting the results I want either, I cry "uncle." I don't care why anymore! There are much brighter minds than mine working on this problem, and better them than me , cuz I'd rather just be making music and not hurting my ears anymore, or arguing about it.

[Alndln]

Originally posted by Johnny B:

Why doesn't digital sound as good as analogue?

First off,I don't think it neccessarily does sound better,and I come from over 30 years experience in mostly tape based studios.

Simple question.

It's really not that simple because I personally like certain aspects of both.I like the detail of digital especially for classical and certain acoustic material where it usually got lost on tape,but I love tape for louder electric instruments not just for warmth but where it places it in the audio spectrum.Of course there are plenty of examples to contradict everything I'm saying both ways.Simple? Not really.

[KenElevenShadows]

At this point, they're just different, I think. I generally prefer the sound of analog for many things, especially in pop and rock, but recognize that for certain applications, digital is probably a better application (low-volume stuff, for instance).

[Lee Flier]

Yes, agreed Ken and A-Unit.

[geoffk]

So you don't listen to cds Lee?

[The Lurker]

20 years is not that long for a technology as complicated as digital sound reproduction. Look how long it took cars before they got cup holders.

 

Digital sound used to sound bad. Now it sounds good. In the near future it will sound perfect.

 

The difficulty is the same with digital vs. analog pictures. Digital cuts things into pieces, and reassembles those pieces which, short of enormous resolution, injurs the source. As resolution of digital reproduction increases, so too does its difference from analog decrease.

[Lee Flier]

Yes I agree Lurker. I don't think digital will "never get there," I just think it ain't "there" NOW.

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by geoffk:

So you don't listen to cds Lee?

Yeah I do. Like I said in Bruce's thread, I don't have too much issue with digital as a distribution medium, it's mainly at the multitrack level that it bugs me.

[ITGITC]

http://www.kibblesnbits.com/products/images/products_homestyle_bag.jpg

 

It's those DAMN BITS! The problem is the bits!

 

 

Even my dog hates 'em! We can't buy this dogfood any more because the dog will only eat the Kibbles! NO BITS!! He drags the Kibbles away from the food bowl, leaving the bits behind...

 

Very frustrating indeed!

 

I say GET RID OF THE BITS!

 

Tom

[Jimbroni]

I'm certainly not at the level of some you pro's but since I am the recording guy for my band, I have a couple of beefs.

 

Dynamic Range - My band has a lot of dynamics, in order for me to capture that, I record at really low levels. The result is I lose energy in my mixes or over compensate with compression. Lately, I'm starting to hate compressors.

 

Control latency - Self explanatory. I have a tough enough time eq'ing a mix as it is. I don't need the second guessing that comes with waiting for the plugin to react.

 

Control realism - Beyond latency most FX, plugin, mixer, controls, just don't behave the way the do on analog gear. Sometimes they're to responsive, sometimes not enough. It messes with my intuition.

 

 

All that said I use digital because its affordable and really perfect for me, because I'm not a pro, but need to have CD's that represent my band.

 

I do agree with A-unit about acoustic sounds especially guitars, man they do sound prestine on digital. To me thats one of the easiest things to capture, assuming you have a good room.

[where02190]

It's never going to sound the same, it's not the same. Heck, differnt tape brands sound different.

 

This is the evolution of audio. Better is a subjective viewpoint. My better may be your worse.

 

From a technical standpoint digital audio far surpasses analog in bandwidth and transient response. Does that make it better? No, it makes digital sound different than analog.

[The Lurker]

Originally posted by where02190:

It's never going to sound the same, it's not the same. Heck, differnt tape brands sound different.

I think you have to see the forest through the trees and put things in perspective.

 

Digital audio is relatively young, and is remarkable considering its youth. The difference between today and a decade ago is around 4X resolution, which is enough to change Bill Swedian's vote from no to yes. When that difference is 100X or 1000X resolution, it will easilly ape analog which, at that point, will be no more than a retro plug in. At 10X resolution boost from 44.1, analog will long since be left in the dust.

 

As Lee says, we're not there now, but as the writing on the wall says, it's inevitable.

[dendanna]

create a perfectly digital random that is not perfect and you will have your perfect unperfect analog sounding digital sound.....maybe

[Lee Flier]

I don't know yet if it's inevitable, I mean they said solid state guitar amps were going to be better than tubes and they never have been, to most players... now there is a thriving tube amp market in addition to all the solid state and digital stuff, and people still love "ancient" ribbon mics... etc.

 

So I don't really care whether it's old or new technology that accomplishes the task, I just know what sounds good to me. If digital "gets there" eventually, great. If not, I'm not going to pretend it has. That's about it.

[Your Ad Here]

I do think that one of the common deficiencies in digital recordings are unstable clock sources. Lock up a system to a stable clock such as an appogee and the image smearing goes bye bye.

[GTRBass]

If you record at 24/48k or better, using high quality convertewrs and a nice analog tube front end, you should in general be satisfied with the results. The hardware horsepower to efficiently run 192K and DSD are only a few years away from a price point making them affordable to virtually everyone.

 

I'd love to have a Stevens 40- track and a Neve 8078, but I can't justify the costs of acquisition and maintenance.

 

Most consumers can't tell the difference betwen analog and digital.

[Lee Flier]

In case anybody missed Bruce's original thread which spawned this one, here it is...

 

http://www.musicplayer.com//ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/1/t/023785.html

 

Might want to read it cuz there's some repetition going on.

[dougsthang]

I think a lot of this topic is two folded.

 

One, most of us were weened on analog. Our ears grew up listening to analog sounds so when we first started hearing digital it just sounded different to us. At first digital sounded so clean and quite, at least that was my first impression. "hey, no tape hiss". Then you would notice something was missing.

 

I think the second thing is the lack of quality digital consumer play back devices. We spend all this time making killer digital mixes only having to down mix the sample rates for consumer playback. Having heard many a high level digital mixes within great control rooms I can't really say the analog sounds better than digital. What I've heard slayed me, now once it found it's way to Wal Mart I don't think it sounded quite as impactful.

 

I for one think anyone who wants to be a producer or engineer should start with a four track cassette machine and create many a mix of songs and then move up to eight track. Only then should you be allowed to go to a DAW.

[John Sayers]

Yes - Bruce asked "what is best"

 

well in film and video post production and broadcasting (which accounts for around 90% of recording work as Angelo correctly pointed out in the previous thread) digital is definitely better. The problem in post is generations - I remember that the US version of the show I post produced went through 13 generations before you got to hear it - I'd much preferred that to have been 13 digital generations than 13 analogue.

 

cheers

john

[miroslav]

Originally posted by The Lurker:

Digital audio is relatively young, and is remarkable considering its youth.

 

 

.................

 

 

...we're not there now, but as the writing on the wall says, it's inevitable.

Hmmmmmm....?

 

I don't really consider digital audio all that young.

Actually...I expected a LOT more from it...and a lot sooner.

 

It appears that over the last several years...all that the designers have been doing is "tweaking" what they already got...

...and they have yet to find the right "tweak" to make digital audio "better" sounding that analog.

 

I don't know...maybe they will evetually find the right "tweak"...

...but so far, I don't see that it is really "inevitable" that digital WILL make analog obsolete.

 

I don't see that it will ever give you what analog does in the way of "audio glue"...

...though, digital can still be good in it's own way.

[Saint Johnny B]

Some great comments here. Perhaps more will chime in.

[Angelo Clematide]

I do not compare my recordings, which are all digital since years, with older one from before the digital recording age. I have the respect, and also understand the reasons why Lee and Bruce prefer analog for pop music. At this point i wanna state, that for serious music "classical", the digital medium is the superior choice.

I have to conduct recordings of contemporay composer, where the leve drop to 72 dBFs when a single violin is scratching in pppp.

 

In broadcast, analogue is not existent, neither in the audio nor in the picture. This where the main areas i worked in in the past 25 years. The pop music i recorded as a producer, all fall into the digital age. Sometime it get the impression, that many of you here don't have the best digital tools avalable, and therefor can not fully judge what digital is in the year 2005.

 

I make my choices for A/D conversion not in a pro music store, but study the chip design and the sound of each brand, i.e. the crystal chips in 2000 from cirrus logic where much better then the ones from Texas Instruments from the same year. As someone mention, a clock is a must or the channels will be out of lock, that sounds teribble. Furthermore, the cabeling is of high importance, i use 50 Ohm/kilometer Suhner & Huber halogen free RF cabels, the same as in lab measuring. The speaker cable, the only analog way in the chain, are precision lowest-loss wideband signal transfer cables, have a resistance of 0.66 Ohm/Kilometer, and a current rating 320 A RMS, 1800 A peak. The amp is a FM acoustic 800 low ohm version.

 

Then i bypass as much as possible electronic circuits, i went that far, that i dont use a console no more. Once converted the signal never leaves the digital stage. The choices made on the devices in use are made on the non coloring quality and its correlation. We spended $5000 per single channel on the best available microphone pre-amps, this pre amp does not have a gain control, guess why.

I do not use any older outgear where it would go back over analogue.

 

I think the best available digital audio in 2005 is quality wise far above what analogue ever was.

I dont know any engineer, producer or studio facility where they work still with Studer machines.

Also the mastering is all digital. Analogue does sound as always in the past and digital goes far beyond that. We have not recorded anything below 24-bit in the last 12 years. What I hear in this forum reminds me of a very dear old dear friend who died recently at the age of 92, he constructed his live long the best tube amps available on this planet and always said the best medium are the 78 RPM shellacs.

 

The stage where the consumer destroys the quality of digital, is the cheap CD player and the crap stereo he has.

 

-

 

Here a little text I wrote years ago for my engineers:

 

Recording extrem low volume music

 

1) Use a amplifier with no gain control.

The fact that all currently existing methods of remote gain control negatively influence the audio signal prevents us from using such remote control circuitry. An efficient solution is used in allowing a tremendous headroom reserve (signals of up to +26 dBv can be accommodated at the input) and clipping is avoided. Set to a reasonable level and start to work. With headroom you never run into clipping problems.

 

2) If you want to capture the important details

that separate excellent recordings from the mediocre, the best way is to amplify the mic signal right next to the microphone. Precise amplification, proper balancing and multiple buffering should all be done inside the amp. The signal can then be sent through literally hundreds of meters of cable without losses or changes in performance. The result is more accuracy and musicality, especially with critical sources such as acoustic instruments and voices. Not that such accuracy will be absolutely necessary for recording purposes, but it shows the capabilities.

 

3) Make sure to bypass the entire mixing desk channel electronics

and to use the adequate signal route that will go through the minimum of desk electronics. This is often best done by not feeding the high-level to the mixing desk line level inputs. While in this case, one is bypassing the on-board microphone preamplifier, the signal will still go through some channel electronics and this even when the channel is switched to "bypass".

Connecting in such a way, a considerable amount of improvement can be made. The goal is not to feed the signal of the amp thru additional desk electronics.

 

4) The correct path for the signal is

to enter the patch bay via a direct input, or direct to the monitor/tape return patch bay input, so one is listening to the signal of the amp with minimal additional electronics

 

4) The ultimate way is to feed the output

of the amp directly into the recorder, by passing the mixing desk entirely.

 

Thats the way we record music who comes near the threshold of hearing, and this with a acuracy of 0.01 dB.

Signal on a digital medium for example: -72 dBFs or more, still hearing music and no noise

 

-

[Dylan]

I think a lot of the perceived issue about digital not sounding good has to do with the analog front end. Most people I know are not shelling out thousands on high-end consoles and are content with cheap but still functional pres. I highly doubt the converters on most current 24-bit interfaces today are the weakest link in the signal chain for most. For me, it's mic's and pre's that are lacking.

[Angelo Clematide]

Dylan:---->not sounding good has to do with the analog front end. ... For me, it's mic's and pre's that are lacking.

 

Angelo---->i still use the same Neumann's as always, when i tested newer models over the years, it was most often a waste of time. Bruce however mentioned that the Royer he has are exellent.

 

What you call "lacking" is for me nothing else then the limit of the design and can not be improved to the specs we are working in digital today.

 

The same limit is true to speaker design. I just both the latest monitoring available, and as fantastic it sounds, it's still a speaker, and when i hear a violoncello in them, it does not sound like a violoncello, in a similar way as catfood tv-advertising does not attract a cat, because she "knows" it's b---s---. Then on the contrary, i never felt that i have to change the FM Acoustics amp nor do i feel that 32-bit floating is limiting me.

 

I also can say when the recording turned out bad, it was always the engineers fault or mine. I never had a occasion where i could blame it on the devices in use.

 

A recording also has a timestamp like a movie, who shows to the knowledgable when it was made or from which period a painting is.

 

-

[sign]

IMHO an analog tape machine sounds still nicer (better) than any digital format.

 

Read what Bob Katz has to say HERE

[where02190]

Hmmm...better tell the Drüle, he doesn't miss one ad for cat food. Course, he thinks the cats are the food....

[Angelo Clematide]

and what sort of animal is Drüle?

 

thanks sign, a went thru all the text of Bob, a knowledgeable man.

 

The most interesting thing he said is about decimation, but that does not exist in my recording chain for symphonic music. As i said, i'm aware of the specs the A(D chips deliver and all it's limits or critical algorithms.

 

And with pop i don't give a rat ass, the clients want's it, he pays for it and gets what he wants and i have the music forgotten 50 minutes after he left. Just another not important product for the way of life we are living in.

 

You know what really is important?

POTATOS for example!!!

[Anderton]

If cost is no object, I think analog sounds better than digital at the moment.

 

If cost matters, I think budget digital sounds better than budget analog.

 

I agree that with the tube vs. solid state issue, they're different sounds. I used tubes for a long time, but the sound that I heard in my head was possible only when digital came along. I gotta tell you, Echoplex delay units were a gigantic pain in the butt to keep working! But I did like what happened when the sound sort of crapped out toward the end of the decay, and ended up as this sea of filtered noise...better than when 12-bit digital delay turned into raspy buzze.

[Bbach1]

There are certainly a lot of interesting thoughts on this topic.

Angelo - I agree with you, mostly. The quality of the digital recording has a lot to do with your skill in recording.

Where02190 - I think you really hit the nail on the head. Digital and analog are different.

 

So, I would pose this question: is it supposed to be the goal of a digital recording to sound like an analog recording?