Why doesn't digital sound as good as analogue?

[Saint Johnny B]

You know, it probably really would be a really good idea if the chip designers brought some "ear people" to the party.

[Lee Flier]

I think people like Dan Lavry and Paul Frindle have pretty good ears.

[Angelo Clematide]

Dan Lavry does not work where the chips are developed, at Cirrus Logic, Texas Instruments etc.. I'm not informed if he is involved in this part of the industry or if people like him have a strong influence/input. I know that the AES has a department where chip industry and audio engineers meet in congres.

 

Dan Lavry has developed state of the art test systems for integrated circuits, time interval meters, equipment for physics laboratories, converters for MRI and CAT scanners, and amplifiers for medical gear.

 

He is also the designer of one of my converter, the "Pacific Microsonics"

[Lee Flier]

Well Dan Lavry makes some pretty darned good converters. But 1) we don't really know whether the chips are the source of the problems we hear, or perhaps they're only one problem out of several, and 2) my point was a lot of people involved in designing digital gear have great ears. I hear what Yorik is saying that the techie geeks don't always have the greatest handle on the ergonomic side of things, but I'm not sure how much of a sonic difference it would really make in digital recording and mixing, to have musicians involved in the development process... I think there are a lot involved in any case.

 

I spose it's possible that the chips ARE a big culprit and would benefit from actual people with ears doing subjective listening tests as opposed to people just measuring specs in a lab. But that has burned audio developers for such a long time now that I didn't think anyone would do that anymore (fail to do subjective tests as well as measure specs).

[Angelo Clematide]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

I'm not sure how much of a sonic difference it would really make in digital recording and mixing, to have musicians involved in the development process... I think there are a lot involved in any case.

The chippies know exactly where the limits and the next to be improved things are.

 

my guess is, that chip design is limited to what today is possible in microfabrication.

 

And please no musicians, or we have a thread like that going on at the development at cirrus logic, and wait forever for the next improvements...

[Saint Johnny B]

Hmmm, well the fabs keep getting better and better with tighter tolerances...but maybe too many of the chip designers "hear" with their eyes. It is also one thing to do a test on an SRC with a single test tone and measure it and quite another to put some real world stresses on it. I sense that significant improvements could be made if certain "ear people" where more closely associated in the chip design process. However, not sure I would nominate anyone too wedded to old technology or with such a closed mind as to be regarded in some quarters as a luddite.

 

I think one thing IS clear, digital sound can and should be improved.

 

YMMV

[Angelo Clematide]

Originally posted by Johnny B:

I think one thing IS clear, digital sound can and should be improved.

this is a interesting statement and of course true.

 

Angelo's alteration:

I think one thing IS clear, analogue sound can and should be improved.

is that also true, or is analogue developed to the end, can not be further improved, or is it not neccessary to be improved any further?

[StoneinaPond]

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

....is analogue developed to the end, can not be further improved, or is it not neccessary to be improved any further?

That depends on which part of the analog chain you are referring to.

 

If you mean audio capture (tape,) then I would guess that it could do with more improvement, but that there is little impetus to do so.

 

As to other parts of the chain, yes, there is constant improvement, particularly in the high-end boutique products. Speakers is another area where, if you think back fifteen years to when NS10s where the de facto standard, today we have a vast array of choices with more development to come.

 

As far as low end, semi pro products, I see less room for improvement, although arguably, that is where it is needed most.

 

But I still like the idea of the nice front end/good digital capture/analog mixing or summing solution.

 

What needs to be improved there is both the analog and conversion aspects of AD/DAs (although there have been some nice improvements in the last year) but more importantly, a rethinking of the code that goes into the capture/editing software.

[Saint Johnny B]

Angelo, of course analogue can and should be improved, but it migfht not need as much improvement as digital.

 

Yorik,

 

Yeah, the code and maybe the entire process should be re-examined from top to bottom. I say challenge iit all until digital lives up to a well-accepted standard of excellence, meaning these debates no longer exist and all the "ear people" are truly happy with digital.

 

How long will this take?

 

I dunno, 6 months?...2 years?...5 years ?... 10 years?...but it sure as hell should not take another twenty.

[Anderton]

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I didn't say that quality was irrelevant, just the medium...digital/analog/tape/hard disc etc. Sure, you can always say "But what about MP3 digital? That medium sucks" to which I could say "Well what about cassettes? That's analog, and it sucks." But neither is the fault of the medium per se, just the implementation using that medium.

[Anderton]

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Peter Gabriel's "Us" album was mastered in such a way that I found it really unpleasant to listen to. I listened to it once, liked the songs, but never listened to it again. Guess I should pull it out and give it another chance.

[Anderton]

And I guess the other question is "Why doesn't ANY of this stuff sound like someone sitting in my living room playing acoustic guitar?"

[Saint Johnny B]

Craig, that's one of the best questions of all.

[Angelo Clematide]

this leads to the next question "Why does analogue and digital not sound like real music"?

[StoneinaPond]

Originally posted by Anderton:

And I guess the other question is "Why doesn't ANY of this stuff sound like someone sitting in my living room playing acoustic guitar?"

The facetious answer would be that it's because they are not sitting in your living room.

 

But, as I am sure you are aware, we are trying to reproduce a real experience from two specific points, namely stereo speakers.

 

One could argue that someone playing a guitar in your room is an event generated from a single point.

 

However, the room one is sitting in plays an immediate part in the experience with the live guitarist, as does the room in which you are listening to the recording. But in the later case, the room is reacting very differently as a result of using two speakers.

 

I am sure we could come very close to a real experience with a high-end surround system (and for certain material in stereo) where the listening environment is tuned to the reproduction system and where only the highest quality capture system is employed in the recording, with as much straight wire as possible.

 

And the playback medium is not the current CD.

 

I have to say that I have experienced such an event at an AES show quite a few years ago. It was in one of the demonstration rooms (not the main floor) and it was around the time that 96kHz, DVD for audio and surround were first being developed.

 

A consortium of Japanese manufacturers had recorded various pieces, mostly classical in nature, and the playback system was top notch, with TAD tweeters that apparently extended to 100kHz.

 

In this particular case, the piece was a Schubert quintet, played back in stereo at 24-bit, 96kHz.

 

I almost cried at the incredible detail of the recorded performance. I felt as if I could reach inside the speakers and touch the performers and their instruments. There was nothing between me and the performance. It was a very profound experience, which I have not had the pleasure of hearing again.

[Saint Johnny B]

Yorik, that sounds like one hellava demo.

 

There are people out there experimenting with a whole bunch of mic elements wired together, some in a ball config to do more accurate capture.

 

On the playback side, there are some experimenters who have wired up tons of speakers, placed above, below, and competely around the listener...with those systems you can feel the lows in your body and some of them are just awsome.

 

"Mo' betta" speakers would be a good thing.

 

And "Mo betta" sample rate converter chips would also be welcome.

[Angelo Clematide]

The High-End A/D Converter Appropriate to the 28-Bit World

 

Better then any Microphone you have !!!

 

http://www.stagetec.com/stagetec/e_truematch.htm

 

-

[KenElevenShadows]

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Alanis Morissette's first album, however that was recorded, was nails on a chalkboard to me.

 

I could actually list literally hundreds of recordings where the recording seriously impeded the artistic statement, many dating back to the late '60s, but most of them are not super well known recordings. Many were recorded outside of Europe, Japan, or the U.S.