Worth pointing out:
about 21:15 you get to hear an example of aliasing,
about 13:30 you get to hear 8 bit audio with clear quantisation noise.
Notice how nasty sounding the quantisation noise is - a sort of nasty hissy buzz that only comes when there is sound. That is the sound of the least significant bit rattling about with the input sound. Added white noise in the audio input would decorrelate the effect. You would get an encoded signal that had noise, even during the silent parts, but the overall sound would have higher resolution and not have the nasty buzzy effect.
I spent a large part of the 1960s-70s assembling the highest-end hifi I could afford – best turntable, cartridge, amp, speakers, listening environment. But one thing I could never get rid of and bothered me endlessly was the surface noise (clicks & pops) inherent in vinyl, and you’re talking to someone who took the very best care of the material – never touched the groove surface, always put records away in sleeves, avoided scratches and dirt, didn’t use a changer. I tried many cleaning schemes, some of which I swear added noise rather than removing it. Yet the noise was always there, albeit masked by most music.
When I first heard CDs, I was overjoyed. No more surface noise! No audible surface deterioration from repeated plays! Even if the sound quality could be shown to be inferior to vinyl (it’s not), I was sold. Even better than tape (no hiss), cheaper, and easier to use. Hallelujah!
Wow, digital video encoding is a mess of standards. By watching that, I have been made incredibly happy that I have never tried to write anything dealing with it.
The sampling rate demonstration in it was hilarious. I was reminded of a story I heard second hand around '90, when digital recording devices were finally becoming something an average Joe working in recording could buy, and the tech was advancing pretty fast. A guy who did environmental recordings to use as background noise in TV shows did two tests. The first was when he got his 32khz portable recorder. He tried playing back a recording of birds for his cat, who generally can hear higher frequencies better than we do. The cat could have cared less, and didn’t react at all. It presumably didn’t sound much like what it thought a bird sounded like. When he got a 44.1khz (or 48Khz, I’m not certain, but it was usable for CD) model, and repeated the test, the cat went crazy looking for the bird that it knew was in the room.
Yes, the examples go a long way in showing the difference. From listening to them, I’m guessing that the low pass filter failed on my handheld recorder for whatever reason, causing a bunch of incredibly nasty aliasing distortion on one recording. It hasn’t reoccurred, and our practice space pushes its abilities volume-wise*. So, I won’t worry about it unless it reoccurs, but it’s still nice to identify the likely problem. That failure really bugged me at the time.
And thanks for your earlier explanation on a the noise floor. I understood that. My mind is still blown by a GPS signal being buried 30db below the noise and still being retrievable, but I’m sure I’ll get over it.
Another thought on the subject related to Vinyl(with a moon rock needle)/CD/WAV and the 16Khz/44.1Khz/48Khz story above: It almost doesn’t matter what you’re listening to it through, sound quality is almost a joke, and any recording you hear is in some sense a fiction.
As to the fiction of audio recording: I have heard people say, “I want it to sound like the band does live, like I was sitting in the room with them.” That’s a nice sentiment, but since I’ve been in a lot of rooms with a lot of bands, I can’t imagine wanting that audio experience. Up on stage, you usually get a mix that is good enough to complete your performance, and not much else. Unless you’re in the perfect spot, a band without mic’d instruments being run through a PA is an audio experience that leaves much to be desired. At the least, you’re hearing far too much of one instrument, at the worst the audio spectrum of the instruments are stepping on each other and making it sound like mud. The listener benefits from the fiction of recording, and I wish I could find a way to get everyone to appreciate this.
As to it not mattering what you listen to it on, the above process of making a recording that isn’t muddy or imbalanced has a lot of compromises in it. Everything from the mics used to record the instruments to the final mix is a compromise to get the best you can out of what you’ve got. Even if you’re RCA in the 1950’s, who were building the equipment, your equipment isn’t ideal. To show the depths that this can go, I’ll go ahead and quote The Rich Man’s 8 Track Tape
That is a characteristically acerbic missive for Mr. Albini, but it does show the silliness of worrying about what media you’re listening to a recording through. Even if you spend a mint on your playback, or only listen through headphones with a totally flat response, there’s so many compromises and choices made due to what they expect you to hear it through, that you’ll never be able to get it “right”. Your ears aren’t their ears, let’s not even start on brains – but as long as they did their job, it’s going to sound OK.
Enjoy the music, twiddle the knobs till it sounds right to you, and don’t worry too much.
*Level is set on 3 of 90, and I’m still running a compressor. Drummers are loud.
Heh, missed the edit window, but that quote is actually from the CD version of Songs About Fucking. I must have read that at the record store, because I only own that one on vinyl.
Audiophiles crave the warmth and presence delivered by vacuum tubes and analog masters pressed into vinyl.
Geeky hipster PlayStation kids think digital recording is superior. The truth is that digitigal recordings lack luster even if they advertise measurable changes in “quality”.
Pronouncing higher quality is entirely subjective. It’s like saying Warhol sucks but Gauguin is genius.
Perhaps some audiophiles do; but there is plenty of uber high end digital equipment that hooks up quite nicely to all those speakers that cost as much as some peoples’ houses. MBL Goldmund Audionote
There are plenty of other examples out there. Nailed it in one, jz.
–Shrug-- as I said, entirely subjective. We have to agree to disagree.
Both of my ex’s brothers play violins created by Antonio Stradivari. Perhaps you’ve heard of his instruments?
I’ve sat with them listening to recordings on old 78’s on the Victrola one of them owned, then the same piece on a 33 1/3 LP, then a more modern recording on what was then a brand-new DAT recording machine.
They were completely committed to the qualities represented by the 78, and to a lesser extent the 33.
But hey, what the fuck do world-class musicians know about recorded music? :dubious:
Wasn’t Stradivarius that Polish guy who primarily manufactured violas?
No, and I haven’t heard of Guinari, Amalfi, or a bunch of other world renowned luthiers and violin makers.
Has it occurred to you that the reason why they may have preferred the 78 was due in part to the higher fidelity recording mediums exposing the limits of the master? And if they were listening to three different performances, is it not also possible that that particular performance on the 78 was a masterpiece and the digital version not so much?
A good sound engineer is worth their weight in gold and can turn a mediocre session into something wonderful within the limitations of the recording equipment but highly accurate reproduction also exposes the flaws as well as the highs and digital does that.
As a final point, being able to afford a heritage instrument means precisely fuck all about your competence as a musician or an expert in musical reproduction. Isaac Stern could play a student violin and make it sing. Give me a custom Oskar Graf classical instead of my GS Mini and it’ll still be me playing it; I won’t become Tommy Emmanuel or Robert Johnson anytime soon.
But you go ahead, keep arguing from authority. Ooh, someone you know has enough money for a Stradivarius. Of course they know more about sound reproduction. Of course they do. Even if studies have often shown that players can’t tell the difference between a Strad and a new one.
You listen for your “warmth”, and your “presence” and your “luster”. Keep telling yourself that those are real, measurable things. Whatever makes you happy, dude. That’s why they make vinyl. And dick-embiggening pills.
I own about 20,000 78s, and spent about 15 years remastering them as a hobby. In other words, I’ve listened to a whole lot of 78s.
It is a simple fact that 78 RPM records are a lo-fi medium, and that old-fashioned steel needle record players are a lo-fi reproduction system. Even an unplayed 78 is noisy, and very few of them have signal above 8 kHz. Most of them also have restricted low frequencies. Period record players have an even more restricted frequency range. Both the records and the players have a lot of harmonic distortion. Loud passages are prone to a type of distortion that 78 collectors call “blasting,” and this type of distortion gets worse with record wear. Equalization of a vintage recording played back this way is uncontrolled. The horns on old record players have resonances and dead spots. The recording speed of most 78s was not well-controlled (actual speeds as low as 75 RPM or as high as 81 RPM were not uncommon).
I suggest that your ex-brothers-in-law were responding to something other than the fidelity of the recordings. Maybe they liked the performances on 78 RPM better. Maybe they liked the sound of old equipment. Maybe they liked the romance of listening to old records on old equipment. I guarantee you, though, that a 78 RPM record of a Stradivarius does not sound more like the original instrument than a 33 1/3 LP or a DAT recording (unless the last two were incompetently made).
OK, after I fixed your technology and got the link to work, I don’t see how your link offers anything relevant. Unless hipsters are now getting their music on Edison cylinders. (I wouldn’t put it past them.) There’s nothing in there on recording fidelity.
I’m not fulminating. I never said you couldn’t listen to your precious vinyl all you want. Go ahead. Just don’t try to convince us who live in the fact-based world that vinyl is “warmer” or has more “luster”, let alone “better”. And just pretend the musicians put those pops and scratches in there deliberately. It’ll make it easier.
