Quality difference from 12 years ago on Equipment

Forget about "sound quality differences," that song was one of the worst I've ever voluntarily subjected myself to. Don't do it folks! Six minutes gone feels more like Ten Years Gone!

 

LOL even worse than Justin Bieber? suppose theres one good thing about cds they make great coasters lol

 

It is my understanding that 16 bits is more than enough to capture the full dynamic range available on an analog tape recording but the sampling rate of a CD has limited frequency response compared to analog tape in some cases. Now does that frequency range over 20K matter? I do not know but understand this is the real debate here. Please note, I am not taking a stance or making an argument but simply describing my current understanding. Please educate me if any of this is factually incorrect.

 

Nah its got nothing to do with the frequency hearing limit, even a ferric cassette tape can surpass that.

cd hasnt aged as well as vinyl, its 30 years old yet no improvements have been made to the format at all
refer to post no59

 

Actually I liked it, even though it's not my style.

Here is the waveform of the Youtube clip. Left: tape, right: CD. You can visually tell that the CD track is dynamically compressed, whereas the tape version isn't

Below are the frequency plots of the two portions created separately. They're nearly identical, both of them max out at about 15.500 Hz.

 

because it has to be compressed, nah the graph is true but what im getting at is 16bit data width not frequency responses, typically a studio master will be off the top of my head 4 times the audio resolution of a cd, and vinyl i know from testing will hit well above 70khz, if you were there in person and did the test you would see a massive difference. a cd cannot record live what a tape can period.

 

CD has a frequency range of exactly 20 Hz - 20 kHz. Analogue tape can vary. Reel to reel can in very rare circumstances go slightly above 20 kHz. An hour ago I googled up a machine that can do 28 kHz when running at 30 Inches per second, the highest speed that is standardised, but normally only used in studios. Cassettes cannot do that, its best performance is 20 kHz with metal tape and a top of the line deck, but in most circumstances it's 18 kHz, 15 kHz or less.

The human hearing range is normally quoted as 20 kHz, and this is exactly why most audio gear (digital and analogue) is designed for that. However that figure is only true for below 25 years olds. Above that age it slowly drops, unfortunately. A few kilohertz at the upper end really don't matter that much anyway. The difference between 15 and 20 kHz may seem a lot - 5000 Hz!, but musically speaking it's a fourth at the upper end where no nusical notes exist anyway.

 

That clip is bogus. Vinyl normally maxes out at 18 kHz or less.

 

Actually a cd can go from 1hz to 22.050khz BUT if you are doing a live studio session only a fool would record it directly to cd, theres just not enough detail or reliability. cds also suffer from errors and other nonsense. my point is the amount of information that can be recorded on tape (bandwidth) is far superior to a cd, its worked for steve albini for the past 25 years.

Vinyl will never make a comeback they said

cd is better they said

WRONG

there are some things you cannot explain with science, trust me on this one tape f*** destroys cd, thats why its used in studios as reference master copies.

 

Nope its legit ive done the tests myself using an m-audio card.

Even mega high resolutions upto 122KHZ have been recorded to vinyl

 

I thought Dire Straits recorded Brothers In Arms directly to 16/44.1 digital back in the mid 80's. I am sure some will disagree, but I think that is a great sounding recording.

 

Oh yes i agree, it does sound good, as it was recorded digitally so nothings lost, but when you try and record those huge master tapes to a cd thats when (remastering) happens, and sound suffers, if it was originally recorded digitally thats fine.

 

According to the sampling theorem CD could do 0 Hz - 22.050 Hz, but the red book standard defines it as 20 Hz - 20.000 Hz, leaving some safety margin on both ends. A CD Player that outputs anything above 20 kHz would break the standard.

 

Analog v digital threads are one of the most common, and tiresome, threads on SHMF. The topic of this thread has absolutely nothing to do with A v D, so how in the hell did we get here? Ridiculous.

 

If you are trolling please admit it now.

 

Im not trolling mate seriously, but when people come out with "cd is the best thing ever" it really isnt and im explaining why.

 

So do you think even the best CD presentations of an analog tape recording (DCC of LA Woman, DCC Al Green Greatest Hits, or whatever) fail miserably in doing the tape justice from an audio experience standpoint?

 

No I don't say that

Does your Word file change its content when you burn it to CD? Transferring from digital tape to CD is just the same if the sampling rate is the same, it's like copying a file.

 

No-one said that.

 

Some can be good, others can be better but none can be perfect, not from a original analog master anyway, i hate DAT tape tbh but even Dat would do a better job of recording than a cd at least its 48Khz, 16 bit audio was surpassed in computers 15 years ago, even most onboard audio is now 24 bit, my biggest hate in the audio community is with mp3, that terrible codec should never have happened, and theres no need to use it today with how cheap hardware is going these days, a 2terrabyte hdd can be had for little money now. Im researching into something i saw on the net about mp3 actually being bad for your hearing and health in some way, but thats another thing: It's Official: MP3s Are Bad For Your Health

If you want to do a good job of recording these master tapes, i say buy the best soundcard you can, (external) digital has come a long way, but its also got to go another long way to beat analog sound, id say the next 4-5 years at least, well with the rate of progression so far anyway, cd has remained 16.1/44khz since 1983, yet tape formulations have improved massively over the years and so have the studio machines, i personally think cd should just have the good grace to die off now.

 

no it does not with audio errors occur

EDIT: ill also add cdr discs dont last as long as you might think, some degrade in as little as 2 years or less, ive got commodore 64 tape games here ive had for 30 years, still perfect and still data accurate

 

sure but you said cassettes

we shouldn't go into it but digital can more than capture anything possible on a tape in terms of dynamic range (bit rate) and frequency response. people can believe what they want in this day and age I guess. You *might* need 24/96 to capture the best tape recordings. but this can be converted to 16/44 with very little perceivable audio consequence.

 

Either show us who said "cd is the best thing ever" in this thread, or admit you're trolling.

 

Please don't think i'm trolling because im not, but i think CD should just end now because theres no need to use them if you have a computer, where as with tapes for me i just love recording them, theres a real art to analog recording, not just putting a disc in a recorder and pressing one button, if you use cds still thats fine, just be mindful of their limitations. Its when people say that a compact disc produces sound as good as a master analog reel, that really gets to me.

Same goes for the vinyl community, theres a reason why people spend so much on turntables and stylus, they refuse to put up with all this mp3 garbage.