Q for Steve - master vs. lp/cd/sacd

Music is actually deeply related to numbers...just ask Pythagoras. ;>

You aren't hearing 'numbers' though -- unless your CDP lacks a digital-to-analog converter.

<pause while I reject the task of refuting the 'common sense' ideas you psted>

Let's just say digital recording and playback and information storage is way more complex than you make it out to be.

 

God bless you.

Now, let us also consider, does the waveform of an LP exactly match what was on the mixdown master tape?

 

Isn't vinyl playback just a rock scraping a piece of plastic? Or analog recording metal oxide scraping past a playback head?

 

It's ALL math and physics, both digital AND analog. Guys, whether it's magnetical flux or a switch of 1s and 0s, it's all converted to electricity.

 

Duh. A good point, Grant.

Also, music is all numbers - if you're a composer, or someone who cares about understanding it. Not that that's relevant.

 

I didn't like your saracasm.

 

Are you being sarcastic? I think you misinterpreted my (semi-cryptic, unclear) message.
I was not sarcastic about that being a good point. The duh was more general, though I'm not really sure how I was thinking then... Anyway, arguments like this get misaligned, misdirected, or whatever... That was a fine comment - should be a point of reference, axiomatic, etc... I don't know if I have a point.

 

Accepted. The "Duh" did cause me to interpret your comment as snarling sarcasm.

 

I'll even go one further and say that everything you've ever thought of and everything everyone's ever thought of or ever done can be related to and broken down into numbers.

 

And isn't posting just a bunch of skin "fingers" hitting plastic keys on a computer keyboard?

 

Since CD's and SACD's don't always come back to Steve sounding the way he intended for a number of reasons one has to quality the question. If the CD and SACD mastering is on target, it is assumed that the SACD will sound identical to the master tape, the vinyl will sound identical too if the content is not heavy in low bass and difficult to track high frequency information, and the CD will sound identical too, except that some will say it is just a bit lacking in air.

 

Bingo!!

You hit the nail on the head,......or, eh..... Scraped the magnetic oxide past the head.....


-Wes

 

See, it's easy to reduce things to absurdity!

 

and everthing under the sun is in tune,
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

 

I cannot resist giving my tag line for the Home Theater Forum:

Super Audio: So Close It Kisses The Master Tape!

We have done this in the studio a number of times and I have found DSD to be more natural sounding and lifelike than either 24/96 or 24/192 high rez. As for LP, a good table sounds great but I find Super Audio easier to work with and better sounding up to the range of $2-3K tables. Alas, the vinyly content alone may be worth having a good table for.

Just one engineer's opinion...

 

Dave,

Pardon a rebuttal from the "subjectivist" camp:

"I'll even go one further and say that everything you've ever thought of and everything everyone's ever thought of or ever done can be related to and broken down into numbers."

And yet the numbers won't tell you a thing about the music for science cannot measure everything you hear!

 

Good post. I think if DSD had been introduced as the system for the "Compact Disc" in 1982, we'd have continued on without missing a beat, and perhaps taken a step forward, rather than being fooled and consequently embarking on a hopeless frantic search for the "lost music" through endless remastering and re-remastering.

 

As the resident expert on digital I have something to say








OK stop laughing already

 

It can tell pretty well whether you heard it or not, though.

;>