Knowing the table I could easily see how this could happen. There's a thread on the PS-LX5xx family over at AudioKarma with all sorts of great information. Apparently the 520 has some sophisticated apparatus in the tonearm mount (that was possibly derived from the biotracer technology) to isolate the arm from the servo unit. All three are still fairly well regarded and you can still find parts - I had to replace the arm motor belt on mine, a very common issue on all these old servo-driven linear trackers. Neato stuff.
Interesting. Not sure how useful that would be though - my assumption always was that the vibration was traveling thru the platter, up to the record and into the needle, not coming from the tonearm. The part of the tonearm that tracks the record kind of floats, and the motor that advances the tonearm is kinda isolated from the mount by a belt. But when that motor kicks in, you can feel the whole turntable vibrate a little...
Changing the sampling parameters would break compatibility with all existing CD players, that is true today just as it was then. So it's not an option. If you want higher sampling rates you need a different format. DVD audio has that option, as do digital downloads. But both aren't really thriving in the market, and for good reason: Your original assumption that going beyong 16 bits/44.1 kHz would be overkill is correct. Someone mentioned above that 14 bits were considered as the standard for CD, and that would have been fine for consumer audio. 16 bits is already more than we need, going above that is completely pointless. - 44.1 kHz sampling gives a theoretical frequency range of 22.05 kHz flat (really 20 kHz, as that is what red book defines, the rest is a safety margin), which covers the entire human hearing range. Sampling at higher rates would give the ability to record ultrasonics, and for an audio format aimed at dogs or bats it would be absolutely vital. But not for humans, because we couldn't hear it anyway. - 16 bits depth gives a dynamic range of 96 dB, which admittedly does not quite cover the entire human range, but it's way way above what is useful in a normal home, and of course way above what any analogue recording format could ever capture, maybe with the exception of a professional reel to reel tape recorder operating at 38 cm/s, extremely well maintained and calibrated, on a good day. Adding more bits would do nothing to sound quality, except pushing the noise floor even lower than it already is, which is not a problem today. Bottom line: The CD format is not a compromise that would be done differently today. It is exactly spot on, and it was released at the exact point in time when technology was mature enough to deliver the necessary performance at affordable prices.
Maybe so, but because of convenience, not any supposed lack in fidelity. Which proves the point. Both MP3 and streaming use lossy compression, which makes them lower quality than CD. If the majority of consumers have no problem with that, then CD should be just fine.
Well, maybe. The battle to date has been between quality and convenience, with convenience winning. Now the convenience is the same with high quality streaming an option. Maybe that will change things, maybe not.
Did they change the bitrate on CDs over the years? There are some CDs I have that mention/promise '24 bit mapping' but I doubt that's the truth.
Good point..I think fitting into a car stereo size was a factor.Wonder what CD would be like if i were originally produced in 8-10 inches (or even LP sized) in say 192/24 bitrate and with the capacity to store 2 hours+ of music?
It was said that the majority of late 1980s CDs sound not so good, compared to discs from 2000s or recent years.
I heard somewhere that all digital recording is initially in 24 bit and it is then converted to industry standard 16 bit further down the production stage.
These two sentences sum up my feelings on the subject. The highest frequency that a normal middle-aged adult can hear is only 12-14 kilohertz.Frequency Range of Human Hearing - The Physics Factbook The confirmation bias refers to the tendency to selectively search for and consider information that confirms one's beliefs.Confirmation Bias Definition and Examples tl;dr - .wav is as good as fidelity needs to be, probably better for most baby boomers.
I disagree..In general my 1980's CD's sound better and have more dynamic range than my CD's that were produced after 2000.
Just when you thought you knew everything about the history of 16/44! For my admittedly imperfect ears, mastering still trumps resolution (for cd quality & above). Most of the hi-res titles I have are because they were the best available masterings, not because I wanted better resolution. Same with the vinyl I have...
Well, that wasn't my opinion (I just read these kind of 'facts' somewhere). I, too, have some 1980s CDs and they sound nice. There's an anecdote I remember: When the Beatles 1987 remaster CDs came out George Harrison didn't like some of these remasters, especially Sgt Pepper, he meant the bass sound wasn't right.
No, the CD format is completely unchanged since 1983. It couldn't be any other way. Probably a note on production. These days, recording and mixing are done at higher bit rates in order to allow for a wider range in recording levels, and to avoid rounding errors in the various post production stages. But the end result is eventually downsampled to 16 bits/44.1 kHz. Whereas in the old days the production was in that format as well.
Kind of sort of, hdcd did allow for 20 to 24 bit resolution to be held on a standard red book cd. They could play on standard CD players with no issues, but play 20-24 bit through an hdcd player/converter. To my knowledge, that was the only change in bit or frequency on cd. One thing to note, back in the 90's when CD-R recorders were becoming availble, water marked cd's caused all kinds of havoc such as not playing on some CD players. Music CD-R discs and recorders also had a special watermark to prevent people from making copies of copies. There were of course various ways to get around that, for example The Genessis digital lens striped alll sub code out of a digital stream, as did Audio Alchemy's first DTI.
Reference Recordings and Telarc have the benefit of recording their own music so they are in full control of the recording process which makes the biggest difference in how something sounds. MFSL are reissuing popular albums that may not have had the attention that RR or Telarc put into their recordings. The vast majority of the time classical is better recorded than rock (MFSL's big reissue market) or most 50s/60s jazz. For an MFSL release that has exceptional recording and mastering check out their reissue of Art Pepper's The Way It Was. Or Sonny Rollins Way Out West. Both Roy DuNann recordings so MFSL had exceptional source material to work with. The pre-echo on side 1 of the Music Matters 33 rpm doesn't bother you?
As pointed out by others, the HDCD format did allow for 20 or 24 bit on CD. But the extra bit depth was pretty meaningless.
Just been catching up on this thread. Hey, that's a great Question MZ RH1. My thoughts: A lot of vinyl and cassettes had better source material. Even if CD is better, a CD released in 1990 of a 1960s pop recording had 20-30 years of deterioration to affect it. A new medium, even a better one, takes some practical getting used to. How to set levels, what it's really capable of etc. Everything upstream hardware-wize was optimized for analog, so it took some trial and error. People expected too much. I recall working in a TV studio when digital came in and previously-fastidious techs who used to got to a lot of trouble setting levels started guessing and figuring it all could be fixed later. Finally, one man's side effect is another's desired effect. I lived in the world of analog hiss and couldn't wait to eliminate it. Meanwhile to some folks hiss is reassurance that the highs are there. And so on. Now, I'm at the point where I'm a fan of media diversity. All of them are good enough that I choose content over medium. I've heard gorgeous LPs, and CDs. Even some good Mp3s and cassettes, although I definitely expect less from the last two. Even FM radio can be pretty good if you're close enough and their putting out a good signal.
This can be a mastering problem for certain titles, but there are plenty of great sounding CD's from the 80's, especially recordings made in the 80's. I have some classical Denon CD's recorded and issued in the 80's and to my ear they beat every SACD I heard (yes, even the fantastic Living stereo SACDs).
You hear Kenny play his notes a split second before the actual recording. Like a ghost is playing ahead of him. It's most obvious on one of the quietest tracks on side 1. What causes vinyl pre echo?
Except, not really. You needed a special chip to decode the extra bits of resolution, and in regular CD players it actually cost you a bit of resolution if memory serves.
