Digitising Vinyls (OT for uk.tech.digital-tv)

In article ,
Java Jive wrote:
"In 1997, TDK did offer 1 million dollar during a consumer show to
anyone who could correctly identify the master tape, tape and CD in 10
successive trials. No one could."

Would be relatively easy to choose material which worked equally well on
all of those. And just as easy to choose stuff which didn't.

--
*Forget about World Peace...Visualize using your turn signal.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Java Jive wrote:
After the show while we are having drinks, we were informed the
turntable was only set up around 4 pm on Friday and on Sunday at the
time we were listening to it was actually playing CD. Here we have a
seasoned vinyl listener who truly believed that he was hearing to a
SOTA turntable and can't tell the different between a CD and LP
sound."

Indeed. The eyes always take preference over the ears. So if you see it is
a record playing you'll hear it is too. Or whatever.

--
*Time is fun when you're having flies... Kermit

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 10/11/2011 22:01, J G Miller wrote:
On Thursday, 10 Nov 2011 19:58:52 +0000, Rob wrote:

On 10/11/2011 17:38, J G Miller wrote:
On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:22:04 +0000, Rob wrote:

It's through representation that we construct reality.

Are you proposing that reality does not exist until it is constructed
by the observer?


Well, that's all a bit deep, but yes, I suppose I am.

This is obviously leading to Schroedinger's cat.


Not by me :-)

I find that reality is better reconstructed with analogue systems

No man made system is or will ever be capable of reconstructing
reality.

No, that's not what I'm saying. 'Better than', not 'able to'.

If system A can reconstruct reality better than system B, then both
must be able to reconstruct reality.

Since you have already proposed that reality does not exist until
it is constructed by the observer, how then is system or A or
sytem B, *re*-constructing something which does not yet exist?


It's a thing called 'social experience'. What is only 'is' in that it is
experienced.

This way of thinking about thinks is actually quite useful for people
who look at social things - like say sexuality, war, mental illness,
love, art. But also tables, litter, apples, screwdrivers. All these
things are experienced very differently by different people, and
crucially, meaning shifts over time. Or reality shifts, if you like. You
have no universal facts.

Others might argue that we're not talking about a social experience here
- music can be reduced to bits of data. It would 'sound' exactly the
same now as it would in 200 years' time.

But I think everyone would agree analogue and digital sound different.
it's the same music - original master. It's just fed to us differently.
And we experience it differently. it's 'our' reality. Maybe I'll think
about this differently in 10 years' time.

This is a /methodological/ issue. It's the logic that informs the
problem. My logic is, broadly, that people give things meaning. Science
can and does inform that meaning for most of us, but it's not the whole
picture. Probably ever.

Rob

On 10/11/2011 19:57, Rob wrote:
On 10/11/2011 19:09, Arny Krueger wrote:
wrote in message
b.com...

I find that reality is better reconstructed with analogue systems,
and I'd
guess you prefer digital.

What does better mean?

If *better* means *more accurate*, then digital media has the edge over
analog media, and has done so for over 30 years.


Better means 'my preference'. I think analogue can, and often does,
provide a more accurate representation of the music.


Just to clear this little matter up - by 'better' I do mean 'better for
me' and not necessarily anyone else. Not even I would state that my
preference equals a universal best. Yet :-)

Rob

On 10/11/2011 22:02, Java Jive wrote:
On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:57:20 +0000, wrote:


Better means 'my preference'.

NO IT DOESN'T. 'BETTER' IMPLIES SOME SORT OF OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT.


It may to you, but not in the way I used it. Just me. Nobody else
necessarily.

Rob

On 11/11/2011 09:38, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In raweb.com, Rob
wrote:

Reality just isn't, in my view. Reality is social construction. We all
construct our own realities. That is a /methodological/ point.

Of course, nature and science has firmed up a fair few. But your
experience of water boiling will be very different to mine.


On 10 Nov in uk.rec.audio, wrote:

Better means 'my preference'. I think analogue can, and often does,
provide a more accurate representation of the music.

Alas thinking something doesn't always make it true. :-)


In my little world, though, it does insofar as truth can be realised.

I do of course accept that by your measure (distortion, and other
technical measurements) digital beats analogue.


It is quite interesting to see the way you essentially tie your thinking
into a closed loop by not making some elementary distinctions. I did
intially think this was just a matter of your not distinguishing the
meanings of the words. But what you now write makes me conclude that the
way you think prevents you from seeing the distinctions necessary for you
to actually communicate meaningfully with others!

If 'better' *only* mean *you prefer it* then it tells no-one else anything
about what effect what you experienced may have on them. i.e. it tells them
nothing much beyond having the impression you said something. It also means
that having two words "preferred" and "better" becomes a reduncancy in the
language. The point of having two words or terms, though, is to distiguish
between two meanings and be able to communicate that to someone else as
information they can make sense of.


No, there's something quite straw man about your thinking there. To
illustrate my preference I have to use non-scientific language. I can
never 'stand up' for my preference on scientific terms, so I 'lose' the
argument.

Similarly, your blurring of 'reality' to conflate an individual subjective
sense with an objective behaviour others can check and all agree about in
the same way destroys the ability to communicate.


'Objectivity' informs my thinking. As it might yours.

Out in a more general reality "better" tends to be taken as telling others
that there is some good reason(s) that most other people will also "prefer"
it, and that those reasons can be assessed and agreed. "Preferred" carries
none of that. If you wish to base your "reality" on "social" factors, that
is what makes a distinction between the two terms.


You take it how you like! I'd hope that my expression of preference is
not taken as an instruction about what is 'better'. I think analogue
provides a better and more musical (don't start!) experience for me. You
don't - that penny dropped a long time ago. And that's fine, just so
long as you don't force your certainties on others, using 'data' or
otherwise.

The above also seems to me to be at the root of why some many 'subjective
reviews' may not be worth reading. Why should we care what someone else
liked when their taste, equipment, room, circumstances, etc, all differed
from ours? What may be useful is to know what reasons they can give for us
thinking we'd also "prefer" (or not) a given choice. Alas, we may instead
simply be told by some that their preference was "better" and left to
accept that because they are a guru.


I certainly agree that rigour is needed in some of the more esoteric claims.

Rob

"Steve Thackery" wrote in message
...
Steve Thackery wrote:

WHAT!!?? You can measure accuracy with instrumentation. And your claim
is wrong (providing we are still comparing LPs with CDs*).

Sorry. Meant to add: *Of course, some digital recordings, such as highly
compressed MP3s, are subjectively and objectively worse than an analogue
recording on vinyl. But that isn't the case for CD-quality recordings.


In theory yes, this is true and it may well be true for most or all
classical music, but I wouldn't know as I don't buy classical music.
In the world of Rock/Pop (I'll call it that although very little of the
music I buy I would class as either rock or pop) the 'CD-quality recordings'
have, in the vast majority of cases, had all the dynamic range sucked out of
them to make them sound louder on a cheapo radio/car stereo. A straight
copy of the masters, they are not.
On the other hand, in my experience, modern LP recordings have normally not
been totally fecked up, which I put down to the engineer knowing that these
will be sat down and listened to in the home buy the client and never played
by a radio station or in a car.
I have many recordings on recent LPs (modern LP pressings are of a much much
higher standard than they were a few years ago) and on CD and invariably the
LP has a much greater dynamic range. CD copies of these LPs should be
pretty much exactly the same as the LP as CD is a much superior medium.

D

In article om,
Rob wrote:
You take it how you like! I'd hope that my expression of preference is
not taken as an instruction about what is 'better'. I think analogue
provides a better and more musical (don't start!) experience for me. You
don't - that penny dropped a long time ago. And that's fine, just so
long as you don't force your certainties on others, using 'data' or
otherwise.

I'd wonder about how you came to this conclusion. How long has it been the
case - did you originally hate CD when it came out - or did you 'find'
analogue after this?

Thing is you don't seem to be interested in any of the reasons why you're
wrong. ;-)

--
*I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

But I think everyone would agree analogue and digital sound different.
it's the same music - original master.

Well be more specific then;!. Take the output off the mixing desk which
if course can be a good ole Neve of several years vintage with discrete
input stages or a new up to the moment SSL desk and what do you call
those analogue or digital;?..

Then that audio before it gets to an amp has to be an analogue signal
unless your going to have yet another digital decode in that amp and the
master what do you specify that as an analogue Studer at 30 IPS with
Dolby SR or an up to the moment digital recorder dumping it all onto a
digital card?...


It's just fed to us differently.


Isn't it;!...



--
Tony Sayer

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Steve Thackery wrote:
You site the speaker where the instrument is.

But then you must site the microphone there, too.

I repeat: the best you can ever hope for is for the speaker to
reproduce exactly what the microphone heard.

If you manage that, and place the speaker exactly where the microphone
was, then you can reproduce the exact sound field as heard by the
microphone.

To record, you place the mic close to the listener's ear. To reproduce,
the speaker beside the sound source. But note this will double up on the
room acoustic, so needs a pretty dead room.

Dave, you're kidding, right?

Any experienced recordist knows that this is a recipe for anything but the
desired result.