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So answer this basic question that Mike Walker also avoided: |
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So where's the cut off for being able to detect a difference? Are we just as well off with 12-bit media sampled at 24KHz? 8-bit media sampled at 16KHz? Look-- either new format offers substantially more data than the 16-bit Redbook CD, thereby more closely replicating the uninterrupted analog signal contained on the master tape. This makes the new formats much closer to analog than old Redbook CD. This difference is not just hypothetical-- it's clearly audible. |
The problem here is that you demand a simple answer to a question that has no one answer. For example, I could challenge you to an A/B comparison between a test tone played back at hi-rez 96 kHz/24 bits and the same test tone at 5:1 LAME MP3 compression, dropped to 32 kHz, let's say 12 bit resolution - and I'd defy you or anyone else to be able to spot the difference.
I use the test tone example only because it is the simplest waveform imaginable. Now obviously this is not representative of music, but the implication should be clear: music is different, some waveforms are more complex than others, some recordings are meant to have more presence than others, some exhibit a wider dynamic range than others, the characteristics of acoustic instruments and the human voice generate much more complex waveforms than that of electric guitars and synthesizers, and so on and so forth. It's much less problematic to drop the sampling and bit-rate of, let's say a repeating 5 note pentatonic scale played on a digital synth than doing the same thing with a multu-miked recording of a Wagner opera consisting of hundreds of elements - and all of those elements being acoustic instruments and human voices.
As I see it, you are operating from a number of inaccurate assumptions. First of all, why do you persist in referring to the "uninterrupted analog signal contained on the master tape"? This assumes that all masters are indeed analog, when the true fact of the matter is that in this day and age, the overwhelming majority of master tapes are NOT. Using this line of logic, why not turn it around and state that a large number of masters are actually 16 bit/48 kHz digital and therefore all that is needed for identical sound reproduction is indeed a 16 bit/48 kHz playback medium? Do you believe, then, that all CDs whose masters originated as 48/16 sound identical to the master recording? (OK, drop the sampling rate from 48 kHz down to 44.1 ... )
I suppose that in theory they should. So the question becomes - why don't they then? This only proves the old adage that the truth is not in the numbers. If the answer was solely in the numbers - bandwidth and bitrate specs - how do you explain the progress made in CDs overall sonic progression from 1983 to the present? They were 44.1/16 then and have remained so to the present day. Must not be the numbers then. The early argument over digital vs. analog, at least from the digital zealots, was that digital was inherently superior - 1's and 0's being more efficient and accurate than any analog signal (provided of course that jitter and error correction issues were resolved). It's a sound theory, surely, but the numbers do not explain the particular aesthetic characteristics of an "analog sound" or a "digital sound".
You in fact contradict yourself, markl, as you clearly stated in the other thread (what in the hell was its name?) that digital and analog were two distinct media, each with their own sound characteristics. I agree 100%, yet I find it puzzling indeed that you are now claiming that a high-rez DSD or PCM digital transfer of an analog tape will be identical in sound. At best and in theory, we can say that a higher bandwidth digital signal may be more accomodating to the original analog master - that is the theory anyway (and I stress THEORY), but does that mean it will sound identical? First you claim no; now you are saying it will. Which is it?
I would say that if Sony and ABKCO agreed with this, then ABKCO can toss out all of their Stones (analog) masters right now, seeing as every SACD allegedly contains a sonically identical copy of said master, so why bother with storage costs and archiving of said fragile, expensive, bulky, decaying master tape? I'm willing to bet that ABKCO didn't and has zero intention to do such a thing, and I don't believe they are holding onto the masters for mere sentimental reasons either.
The truth is that you are buying into the myth of "perfect sound forever", subscribing to the belief that there is an "ultimate" template (the vaunted form - "form" in a strictly Platonist sense - master tape which may or may not sound identical to a DSD copy, depending on which thread you are posting on) and a corresponding "ultimate" solution. This is the 1983 CD consortium argument redux, only now it's higher bandwidth and faster bit-rates that will lead us to sonic "perfection". The truth of it all is that "perfection" is a nonexistent state; all things considered, the bottom line is more relative than you would think. Twenty years ago, I heard the very same arguments from people who were convinced that the newly introduced CD and DAT was the end of the sonic quest; today it's you with hi-rez, in a few more years it will be someone else bashing the laughable primitivism of 96/24 and praising 10,000 kHz/364 bit (or whatever).
The proof is in the sound, not in the 1's and 0's. It is not a question of how close it sounds to the master tape (which most have never heard and never will hear). Keep in mind why a master tape exists to begin with: it is mastered for a specific reason, with a specific format in mind. I know from experience how different my own recordings have sounded after making the jump from studio playback to disc. Likewise, I have plenty of examples of low-rez recordings which lose their appealing sonic character when transferred from the originating cassette or MD to a higher-rez studio console. In theory, they should sound identical, and perhaps the resulting waveforms look identical, yet the magic is entirely gone. Will picking up the phone and asking a Sony engineer why that is result in a satisfactory answer? I think not. It is precisely that elusive and mysterious aesthetic consideration that is at the real heart of this question, and it is one that cannot be explained by 1's and 0's.
Maybe you should turn your question around and ask what the resolution cutoff point would be in the other direction. If 96/24 seems good, would 192/48 be better? And would 29998282/48747477 be even better than that? And if we were double those numbers, would ... I don't know the answer to this either. Does 96/24 approach or resolve at the uppermost limits of human hearing? Where does it just become overkill? And why does my original UK vinyl pressing of "Between the Buttons" still sound better to me - more airy, more natural, more open, warmer, more dynamic - than the SACD version (which still sounds pretty good, yet not as good as the redbook layer through my Van Alstine DAC)? Numbers and tech specs just aren't going to provide answers to any of this, obviously.