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Topic ClosedWar of the Audio’s

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Poll Question: What’s the Future for Music Listening
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oliverstoned View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: War of the Audio’s
    Posted: May 02 2005 at 03:32
You can do blind tests, but the difference is obvious:
numeric breaks your ears whereas analog not; and transistor makes rape with cheese in the highs whereas good tube sings (but there are transistor better than others, of course)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 01 2005 at 19:41
Have there been any blind tests done scientifically ?.
Whether it be analogue vs digital, tube amp vs transistor etc, where the listener has to not only choose a preference but determine what the source is, with no idea of the equipment used.

"Why say it cannot be done.....they'd be better doing pop songs?"
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 01 2005 at 17:48

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

"DVD-A (192Khz 24-bit) is the most accurate form of music recording there is - more accurate than even analogue. It seriously kicks the ass of 44.1Khz 16 Bit CD audio."


Maybe on the paper
But it doesn't work at all
If you compare the distorsion rate of a tube amp and the distorsion rate of a transistor one, the transistor wins.

But when you listen, the tube amp wins easily.

It's the same with DVD-a

Er... I'm not sure I understand what you're saying there, Ollie - "...it doesn't work at all"?

It does work - I've heard DVD-a, and the dynamic range is astounding. It's horribly clinical, and devoid of much of the musical feeling you get from analogue - but the range and accuracy is much better.

If it goes through a properly constructed digital amp, then there's no distortion except that caused by resistance in the circuitry - as far as I know. The digital amp will feed through exactly what the DVD-a player feeds it (0's and 1's) - the accuracy is unsurpassable by analogue.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the musicality point though - for the old-fashioned neck-hair raising qualities of the music, you NEED an analogue setup. Somehow digital drains most of that right out.

I wonder if feeding a DVD-a player through a tube amp would help re-introduce some warmth...?

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 01 2005 at 09:55
Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

Originally posted by Snow Dog Snow Dog wrote:

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

We have to explain you all from the beggining... Too hard...


Too Hard...like your head..its full of concrete or something far more revolting. Theres no point in continuing this until I find the article I read, Meanwhile go and listen to your compressed music.



Compressed music?!!!!!!!!!!!
What's Mp3 in your opinion?

We werent talking about MP3 we were talking about CD and vinyl, sorry if its too hard for you to follow.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 01 2005 at 06:48
"DVD-A (192Khz 24-bit) is the most accurate form of music recording there is - more accurate than even analogue. It seriously kicks the ass of 44.1Khz 16 Bit CD audio."


Maybe on the paper
But it doesn't work at all
If you compare the distorsion rate of a tube amp and the distorsion rate of a transistor one, the transistor wins.

But when you listen, the tube amp wins easily.

It's the same with DVD-a
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 30 2005 at 18:03

I agree on holding fire on DVD-A players - it would be better to have a unit that plays DVD-video and audio (and records it!).

And manufacturers NEVER get it right until version 3.

DVD-A (192Khz 24-bit) is the most accurate form of music recording there is - more accurate than even analogue. It seriously kicks the ass of 44.1Khz 16 Bit CD audio.

The big problem it has as it stands as a technology is that it's too accurate. Analogue introduces little noises of its own, for which technicians have to compensate - and a beautiful work of art is created - a  diamond with fascinating imperfections.

Take the imperfections away, and you have something manufactured and sterile (IMO).

Hopefully technicians will learn to compensate...

 

I agree on SACD, though - Sony's proprietary compression sucks. The dynamic range is horrible - it's like listening through a thin film of cotton wool (from the little I've heard...).



Edited by Certif1ed
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 30 2005 at 02:20



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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 30 2005 at 02:14
Originally posted by goose goose wrote:

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

the DVD will offers a greatest video quality,cause it contains much more informations. But for sound...forget!


DVD-A isn't the same as the audio track on a DVD though - regular DVDs are lower than CD quality in loud sections, although probably about the same for speech/quiet bits, which is a shame for live concerts on DVD


DVD-A, though, definitely has the capability of better-than-CD quality; I'm pretty sure in a couple of years time mastering/processing will catch up with that capability, too.



Maybe.
But look at the first Cd players, 20 years ago.
They were crap. There are still craps, but they improved the converters, etc... so there are more musical than at the beggining.
There's some progress. Like with hdcd filters.
The cd technology comes to maturity.



So, please, don't buy a DVD-A player for the moment.
Maybe, on the paper, it offers a better quality.
But there are not musical DVD-A player for the moment.

Anyway, this format will probably die, cause most people are simply happy with the cd and they find no reason to change for a new format.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 15:37

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:


the DVD will offers a greatest video quality,cause it contains much more informations.
But for sound...forget! 

DVD-A isn't the same as the audio track on a DVD though - regular DVDs are lower than CD quality in loud sections, although probably about the same for speech/quiet bits, which is a shame for live concerts on DVD

DVD-A, though, definitely has the capability of better-than-CD quality; I'm pretty sure in a couple of years time mastering/processing will catch up with that capability, too.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 15:30


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 15:26
Maybe, it will be better when the technology will be improved, but for the moment, it doesn't work.

So don't bother with DVD-A, you'll have a better sound with on of those good english "little" CD player above,
i swear!
Don't me fooled my the marketing and advertisement!
They are lying on these new supports, telling it's better, like they were lying about the CD being better then the vynil.
On the other hand, the Blue ray disc, which will replaces
the DVD will offers a greatest video quality,cause it contains much more informations.
But for sound...forget!










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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 15:14

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

Forget DVD-A and SACD.

I know the issues with SACD, but surely DVD-A is far better sounding than CD? It's basically the same idea as CD (i.e. PCM audio) but with far higher sampling rates/bit depth (and more channels, but that's by the way), isn't it?

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 15:14
you say they are more efficient....are these digital formats other than mp3 close to the quality of analog stuff ? what about .wav files that are not compressed half as much as mp3?

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 15:07
Forget DVD-A and SACD.

Last KC HDCD reissues are the best versions available under numeric form.
I consider "Lark's tongue" hdcd reissue to be the best sounding 70's prog CD, followed by Caravan Deram reissues.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 15:01

Not the very last bit, and I'm not saying don't use mp3, by any means. The point is that since whenever you encode mp3 you lose information, that means that it will never be able to replicate the original perfectly. It might come very very close and be indistinguishable on nearly every sample, but there will always be at least one piece of music that sounds audibly different (likewise if you use lossless compression, there will always be a file which gets larger instead of smaller), and some people (I'm sure oliverstoned is one of them) with high end equipment can differentiate even top bitrate encodings of "normal" songs.

The reason I doubt mp3 is the format of the future is that there are at least two formats which are far more efficient. While ogg's been around longer, I suspect if any of today's codecs catch on it'll be AAC, simply because Apple have such a share in the market.

But hey, people can use whatever they like - if at some point I have any money I'll look into DVD-A (looks like I'll have to buy all my favourite albums again... ), and for that reason I'm not buying any King Crimson CDs since I think they're being reissued in not too long, although Red is really really tempting me..!

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 13:24
well isnt that what the discussion is about goose? what it "sounds" like?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 12:22

It might not sound different but it is!

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 09:55
when i produce music in my studio i can export it to mp3 choosing the sample rate i want....this directly controls the amount of the compression....i can make it exactly as it should sound(no diff between the mp3 and the way it sounds when i mixed it) ....or i can really really compress it and make it sound like i was playing it underwater(a really cool effect)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 09:51
Originally posted by Snow Dog Snow Dog wrote:

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

We have to explain you all from the beggining... Too hard...


Too Hard...like your head..its full of concrete or something far more revolting. Theres no point in continuing this until I find the article I read, Meanwhile go and listen to your compressed music.



Compressed music?!!!!!!!!!!!
What's Mp3 in your opinion?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2005 at 06:08

I think Cert,can help you with this one,although he wouldnt thank me for inviting him into this surreal discussion.

Check out his posts in the Vinyl vs CD thread in the "HiFi,Speakers and Vinyl" section of this forum area.




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