Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

All this 'return to analogue' stuff..

I didn't say there should be a committee for anything, only that when the market decides that x thing is going to be replaced by y thing, that isn't happening based on what's objectively better but on factors like profit margin and marketability. Capitalism likes to replace perfectly good stuff because it's easier to sell exciting new stuff than boring old stuff. That doesn't mean that the new stuff is always better, it's just how the system works.

Profit margin and marketability on mp3s was way worse than any physical format until long after mp3s had become firmly established as the people’s favourite.
 
Profit margin and marketability on mp3s was way worse than any physical format until long after mp3s had become firmly established as the people’s favourite.

If you can't be bothered to read what I post then don't bother replying. I'm not talking just about music formats.
 
I think some of it is the tangeability of annalogue formats and devices. It's possible to get a basic idea of how something works, even if you lack the skills to take things apart and understand them yourself. Where as in the digital domain, code is woo, black box magic. You can make code do anything.

There's also just a sort of conservativve predoliction I suppose, to want the real thing, not a simulation. Even if the latter is far more flexable, affordable and convenient. Thinking in mine own case, I have a digital guitar amp moddler. It has 50+ closely modelled classic ampifiers, hundreds of modelled effects pedals. You can chain things together in ways not possible or too expensive or comersome to do with their real world counterparts. Record with it, gig with it, use more than one instrument through it... An amazing bit of kit. No one could tell you'd recorded with this rather than a micced up real Engl Fireball, for example. But most of the time for noodling aroudn and practising, I just prefer using a small real valve amp with one effect.
 
I've still got a mini disk player too. Bought it years ago to use as a digital note taker, field recorder etc. Long before the SD card stuff was available.
 
I've still got a mini disk player too. Bought it years ago to use as a digital note taker, field recorder etc. Long before the SD card stuff was available.

Pfft! I've still got a Marantz Superscope C-205 cassette recorder like this

e901c58f82daf5f380fa90afa739f628.jpg


which I need to get serviced.
 
Sample rates... no matter how high ... can not meet the infinite resolution of our senses. FACT.
Saying that ... there is a resolution of sorts to magnetic tape... this can be increased by recording it at a higher rate though.

I learnt in college that the first cd rom developed was in fact blue-ray level. They have simply been drip releasing the tec over the years to cash in!! I can not find anything to back this up I just trusted my electronics tutor.

I thought digital was absolutely shit (apart from FM synthesis+samplers TBH) until I used auidorealism bassline with a fat sound-card .... and have not looked back.

The tangibility thing .. a bit esoteric.. but if a sound is produced - converted into an electronic analogue signal via a mic - effects the magnetic alignment on tape - is cut into vinyl - is played through an analogue amplifier - into a speaker .... it is a bit like you are directly connected to the original event. Sorry that sounds shit :/

Also digital is under our control therefore we only include in it what we deem as necessary . As we often completely underestimate our senses this leads to problems. Example :

CD`s/ audio equipment that cut off below 20hz and above 20khz was a fucking stupid idea. Most people can hear/ are aware of sounds above and below these limits ... not even getting into bit depth(limiting posible db levels to only 65536 variables) and sample rates.
 
I bought an original Philips CD player - when the price had come down to £100 in 1987- mainly so I could stop buying vinyl that I'm incapable of looking after.
10 years later I realised it actually sounded "gritty" - probably down to the electrostatic speakers I'd recently acquired.
I upgraded to a £1000 Naim player thanks to a random and probably dodgy investment bond that matured.
20 years on and it's still my datum. The poor thing is a bit physically knackered, but I'm determined to mod it for use as a DAC (I think it's mostly a standard Philips chipset) - though probably any £500 DAC will sound as good now.
I couldn't even look after CDs, and I can't be doing with physically handling discs when I can have all my music available everywhere at the touch of a button.
I've never been a 100 percent audio purist - and as with much of life it's being processed by a brain that's prone to all sorts of influences.
 
Any laser disc format is shite and simply works because of the error correction circuit which completely misrepresents the sound. gentlegreen - you should have a button on your flashy one to turn it off . All the industry ones I have used have this and it is shockingly bad when you turn it off.
 
Recording music on analogue tape rather than onto a digital format is an important factor I think. Whether you use an analogue or digital playback device today is less significant. I'm taking about comparing vinyl and CDs here, not PONO/FLAC files played on headphones. MP3s are obviously shit, always will be and have no place in the debate.

Music that was recorded on analogue tape in the 50s, 60s etc can be remastered using the latest gear and sound way batter than it did back when it was made. Remaster it again in 20 years time again and it'll sound even better. Record something digitally today and it'll sound the same in 20 years time. The trouble is, I don't think there are many companies left making analogue tape.

This is a slightly sore subject for me. I've had a couple of minor floods in my home and the moist aftermath made the sleeves of my 600 odd LPs begin to rot so I flogged them before they rotted further. Had some real chestnuts in there as well.
 
Sample rates... no matter how high ... can not meet the infinite resolution of our senses. FACT.
Saying that ... there is a resolution of sorts to magnetic tape... this can be increased by recording it at a higher rate though.

I learnt in college that the first cd rom developed was in fact blue-ray level. They have simply been drip releasing the tec over the years to cash in!! I can not find anything to back this up I just trusted my electronics tutor.

I thought digital was absolutely shit (apart from FM synthesis+samplers TBH) until I used auidorealism bassline with a fat sound-card .... and have not looked back.

The tangibility thing .. a bit esoteric.. but if a sound is produced - converted into an electronic analogue signal via a mic - effects the magnetic alignment on tape - is cut into vinyl - is played through an analogue amplifier - into a speaker .... it is a bit like you are directly connected to the original event. Sorry that sounds shit :/

Also digital is under our control therefore we only include in it what we deem as necessary . As we often completely underestimate our senses this leads to problems. Example :

CD`s/ audio equipment that cut off below 20hz and above 20khz was a fucking stupid idea. Most people can hear/ are aware of sounds above and below these limits ... not even getting into bit depth(limiting posible db levels to only 65536 variables) and sample rates.
Absolute pile of uninformed shit.

If you are interested in why, then you really should watch this video by Chris Montgomery of xiph.org

Xiph.Org Video Presentations: Digital Show & Tell

Continuing the "firehose" tradition of maximum information density, Xiph.Org's second video on digital media explores multiple facets of digital audio signals and how they really behave in the real world.


Demonstrations of sampling, quantization, bit-depth, and dither explore digital audio behavior on real audio equipment using both modern digital analysis and vintage analog bench equipment... just in case we can't trust those newfangled digital gizmos. You can also download the source code for each demo and try it all for yourself!

And this article is worth a read too:

24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed
 
Absolute pile of uninformed shit.

If you are interested in why, then you really should watch this video by Chris Montgomery of xiph.org

Xiph.Org Video Presentations: Digital Show & Tell



And this article is worth a read too:

24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed

Absolute arrogant prick.
Edit : sorry for this btw.... I have the defence mechanism of a rabid dog tbh. I did not mean it ☺

I was using 16 bit cd's as a past example of how we limit bit depth and sample rates to what we think the limits of our senses are . Read the fucking post.
I am talking about our senses which are more acute (in a different way ) than a spectrum analyser .
 
Last edited:
Absolute arrogant prick.

I was using 16 bit cd's as a past example of how we limit bit depth and sample rates to what we think the limits of our senses are . Read the fucking post.
I am talking about our senses which are more acute (in a different way ) than a spectrum analyser .
Read the article and watch the video, or you are simply fooling yourself :)
 
Absolute arrogant prick.

I was using 16 bit cd's as a past example of how we limit bit depth and sample rates to what we think the limits of our senses are . Read the fucking post.
I am talking about our senses which are more acute (in a different way ) than a spectrum analyser .
Almost everything technical in your posts has been wrong. You should read the links you've been given.
 
Ok will read them tommorow. I can't see that it will make any differences though as you have missed the point I was making.
The only thing unesoteric and technical I reffered to was laser disk error correction ... if somthing in those links disproves this I will be amazed and quite apologetic.
Or are you going to say the human senses have a resolution ? Idiotic.
 
had some student at work claiming he couldnt see the point of a watch!

For a lot of people, for everyday purposes, this is correct.

I can understand why youngsters enjoy taking polaroids at parties and why they like vinyl. It's like some kind of tactile steampunk-ish fun thing.
 
Ok will read them tommorow. I can't see that it will make any differences though as you have missed the point I was making.
The only thing unesoteric and technical I reffered to was laser disk error correction ... if somthing in those links disproves this I will be amazed and quite apologetic.
Or are you going to say the human senses have a resoulution ? Idiotic.
The biggest problem is your gross overestimation of what humans can sense, which is severely limited in the grand scheme of things in both spectrum and granularity. That's science - ask a cat - and anything to the contrary is in the company of homeopathy and other woo.

The CDROM claim is thoroughly false, FWIW. Pretty much the only right bit was that 2^16=64k.
 
The biggest problem is your gross overestimation of what humans can sense, which is severely limited in the grand scheme of things in both spectrum and granularity. That's science - ask a cat - and anything to the contrary is in the company of homeopathy and other woo.

The cat on my street refused to be drawn on the matter of hearing, but is quite envious of human vision.
 
The biggest problem is your gross overestimation of what humans can sense, which is severely limited in the grand scheme of things in both spectrum and granularity. That's science - ask a cat - and anything to the contrary is in the company of homeopathy and other woo.

The CDROM claim is thoroughly false, FWIW. Pretty much the only right bit was that 2^16=64k.

Like I said... this was taught to me by my electronics tutor on a 4 year sound engineering course.

I understand how the hairs in the ears work but also understand that our senses ,when considering audio, are not limited to the ears.

I will however stop digging a potential grave and have a good look at this tommorow.

I cannot speak cat btw I think you overestimate the current scientific understanding of our senses.
 
Like I said... this was taught to me by my electronics tutor on a 4 year sound engineering course.

I understand how the hairs in the ears work but also understand that our senses ,when considering audio, are not limited to the ears.

I will however stop digging a potential grave and have a good look at this tommorow.
Our sensory capabilities are distinctly finite. Think about vision, it's perhaps simpler. You have a given number of rods and cones (different for red/green/blue) in your eye, that's resolution in itself. They have a limited spectrum they can detect (as pointed out, you will never ever see infrared) and a limited dynamic range across the set of them. Then there's the processing itself - gets complicated quickly but we can't make much meaningful use of more than about 24 'frames' per second. We're just like computers.

Same with the other senses. It's just a question of how much detail you can pick up before you hit the limits.
 
I sat in college and was played sounds well above 20 kHz by my tutor that spent his life analysing audio and our senses that about 30% of the class could hear. The senses often work in a way that is unexpected. Take the outer ear for example and the way it adds tiny phase delays to sounds coming from different directions which are processed in the brain to reveal the direction to us. There is not just the nervous system but an unknown and amazing part of our mind/brain which can extrapolate further information.
Damn it... I need sleep... now you've got me interested :D

Have you got a soft synth and a decent sound card? As long as your not using a digital amp , you can find out for yourself !

The decibel sensitivity of the ear is not just about top and bottom limits but what is in between.
 
Last edited:
This 24 frames per second limit. I do not understand the visual senses anywhere near I understand the audio... but I will definitely look into this. Scientists have a tendency to make arrogant assumptions on limited data. This of course is not scientific.
 
This 24 frames per second limit. I do not understand the visual senses anywhere near I understand the audio... but I will definitely look into this. Scientists have a tendency to make arrogant assumptions on limited data. This of course is not scientific.

One observation is that there's no way you'd get a competitive FPS gamer who was happy with a rig limited to 24 FPS.
 
Back
Top Bottom