The problem is in the hands of the people mastering the tapes and the digital masters - almost always the levels are set too high. This eventually led to the loudness wars, et. all. The fact is simple - Redbook has 98db of SNR. Plus more signal can be heard down into the noise if you want. Way, way more than you need for music.
Combine this with the fact that music is very, very rarely louder than 104db, and the noise floor of the studio is NEVER less than 15db, and more like 25-35db, you will be able to place the 0dbfs levels 1 or 2 db above the max signal and still never, ever get past the dynamic range maximum of 16/44 recording.
The problem is that the average output is placed way up against the top of the scale - making the effective dynamic range much less, all so the end user doesn't have to turn his volume knob up further.
I submit that you listen to anything recorded by Denon intended for CD from about '83-84... They sound really great, and were made back in the stone age of digital recording. You can thank the guys controlling the sliders for the fantastic sound.
Fortunately for us all, abraxalito is correct, as are the others who are stating that there are no technical problems in the design. Plenty of implementation issues (!), but that's just the way it is a lot of the time.
All the problems you talk about are because of sloppy, unfinished engineering in most of the examples around - if I was transported back to the '60s, and drove a brand new conventional car, I would find it hilarious to pick up all the flaws and failings in its ability to be capable of being driven enthusiastically - yet the engineers of the day would sternly insist that what you got was as good as it gets!
Just give it time ... or, look around you carefully for the correctly working examples, they are there ...
It was not and the sound continues to reveal flaws when comparisons are made.
I am listening to Lou Reed '"Transformer"", yet another piece of music I know very well, and the improved sonics from the vinyl flac rip when compared to my CD or a any other digital source are beyond obvious.
This should not be, so many people should not be stating the same exact issues with digital for decades, using the same vocabulary. Hash treble, lack of life, lack of 3D instrument dimensionality - all complaints made using similar language, since the 1980's.
Sorry, you are simply making excuses. If digital is so prone to faulty implementation so often and on a multi-decade timeline, when valve and solid state had at least one order of magnitude FEWER issues, then the flaw is with digital itself.
Give it time? Sorry - that's pathetic. Until when? Another 35 years?
35 years later, and you still want to give it time? Solid state sounded very good indeed within 8 years of industry adoption. 1968 vinyl releases sound very good.
We jumped the gun on digital - simple as that. The tech is just now getting to parity with what a vinyl LP recorded and mastered using valves or solid state could do 40+ years ago.
CD and Red Book - the less heard the better.
My location prevents the accrual of a vinyl collection, but if I could I would be buying used black PVC by the tonne, cleaning it, and playing it back on a home made turntable on an all valve no baffle single wide range driver set up.
Digital was a mistake.
Enough of this excuse - it has been used for decades.
If the same problem occurred for 35 years with digital formats, but did NOT occur with valve or solid state, then the logical conclusion is that the flaw is with the digital chain.
How many more decades of evidence do you need? A century to prove you wrong? How about a millennium?
Digital was a mistake.
No, the mistake was, and still is, that in general audio engineers still have a poor grasp about what to measure when higher levels of performance are being aimed for - and your ears suffer. Like a '60s car, which has a very big engine added to make it "go faster" - unless every part of the engineering is also upgraded then trying to drive such a vehicle fast will firstly make it exciting, and then a death trap - not a smart move ...
If a digital system is "sloppily" assembled - and that's especially by the user - then it is almost guaranteed to always sound way less than it should. Digital at the moment requires one to be fussy - if you're not fussy, then you'll get mediocre sound ... it's a general rule that anything that is more precise, requires every part of its makeup to be more precise, for the potential precision to be fully realised - it's pretty hard to escape the reach of that "law".
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None of those issues evident to me with my implementations of RBCD.
Don't see your 'argument' at all here. Because most implementations suck therefore the format's flawed? That's what you're claiming?
A 'vinyl rip' is a needle drop? In which case which implementation issues are you getting?
Too late, sold off my old vinyl years ago, not because it was worthless, rather because digital (my own implementations mind, not just any old DAC) for me easily eclipses it in listening satisfaction.
Expert opinions but no reference? I will maintain that digital has many substantial improvements over analog and that SQ is more than a reference free personal opinion.
This thread is called the death of high fidelity and now has migrated to the age old analog vs digital ******* contest.
Go get the 50 year old master tapes, LPs. Frequency resonse? Dynamic range? Noise floor? Channel separation? What does a backup sound like? How resistant are the formats to damage?
Need I remind some that the early harshness noted on digital recordings was due to resonances of the microphones that were not apparent on analog recordings. I may remind some that the high fidelity industry is built for the masses, not the 1% self proclaimed golden ears. In this respect digital is bringing an unheard of choice of programming at a much higher quality than the previous generations mass market systems. I remember my parents putting records on the record changer and listening to a whole Beethoven symphony in the 60s-scratches, distortion and all. I don't want to go back.
I have a decent LP playback and some recordings are so brilliantly played and recorded that I find nothing that I would like to improve. That is the exception however. I cannot pick digital or analog as a basically "superior" format. Engineers in the past messed around with orchestral balance by raising the level of musical content as they saw fit. That is different than big compression, but as musically disturbing.
So for those that prefer to damn, digital, fine. No argument, no discussion. It wouldn't change anything anyway. I live in Germany and am enjoying an internet radio program from Tuscon. Not absolute fidelity, but I have a couple of albums on my shopping list now that deserve higher fidelity. I probably would not have even ever discovered them without digital help!
Laugh a lot when you are young, then when you get old the wrinkles are in the right places.
This thread is called the death of high fidelity and now has migrated to the age old analog vs digital ******* contest.
Go get the 50 year old master tapes, LPs. Frequency resonse? Dynamic range? Noise floor? Channel separation? What does a backup sound like? How resistant are the formats to damage?
Need I remind some that the early harshness noted on digital recordings was due to resonances of the microphones that were not apparent on analog recordings. I may remind some that the high fidelity industry is built for the masses, not the 1% self proclaimed golden ears. In this respect digital is bringing an unheard of choice of programming at a much higher quality than the previous generations mass market systems. I remember my parents putting records on the record changer and listening to a whole Beethoven symphony in the 60s-scratches, distortion and all. I don't want to go back.
I have a decent LP playback and some recordings are so brilliantly played and recorded that I find nothing that I would like to improve. That is the exception however. I cannot pick digital or analog as a basically "superior" format. Engineers in the past messed around with orchestral balance by raising the level of musical content as they saw fit. That is different than big compression, but as musically disturbing.
So for those that prefer to damn, digital, fine. No argument, no discussion. It wouldn't change anything anyway. I live in Germany and am enjoying an internet radio program from Tuscon. Not absolute fidelity, but I have a couple of albums on my shopping list now that deserve higher fidelity. I probably would not have even ever discovered them without digital help!
Laugh a lot when you are young, then when you get old the wrinkles are in the right places.
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LMAO...SY flies over and drops two tons of HIFI magazines on afa..what are these about then!.
However I get your point!
I guess it was the jurassic period..
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=stoneage+hifi&biw=1455&bih=665&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=NsFUVJXBAYTY7AbJ2oCICQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=flintstones+hi+fi&spell=1&facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=pca0Y2I0ZKgWOM%253A%3BUlFraT8nMeQ2-M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Flondonjazzcollector.files.wordpress.com%252F2012%252F02%252Fflintstoneplayerbn.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Flondonjazzcollector.wordpress.com%252F2012%252F02%252F06%252Flittle-known-blue-note-facts%252F%3B800%3B604
Regards
M. Gregg
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Agreed,
Its interesting that it is impossible to make a HIFI that is perfect..each ear has its idea of perfection.
Such is the idea that there should be only one set of perfect speakers, one type of amplifier and we all live in a standard room to put it in for the acoustics. So what is HIFI?
Regards
M. Gregg
afa's on the money - you can't wander down to a local store and buy a system that gives convincing sound - no matter how much research you do, and how much money you spend, it will be a bit of a dog - you will have to spend a fair bit of time kicking it into shape. Unlike, say, the acquiring of a high performance car ...
There are two types of journey: the creation of high performance audio; and the intense satisfaction that this produces every time you put on a recording, and enter that musical world - the latter can be repeated over and over again, without limit.
There are two types of journey: the creation of high performance audio; and the intense satisfaction that this produces every time you put on a recording, and enter that musical world - the latter can be repeated over and over again, without limit.
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