Same experience, but might add that it is not uncommon for careful transfers of old recordings to be dominated by tape hiss in the quietest passages.
I had this multitone file from an old experiment so I was curious about what artifacts I would get running it through a very simple 40Hz two pole IIR filter. The source file (right) is 1/3 octave spaced sinewaves at frequencies chosen so that they fall exactly on an FFT bin at 44100 sampling and 65536 length FFT’s at the same time to maximize resolution of the noise floor. This was intended to go on a CD so it is 44100/16bit dithered with 1 lsb of Gaussian noise. The file runs 20sec so my thought was doing a running FFT average would give a pretty flat noise floor. The output (left) is the same spectra after a simple 40Hz two pole biquad IIR filter at 64bit floating point precision without dithering. It is clear that the numerical artifacts even though the simple 5 coefficient filter ripples results recursively through almost 500K data points are so far below the re-dithering threshold that they do not matter. With modern hardware there is no reason to use DSP’s with short data words or fixed point math for audio and have to worry about rounding and truncation errors propagating through the data stream .
As a curiosity the small artifacts in the left plot at the high frequencies are related to subharmonics of 44100KHz modulated by 10Hz in some unusual relationship and not the input data. Note Audition does not have a rectangular window so the tones have “shape”, in a tool that does the tones are exactly spikes but none I have makes pretty plots.
I hope to take some 24/96 files recorded off of an LP and look at the digital equalization. My feeling is that there are so many lsb's of self dither that there is virtually no difference digital/analog.
As a curiosity the small artifacts in the left plot at the high frequencies are related to subharmonics of 44100KHz modulated by 10Hz in some unusual relationship and not the input data. Note Audition does not have a rectangular window so the tones have “shape”, in a tool that does the tones are exactly spikes but none I have makes pretty plots.
I hope to take some 24/96 files recorded off of an LP and look at the digital equalization. My feeling is that there are so many lsb's of self dither that there is virtually no difference digital/analog.
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And it of course that only reflects the sale of new vinyl and not the piles of used record store vinyl (mostly on line now) that many of us also buy.. I buy roughly 3 - 4 x as much used vinyl as I do new, averaging a couple of dozen recordings in a good year. I have somewhere close 1K including a hundred or so sitting in the garage that I am trying to get rid of.. 
I have friends with 10 - 20x as many recordings, but I suspect I actually spend more time listening than most. Sadly I have recordings I have not listened to in years, and now make a point to try and sample a few of these albums a week. Some will go to make space for others, others will get into more frequent rotation..
I have friends with 10 - 20x as many recordings, but I suspect I actually spend more time listening than most. Sadly I have recordings I have not listened to in years, and now make a point to try and sample a few of these albums a week. Some will go to make space for others, others will get into more frequent rotation..
It amuses me when I see people posting the latest stats on music record sales.
It's not what is selling that truly counts, it's what people are listening to these days.
Do you think it's from analog turntables and analog Reel-to-reel tape decks and VHS tape cassette decks and music tape cassette decks?
...Or more like from digital download audio files, USB sticks, iPods, iPads, iPhones, PS3s, MP3s, CDs, Blu-rays, DVDs, SACDs, Ethernet radio, ...?
Who's got the stats for that!?! ...The one that truly counts.
Yeay right, there is a new resurgence in vinyl, just check the sales!
...As if they were trying to convince you that analog is superior!
Get a grip, we live in a digital world, and analog is for the prehistoric emotional nostalgic sensitive type. ...A beautiful type of people for sure, but totally restricted in dynamic range, two-channel stereo, and full of phase issues and distortion, and very bad recordings with tics and pops and styluses you have to replace, and album's wear and tear, and record cleaning machines that are essential, and phono preamps, and expensive cartridges (for better sound), and liquid and brushes, and getting up of your chair every 20 minutes, and static and hum and feedback and sub-bass issues, and so many more calamities involved with analog listening, the full inferior experience, even for people who have invested more than hundred grands in it!
Yeah right, analog is more accurate and pleasurable! ...And you got all these great jazz albums and digitally recorded classical albums! ...Stuff that you'll never get in digital form!
Plus you need the RIAA EQ curves! Plus people who listen to albums are generally more peaceful and laid back. ...Like in the discotheques with the DJs spinning them albums backward! ...The future of analog that's exactly where it is; spinning them backward (in reverse)!
It's not what is selling that truly counts, it's what people are listening to these days.
Do you think it's from analog turntables and analog Reel-to-reel tape decks and VHS tape cassette decks and music tape cassette decks?
...Or more like from digital download audio files, USB sticks, iPods, iPads, iPhones, PS3s, MP3s, CDs, Blu-rays, DVDs, SACDs, Ethernet radio, ...?
Who's got the stats for that!?! ...The one that truly counts.
Yeay right, there is a new resurgence in vinyl, just check the sales!
...As if they were trying to convince you that analog is superior!
Get a grip, we live in a digital world, and analog is for the prehistoric emotional nostalgic sensitive type. ...A beautiful type of people for sure, but totally restricted in dynamic range, two-channel stereo, and full of phase issues and distortion, and very bad recordings with tics and pops and styluses you have to replace, and album's wear and tear, and record cleaning machines that are essential, and phono preamps, and expensive cartridges (for better sound), and liquid and brushes, and getting up of your chair every 20 minutes, and static and hum and feedback and sub-bass issues, and so many more calamities involved with analog listening, the full inferior experience, even for people who have invested more than hundred grands in it!
Yeah right, analog is more accurate and pleasurable! ...And you got all these great jazz albums and digitally recorded classical albums! ...Stuff that you'll never get in digital form!
Plus you need the RIAA EQ curves! Plus people who listen to albums are generally more peaceful and laid back. ...Like in the discotheques with the DJs spinning them albums backward! ...The future of analog that's exactly where it is; spinning them backward (in reverse)!
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This holiday season I saw at Target a display of cheap USB turntables and 180 gram reissues of the usual suspects, "Abbey Road", "DSOTM", "Cheap Trick", etc. at $40 @. LP sightings have even reached GEICO adds and numerous recent TV shows and films. I'm not sure this is an audiophile movement or simply a retro-fashion statement.
Wrt phono cartridge s/n ratio, I presume that they are taken relative to a 1khz groove velocity of 7cm/s. Hence figures of 65-75 db. However, many records, particularly in popular music, are recorded with some passages 10 to 20 db higher in level than this. Shure, in their V15 Type 5 literature, at 1gm, shows a trackability rating of about 50cm/s above 1Khz, peaking at 80cm/s at 5khz. This indicates an ultimate dynamic range for this cartridge verging on digital territory.
Hey, if it's peachy keen to show digital SN including every last smidgen of range between 1 lsb and hard clipping (oversaturation), why not spec analog similarly? And why not take it further yet - if it stays in the groove, it's valid - that would correspond to the low end PCM dynamic range distortion which nobody in their right mind would accept the SQ of anyway - so if the cartridge doesn't significantly mistrack until above 100cm/s, that's valid, right?
Hey, if it's peachy keen to show digital SN including every last smidgen of range between 1 lsb and hard clipping (oversaturation), why not spec analog similarly? And why not take it further yet - if it stays in the groove, it's valid - that would correspond to the low end PCM dynamic range distortion which nobody in their right mind would accept the SQ of anyway - so if the cartridge doesn't significantly mistrack until above 100cm/s, that's valid, right?
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A very well reasoned response stating the obvious.
Was it truly that obvious?
It's a shot @ trying to squeeze more money out of suckers!
And where do you think the future of analog resides? ...Jeezzus Christ! They are truly killing it for good!
What is it exactly that you're saying?
He's saying that he still doesn't understand the basics of digital.
Trying, yes. But still not apparently understanding dither and the distortion performance at low levels.
I understand dither performance better than you, having designed systems using it. Ultimately for Red Book, even ideally shaped dither will add less than 10db DR to the lower frequencies of the audio (3khz or below), and there is a concern that the increased HF hiss from this process will either become audible or even potentially cause damage to tweeters if playback EQ is used. And have you considered what the markedly non-flat in room responses of real speakers will do to the performance of electrically 'optimal' dither? Of course not. The idea would probably have never crossed your mind unless somebody with a clue mentioned it.
You unreasonably seem to regard dither as some sort of audio never-never land Utopia rather than a sonic band-aid to reduce the crap factor of the lower dynamic ranges of your CDs. Nothing I posted here has anything to do with a competent professional's intelligent use of dither, of course - I am merely speaking of the home end-user's hoping to patch up the mediocre quality of CD or worse digital.
You unreasonably seem to regard dither as some sort of audio never-never land Utopia rather than a sonic band-aid to reduce the crap factor of the lower dynamic ranges of your CDs. Nothing I posted here has anything to do with a competent professional's intelligent use of dither, of course - I am merely speaking of the home end-user's hoping to patch up the mediocre quality of CD or worse digital.
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I understand it for exactly what it is, a standard technique that totally eliminates quantization distortion. So does the rest of the technical world which is why there is NO mission-critical data acquisition and processing that uses analog anymore. None. Zero. If the -120dB noise floor of a 16 bit system bothers you, then you'll never be able to listen to any recording in any format, since microphones and mike preamps are far worse.
Analog acquisition and storage is a fashion statement to some, a religious belief for others, and (for people like me) something necessary for replay of some old source material that's unavailable on high quality formats.
Analog acquisition and storage is a fashion statement to some, a religious belief for others, and (for people like me) something necessary for replay of some old source material that's unavailable on high quality formats.
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