...the reason I clicked on the YT bait in first place was John Darko recommended it 😊
Myth 4. “Analogue sounds better than digital (LP vs. CD)”
No, that‘s actually not a myth. Cassette tape also sounds better than CD, generally speaking, depending on sound characteristics you most cherish. CDs often sound thin, dry, wimpy, threadbare, airless, maddening, clunky, generic, unfulfilling, honky, discombobulated, boomy, congealed, metallic, compressed,, synthetic, two dimensional and like papier-mâché.
No, that‘s actually not a myth. Cassette tape also sounds better than CD, generally speaking, depending on sound characteristics you most cherish. CDs often sound thin, dry, wimpy, threadbare, airless, maddening, clunky, generic, unfulfilling, honky, discombobulated, boomy, congealed, metallic, compressed,, synthetic, two dimensional and like papier-mâché.
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Myth “3. Digital is just ones and zeroes and is impervious to interference.”
while the physical pits and lands on a CD reflective layer cannot be changed, the problems with the sound arise when those physical pits and lands are read by the laser. Due to the nanoscale dimensions of pits and lands and CD laser wavelength, along with “instabilities” of the CD disc and CD playback system, the interpretation of the pits and lands is not accurate. What makes them inaccurate? The “wobbling and fluttering” CD itself, scattered CD laser light getting into the photodetector, susceptibility of the playback system to seismic type vibration.
while the physical pits and lands on a CD reflective layer cannot be changed, the problems with the sound arise when those physical pits and lands are read by the laser. Due to the nanoscale dimensions of pits and lands and CD laser wavelength, along with “instabilities” of the CD disc and CD playback system, the interpretation of the pits and lands is not accurate. What makes them inaccurate? The “wobbling and fluttering” CD itself, scattered CD laser light getting into the photodetector, susceptibility of the playback system to seismic type vibration.
Lol, these words, that is just like pulling random things out of a bag that have some kind of quasi emotional connection to the words digital and computer. 😀 😀
Since each individual may cherish something different, I imagine there's a conceptual "bell curve" that represents the cherish aspect of a human listener (customer) population. The mean of that is targeted as "good enough" leaving the outliers beyond +/- 2, 3 sigma to DIYAudio. These are the folks that might mold clay about their disc transport mechanism's parts, to increase vibration dampening.
I thought bit errors from media readback were solved long ago by CRC correction. Unless the mathematical act of doing the correction makes a little tug on the powersupply, that otherwise wouldnt be there, and that somehow shows up in the sound, even though the word representing that sample is "correct".
It's all interesting, but for me my remaining life is too short.
Ah ah, 🤣 i t r e m i n d s me 😂 of this
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...te-power-amplifier.155628/page-5#post-2001271
And there are outliers at 4 sigma that don’t give a damn about what’s normally important to the most rabid subjectivist quasi-science audiophiles or what’s appealing to the masses, and build things that go in completely different directions altogether. Stuff that would never exist in a store, and no one else in the universe would even want.
Bit errors have been solved, period. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be sitting on this forum now because the internet as we know it wouldn’t even be viable. Its a LOT more data than what’s on any damn CD, and it gets through well enough for programs to run (even a few bits wrong could crash the CPU Or at least that process). Terabyte magnetic media would never have been possible, or even 3,4, or 5G. Even fiber isn’t a perfect transmission medium, especially the longer it is.
“Bit errors have been resolved. Period.”
Neither the Reed Solomon error detection correction codes nor the laser servo feedback system, which is mounted on tiny little springs so the laser assembly can move freely, work 100%, a long way from 100%. Everything about the Compact Disc system is cheap. The discs are not round and the laser and photodetector are cheap, cheap, cheap. The laser is not monochromatic and the slope of the photodetector filter is rather shallow. The “dynamic instability” of the disc and transport Is audible. The nanoscale dimensions of the data spiral and CD laser beam width make the system very vulnerable to very minute motion of the disc and laser assembly.
Period…
and I can prove it.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “but my CDs sound fabulous.“
Neither the Reed Solomon error detection correction codes nor the laser servo feedback system, which is mounted on tiny little springs so the laser assembly can move freely, work 100%, a long way from 100%. Everything about the Compact Disc system is cheap. The discs are not round and the laser and photodetector are cheap, cheap, cheap. The laser is not monochromatic and the slope of the photodetector filter is rather shallow. The “dynamic instability” of the disc and transport Is audible. The nanoscale dimensions of the data spiral and CD laser beam width make the system very vulnerable to very minute motion of the disc and laser assembly.
Period…
and I can prove it.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “but my CDs sound fabulous.“
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“Since each individual may cherish something different, I imagine there's a conceptual "bell curve" that represents the cherish aspect of a human listener (customer) population. The mean of that is targeted as "good enough" leaving the outliers beyond +/- 2, 3 sigma to DIYAudio. These are the folks that might mold clay about their disc transport mechanism's parts, to increase vibration dampening.”
I cherish dynamic range, soundstage dimensionality, air, bass performance, musicality, realism/presence and entertainment. You can cherish whatever is left.
I cherish dynamic range, soundstage dimensionality, air, bass performance, musicality, realism/presence and entertainment. You can cherish whatever is left.
Not necessarily outliers. Have to keep up with thick-tailed bell curves nowadays: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11715
No, I'm thinking that they read 100% error free.
The pits are not analog. There are two sizes of pits, large and small. That defines whether a pit represents a '1' or a '0'. So the wobbling etc is irrelevant. The CD format is extremely robust and then there's the error correction. I've seen heavely scratshed CDs generating 4000 read error over the course of a play, all being corrected to bit perfect.
Jan
The problems with modern day CD playback have nothing to do with the transport or disk reading. That's not to say that most digital is optimally converted back to analog. IMHO and IME it is not (except maybe for a limited set of simple test signals). However, a lot of digital reproduction is good enough for most folks. Which is to say, they can get digital audio that's not too bad for a reasonable cost.
The pits themselves are indeed analog as are the waveform on an i2s line. But both these signals shall not be interpreted as an analog signal as they are both digitally coded (PCM). This means that if you hook them up to an AUX input of a good ol' amplifier you will hear nothing or noise. But if you feed these signals to a decoder that understands the coding, music will come out 🙂
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It depends how you define "optimally". For some people it means true to the original (i.e. objectivist point of view). For some people it means what they subjectively prefer (i.e. subjectivist point of view).
OK, let’s start here, and I am quoting from Wiki Compact Disc.
“CD data is represented as tiny indentations known as pits, encoded in a spiral track molded into the top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as lands. Each pit is approximately 100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 µm in length.”
How Compact Discs work,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc#:~:text=CD data is represented as,to 3.5 µm in length.
“CD data is represented as tiny indentations known as pits, encoded in a spiral track molded into the top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as lands. Each pit is approximately 100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 µm in length.”
How Compact Discs work,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc#:~:text=CD data is represented as,to 3.5 µm in length.
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