I believe it is the same. Hiss of a tape is not audible while you play full level music, but during quiet moments, so you feel-it ... all the time.
I suggested a simple test. Do you want a quiet moment? I made a file with 1 LSB at 16 bits random noise, unlike tape hiss (which I can hear even on some LP's) this I can not hear in dead silence. I have CD's with audible tape hiss too.
Agree. One of the problems i faced, at the beginning of digital, was this lack of background hiss, like a foundation on witch i used to build my mixes. No more absolute reference...
Yes, to be sure in the beginning there were oversights like major carry problems and dither. Now a TPDF dithered signal around zero at 1 LSB is not audible as a noise floor, at least to me, in fact on an ordinary laptop it does not get above the noise of the headphone driver.
All this chatter about dynamic range is quite missing the point - it's the quality of the sounds that are audible which is key, I have recordings which have appalling dynamic range - and these can sound impossibly bad, seemingly grungy beyond any possible redemption; or, tremendously involving, subjectively immensely dynamic and enjoyable to listen to - purely as a function of the type of distortion artifacts which are added in playback, and how the recordings deficiencies are emphasised, or not.
As an example, old blues tracks,
- bargain basement recording techniques, as "poor" as they come; they can either sound totally dreadful, archival worth only, or they can take into the space where the musicians were, you're listening to real people completely in the groove of making music with powerful, emotional bite to it happen. For me, the latter scenario is the goal - "correctness" in other senses is as worthwhile as a hair shirt.
As an example, old blues tracks,
- bargain basement recording techniques, as "poor" as they come; they can either sound totally dreadful, archival worth only, or they can take into the space where the musicians were, you're listening to real people completely in the groove of making music with powerful, emotional bite to it happen. For me, the latter scenario is the goal - "correctness" in other senses is as worthwhile as a hair shirt.All this chatter about dynamic range is quite missing the point - it's the quality of the sounds that are audible which is key, I have recordings which have appalling dynamic range - and these can sound impossibly bad, seemingly grungy beyond any possible redemption; or, tremendously involving, subjectively immensely dynamic and enjoyable to listen to - purely as a function of the type of distortion artifacts which are added in playback, and how the recordings deficiencies are emphasised, or not.
As an example, old blues tracks,
Really, Frank?
I have not heard this before.
You should perhaps expound this in detail more often as your message may not be getting through to everyone.
Where is the Barf emoticon when one needs it. 
Schematics, or is it just moving the wires around the room (maybe the Jenga blocks come into play)?
Hmmm, I barf when the the same tired ideas are thrown around as possibly being "solutions" to achieving better sound ...
Schematics, moving wires? Sometimes, sometimes not. Step 1: troubleshoot - what is wrong with the sound? - learn to listen to the sound, and be able to discern misbehaviour - in your face silibance is a classic. Every system will be different, every situation will be unique - the approach to "fixing" will depend on what's lacking in the particular system - there is no single right answer!
Again, so much that I see here is about "adding goodness" - what has always worked for me is "subtracting badness" - that seems to be a hard concept to get across,.
Schematics, moving wires? Sometimes, sometimes not. Step 1: troubleshoot - what is wrong with the sound? - learn to listen to the sound, and be able to discern misbehaviour - in your face silibance is a classic. Every system will be different, every situation will be unique - the approach to "fixing" will depend on what's lacking in the particular system - there is no single right answer!
Again, so much that I see here is about "adding goodness" - what has always worked for me is "subtracting badness" - that seems to be a hard concept to get across,
.
Which links to something that has annoyed me for a long time. With original red book you had pre-emphasis that gave a very blunt too to have the option of full or reduced dynamic range but that died early on. Since then there doesn't seem to have been much standardisation on techniques to allow the end user to be able to adjust dynamic range according to their preferences. So classical radio listeners still complain about DAB being compressed for in car use and people who want the full silence to ear bleeding range are denied it. With the fact that you can often download an mp3 for free when you buy an uncompressed track surely a 'portable mix' wouldn't be too hard.
At least these days we are saved from the dreaded optimod that used to squish FM radio to nothing...
Like jj Bob Orban is a brilliant engineer and from my experience a good guy. You don't realize how bad it could have been, people complain about mass tastes but these guys actually engineered mp3 and FM compression to a fairly high standard.
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The product was great, just the way it was used was the problem. When I used to listen to BBC proms on FM you could hear the crescendos being reduced before they had a chance. I switched to the TV feed after that as nicam was less compressed. The streaming HD feed is much better, but they have just cut that unless you have an approved device.
In the late 60ies when I was in the UK, radio was immensly popular. Since I myeslf grew up with the radio, a German made Schaub Lorenz PORTABLE multiwave set full of tubes, I felt I was right where I should be. Much to my delight, upon returning home, I discovered that the local radio scene had evolved quite a bit, and thank goodness, it stayed that was to this day.
Of course, these days a radio station is basically a PC with an MP3 playlist, the FM transimitter and just one guy. The sound is usually audibly compressed. OTOH, 3 stations still care and transmit a very high quality FN signal, which on occasion has me checking is that the tuner or the CD player - that good.
It appears I'm the lucky one here, since I've heard a lot of complaints from Brits basically saying that FM radio is now worse than it ever was due to compression. That's quite a slide down for BBC, from a reference to just another typical radio station, but with a greater coverage. If so, sad indeed.
But overall, I'm with Frank (fas42) on this, There are so many problems with audio gear long before we get to the available dynamic range. Nobody in their right mind would ever complain about a greater dymanic range, of course, but for equipment doing not so good, greater dynamic range will not help much. Richard Marsh's idea of bypassing the medium of LP and CD I think can help a lot more than improving equipment as it is. That's a sound minus the losses of transfer to a say CD, minus the problems and losses of having the replay device having to pick op the optical laser and convert it back to bits and bytes. No matter how good, it will necessarily introduce some of its inherent anomalies, no matter how small, reducing the playback to essentially only the DAC and the output amp. Such simplification should, by all right, deliver on better quality signal due to less conversion and processing. Surely a simplier end stage is easier to design better than a complex one.
Eventually, this may end up with models like "Amp with a DAC", essentially a DAC, volume and balance controls and a power amp. We might not need preamps, either as standalone units or circuits in an interated amp, at all, which is a further simplifaction of the signal chain. All we might need are terabyte hard disks, or better yet, RAM disks. Actually, integrated amps would probably disappear as a category altogether.
Of course, these days a radio station is basically a PC with an MP3 playlist, the FM transimitter and just one guy. The sound is usually audibly compressed. OTOH, 3 stations still care and transmit a very high quality FN signal, which on occasion has me checking is that the tuner or the CD player - that good.
It appears I'm the lucky one here, since I've heard a lot of complaints from Brits basically saying that FM radio is now worse than it ever was due to compression. That's quite a slide down for BBC, from a reference to just another typical radio station, but with a greater coverage. If so, sad indeed.
But overall, I'm with Frank (fas42) on this, There are so many problems with audio gear long before we get to the available dynamic range. Nobody in their right mind would ever complain about a greater dymanic range, of course, but for equipment doing not so good, greater dynamic range will not help much. Richard Marsh's idea of bypassing the medium of LP and CD I think can help a lot more than improving equipment as it is. That's a sound minus the losses of transfer to a say CD, minus the problems and losses of having the replay device having to pick op the optical laser and convert it back to bits and bytes. No matter how good, it will necessarily introduce some of its inherent anomalies, no matter how small, reducing the playback to essentially only the DAC and the output amp. Such simplification should, by all right, deliver on better quality signal due to less conversion and processing. Surely a simplier end stage is easier to design better than a complex one.
Eventually, this may end up with models like "Amp with a DAC", essentially a DAC, volume and balance controls and a power amp. We might not need preamps, either as standalone units or circuits in an interated amp, at all, which is a further simplifaction of the signal chain. All we might need are terabyte hard disks, or better yet, RAM disks. Actually, integrated amps would probably disappear as a category altogether.
That is one of the things i DO NOT understand. This "MP3 (or ATRAC) is bad" definitive judgement.
All those compression algorythms are based on intensive and serious psycho acoustic studies and work pretty good for what they do: simplifying the signal to use less space without destroying essential. And they don't reduce the dynamic of the signal.
Of course, we need to be careful and don't go too far in this simplification (too low bit rate).
At the arrival of those compression systems, I made several blind tests in my studio with sound engineers, between original and compressed tracks from various sources, to evaluate the quality of those compression.
Got no evidence it was possible to discriminate between original and compressed files.
More than this, in certain circumstances, like copies of vinyl, the compressed file was statistically preferred and supposed to be the original by the listeners. It was ATRAC (mini disks), and it seems that the compression process was able to reduce the LP vinyl surface noises and make the music easier to listen (better separation between the instruments).
On my side, i'm pretty happy with the MP3s i carry in my phone, listening to music everywhere across a little Koss Porta Pro headphone. And i do not regret portable CD players for the same use. (Size, shock resistance etc.)
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This is good reading, thanks to Gerard for posting it on his mpp thread.
http://www.analogplanet.com/images/vinyl-dynamic-range.pdf
http://www.analogplanet.com/images/vinyl-dynamic-range.pdf
I well agree, MP3 does not automatically mean bad.
In my critical evaluations, I have found Fraunhofer MP3 320k codec to sound very close to 16/44, and very acceptable for vintage pop/rock music.
The throwing away of fine detail can cause a subjective improvement in apparent 'SN' ratio, and allow playback at higher levels before unacceptable subjective distortions intrude/overwhelm.
The LAME MP3 codec 320k sounds subtly different to Fraunhofer and was not my preferred choice for MP3 playback.....clean, clear but something musically 'wrong' with LAME PB.
I once had a MiniDisc machine in for repair with Kylie Minogue disc included.....I also had an original release CD copy of the same album.
On listening, the MD version sounded nicely better....the removal/reduction in overproduction dross rendered the playback more tuneful, and the less background sounds/effects enabled/added punch and clarity to the playback.
I don't suggest that the MD version was more 'hi-fi', but for casual/fun listening it had better 'beat' and 'groove'.
The problem with typical commercial FM sound is way over zealous multi-band compression/limiting/processing.
The commercial FM networks compete for audience/advertising revenue, so 'louder' on-air sound is the goal.....this works for construction site tradies/warehouse/factory radios, but as we all well know this over the top audio processing totally screws any semblance of audio quality.
Historically in Aus, the commercial networks roll out Orban processing presets to all their studio/transmit locations.....consistency of that network's 'house' sound anywhere over the country....think McDonalds.
Another problem with FM is the historical regard that 256k MP3 is adequate...the inadequacies of 256k and lower rate MP3 is further exaggerated by downstream on-air processing.
The breath of fresh air is Community FM.
Here we have volunteer run community FM stations with limited coverage area, and these stations give local youngsters opportunity for on-air experience and gateway to careers in the broadcasting industry.
Scope is also given for special interest groups, and regular spots for amateurs to showcase particular music genres.
Another important function is local area information, in particular bush fire alerts/advices etc.
Typical of these stations is emphasis on audio quality, and indeed my local station is near CD quality in the hands of the appropriate presenters (ok, I did have a hand in the system setup
).Orban is not guilty, MP3 is not guilty, guilty are the commercial station execs with cloth ears.
Dan.
The concept of the digital loudspeaker, Meridian style, has always appealed to me - eliminates so many of the problems ... but, the possibility of half-hearted engineering messing it up is still very much on the cards.
Unfortunately, my only exposure to a Meridian example did not impress - shouty, home cinema quality is what came across ...
Dan, when comparing these did you decompress beforehand, ie., convert to WAV files - or, play MP3 direct?
For those interested in the subjective debate, the next few hours are your last chance 'to listen without knowing' over in this thread. Some of the comments have been great.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/loun...o-get-your-ears-listen-comments-welcomed.html
And this one seems to have run out of steam and so I will post the details very very shortly,
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/loun...t-stuff-matter-if-does-then-can-you-tell.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/loun...o-get-your-ears-listen-comments-welcomed.html
And this one seems to have run out of steam and so I will post the details very very shortly,
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/loun...t-stuff-matter-if-does-then-can-you-tell.html
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