Re: OT Ipods


"Bert Robbins" <screw@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:JJCdnY9HUIK8pwnenZ2dnUVZ_s6dnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Rob Hamilton" <Janellenrob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:43943683.97861E94@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>> \"R&B\" wrote:
>>
>>> "Rob Hamilton" <Janellenrob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote ...
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Digital files tend to lack low ends at the very least.
>>> > Absent to very muddy.
>>>
>>> Too much low end is what makes audio muddy. So if there's an absence of low
>>> end, it can't be muddy. It can be shrill or thin, but not muddy. Lows
>>> (and/or a lack of high end) are what add mud. If anything, digital tends to
>>> make the high end more prevalent, which may be what you're talking about.
>>>
>>> Analogue tape always had a distinct limitation to how well it could record
>>> highs. After abut 15 Khz, the drop-off was pretty severe. Digital doesn't
>>> have this problem. That said, human hearing begins to roll off pretty
>>> quickly around that range, too. Only your German Shephard would notice the
>>> difference.
>>>
>>> I would disagree that digital files lack low end. The reason why some music
>>> sounds a little thin is because producers equalize it that way so it will
>>> stand out more when played on the radio (or the radio stations themselves
>>> equalize their signal to reduce some low end). They've done that since the
>>> '60s when top-40 radio was still on AM radio. It's not done as much today,
>>> or to the same degree it was done "back in the day," but it's still done to
>>> some extent, especially on "pop" stations. Radio broadcasters do this,
>>> ostensibly, to make their station seem "louder" than their competitors.
>>> (The human ear can be tricked into perceiving something as "louder" by
>>> boosting certain frequencies, especially in the midrange and lower high-end.
>>> "Presence," on the other hand, is achieved by boosing a bit in certain
>>> lower-end frequences -- like on the old "loudness" buttons you found on
>>> old-time stereo amps back when you worked at the Hi-Fi store.)
>>>
>>> > As I recall the highs are around 12K for MP3's as well.
>>>
>>> There is absolutely nothing inherent to Fraunhauffer .mp3 compression
>>> algorhythms (Fraunhauffer owns all the patents on .mp3 compression) that
>>> cuts off the highs at 12 Khz. To prove this, all you have to do is play an
>>> .mp3 through some software such as Adobe Audition and view the frequency
>>> spectrum analyzer. You'll see there are frequencies well above 12 Khz (if
>>> they were recorded in the first place). .mp3 itself does not inherantly
>>> roll off high end. That's just false.
>>>
>>> What .mp3 compression does is to selectively eliminate digital 1s and 0s
>>> using algorhythms that, in theory, do not affect the acoustics of the sound
>>> in a way that is perceptible to human ears. It's all in an effort to shrink
>>> the file size without affecting the sound. Obviously, there are different
>>> compression schemes that you can choose within the .mp3 realm. The more you
>>> compress it, the more is lost. Those who complain about bad .mp3 sound are
>>> often listening to files that were compressed poorly by ignorant people who
>>> don't know how to do it.
>>>
>>> That's why I was always wary of songs downloadable from Napster. You never
>>> knew how the user had compressed the files. Those files that were
>>> compressed at, say, 96 Kbps (kilobits per second), would have far more
>>> "information" removed than a file that was compressed to 256 Kbps. The
>>> former would yield a smaller file, of course, but not so much so to make the
>>> loss in audio quality a desireable trade-off. Similarly, those files that
>>> are encoded at 8 bit resolution are going to be garbage compared to 16 bit,
>>> 24 bit or 32 bit. (8 bit is the worst, and sounds about like phone
>>> quality.)
>>>
>>> > MP3's are the latest in the series of "new technology"
>>> > that represents yet again another overall reduction in
>>> > sound quality. I guess I was spoiled too much working
>>> > in HiFi shops in the days of tube amps!
>>>
>>> Well, I won't argue that tube amps aren't the bomb. They still are. That's
>>> why I, and just about everybody else who earns their living recording sound,
>>> uses tube amps for their condensor microphones. (Or they just use a tube
>>> mic.) Tubes yield a much warmer sound than any solid state mic pre-amp
>>> technology can. There's no disagreement there. (That said, "warmth," in
>>> some cases, isn't what the producer is going for, so tube preamps aren't
>>> necessarily always the ideal choice, depending on what's being recorded.
>>> Warmth, for example, may not be what you want when recording a cymbal crash.
>>> But I certainly want it on all my voiceovers.)
>>>
>>> But even producers who were the most resistent to change when digital audio
>>> was first introduced have since been won over by the pristine (and
>>> noise-free) capturing that only digital recording can achieve. They've come
>>> to believe that in the final analysis, it's the acoustics of the room, mic
>>> placement, the mics (and mic preamps) themselves, and the capture device
>>> (sound card) that dictate the "warmth" (or relative lack thereof) of the
>>> sound recorded. And even with that, there are those who still prefer to
>>> send the sound out of the editing software (Pro Tools, usually) through a
>>> processing box that replicates analogue treatment, and back into the
>>> computer (sometimes the same thing can be achieved by the ever-improving
>>> software "plug-ins" that can be purchased). When digital audio capturing
>>> first started sweeping the industry, and for almost a full decade
>>> thereafter, these digital naysayers continued to thumb their nose at digital
>>> capturing, preferring instead to record to analogue tape, claiming it
>>> yielded a "warmer" sound, then transfer the audio to digital for
>>> post-production manipulation, where "generation loss" (in dubbing) would
>>> never be an issue. But nowadays, you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody in
>>> the industry that still records to analogue tape in the first place. It's
>>> just too noisy (tape hiss, potential drop-outs, etc.). Digital technology
>>> (both hardware and software), not to mention the new generation of
>>> microphones and preamps, have all improved so much, there's no need to even
>>> play in the analogue realm anymore.
>>>
>>> Randy
>>
>> Remember what you said about the degree to which you care what I think? Ditto to
>> you.
>
> This is like the conversations I have with my wife, she is a chemist. She gets into so much detail that the conversation gets
> boring very quickly. I really don't care about chemical bonds and interactions and such. I just want to say that the windshield
> washer fluid is better than water in my experience.

You're lucky she isn't a a biologist who specializes in evolution. Everything
in your life would be because of "disign without a designer" or simply a
physical manifestation of mutation and natural selection.


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