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Electronics Repair (sci.electronics.repair) Discussion of repairing electronic equipment. Topics include requests for assistance, where to obtain servicing information and parts, techniques for diagnosis and repair, and annecdotes about success, failures and problems. |
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#1
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Digital bull****
In article ,
Hipupchuck wrote: I don't think digital is ready for prime time. I haven't had a single digital cell phone conversation without some audio ****ups of some kind. I can't watch a single television program or documentary without some kind of audio or video ****up of some kind. I listen to PBS radio a lot and every day they have some audio or RF ****up of some kind or some ****ing emergency test ****up of some kind. This is digital **** is really a ****ed up system. Maybe I'm too old or something but I don't remember this problem in the old days with analog things. You just haven't put your ears in for the AD conversion - doesn't hurt (much) and is cheap. Kids these days are born that way, but us oldies have to convert - bit like when decimal currency came along David - who converted back in '79 |
#2
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Digital bull****
On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:43:38 +0000, David wrote:
Some cut out: You just haven't put your ears in for the AD conversion - doesn't hurt (much) and is cheap. Kids these days are born that way, but us oldies have to convert - bit like when decimal currency came along David - who converted back in '79 Sorry David you just have very low standards like the people that think cd based audio is good quality. A-D conversion can bever reprduce a real simple sine wave nor can it even approximate a complex multi sine wave with any accuracy even with the best smoothing circuits. I know the real insides of your so called AD conversion and it really stinks since it was based on not ready for prime time theory that was several years ahead of what the technology was actually able to deliver. The result was a very poor sampling rates that have flat response and lacking both transient and brilliance reproduction. In spite of all the attempts to cover up its short comings (multiple over sampling (probably the best way of producing muddy sound ever invented), double data rates, etc. ) have never corrected the base 2K sampling rate that was the fastest they could make at the time with the fastest ram and AD converters they had. Blu-Ray is poor quality for that reason since it uses cd audio recording as it's base instead of using a real high quality sampling rate like the alternitive format that was not as well funded. If Sony and Phillips had waited just two years they could have used a at least a 4K sampling rate with triple the number of words and that could have produced better audio but they had tied up a lot of money in the low quality system and wanted to profit from it. If cd audio was actually so great why did Sony have to buy up all the recording studios and kill all vinyl production in order to sell it? There was no real demand for cd recordings so they had to do this in order to sell them is why. Fact currently all real high quality recordings are now being reproduced in vinyl once again because Cd's are poor for audio and really only fit for data recording in spite of all the tricks that have been tried to improve their sounds. I was servicing those stereos in 1979 you listened to and remember the deaf teenager syndrome caused by kids sitting on top of real 300 watt audio systems turned up to full volume. Believe me I encountered more than one idiot that had a 300 watt system with the speakers sitting on either side of their desk running at or near full volume. Poor kids never had a chance to really hear any actual quality audio since they likely lost more than 20% of their overall hearing and most of their hearing in the 12000-20,000 cycle range. While blasting their ears with high power base notes and even higher powered high frequency. I have suffered some high frequency hearing loss just because I worked with these high power systems for years but I can sure still tell the difference between digital audio and genuine analog. Digital looses hands down always! I have my "system destroyer" record still it is a Phillips recording that has sound from 15 to 20,000 cycles with a brilliance that no cd can ever approach and no A/D converter can touch. Gnack |
#3
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Digital bull****
In article ,
Gnack Nol wrote: Fact currently all real high quality recordings are now being reproduced in vinyl once again because Cd's are poor for audio and really only fit for data recording in spite of all the tricks that have been tried to improve their sounds. Words fail me. Another who can't or won't hear the intrinsic faults of vinyl. Rip any vinyl to CD and compare. Properly. Double blind. No one will tell the difference. Rip a good CD to vinyl - it has been done - and do the same test. Easy to tell the difference. Vinyl adds all sorts of distortions to a signal - and not just clicks and pops. Of course some like that distortion... -- *Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack? * Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
#4
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Digital bull****
Sorry David you just have very low standards like the people that think
CD-based audio is good quality. A-D conversion can bever reprduce a real simple sine wave nor can it even approximate a complex multi- sine wave with any accuracy even with the best smoothing circuits. You know not whereof you speak. I know the real insides of your so called AD conversion and it really stinks since it was based on not ready for prime time theory that was several years ahead of what the technology was actually able to deliver. The result was a very poor sampling rates that have flat response and lacking both transient and brilliance reproduction. Stop by and I'll play some SotA recordings, and you can decide for yourself. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." I've been listening to recorded music for over 40 years, and sound reproduction has finally reached the point where you are "close[ly] approach[ing] ... the original sound" (to slightly modify a well-known marketing slogan). I no longer have to close my eyes to (sort of) imagine I'm in the concert hall. |
#5
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Digital bull****
Words fail me. Another who can't or won't hear the intrinsic
faults of vinyl. I've compared 45-year-old LPs to their CD transfers, and they are often remarkably close. LP /can/ be a good recording medium -- it just isn't a very good playback medium. Good LP playback costs about 10 times (at least) what good CD playback costs. Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack? According to the OED, this expression appeared in print not much earlier than 1885. The etymology appears to be based on the same root as "wacky" (crazy, deluded), rather than the onomatopoeic "whack" (to strike or hit). |
#6
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Digital bull****
On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:18:29 -0800, William Sommerwerck wrote:
Words fail me. Another who can't or won't hear the intrinsic faults of vinyl. I've compared 45-year-old LPs to their CD transfers, and they are often remarkably close. LP /can/ be a good recording medium -- it just isn't a very good playback medium. Good LP playback costs about 10 times (at least) what good CD playback costs. There is only one situation where I've found vinyl superior to CD, but it had nothing to do with either medium. I've had CDs made from 20 year old master tapes that had a terrible S/N due to the age of the tapes. The LP was superior, but only because the LP aged better than the master tape used for the CD. |
#7
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Digital bull****
In article ,
AZ Nomad wrote: On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:18:29 -0800, William Sommerwerck wrote: Words fail me. Another who can't or won't hear the intrinsic faults of vinyl. I've compared 45-year-old LPs to their CD transfers, and they are often remarkably close. LP /can/ be a good recording medium -- it just isn't a very good playback medium. Good LP playback costs about 10 times (at least) what good CD playback costs. There is only one situation where I've found vinyl superior to CD, but it had nothing to do with either medium. I've had CDs made from 20 year old master tapes that had a terrible S/N due to the age of the tapes. The LP was superior, but only because the LP aged better than the master tape used for the CD. Anyone who worked in the recording industry when vinyl was the main replay medium knows that the end result was frequently disappointment after the master tape. And was likely not that happy with that analogue master tape either, compared to what he heard during the recording. Good digital when it arrived was a revelation. Of course that's not to say vinyl didn't give - and continues to give - pleasure. But things move on. Sadly in the wrong direction with the dreadful mastering of many current recordings. -- *Why does the sun lighten our hair, but darken our skin? Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
#8
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Digital bull****
Anyone who worked in the recording industry when vinyl was the main replay
medium knows that the end result was frequently disappointment after the master tape. And was likely not that happy with that analogue master tape either, compared to what he heard during the recording. Good digital when it arrived was a revelation. Of course that's not to say vinyl didn't give - and continues to give - pleasure. But things move on. Sadly in the wrong direction with the dreadful mastering of many current recordings. There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many mic poorly placed, and too much electronics between the mic and the recorder. |
#9
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Digital bull****
On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:21:48 -0800, William Sommerwerck wrote:
Anyone who worked in the recording industry when vinyl was the main replay medium knows that the end result was frequently disappointment after the master tape. And was likely not that happy with that analogue master tape either, compared to what he heard during the recording. Good digital when it arrived was a revelation. Of course that's not to say vinyl didn't give - and continues to give - pleasure. But things move on. Sadly in the wrong direction with the dreadful mastering of many current recordings. There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many mic poorly placed, and too much electronics between the mic and the recorder. That they were digital is irrelevent. |
#10
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Digital bull****
There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many
mics poorly placed, and too much electronics between the mics and the recorder. That they were digital is irrelevent. Exactly. Digital does not automatically mean "good", any more than "analog" means "not so good". |
#11
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Digital bull****
On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:56:47 -0800, William Sommerwerck wrote:
There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many mics poorly placed, and too much electronics between the mics and the recorder. That they were digital is irrelevent. Exactly. Digital does not automatically mean "good", any more than "analog" means "not so good". Nope. It just means that if you have poor recording and mixing, then the fault won't be the mastering if it is to a digital medium. With either digital or analog, it depends on the medium. You can get a lousy capture with digital if you're using an 8 bit a/d. For analog media, vinyl was mediocre and only looks good when compared to 8track, pre-recorded cassettes, or am/fm radio. |
#12
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Digital bull****
In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote: Anyone who worked in the recording industry when vinyl was the main replay medium knows that the end result was frequently disappointment after the master tape. And was likely not that happy with that analogue master tape either, compared to what he heard during the recording. Good digital when it arrived was a revelation. Of course that's not to say vinyl didn't give - and continues to give - pleasure. But things move on. Sadly in the wrong direction with the dreadful mastering of many current recordings. There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many mic poorly placed, and too much electronics between the mic and the recorder. Oh, digital doesn't guarantee a good end product. Just a faithful reproduction of a lousy one. -- *If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap? Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
#13
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Digital bull****
Whew, that was a long reply to my tongue-in-cheek comment meant in jest!
However, I tend to think you haven't really sat and listened to good gear fed from a digital source - eg a quality cd Around 1971- to 76 I was a sales rep for a HiFi equip importer, and later ran a specialist HiFi store selling all but the very costliest gear - speakers up to around $5 or $6k and amps to a couple of grand - plus AR etc turntables and Shure V15E etc cartridges. Top gear at that time. The weak link was the records that were the main source of music then - noisy, scratchy, and the better the gear you played them on the more their short comings became apparent. Of course since that was the best that we could get, we thought it was pretty good. But once people heard the same sort of good gear fed from quality cds, there was no going back - like chalk and cheese the new medium had a brilliance and clarity that previously we had only heard in live performances. But, as I thought then, and still think now, horses for courses - if you prefer your scratchy old records and the his and rumble from the turntable, then that is fine. If you are happy with what you use, then that is great, and no one should denigrate your choice. cheers David In article , Gnack Nol wrote: On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:43:38 +0000, David wrote: Some cut out: You just haven't put your ears in for the AD conversion - doesn't hurt (much) and is cheap. Kids these days are born that way, but us oldies have to convert - bit like when decimal currency came along David - who converted back in '79 Sorry David you just have very low standards like the people that think cd based audio is good quality. A-D conversion can bever reprduce a real simple sine wave nor can it even approximate a complex multi sine wave with any accuracy even with the best smoothing circuits. I know the real insides of your so called AD conversion and it really stinks since it was based on not ready for prime time theory that was several years ahead of what the technology was actually able to deliver. The result was a very poor sampling rates that have flat response and lacking both transient and brilliance reproduction. In spite of all the attempts to cover up its short comings (multiple over sampling (probably the best way of producing muddy sound ever invented), double data rates, etc. ) have never corrected the base 2K sampling rate that was the fastest they could make at the time with the fastest ram and AD converters they had. Blu-Ray is poor quality for that reason since it uses cd audio recording as it's base instead of using a real high quality sampling rate like the alternitive format that was not as well funded. If Sony and Phillips had waited just two years they could have used a at least a 4K sampling rate with triple the number of words and that could have produced better audio but they had tied up a lot of money in the low quality system and wanted to profit from it. If cd audio was actually so great why did Sony have to buy up all the recording studios and kill all vinyl production in order to sell it? There was no real demand for cd recordings so they had to do this in order to sell them is why. Fact currently all real high quality recordings are now being reproduced in vinyl once again because Cd's are poor for audio and really only fit for data recording in spite of all the tricks that have been tried to improve their sounds. I was servicing those stereos in 1979 you listened to and remember the deaf teenager syndrome caused by kids sitting on top of real 300 watt audio systems turned up to full volume. Believe me I encountered more than one idiot that had a 300 watt system with the speakers sitting on either side of their desk running at or near full volume. Poor kids never had a chance to really hear any actual quality audio since they likely lost more than 20% of their overall hearing and most of their hearing in the 12000-20,000 cycle range. While blasting their ears with high power base notes and even higher powered high frequency. I have suffered some high frequency hearing loss just because I worked with these high power systems for years but I can sure still tell the difference between digital audio and genuine analog. Digital looses hands down always! I have my "system destroyer" record still it is a Phillips recording that has sound from 15 to 20,000 cycles with a brilliance that no cd can ever approach and no A/D converter can touch. Gnack |
#14
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Digital bull****
Whew, that was a long reply to my tongue-in-cheek comment meant
in jest! However, I tend to think you haven't really sat and listened to good gear fed from a digital source -- eg, a quality CD. Around 1971- to 76 I was a sales rep for a HiFi equipment importer, and later ran a specialist HiFi store selling all but the very costliest gear -- speakers up to around $5 or $6k and amps to a couple of grand - plus AR etc turntables and Shure V15E etc cartridges. Top gear at that time. The weak link was the records that were the main source of music then - noisy, scratchy, and the better the gear you played them on the more their short comings became apparent. Of course since that was the best that we could get, we thought it was pretty good. But once people heard the same sort of good gear fed from quality CDs, there was no going back -- like chalk and cheese the new medium had a brilliance and clarity that previously we had only heard in live performances. But, as I thought then, and still think now, horses for courses - if you prefer your scratchy old records and the his and rumble from the turntable, then that is fine. If you are happy with what you use, then that is great, and no one should denigrate your choice. As an audiophile, amateur recordist, and product reviewer, I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing -- rather more of the latter. I can't think of any speaker in the early 70s that sold for $5K a pair (not even Bozaks or the A7), or even amplifiers that sold for "a couple of grand". The KLH Model Nine cost $1100 a pair -- and you needed two pair for adequate bass without adding a woofer. Even QUAD electrostatics were something like $800 a pair, which was well beyond the reach of most listeners. I remember when John Iverson's Electro Research class A power amp came out. It was something like $1800 -- one of the most expensive power amps on the market. The AR turntable was hardly "top gear". It was a cleverly designed product that sold at a moderate price. And there were plenty of people who didn't care that much for Shure's V15 pickups. I had never liked phonograph records (or at least, the way they sounded on playback equipment I could afford) -- I liked open-reel tape, because it lacked the distortion and colorations of LPs. The ultimate issue is whether the reproduction sounds like the original -- not whether it's "musical", or whether it offers "a brilliance and clarity that previously we had only heard in live performances". It's too easy to be seduced by those elements of reproduction we like, while ignoring the others. I made a lot of live recordings, using both prosumer open-reel and digital. There was no question that, with that equipment, what I heard on playback from digital sounded more like what I heard at the microphones than analog did. I still strongly prefer digital. But the fact is that LPs can sound very, very good -- if you play them back on equipment that costs rather more than what a good CD player costs. Furthermore, LPs don't offer a convenient form of surround sound -- SACDs do. (I've had surround playback in all my systems since 1970.) I invite anyone who doesn't like digital to listen -- in surround -- to the Rilling performance of Britten's "War Requiem", or MTT's of Mahler's 3rd -- and then tell me what you hear is not a highly convincing reproduction of live sound. (Ditto for some of Jordi Savall's recordings on AliaVox.) And if you disagree -- name an LP that comes closer to "live". I still believe that people who prefer LPs -- which includes young'uns born after the introduction of the CD -- are simply reacting to the colorations of a medium that, over a period of 40 years, was -- consciously or unconsciously -- tweaked to "sound good". As J Gordon Holt said... "Live sound isn't always 'pretty'." |
#15
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Digital bull****
In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote: I still believe that people who prefer LPs -- which includes young'uns born after the introduction of the CD -- are simply reacting to the colorations of a medium that, over a period of 40 years, was -- consciously or unconsciously -- tweaked to "sound good". As J Gordon Holt said... "Live sound isn't always 'pretty'." Absolutely. Many seem to think LPs and CDs just sort of arrive in the home. And don't realise the expertise that goes into the recording which they are made from. Nor is there usually any point in comparing one to the other even from an identical commercial source recording as they both go through different mastering processes. Sadly, these days there seems to be the need to squash every last drop of level out of CDs resulting in actual clipping. I remember being disappointed in some early CDs made from analogue masters where they added a steep fade at the end of each track to try and prevent the tape hiss being apparent. Madness. -- *I started out with nothing... and I still have most of it. Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
#16
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Digital bull****
I remember being disappointed in some early CDs made from
analogue masters where they added a steep fade at the end of each track to try and prevent the tape hiss being apparent. Let's not forget the CDs that just plain sounded bad. When a late friend visited in 2001, he brought along a remastering of a Horowitz album -- which I happened to have the earlier version of). The latter simply didn't sound very good -- it was hashy. The newer version sounded like a different performance altogether! |
#17
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Digital bull****
While we're talking about remasterings...
I got the Blu-ray of GWTW on Tuesday. This is an even-newer Ultra Resolution transfer, at 8K rather than 4K. Let's put it this way... It's the kind of transfer that makes you wish movie makers would return to shooting in Technicolor. |
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