Great article on "Analogue Warmth"

[Al M.]

Digital distortions are orders of magnitude lower than analog. And in some cases such as frequency response, non-existent. There is no equality there.

Not quite. While digital distortions are much smaller on the absolute quantitative level, their qualitative impact can be disproportionately large. Take for example jitter, which at levels that are miniscule in absolute terms still can profoundly impair the human aural experience.

 

[amirm]

Not quite. While digital distortions are much smaller on the absolute quantitative level, their qualitative impact can be disproportionately large. Take for example jitter, which at levels that are miniscule in absolute terms still can profoundly impair the human aural experience.

Speed variations rule the analog kingdom, both in recording and playback. They cause the same FM modulation that clock jitter causes in digital domain. If people think those analog modulations are not audible, then they don't have critical listening abilities to detect them in digital domain either. Clock jitter in DACs can also be shrunk to very low level even in a low cost DAC. Even mass market DACs when driven with S/PDIF are able to stay below threshold of masking and by a good margin.

So while I advocate healthy margin of safety for digital jitter, it is not a good argument to use in this context.

 

[Gregadd]

Because for a good part it''s a general acoustic ambience due to the reflections of the sounds in the hall that, if I understand it correctly, may be lost, or partially lost, in close-up multi-miking and mixing of all those feeds back together. Therefore, 'adding it all back' would indeed be an artificial addition, or rather artificial modulation of timbre (e.g., a roll-off in high frequencies and/or boosting of lower midrange after capturing the sound linearly by close-miking). And no, the (partial) absence of that warmth does not imply that it should sound, or in fact does sound, 'cold' and 'sterile'. Neutral is not the same as cold and sterile.

There are concert hall acoustics that are rather cold, but musical all the same when the same musicians play whose playing sounds warm in other acoustics, but that is a different matter. 'Musical' is not the same as 'warm', even though warmth is often present in live acoustics.

i see some things with which i can agree somethingsNot somuch.

IAre natural and neutral the same thing? Warmth is not natural if it was not originality present. restoring it can make the recording neutral but mot natural. Not that I am advocating that Artificial waemth tends to be additive while cold and sterile tends to be an omission. Distortion none the less. In case you missed it I said previously if the source is cold and sterile then a neutral sysytem should reflect that . May objectiction is to a device that makes everything cold and sterile. I am not sure how we got on the subject of concert halls.

 

[Groucho]

Not quite. While digital distortions are much smaller on the absolute quantitative level, their qualitative impact can be disproportionately large.

This is just one of those ideas that we have to "let pass". It is now so embedded in audiophile mythology that anyone who argues against it will be shouted down. By extrapolation, even if we had genuine, measurable, verifiable 256 bit audio with a 10MHz sample rate and 0.000000001fs jitter, people would still find issue with it. Digital audio's biggest PR problem is its 'open' theoretical basis and amazing practical implementation. We only know what audio with noise and distortion of -115dB sounds like because of digital audio - it could never have been achieved before. We only talk about these ridiculously tiny deviations from perfection because we have digital systems that really can measure down to those levels. If digital audio had been kept an industry secret inside black boxes, and sold as amazingly high-performance analogue system, the measurements (using analogue test equipment) would have spoken for themselves i.e. distortion zero, noise zero, frequency response: perfect.

 

[Gregadd]

Digital distortions are orders of magnitude lower than analog. And in some cases such as frequency response, non-existent. There is no equality there. Analog distortions can be easily demonstrated and proven to degrade the original signal in audible ways. Not so with digital. Even when we degrade digital with lossy compression, vasts majority of people have a hard time hearing those. We all however hear analog distortions such as increased noise floor, change of frequency response, etc.

I enjoy hours of my digital music experience. If something is sterile, it is in the recording. It is not because it is digital.

The only illusion to not fall for is thinking a less accurate recording process like analog, is more accurate at the end.

I am sure "vasts majority of people" have trouble with many things. "If something is sterile it'"s in the recording. Is that not all digital is, a storge medium? How can you possubl seperate digital from the recording. I see no need to search for obscure artifacts when finding digitals' faults.Your appreciation of hi res digital suggests you can find fault in digital. I really am tired of hearing digtal is(near) perfect followed by a host of qualifcations.Surely you can do better. I would not call myself an expert Ihave learned a few things about the shortcomings of vinyl playbaclk. Digital distortions and solid state are proven to be more offensive than anologue and tubes . When you pick your poison Anologue prevails.

 

[audio-land]

I enjoy hours of my digital music experience. If something is sterile, it is in the recording. It is not because it is digital.

Happy and envy for you who can enjoy digital for hours.

As for the next statement, how do you determine it is in the recording? For me, digital is not about the sterile or lack of warmth sound but it is lacked of presence and masked the presentation that kills the energy, some might find thin sounding.

 

[Blizzard]

Happy and envy for you who can enjoy digital for hours.

As for the next statement, how do you determine it is in the recording? For me, digital is not about the sterile or lack of warmth sound but it is lacked of presence and masked the presentation that kills the energy, some might find thin sounding.

For you, vinyl is about the coloration's introduced in the process that give your ears the "illusion" of a more accurately reproduced sound. I can't wait for the blind tests that prove unconditionally that the coloration's of vinyl and analog gear can indeed be reproduced with digital.

All I can say for our fellow veterans in the industry is, you better have a backup plan

Let's not forget, Henry Ford almost went out of business at one point due to disbelief that innovation had the potential to put him under. Luckily he was the richest man in the world at the time or it may had been the case.

You better ask yourself, are you more invincible than the great Henry Ford was?

 

[audio-land]

For you, vinyl is about the coloration's introduced in the process that give your ears the "illusion" of a more accurately reproduced sound. I can't wait for the blind tests that prove unconditionally that the coloration's of vinyl and analog gear can indeed be reproduced with digital.

All I can say for our fellow veterans in the industry is, you better have a backup plan

Let's not forget, Henry Ford almost went out of business at one point due to disbelief that innovation had the potential to put him under. Luckily he was the richest man in the world at the time or it may had been the case.

Do you have the analog set up to compare with at the moment? What would that be? Right, just so we know.

 

[Blizzard]

Do you have the analog set up to compare with at the moment? What would that be? Right, just so we know.

I don't need to prove anything right now. Time will handle that task. Just think of my statements as a heads up. You can choose to believe it's BS, or not. Let's just leave it up to everyone's own discretion.

 

[amirm]

I am sure "vasts majority of people" have trouble with many things. "If something is sterile it'"s in the recording. Is that not all digital is, a storge medium?

No, it is a teleportation system. You can digitize some sound and transmit it to the moon and have it be reconstituted back to analog with no transmission loss.

Digital distortions and solid state are proven to be more offensive than anologue and tubes.

We say this but we have never been able to demonstrate it. We hypothesize it but no actual demonstration of such has existed. Any such issue would be fixed immediately with digital had we been able to demonstrate it.

Ethan had this test where he ran the same file through a cheap sound card 10 times. While I am able to tell the difference, I have yet to see others do that. I will give you a link if you like. If digital has such audible problems, how do you explain this result?

 

[NorthStar]

Mike, Happy New Year! ...Very glad you're here. :b ...Looking forward to the best audio discussions this 2016 brand new year.

 

[Blizzard]

Mike, Happy New Year! ...Very glad you're here. :b ...Looking forward to the best audio discussions this 2016 brand new year.

You too Bob!! Too bad you weren't here listening to superb Tidal redbook resampled to DSD 256 for the New years celebration! It's so wonderful to be able to just cue up 40 millions tracks and experience them in this level of quality just by passing an Ipad around the crowd

 

[amirm]

As for the next statement, how do you determine it is in the recording?

Because I can play one album that sounds that way, and another that is not. If it is a system problem, then all content should suffer the same.

For me, digital is not about the sterile or lack of warmth sound but it is lacked of presence and masked the presentation that kills the energy, some might find thin sounding.

In the parallel thread, we were comparing CD versus high-res of Roger Waters. THe CD sounded incredibly better, warmer, more presence, etc. as you say. Then I remembered that the CD was treated with Q-sound processing. That is why it sounded so much more "real." In reality this was pleasing post processing that could be added to digital or not. Not anything to do with the format itself. In that regard, the colder presentation of high-res was "real."

As we discussed earlier, we may have very well substituted the analog colorations for the "real thing" since at no time do we have access to the real thing. Just as Q-sound, the colorations can be captivating but we need to accept them as such. There is nothing in digital that selectively leaves out the characteristics you mention. Whereas we know for a fact that the analog chain makes audible modifications to the signal on top of whatever is done for mastering for analog.

 

[audio-land]

For you, vinyl is about the coloration's introduced in the process that give your ears the "illusion" of a more accurately reproduced sound.

So you are paranormal and you will know exactly what I hear, aren't you?

It sould be: "For me... " at the first place.

 

[Blizzard]

So you are paranormal and you will know exactly what I hear, aren't you?

It sould be: "For me... " at the first place.

Your ears shouldn't change if the same material comes out of the same speakers.

 

[audio-land]

Because I can play one album that sounds that way, and another that is not. If it is a system problem, then all content should suffer the same.

Just curiosity, what made you decide was not the opposite? (Digital sounds sterile if it doesn't then it is the recording)

 

[Blizzard]

Because I can play one album that sounds that way, and another that is not. If it is a system problem, then all content should suffer the same.


In the parallel thread, we were comparing CD versus high-res of Roger Waters. THe CD sounded incredibly better, warmer, more presence, etc. as you say. Then I remembered that the CD was treated with Q-sound processing. That is why it sounded so much more "real." In reality this was pleasing post processing that could be added to digital or not. Not anything to do with the format itself. In that regard, the colder presentation of high-res was "real."

As we discussed earlier, we may have very well substituted the analog colorations for the "real thing" since at no time do we have access to the real thing. Just as Q-sound, the colorations can be captivating but we need to accept them as such. There is nothing in digital that selectively leaves out the characteristics you mention. Whereas we know for a fact that the analog chain makes audible modifications to the signal on top of whatever is done for mastering for analog.

Come on Amir, what your saying makes far too much sense. Do you really expect these guys to understand?

 

[audio-land]

Because I can play one album that sounds that way, and another that is not. If it is a system problem, then all content should suffer the same.


In the parallel thread, we were comparing CD versus high-res of Roger Waters. THe CD sounded incredibly better, warmer, more presence, etc. as you say. Then I remembered that the CD was treated with Q-sound processing. That is why it sounded so much more "real." In reality this was pleasing post processing that could be added to digital or not. Not anything to do with the format itself. In that regard, the colder presentation of high-res was "real."

As we discussed earlier, we may have very well substituted the analog colorations for the "real thing" since at no time do we have access to the real thing. Just as Q-sound, the colorations can be captivating but we need to accept them as such. There is nothing in digital that selectively leaves out the characteristics you mention. Whereas we know for a fact that the analog chain makes audible modifications to the signal on top of whatever is done for mastering for analog.

Interesting, it is gonna be fun if you have a chance to compare with the original pressing.

 

[Gregadd]

We say this but we have never been able to demonstrate it. We hypothesize it but no actual demonstration of such has existed. Any such issue would be fixed immediately with digital had we been able to demonstrate it.

In order to repair something you have to admit there is a problem.

My choice of equipment is based on this notion that I hear it all the time. I know blah. .blah.blind test. blah, blah, blah, measurements., blah, blah ,blah, expectation biasbias,etc. I do not care to drag others into my argumrnt without reserrching exactly what they said. I was referring to reaction to different distortions. I understand from another member the work was done early on.

Ethan had this test where he ran the same file through a cheap sound card 10 times. While I am able to tell the difference, I have yet to see others do that. I will give you a link if you like. If digital has such audible problems, how do you explain this result?

Really? you are quoting me Ethan? I remeber his little test. I treid to be polite.I don't see any need for ten generations. The first has all the digital distortions. My grandfather told me when I was young You don't have an opinion about everythng.

 

[Gregadd]

Come on Amir, what your saying makes far too much sense. Do you really expect these guys to understand?

Just curious is it insult time?