Newbie's thoughts on growing into computer-based audio

[bdiament]

...Subjectively, the sound of vinyl is very often being perceived as more dynamic sounding than CD, even if no dynamic range compression was applied on the CD that was used for comparison. That is, despite the fact CD, purely as a medium, has technically more dynamic range than vinyl...

 

Hi spdif-usb,

 

In my view, this last is an all too common occurrence, where folks mistake CD's *signal-to-noise* ratio for its dynamic range.

And mistakenly assume signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range are the same thing.

 

Signal-to-noise ratio basically describes the difference between the highest possible level (at the top end of the volume scale) and the *noise floor* (at the bottom end of the volume scale). While this *can* translate to potential dynamic range in an analog medium, in my experience, things don't work that way in the digital world.

 

With a 16-bit medium like CD in particular, to my ears, low level sounds start to sound pretty raggedy. Harmonics are thinned and bleached and the overall sound is coarsened to a point where spatial cues are much harder to hear and reverb tails die away in unnatural fashion.

 

Put very simply, if a low level cello starts to sound like a kazoo, I don't consider the lower end of its dynamic range to be properly captured. So regardless of the 96 dB signal-to-noise ratio specification (often curtailed by a bit under 4 dB from the addition of the requisite dither), I find the real, undistorted, dynamic range of CD to be closer to half that and probably quite a bit less (unless one deems an 8 or 10-bit representation of the data to be "undistorted").

 

While CD can sound pretty good, I've always felt the medium has some pretty severe limitations that will ever keep it from sounding great.

 

Just my perspective of course.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

The Soundkeeper | Audio, Music, Recording, Playback

Barry Diament Audio

[goldsdad]

I should have said Stephen Hawkings.

 

He's Stephen Hawking. Singular.

[Jud]

He's Stephen Hawking. Singular.

 

Yes, he is a singular fellow, isn't he?

[goldsdad]

Yes, he is a singular fellow, isn't he?

 

One of a kind!

[sandyk]

Stephen Hawking Warns Of The God Particle Destroying All

 

Hawking is here to ease the very same apocalyptic fears he created, adding that such an event would be unlikely, seeing that generating energy levels in excess of the universe-destroying 100bn GeV would require building a particle accelerator larger than the size of Earth.

 

But how big would it need to be to destroy Earth only ?

[spdif-usb]

Hi spdif-usb,

 

In my view, this last is an all too common occurrence, where folks mistake CD's *signal-to-noise* ratio for its dynamic range.

And mistakenly assume signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range are the same thing.

 

Signal-to-noise ratio basically describes the difference between the highest possible level (at the top end of the volume scale) and the *noise floor* (at the bottom end of the volume scale). While this *can* translate to potential dynamic range in an analog medium, in my experience, things don't work that way in the digital world.

 

With a 16-bit medium like CD in particular, to my ears, low level sounds start to sound pretty raggedy. Harmonics are thinned and bleached and the overall sound is coarsened to a point where spatial cues are much harder to hear and reverb tails die away in unnatural fashion.

 

Put very simply, if a low level cello starts to sound like a kazoo, I don't consider the lower end of its dynamic range to be properly captured. So regardless of the 96 dB signal-to-noise ratio specification (often curtailed by a bit under 4 dB from the addition of the requisite dither), I find the real, undistorted, dynamic range of CD to be closer to half that and probably quite a bit less (unless one deems an 8 or 10-bit representation of the data to be "undistorted").

 

While CD can sound pretty good, I've always felt the medium has some pretty severe limitations that will ever keep it from sounding great.

 

Just my perspective of course.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

The Soundkeeper | Audio, Music, Recording, Playback

Barry Diament Audio

Yes, the noise floor of CD in terms of human audible perception is a graph that looks completely different from what most people would imagine when they see the theoretical 96 dB SNR value of CD. On top of that, the severe ringing artifacts that result from the use of a steep cut-off digital filter (i.e., the one that is necessary to prevent aliasing at the ADC level, and the one that is necessary to prevent imaging at the DAC level), while already very much audible even regardless of the aforementioned noise problem in the first place, will also inevitably add their own impact on how exactly this highly artificial noise floor is perceived by the human hearing system.

 

Due to how the human brain detects and identifies sounds against a noise background, and how it externalizes sounds as objects that generate sounds, just because we cannot always "hear noise" does not necessarily imply said noise does not shape our perception or does not manifest itself in audible ways other than "hearing noise". In fact, quite the opposite holds true.

[Audio_ELF]

But how big would it need to be to destroy Earth only?

I think (if I understand it right) the apocalyptic even would be an all or nothing situation ... either nothing will happen; or it will destroy the universe.

 

Of course some people say this has already happened and we are just a mathematic simulation being ran in a meta-dimension!

 

and to quote from the article...

"Australian scientists have also suggested that the energy levels required to power such a mission would be astronomical, probably exceeding the amount of energy already existing in the solar system."

...so I think we're probably safe!

 

Eloise

[sandyk]

...so I think we're probably safe!

 

See No.25, for example.

 

 

Actual Predictions That Were Absolutely Wrong (25 pics) - Picture #2 - Izismile.com