Ted Shab writes:
quoted 5 lines Actually, there is some talk now that the sounds we DON'T hear still effect> Actually, there is some talk now that the sounds we DON'T hear still effect
> the WAY we hear the sounds we do hear. One test of this was Brain-wave
> activity while listening to analog vs. digital recordings - it differed
> measurably.
>
I'd believe that - given current research on subsonic effects (like alpha
stimulation and other goodies like that). However, now we're talking about
limitations in the actual transmission of these sounds to the ear. In other
words, unless you've got a cool speaker system with a really BIG woofer,
you're going to lose that stuff anyway. (Else if you pass it, you're going
to get bad nonlinear effects.) I haven't heard anything about how frequencies
_above_ 20 khZ might affect the brain, but again, reproduction with
conventional equipment is a problem, given that speaker systems have to
be designed for normal hearing range. Thus the only real difference in the
systems overall is the type of "noise" induced. An analog recording will
most certainly have some small level of noise induced - since there are so
many ways this can happen, the noise can be effectively modeled as
Gaussian. However, the main "noise" from digital recording comes from
quantization effects, is usually much smaller in magnitude, and can be
better represented as evenly distributed the better the quantization. My
ony conjecture is that a certain level of "natural" (= Gaussian) noise, of
course filtered many times throughout the recording process, adds some kind
of "warmth" to the recording the digital process leaves out. In summary, I
don't think the analog vs. digital debate in the _recording_ arena has
anything to do with the ability of various _storage_ techniques to transmit
_frequency_ information.
Anyway, the issue here is storage media, not recording. But you have a good
point, most AAD recordings I own I consider better sound quality than DDD,
when a conscious attempt has been made to master on expensive equipment on
both cases.
/-oOOo------------oOOo-\
--------------------------/------------------------\--------------------------
"the only constant / Harvey D. Thornburg \ "the only certainty
thing is change" / \ is uncertainty"
/ hthornbu@osiris.ac.hmc.edu \
------------------------------------------------------------