[geeks] Working Music vs Thinking Music

[Dave McGuire]

On June 23, alex j avriette wrote:
> > As in 45RPM vinyl.  A *lot* of folks believe that it has far better
> > audio quality than any format that followed it.
> 
> i've heard the argument before: vinyl is analog, sound is analog, cd's 
> are digital. it seems reasonable enough to me, but i dont know anything 
> about the intricacies of sound and audiophilestuff, so i cant comment.

  It's primarily an issue of linearity and dynamic range.  Vinyl has
damn near NONE of either.  Your point is a good one, and an analog
representation of an analog signal CAN be much more accurate than a
digital representation of the same analog signal...if it's done well.
But vinyl doesn't do it well.  Going to digital, even taking into
account conversion losses and such, tends to be MUCH more accurate
than mainstream analog recording media.

  Further, neat things like data compression and lossless replication
can't happen (in a practical sense) with analog storage.

        -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire                  "Needing a calculator indicates that
St. Petersburg, FL              your .emacs file is incomplete." -Joshua Boyd