[geeks] PC motherboards - now with integrated tube preamps!

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Sun, Mar 23, 2003 at 11:55:48AM -0800, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> --- Kris Kirby <kris at catonic.net> wrote:
> 
> > There is no quality boost; they are simply making it sound "warmer".
> 
> Couldn't you do that with a DSP ;^)
>  
> > There is still a bit of animosity out there in the audio world -- too
> > many old analog guys that don't understand digital and don't fathom
> > that sampling doesn't equal with MPEG-style compression.
> 
> Digital sampling is an approximation, a very, very good aproximation -
> but it is not analog.

I think that despite some arguements for 48khz sampling rates being
enough, that the key to winning support from tube lovers is to keep
increasing the sampling rate so that one can process that stuff that we
supposedly can't hear but that interacts with the environment.

So far DSP based tube emulators have sounded rather crummy in my limited
experience.  I don't really know why, but I suspect that upping the
resolution and bit depth a lot, then using sampling, modelling, and
modest randomization would help.  But I don't know for sure.