From: graeme@labtam.labtam.oz.au (Graeme Gill)
Subject: Re: CD vs. LP again
Organization: Labtam Australia Pty. Ltd., Melbourne, Australia
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 02:59:52 GMT

In article <1k4b32INN469@transfer.stratus.com>, Arthur_Noguerola@vos.stratus.com writes:
> if  you  are happy with 3rd rate MODERN technology that EVEN the 
> CREATORS OF have admitted IN PUBLIC is not "perfect" the  so  be 
> it.  it seem obvious to me NOT one person in this group pays any 
> attention  to  the  press that so dearly supposedly follow (well 
> many do!!).  if the had they would already know  that  SONY  and 
> PHILIPS have admitted that current CD technology is not correct. 

	There is a difference between "correct" and "perfect". No
one in their right mind ever seriously claims that a human artifact
(like CD or LP music reproduction systems) is perfect. It is not
true to claim that SONY or PHILIPS are now saying that CD technology
is "incorrect".

> that   they   themselves   have  supposedly  fixed  it  via  SBM 
> technology.  That keith o.  johnson  has  developed  yet  better 
> technology   than   that.   that   the   chesky   brothers  have 
> improved....ad infinitum.  well you should have the idea by now. 
> digital is not perfect.

	You are being confused by advertising and marketing
hype. If manufacturers can make out that they have "new"
and "improved" versions of a product, then they are able
to sell a lot of them, because they can convince the public
that their existing equipment is not as good as the newest
equipment. The fact is that even the original CD equipment
is very very good at what it aims to do - distribute the musical
product. If you accept that the aim of a musical distribution
system is to store, transport and distribute the electrical signal
that comes out of the microphone/recording mixer as accurately as
possible in the consumers home, then digital systems (Than means
CD or DAT) do the job better than any of the analog alternatives
(LP, CC).  This is true by whatever measure you like to use.
You can use distortion meters, spectrum analyzers, subjective
evaluation, but if the question is "what medium produces the
closest signal to the direct signal", then digital systems
(CD, DAT) come out on top by a wide margin.
	The fact is that CD is the logical successor to LPs.
If you were to sit down and go through the engineering exercise
of asking "how could the vinyl record be improved to give more
faithful reproduction" then you end up thinking something like this:
The groove has to be a faithful analog of the electrical signal
going into the cutting mechanism. The problem with current
cutting equipment is that it is uncontrolled - ie. there is no
direct check that the groove cut is an exact analog of the
electrical signal going in. So to fix this we should put some
"magical" measuring device after the cutter that measures the
exact position of the groove being cut, so that we can correct the
input of the cutter to give exactly the right result. Ok we've fixed
the cutting equipment. So how do we fix the reproducing equipment ?
well, the aim of reproducing equipment is to accurately turn the
position of the groove into an electrical signal. So what we want
is another "magical" measuring device to do this. How would one
actually go about making a "magical" measuring device ? - well
the current ones have a stylus and some sort of magnetic transducer -
all fairly un-controlled and full of mechanical limitations imposed
by stiffness and mass, not to mention the plastic characteristics of
the stylus riding in the groove. So perhaps we should use some sort
of optical system, a laser beam of something that can "see" the
groove. The bottom line is that we want to be able to _measure_
the instantaneous position of the groove, since it is an analog
of the signal we want to reproduce. The point is that once you
come down to _measuring_ the signal, you might as well cut out
the middle man (the groove), and transmit the measurement of
the signal instead. There are highly accurate ways of measuring
analog signals and turning measurements back into analog signals,
far more accurate than mechanical transducers or our ability
to cut a groove in a piece of vinyl, so we use them and transmit
the signal as a measurement. They are (of course) A/D and D/A
converters.

>  it may be one  day  but  it  aint  now. 
> some  people  actually get headaches and fatigued from listening 
> to digital  sources.  that  CD  manufacturers  are  ripping  the 
> public  off  and  laughing all the way the bank.

	At the start perhaps, but after a while they got worried
about how near perfect a product the CD was, and how that meant that
there was little reason to choose one manufacturer over another,
and how people weren't going to upgrade their CD players because
there was no point. And all the review magazines got worried
because it was difficult to review equipment that gave almost
identical performance, far closer than almost any item they
had dealt with before. So they began cooking up a whole lot
of "funny" little problems and differences with the new
equipment, and manufacturers looked around for some way
of differentiating their equipment by offering "linear
crystal oxygen free copper", and "super linear 10 times
4 divided by 3 times over/under sampling" and a whole
lot of other stuff that while perfectly worthwhile,
and justifiable, is in  the overall scheme of things
of little consequence. The speakers are still the
weakest link in the chain.

> it is obvious 
> from some writers to rec.audio that they are unhappy  with  some 
> aspect  of  CDs.  so  what  do we have..  as usual a majority of 
> folks like CDs that does not make them perfect (nor does it make 
> LP bad or good).  BUT  CD  technology  as  EVERY  engineer  here 
> (stand up and be counted) will bet his left nut when saying what 
> he/she  can  prove  about digital.  but the fact remains that it 
> aint perfect.  now if you engineers know MORE than  SONY/PHILIPS 
> you  should  be  working  for  them not pontificating here.

	As I pointed out above, you are mistaking marketing for
engineering. Engineers are working on this stuff of course, but
then they are paid to by the marketeers, and like most
perfectionists, they love "getting that last decimal point".

> You 
> should be advancing the state of the art so that stupid backward 
> LP spinners like could join the CD hoards  and  stop  destroying 
> our  precious vinyl.

	No chance of that. It would take a willingness to admit
that you don't like accurate reproduction, but prefer the
sound of LPs. You would need to re-learn an appreciation
of accurate sound, and put aside the sort of sounds you
like at the moment. This isn't always easy, but keep
telling yourself "This is what the artist intends me to hear".
Of course if you are not such a purist, then you will be
perfectly happy to fiddle tone controls and such to get the
sort of sound you like.
There may be many problems with the actual CD product out
there, but that is all to do with the artistic input from
musicians and recording engineers, not from the medium itself.
I spend many years trying to coax the best possible sound
out of vinyl records and cassette recorders, and CDs were a
breath of fresh air, a step forward as great as switching from
shelac 78's and pizoelecric cartridges to LP's and and magnetic
cartridges. I remember being convinced when I listened to a CD
version of a record I was very familiar with, and hearing a sound
I hadn't noticed before. I got out the LP and listened carefully. Yes,
the sound was there, but buried in noise and "mush". Subjectively
LPs were giving me about 75% of the sound that was there, CD's were
giving me 99.9% of the available sound. The limit was no longer
the medium, but myself. Some people find this revelation hard
to accept.

>  but i don't think so.  you would all rather 
> blabber on about nothing cogent to solving the problems  because 
> you dont believe in them. well "the check is in the mail".  

	It is a waste of time and resources to work on minor
or imagined problems rather than larger or real ones.
Besides, I'd rather enjoy the music.

	Graeme Gill


Newsgroups: rec.audio