From: muller@alliant.com (Jim Muller)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers
Subject: Re: "Digital Is A Huge Rip-Off" (Neil Young)
Date: 16 Apr 92 17:56:26 GMT
Article-I.D.: alliant.1992Apr16.175626.25007
Organization: Alliant Computer Systems Corp.

In article <1992Apr16.160857.9491@spectra.com> ohumukin@spectra.com
(Kawika Ohumukini) writes a bunch of stuff about digital vs. analog, then
some more stuff about the necessity of progress.  The progress stuff makes
sense but the digital stuff is, by and large, mis-informed.

>1.  Digital is a time sampled method that samples the "true"
>    frequency at regular intervals.  The points in between 
>    can be recreated by several algorithms like straight line
>    point-to-point or by guessing at what the waveform might
>    have looked like in-between points.

Digital does not sample the frequencies; rather, it samples the time
domain.  Points "in between" do not have to be recreated, calculated, or
guessed.  The voltage that ultimately drives speakers (through an amp)
is continuous rather than discrete, so some "in beween" values must be
created somehow.  There are good and bad ways to do this as well as to
quantize the original continuous signal both in time and amplitude.  If
the original signal was sampled at a high enough frequency, it is easy
enough to reproduce the original within a frequency band significantly
wider than human hearing.  Currently used sampling rates, even for CD's,
are sufficient for this.

>2.  Digital is inconsistent when interfaced with analog.  Digital
>    in it's own domain is very predictable but convert an analog
>    signal twice and you are very likely to come up with completely
>    different signals.

Of course there can be many different diginal signals that are equivalent
in analog form (more or less), since the starting phase is arbitrary.
What matters is whether wehn converted back to analog, one can hear any
difference.  In general, one cannot.  As for interfacing analog and digital,
this is a non-issue.  One doesn't interface unrelated signal types because
one is not expected to, does not have to.

>3.  The many different qualities of components and circuits used
>    to convert both from analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog
>    provide numerous factors in the quality of the final product.

Ah, very true.  Nothing except the quality of your implementation says
that you have converted particuarly well in either direction.  But then,
this is true of pure analog signals too.  Make a superb analog recording
but replay it on poor equipment and it will suffer the same way.

>4.  Finally is the quality of the stereo and speakers used...

This says nothing the previous point doesn't say.  Of course the quality
of the playback equipment is important, but this is not a condemnation of
digital, nor a reason to limit technology to the lowest common denominator.

Is analog "better" than digital?  One can have good and bad of both.  A
"perfect" reproduction technology would "perfectly" reproduce garbage as
well as it can reproduce quality.  (I am not claiming that digital is
"perfect" - that's why I used quote marks, to suggest so-called "perfect".)
Digital does not suffer from many of analogs problems.  Of the problems it
does introduce, those postulated here are not included, and the rest are
more easily dealt with than most of analog's problems.  In that sense, it
is "better".
-- 
Jim Muller
muller@alliant.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers