From: andrews@sp1.csrd.uiuc.edu (John Andrews)
Subject: Re: "Digital Is A Huge Rip-Off" (Neil Young)
Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 15:12:14 GMT

elliott@ncrcol.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (Elliott New) writes:

>Did anyone see the guest editorial in Guitar Player (May, 1992)?
>Neil Young spoke his mind about digital music (CDs).  It was
>very uninformed...   Here are some highlights....	
>
> [Neil Young's comments omitted]
>
>Enjoy,
>Elliott New

Elliot:

I'm not sure if you were criticizing Neil's claim that analog is better, or
the ignorant tone of the article.  If the latter, I agree with you.  However,
if the former.....

The analog vs. digital argument is old and boring at this point.  However,
I want to make a few general comments about Neil's remarks.  Yea, he does
sound out to lunch and uninformed.  However, I think there might be an 
underlying grain of truth to what he says.

Here are some examples of my CD collection:

   REM              Out of Time            1991     AAD
   B-52s            Cosmic Thing           1989     some AAD, some DAD

   Donald Fagen     The NightFly           1982     DDD
   Joe Jackson      Laughter & Lust        1991     DDD
   Dire Straits     Brothers In Arms       1985     DDD

While I like the music and sound of all of these CDs, the "analog" ones have
an "organic" quality that I really miss in the DDD ones.  The DDD ones
sound sterile in comparison.  I generally get more emotionally involved with
the analog CDs.  I think Neil was trying to say something like this, although 
he backed it up with bizarre theory.

The reason I prefer the AAD CDs is probably explained by the harmonic distortion
(mostly 3rd order) that occurs on tape that is pushed close to its limits.
This might add a warmth I find pleasant.  I think there is a recent Electronic
Musician article which claims that some producers prefer analog recording 
because of the warmth it can achieve.  To those who say that this distortion
is not in the original music, so there is something wrong with finding it
pleasant, well, I suppose we should eliminate all reverb from all future
recorded music also, because no instrument (except possibly a synth) generates 
reverb on its own.

To avoid turning this into an analog vs. digital flame war, don't bother 
responding with theoretical arguments about how digital is perfect.  Everyone
has heard this before.  I am working on a PhD in electrical engineering
concentrating on computer architecture, so I have no reason to be anti-digital.

I think audio history has several examples of engineers claiming something
must be perfect or near-perfect because of inadequate theory.  Two examples:

1) The low THD frenzy of the 70s, where manufacturers used lots of feedback
   to reduce THD to very low levels.  Many people agree now that those
   amps sounded terrible.

2) The first generation CD players, which were billed as perfect "because
   they're digital".  I talked to many digital engineers in that time period 
   who swore up and down that all CD players had to be the same and had to have
   perfect sound.  They would usually claim this perfection was guaranteed
   by the Nyquist sampling theorem.  Well, I bought a first generation player, 
   and concluded after 10 minutes of play that it was far inferior to my 
   turntable.  We know now why they sounded bad.

My point is, engineers have a terrible habit of saying, "yea, we didn't know
about this or that effect back then, but now we understand everything about
this technology perfectly.  This technology must work perfectly.  Trust
me."  Physicists and astronomers are even worse in this regard, but that is
another story.

I *would* like to hear what people's *ears* are telling them about AAD vs. DDD
CDs, or other examples of analog vs. digital based on what people *hear*.  I 
think that modern AAD CDs are very, very good.  My small sample shown
previously doesn't prove anything by itself, since there are many thing that
affect the sound of a disk.

--
John Andrews (andrews@csrd.uiuc.edu) "He who dies with the shortest .sig, wins"
Graduate Research Assistant, Center for Supercomputing R&D, Urbana, IL
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers