Analog vs Digital

[T. Tauri]

There is a lack of information in the second wave.

That image is a bit misleading. The thing is: do you have enough points to accurately draw the waveform within the audible range? It's like: to draw a circle, you only need to know just two points--1 center and 1 radius point; and any more points you add aren't going to tell you anything more useful about drawing a circle. If the program can connect those discrete dots of digital data properly, then you've got the same waveform.

Anyway, I find both formats have merit in different ways.

But personally, the thing about vinyl that appeals to me is: it's a lot harder to do things that are impossible for the eardrum to follow. For instance: you can create a wave in digital that changes suddenly from one arbitrary value to a totally unrelated one in a single sample (a perfect square wave say). But to represent that wave, the ear (and actually, the speaker before that) has to physically travel the distance between them, which it can't do in the space of a single sample, so you introduce distortions between what the digital wave says to do, and what actually comes out. Whereas a record has it's own physical limitations that mean the wave it spits out is more similar, if not equal, to what the speakers and eardrum can reproduce. And especially now with mastering compression and the loudness war taking things to the point where records clip (flatline) on a regular basis (and mp3s just amplify that), I think there's a disconnect between what the wave in digital typically shows, and what the speakers and ears actually respond to.

Peece,
T. Tauri

[rob_s]

That digital representation would be passed through a low pass filter

[david_mancuso]

Interview - Stan Ricker

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/Magazin...ew/ricker3.htm

ps.

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