Re: (idm) nu __ge[minidi]scom

From thatcat
Sent Thu, Apr 23rd 1998, 01:29

On 04/21/98 22:58:30 you wrote:
>All compression is evil. 

some forms of compression are necessary to get music onto any medium. there is no medium currently available which can 100% accurately reproduce the sound of live music.

It is still digitized and
>therefore not the pure sound.  If you add digital compression into the
>picture this problem is ESCELATED!

this is true, but analog media do not reproduce sound accurately either. your argument is the equivalent of saying " a .jpg of a sunset is just a lowly worthless digitization, but a photograph is as good as a real sunset". analog media can only reproduce a limited dynamic range and frequency response. the low end of digital media such as cd's is less limited than vinyl, as well...on a cd you could have 5 hz tones panning all over the place (even though no one's stereo could reproduce them...) but on a record this would cause the needle to jump way off the record...extreme lows must be cut out, and low frequencies must be monoed up (generally not a problem, but not a sign of a "superior" medium) also, a record is slightly degraded every time you play it. spin it 1000 times, and a lot of the high end will be gone. my most heavily-played vinyl sounds quite dull in comparison to new vinyl or cd's...

>I know I am in the minority here, but I own a Technics 1200 with an
>Ortofon needle and a JBL power amp and JBL studio monitors.  While,
>these are not the finest nor the top of the line pieces, I can
>DEFINATELY hear the suberp sound quality and dynamic range that I get
>out of vinyl over my CD player plugged into the same system.  Albeit, I
>don't have a top quality CD player but for the $500 price tag of the
>turntable + the needle vs. the $500 price tag of my CD player I CAN tell
>which is better.

well, cd's have wider dynamic range than turntables. obviously, a kick ass turntable with a nice needle will sound better than a cheap cd player with shitty dac's. also, the high end on a record will often distort and be compressed in such a way that a fresh slab of vinyl will sound a little crisper and brighter than the same thing on cd...which can sound good, but is not an accurate representation of the music.
of course, this doesn't mean that vinyl is a worthless format or that i don't like it...hell, the records i have coming out this year are vinyl-only...but i wouldn't say it was superior to cd (unless you're talking about scratching...)

np: black light district "cold dream of an earth star"


"a dream is worth a thousand pictures,
 the mouths of lampreys a thousand more..."