>Any number of sound engineers (spell??) would support that. On
>the other hand, CD is just so convenient. I still have a
>turntable and the LPs, but never use them. As you're saying,
>to enjoy the difference, you have to invest a lot. And I get
>enough live music, I can tell you :))
24/96 uncompressed digital audio is rather respectable. There
are even a handful of mastering studios out there that use some
pretty snazzy tools to encode CD masters for mass production
(16/44). There are a couple of CDs in my collection that I'd
put up against ANY equivelent analog reproduction, but those are
extremely rare.
The dirty little secret about LP's, though, is that the
frequency response is rather low. Few have anything *usable*
above 14kHz. Why then, during playback is there
high-frequencies way above 14kHz? The act of playback involves
a transducer responding to physical movement. This is
essentially an actual instrument. Overtones are generated! The
quality of the pickup, tone-arm, etc., are critical parts of
this. Analog (both LP and high-speed tape) have one other
benefit over digital: Time accuracy. The positioning of a
sound is only as close as the closest sample. With 44k sampling
rate, the spacial positioning of sounds is course. 96k sampling
rate is as close to analog as you can get. With analog, the
spacial positioning of sounds is nearly molecular. It's this
time accuracy that fools the ear into thinking that analog is
better than digital.
It's hard to convice people that analog is better than digital
when the average ear has been destroyed by MP3s. Puke!
I'm somewhat a purist. Give me a couple of high-quality BK
mikes, a Neve mixer, a 24/96 digital recorder and a tuned studio
environment with time-aligned mid-field monitors.
Aaah! Gee! Schnozz
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