Re: zeppelin-digest V3 #1015

["Ronald Shipp" <ronaldshipp@xxxxxxxx>]

> Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 08:18:16 -0600
> From: "Mark Klecka" <markk@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: re: Remasters vs. Vinyl

OK, I'll  jump in over my head here.  And I WILL make it clear up front that
I don't know a darn thing about all the fancy math that goes into this stuff
NOR am I a professional sound engineer in any way shape or form.

The short of it is that the CD format is 44.1kHz 16bit.  This is supposedly
just on the edge of the ability of the "average" (and mind you I don't think
any of us hardcore music fans think of ourselves as 'average') human to be
able to distinguish between the original analogue and the digital
representation.

I have been waiting for the DVD audio format to hit the streets in an
affordable form.  It is a 96/24 PCM format (just like cd).  While the
sampling rate is roughly 4 times the level of human hearing the biggest
improvement is the resolution of 24 freaking bits!  And correct me if I'm
wrong but bit rates are represented in a non linear form (log form??) so 24
bits is MUCH, MUCH higher than 16 bits.

But not so fast....the competitor to DVD audio is the "Super Audio CD" which
has been around for about 2 years but just now is coming out in a true multi
channel format, like DVD audio was also intended to do.  Check out
http://interprod.imgusa.com/son-403/home.asp for more info from the weasels
at your favorite harder and content oligopolist.  Make sure you click on
both of the links at the bottom of the page for more technical details and
for some titles that are available or soon to be released (including Jeff
Beck Blow by Blow in multi-channel).

Here is a little of the propaganda, "With SACD there is no compromise.
Whether music is delivered via 2 channels or via 5.1 channels, the same
audio quality is present. Thanks to Direct Stream Digital Encoding,  every
channel is reproduced with a frequency response of up to 100kHz and a
sampling rate of 2.822 Megahertz. With SACD, more channels does not mean a
reduction in quality of some channels in order to fit more data on the disc.
This is made possible by a lossless coding system called Direct Stream
Transfer"

It looks like a damn fine format.  One of the differences I see is that the
DVD audio format is totally uncompressed and the SACD format uses Lossless
compression (something like SHN) to help pack more data on the disc.  I
think the lossless compression is a good idea since we have the technology,
man...

Anyway, I have high hopes for the new multichannel SACD format and it looks
like they are even getting some content out there.  The hardware should be
affordable within a year (its something like $2000 right now but that same
box will also play DVD's etc).

One big problem though reading more about it supposedly there are optional
filters that must be properly set because most speakers can't reproduce
sound anywhere near as high as the SACD format can crank out so you will
probably loose any signal over 40khz anyway (unless you go but a new set of
$10,000 speakers to go with your $2000 cd player).

Anyway, I'm just rambling on here so I'll stop now.

Ron
PS: LONG LIVE BALLENTINE!!!!