Microtime - does this article help to explain why analogue might sound better??

Numpty112233

Nobody answered my question re DSD original recorded onto SACD or hard drive. It was a genuine question from which I wished to learn.
Listening to Rite of Spring - Bergen / Litton - BIS-SACD-1474 not only does it have a huge dynamic range and totally silent background that only digital can offer but it also sounds utterly realistic and beautifully musical (within the constraints of the hifi playback of course) - and that on 1st time of listening, before the brain has had a chance to "learn" (not that I have much of one)

dannnielll

I think that Blue Wizard made a fair attempt.  I have plenty of music in CD form which I think is extremely musical..and it tends to be of the folk tradition or small group Chamber, trios  or quartets where the engineering is confined to just ensuring there are a few microphones around and not to muck up the sound to much. In particular I have CDs of an Irish Group called the Gloaming where virtually unaccompanied male singing .. some fiddle or violin and Piano ,is hair raising..and I have heard them live.

oldcootstereo

3 microseconds is still a VERY small slice of time in practical neurological terms.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Neuron firing rates in humans                                                                                                        Our best guess is that an average neuron in the human brain transmits a spike about 0.1-2 times per second. Support Bias from neurons with sparse activity When researchers measure neural activity, they can fail to see neurons which rarely fire during the experiment (those with 'sparse'...                                                                                                                                                                                                        aiimpacts.org                                                                               
Absolutely, the human brain/neurology is a "nexting machine".  That 100-200 milliseconds delay is real... think about it, your consciousness is lagging reality by nearly a 1/4 second.   Not a problem before our everyday lives included traveling at speeds early humans only experienced if they fell off a cliff.

The brain takes in sensory inputs and does an amazing job of anticipating what comes "next".  Like any good closed loop servo system, our brain/neurology checks the "output" in our consciousness and actions and adjusts to minimize errors.  Memory provides a framework for comparison against previous experiences to continually fine tune our perceptions and (re)actions.  Yup, called learning.

But we are all "living in the past"... the very recent 200millisecond-ago past, but the past none the less.  The universe is nearly a 1/4 second ahead of where you perceive and act.  But given some of the light/energy hitting the earth from the edges of the universe began its journey shortly after the Big Bang 13-odd billion years ago, 200milliseconds isn't a big deal.

Next... All the discussion about how drum sounds are difficult to record/reproduce makes me wonder about the antipathy for digitally produced drum tracks.  Unlike human drummers, a computer "drummer" will be 100% on tempo.  But to our ears/brain, this level of perfect timing sounds artificial.  But as rhythmic regularity is reduced, our brains must work harder to determine sonic properties like pitch.  Catch 22?  

The ball-catch phenomena has been vigorously researched and is simpler than one would expect.  The catcher simply moves to where it appears the ball is neither rising nor falling.  No brain math about speed and trajectory involved.  But the catcher's brain is still subconsciously predicting where to be 200milliseconds from "now".

BlueWizard

“Nyquist theorem proves that analog information is perfectly preserved in digital form, and naysayers ‘disagree with math and science.’”

I've never been able to find the ACTUAL Nyquist Theorem, only people paraphrasing it. I think what Nyquist said is that with a bit more than two samples per cycle you can accurately recover a given frequency. And I don't think any one would dispute that.

But having the frequency is not the same as resolving the Frequency, Phase, and Amplitude. Though admittedly CDs do a pretty good job of it. You can't resolve something you never measured, but with a fair amount of computing power, you might be able to make a fair guess. But again, we are talking about frequencies that we can't really hear anyway, so slight inaccuracy would not be noticed in any meaningful way.

I still say that it is the content and not the format that is a problem. Others here in this discussion have said they have CDs that sound stunning, so the potential is there. But that doesn't stop most Pop music from being an uninteresting drone.

I think the Dynamic Range potential of CD is in the 120db range, which is huge.  The Dynamic Range of a Vinyl Album is in the area of 80db. Though some would say more in the 55db to 65db range with CD at 96. The difference is that most vinyl tries to use the full dynamic range. CD on the other hand with 120db, squashes most of the dynamic range out of the content.  But that is a human decision, not a result of the format.

Steve/bluewizard

dannnielll

The sampling theorem does recover everything ,the amplitude, the phase and the frequency. What one is getting is the  Instantaneous value of the field .. acoustic, electric ,magnetic , whatever at that point in 3D space at that instant averaged over that time window of the sample . What the ear gets is the instantaneous air pressure averaged over the mechanical time constant of the eardrum and linked bones . The eardrum cannot do a frequency analysis.., the anvil,stirrup  etc act as a mechanical coupling and transmits as well it can these vibrations  . Any frequency analysis is  the work of the cillae in the cochlea., which are tuned to different frequencies and when excited fire their linked neurons.
There are few sounds as boring as a pure sine wave or single frequency..a tin whistle or primary school recorder is the closest approximation . What we are listening to is not the frequency it is the changing intensity of the sound field.
The only reason we use frequency in measurements is because it gives us standard reproducible measurements ,and we know that in a linear system, the frequencies do not interfere

BlueWizard

The Sampling Theorem does not recover everything, you can't recover what it didn't measure. However, the complete DAC-System might be able to make a fair approximation. Keep in mind the potential error that I speak of becomes more prominent at higher frequencies. Also, keep in mind that at 10khz you are taking 4.41 samples per cycle, but at 20khz you are only taking 2.2 samples per cycle. At 1khz, you are taking 44.1 samples.

If you only take two samples per cycle then the odds of catching zero crossing are extremely slim, and if you catch zero crossover to resolve phase, then you miss the peak amplitudes, and if you catch the peak amplitude then you miss the zero crossing. However, this is happening at frequencies that we probably can not really hear at normal listening volumes.

But we are somewhat off on a tangent here. Red Book CD does a pretty good job of reproducing music. If we bump that up to 96k samples per second, then at 20khz we are taking 4.8 samples which will do a fair job of capturing frequency, phase, and amplitude. (1khz = 96 samples per cycle, 10khz = 9.6 s/c, 20hz = 4.8 s/c) perhaps overkill at the lower frequencies, but more than sufficient at realistic higher frequencies.

But bumping up to 24b/96k increases the file size considerably. The word length increases by 1.5x and the sample density increases by 2.18x, making the overall file size about 3.27x larger. In the past that was completely impractical, though with storage being so cheap, today the file size doesn't matter much.

You can't know what you don't know, but with enough computing power, you can make a pretty good guess.

Though this is something of a distraction from my central point, CDs can sound better than they do if the content is mixed right. As others have attested, they have CDs that sound stunning, and as they would also attest, I assume, they have CDs that are very bland.

Again, the problem is not the medium, but rather the nature of the content.

... in my opinion.

Steve/bluewizard

oldcootstereo

Dare I invoke McLuhan's ghost?   "The medium is the message."

For audio, Toole covered the variable quality of content and production in his Circle of Confusion.  In essence, we listen to music reproduced on imperfect home audio equipment with our flawed rooms and the individual psycho-acoustic interpretation by our ears/brain.  That music is recorded and processed by engineers with undefined ears/brains in flawed studios/booths using flawed microphones and electronics.  Granted the gear, recording media and production practices from microphone to home speaker has improved vastly since the introduction of digital technology.  This is includes the electronics/speakers of computer design and manufacturing.  

If micro-timing is a significant issue in quality audio production/reproduction, I would expect eventual adoption of standards by the industry in their published specs (like frequency response and distortion are now), from the recording studio to the living room.  Or like in the past, the industry will ignore it as long as possible, until someone does rigorous testing that shows how bad at this most hifi gear is.  Like Toole did to the Consumer Reports speaker reviews.