I have been reading with interest the discusions on
whether ATRAC is obtrusive etc. Having used DAT (no
ATRAC?) and MD (with ATRAC), I have found that when
using MD as long as there is a reasonable signal to
record the resulting sound is great. The only time it
seems to let me down a little is when recording quiet
atmospheres. By this I mean when the ambient noise is
very low and there are few other sounds to record.
When listning to these types of recordings I feel that
there is a lack of presence when compared to a similar
recording done with DAT. It has to be said that to
most people who are not sound recordists, havn't a
clue what you are talking about if you make this
comment. This is a fairly rare occurance as it is not
very often I find myself in a situation where this
difference would be at all noticable. Not very
technical I'm afraid, but I thought I would make this
point in case there are people out there who are
coming to the conclusion that MD has inherent problems
that are so significant that they hesitate to aquire
one yet DAT is beyond their pocket.
--- Dan Dugan <> wrote:
> WALTER
> > > >What you are also saying is that a DAT
> recorded original transferred to
> >> >CD is changed by the process. I would agree,
> everything we do changes
> >> >the signal some. Even simple digital transfers
> are not 100% accurate.
> > > >That's why there are error correction routines
> in the software.
>
> DAN
> > >Not so. Simple digital transfers (like CD or DAT
> into DAW, or
> >>vice-versa) are normally perfect, that is,
> bit-for-bit identical
> >>files are produced.
>
> JOHN CAMPBELL
> >The output signal from a DAW is usually dithered on
> conversion to
> >16-bit with a digital transfer to CD or DAT or MD,
> and can also be
> >dithered to, for example, 24-bit for DVD where the
> source is greater
> >than 24-bit. This reduction of the wordlength
> means that the least
> >significant bit is in fact changed. Just what
> implications this
> >(among all the other processing tasks that may
> occur within the DAW)
> >has for an audiofile that is then used to
> supposedly evaluate the
> >effect of data compression at point of recording is
> the question I
> >was raising in my previous post. If processing
> causes a change in a
> >file, how do we know what effects can be ascribed
> to data
> >compression? If these variables are omitted, by
> only comparing raw
> >recordings with and without data compression, we
> might have some hope
> >of enlightenment.
>
> DAN
> I didn't dither nothin'. I took a 16-bit file from a
> CD (bit-perfect
> transfer), dubbed it digitally to an MD deck,
> returned the MD deck
> output digitally to Pro Tools (now not the same
> data, but new data
> that is supposed to sound the same), and made my
> blind comparison
> sequence from that. No dither, no truncation, no
> gain changes,
> everything in 16-bit. I don't think there is any
> more fair way to do
> it. You get the untouched original recording, and a
> copy of the
> recording that's been through ATRAC. If you can't
> hear the
> difference, it's fair to say that with your ears on
> your system with
> that type of material, ATRAC is transparent. Of
> course other
> material, other playback systems may reveal
> something else. I'm
> particularly interested in finding out if there are
> types of sounds
> that trip up ATRAC.
>
> -Dan Dugan
>
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