As you say. There is no denying that ATRAC can do a very good job. And
there is no idea in denying that the job of ATRAC (and MP3 and AAC and
AC3 ....) involves removing stuff in order to lower the bit-rate. And
it is a good deal of stuff that gets removed.
If you are unsecure about this then do your own test very simply.
Use a couple of different tracks of material recorded with PCM. Some
soundscape, some birds, some frogs. Make a digital ATRAC-copy of each.
Then make a digital transfer back from ATRAC to PCM (a minidisc with
digital output).
Now you make a CDR with three cd-tracks per original track. The first
is always the original as reference. The other two are the original and
the ATRAC always in random order.
Now you can distribute the CDR and people can listen on their own
well-known reference system and try to pick the ATRAC.
This is very easy to setup. You could even do it as a list exercise as
long as people agree not to talk about it until everybody has reported
their results (that would be the hard part ;=3D)).
/Jan L.
2004-07-19 kl. 19.17 skrev Charles Bragg:
> At 07:58 AM 7/19/2004 -0700, Dave wrote:
>
>> For example, they [Cornell] claim, if two tones close
>> in frequency are present but one is significantly louder than the
>> other,
>> we won't percieve the softer tone and ATRAC exploits this phenomenon
>> and
>> drops the tone of lower amplitude. But if other species can resolve
>> two
>> tones where we cannot, they may be likely to produce calls with that
>> feature and any resulting ATRAC recording will not reveal that fact.
>> However, the article contained no citations or references to support
>> that claim.
>
> If we accept that ATRAC does not deliver a perfect copy of a
> natural sound, and I do, what does that mean? What question are we
> trying to answer? If it is to deliver pleasurable recordings to human
> ears ATRAC is just fine. If it is to study animals' behavior by their
> response to animal calls, then there are a lot of other variables that
> must be taken into account before we accuse the recording of being
> inadequate. A general indictment of ATRAC is meaningless.
> In practical terms, I have seen birds respond to the cruddiest
> recording systems (RatShack cheapo cassette recorder and
> self-contained mic). I have seen species respond to calls of closely
> related species but not their own. They respond to predator calls too,
> of course. Their responses vary according to the time of day and
> season and age of the animal and other environmental noise and so on.
> Anyone who can pick ATRAC out of that pile of variables and say it's
> making a difference has got to show me how. I'm not denying the
> possibility, but where's the beef?
>
> -- Chuck
>
>
>
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
> Chuck Bragg, Pacific Palisades, CA
> Membership Chair
> Newsletter Editor
> Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society
> www.smbas.org
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> "Microphones are not ears,
> Loudspeakers are not birds,
> A listening room is not nature."
> Klas Strandberg
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
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