Tim, Oryoki, Gianni, and Dan,
Thanks for the references and quick course on 1-bit recording!
My impression from the references were
Positives:
Highest quality digital conversion from analog microphones
(Probably) Future proof
Negatives:
Patented and not widely available for recording or playback by public
Very memory intensive for archival and use
Files must be converted to more common formats for digital processing
Quality of the sound not dramatically improved over current formats
This will be a format to keep an eye on. In the mean time, good mic
placement and field-craft probably count more for a good nature
recording than going from excellent gear to super-excellent gear.
Thanks again,
Kevin
On Sep 6, 2008, at 9:28 PM, Tim Nielsen wrote:
> I'm no expert, but if you think of PCM as taking 'snapshots' of a
> given volume level once every 1/44,100th of a second, so each 16 bit
> 'word' relates to a specific volume frequency. In 1 bit recording, the
> 'bit' is recording only whether the volume has gone up or down
> relating to the previous bit. Which wouldn't do much good at 44,1000
> samples per second, but at the 2.8 Mhz sample rate that it's recorded
> at, can produce fidelity that supposedly surpasses PCM, and supposedly
> gets closer to the amount of 'information' analog can store.
>
> And there is also I believe a 5.6 Mhz sample rate as well.
>
> SACD was a 1-bit format, supposed to sound amazing, but never
> caught on.
>
> This page has a bit more info on it, down the page where it talks
> about PCM and 'M'
>
> http://www.digital-recordings.com/publ/pubrec.html
>
>
>
>
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