> In an industry which is thoroughly rife with it, I have absolutely
> no
> analog nostalgia myself. But with an ear accustomed to current 24bit
> ADCs I'm continually amazed that the better cassette recordings,
> especially those with a healthy modulation level, can stand up so
> well
> alongside digital recordings,
I was around when Hi-Fi first arrived, along with the bluffology it
inspired. My nostalgia is for vinyl (or even shellac) surface noise.
In manufacturing there is a principle when designing a prototype to a
minimun cost. You take one piece away at a time till it stops working
and then put the last piece back. The same applies to Hi-Fi. It is
only ever just good enough.
Digital has got rid of tape hiss and tape distortion - most Hi-Fi
buffs can't hear 10 to 20% tape distortion anyway coming out of their
Message: 0.
Subject: 01% amplifiers but I promise you it is there. My old Nagra had a
unique pre-distortion stage to counter it. Digital noise gating has
also lost any natural background ambience. Compare a recording with
any live live transmission. MP3 is only just good enough an we haven't
yet gor tuned in enough to hear the compression artefacts which the
hiss nostalgics don't like, but don't know why.
I've got a CD of Dame Nelly Melba of sauce fame recorded acoustically.
Instead of "cleaning" it up, they corrected the frequency response
making the noise much worse, but it actually sounds like a human being
singing, not a gramophone record. I watched a repeat of a 1970's TV
documentary I worked on and they had gated out most of the background
sounds, including the atmosphere tracks I had carefully recorded.
Dead. I hate noise gates.
The next generation will have its nostalgics, longing for good old MP3
artefacts and decrying the nes PMT system, which is fact is less easy
to live with. :-)
David
David Brinicombe
North Devon, UK
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - Ambrose Bierce
|