Steve I had a chat with a long time friend of mine who was one of the sound engineers on Tango In The Night and who now designs speakers for prestige automotive manufacturers. He kind of concurs with you that it isnt the technology per se its down to how modern digital and analogue engineers differ in the way they mix and SQ for the different formats. Its the difference between using a typewriter and a modern word processor in his analogy. Both produce words on paper but in very different ways.
35mm film, if you like, is the compressed information. My wife was a professional photograph back in the analogue day. Depending on the quality requirement of the client she would use 6x7cm for the best quality, 6x4.5cm next down with 35mm as the bargain basement.
I suppose various digital compression ratios are very similar and influenced in the way they are mixed and produced. I've got a few old CDs that sound just as good as a couple of poorly mixed SACDs.
Musicality vs. accuracy is always the issue.
This "debate" began in earnest when semiconductors began replacing tubes, got worse when CDs began replacing records and now set to escalate again with microtiming across all of that.The RIAA standard was about preserving the sound quality AND controlling the frequency response in a way that didn't affect musicality.Different audio epochs, same basic issue.Reproduced sound is not the same as live performance... despite every shill since Edison trying to say their music recording/reproduction scheme is the better mousetrap to realism in music reproduction.
My point was that the picosecond response level mentioned as justifying the microsecond theory of psychoacoustics is not grounded in proven neurological and physical limits.About 200milliseconds for conscious responses, 100milliseconds for reflexive responses.If there is solid research to show the picosecond responses contribute to better microsecond hearing, let's see it... I didn't find anything.
I took my wife to see Florence and the Machine live this year. Her music on CD bores me stupid. Her live performance was spellbinding . There is a level of detail in her live performance and her voice that is totally missing from her recorded material. She is the first performer that has ever done that to me. I still don’t like her much recorded. But I would see her live in a heartbeat. Being fair it was an intimate gig and we were standing by the stage so we could actually hear her unamplified vocals so nothing was lost In translation. Live music will never sound the same as studio recorded music and trying to pursue it is pointless they are two different animals
In fairness, I am the person who introduced the word picosecond,.. the original article was 3 microseconds .
The RIAA standard was about reducing the amplitude of the low frequency transitions in order to insure they did not break through the wall into the next section of the groove. And to increase the physical transitions at higher frequencies to increase Signal noise ratio on the vinyls.Then on replay, the reverse process,with low frequency sounds amplified and high frequencies attenuated by the exact same amount.
A similar method called NAB was used with magnetic tape. Which of course always had an increasing output at higher frequencies.
This is one of the best threads on here in a long time. Brilliant debate and lots learned. Thank you all.
In my 25years as a sound engineer, the best sounding gig I ever heard was Mercury Rev at the End of the Road Festival in 2008. The level's were so low, the audience was silent throughout and there was almost a magical atmosphere. The setting of Llama Tree Gardens probably helped in that respect.
The PA system was a pretty typical high power 36KW 3 way Meyer MSL4 / 650p rig run totally analogue throughout (Rare even then) and the dynamic range and headroom of the system probably double what a domestic system could deliver. The connection between the audience and band was totally incredible and even my cynical ears could recognise something special was going on as every whisper, string pluck and drum scrape wafted across the gardens.
Music is not all about bits and sample rates and I believe that a really good recording played back on a really good system accompanied by a good bottle of wine is as close to Nirvana as we'll ever get.
I think sometimes people forget how the brain actually works. Much like vision, the brain does not process every single in real time, but makes predictions based on what it expects and then compares his to what has happened and makes further predictions. It also throws away a lot of signals that it does not need, as it would overload the system.
A simple example from the visual world, if you try and catch a ball, the brain makes a prediction of what it expects, and then checks this after the event. If you relied on the delay of the signal from the retina to your brain and then processing this information, you would completely miss this. It is also inattentive to other signals happening at the same time. This is before your brain processes what is happening and the emotional impact and meaning behind any signal. A similar thing happens to sound and every other signal.
This is also why we get startled by a sudden change as this is not what the brain is expecting, and needs to rapidly change how it is representing its world view.
Listening to a piece of music the second time, you will pick up nuances that were missed the first time. Listening to your favourite song for the 100th time, your brain does not have to spend a lot of time working out what is happening, and can spend more time thinking about the meaning, the emotional impact and reminiscing what you were doing the first time you heard it. It will be barely processing the signals at all.
Having microsecond or pico second responses and full range of all frequencies at the same time does not necessarily mean the brain can or does compute this.
And the article suggests that 16 bit and highly compressed music is the equivalent of fast food for the ear. The chewing has been done for us and what we get is artificial to some degree.
It's an interesting concept, but not sure I agree wholeheartedly with the article when it comes to higher quality uncompressed digital recordings, where the resolution of both time and amplitude is so much higher.
Nicely expressed..in essence the brain learns!We are more powerful than simple machines.