Digital BW, The Print

Hi Bill,

> I can state for a fact
> that the
> current CD standards were known at the time of their creation to
> NOT cover
> the audio spectrum as capably as professional analog technologies of the
> time.

I'd argue that the current CD standard does, in fact, cover the "audio"
spectrum, but that simply covering the "audio" spectrum is insufficient.
It's clear that digital audio has a higher SNR than any "normal" analog
medium, but that doesn't mean digital is necessarily better...or has higher
"fidelity", per se.  It's just like people who like digital imaging because
they see clean images with crisp edges...but the resolution is lacking in
digital images, compared to film images.  It's all in what you like in an
image/audio.  I do believe there are nth order signal issues with the
current CD standard, that are audibly "visible" on analog recordings.

I have designed quite a bit of digital audio gear, so I have some digital
audio files that were sampled from my equipment at 18 bits at 192KHz (no,
not  Sigma/Delta, but REAL 192KHz), and they do sound simply amazing.  They
take up a LOT of disk space though...but the fidelity is, in my opinion, far
better than any analog medium I've ever experienced.

The deal with CDs, as well as digital cameras, is that MOST people are
really happy with them...and that's what's going to drive the market, IMO.

Regards,

Austin