Digital BW, The Print

HI Austin-

>Hi Bruce,
>
>>  I can't help wondering if there's a corollary here to digital audio,
>>  if I can drift off-topic.
>
>I've delved into that quite a bit...having designed a lot of digital audio
>gear...


Yeah, attracts similar types:-)

>
>>  Problem was (and is) that the 16/44 CD never sounded as "good" as
>>  analog tape (or the venerable LP) in a high resolution audio system.
>>  The decimation, data jitter, and aliasing problems become easily
>>  audible.
>
>Initially and up until about 7 years ago, I completely agree...the
>oversampling filters were really pretty bad, and they did sound bad.  I
>believe you mean interpolation, since decimation is decreasing data, and
>interpolation is used to increase the data to smooth out the data to be more
>analog (less distance between voltage steps), so a lower order filter can be
>used which decreases aliasing.

No, I meant 48 or 96 to 44, and 20-24 to 8. Oversampling and 
upsampling has always seemed like just more bandaids.

>
>With proper design, all the problems you mention can all be severely reduced
>so they are not audible at all.  I have a very high end CD player (ML39),
>that used a very very well designed analog front end, as well as every
>conceivable method to keep analog noise down...and it easily sounds better
>than any album, and certainly far better than any tape.  You're welcome to
>come listen any time ;-)

Sure, would love to. But the ML is not a mass market product. At a 
very steep price, it mitigates problems that cannot be avoided in 
affordable gear. And I wonder how it can sound better than a master 
tape:-)

>  This is due to painstaking engineering, and
>considerable expense.

Yes, and I haven't been able to deal with the 1160 because I've been 
busy scanning 5x7s on a Scitex Eversmart, also painstaking and 
considerable:-)

>
>You make a good point, but I do believe that static visualization
>(photography) is very different than dynamic audiblization (audio....ha, I
>made a new word, I think ;-).

Well there are a lot of speaker designers who only look at impulse 
data. But looking at art-or a photograph-is an active, Minor White 
used to say creative, activity. You can learn to look at an 8x10 
contact differently than a disposable CVS 4x6. Or a platinum print, a 
Daguerreotype, or a piezo. Just like learning to listen to a 
symphony-the composition, not the orchestra or the radio. The 
carrier, audio or visual, has to be transparent to the source, the 
art, to be effective. Cinema does it by not letting you see a frame 
long enough. DVD doesn't, because it compresses data in areas that 
don't move. Drives me to distraction.

I'd suspect the reason you don't sharpen is because you know what a 
good lens looks like, and USM doesn't always look kosher.

Regards,

Bruce
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