Errors-To: admin at elephant-talk dot com Reply-To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Sender: moderator at elephant-talk dot com Precedence: bulk From: moderator at elephant-talk dot com To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Subject: Elephant Talk #818 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 818 Wednesday, 28 March 2001 Today's Topics: HDCD -- now a Microsoft technology... Re: "death" of a prog legend KclassiKcal Kcrimson Re.: Modern-era listening suggestions? Re: John Wetton - 'Death of a Prog Legend' DGM's Communications With Customers. Re: HDCD defined from a Telephone Company geek Peart, Bruford and swing Re: Bozzio, Levin & Stevens - Black Light Syndrome Waters as egomaniac Re : Tony Levin and Yes Adrian in KC Bozzio Levin Stevens Re: Leave Adrian Alone HDCD Re: HDCD defined from a Telephone Company geek () The Stevens in BLS HDCD ------------------ A D M I N I S T R I V I A --------------------- POSTS: Please send all posts to newsletter at elephant-talk dot com To UNSUBSCRIBE, or to CHANGE ADDRESS: Send a message with a body of HELP to admin at elephant-talk dot com or use the DIY list machine at http://www.elephant-talk.com/list/ To ASK FOR HELP about your ET subscription: Send a message to: help at elephant-talk dot com ET Web: http://www.elephant-talk.com/ Read the ET FAQ before you post a question at http://www.elephant-talk.com/faq.htm Current TOUR DATES info can always be found at http://www.elephant-talk.com/gigs/tourdates.shtml You can read the most recent seven editions of ET at http://www.elephant-talk.com/newsletter.htm THE ET TEAM: Toby Howard (Moderator), Dan Kirkdorffer (Webmaster) Mike Dickson (List Admin), and a cast of thousands. The views expressed herein are those of the individual authors. ET is produced using John Relph's Digest system v3.7b (relph at sgi dot com). ------------------ A I V I R T S I N I M D A --------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 21:26:28 EST From: SayAaahh at aol dot com Subject: HDCD -- now a Microsoft technology... For those of you with a growing collection of HDCD discs, Microsoft bought the HDCD format when they bought Pacific Microsonics, Inc. in September 2000. My personal opinion is this was not a good thing for the HDCD format. This opinion is based on what happens to a lot of technology that Microsoft buys -- it just dies on the vine as the people who were once independant and passionate become not independant and frustrated with "big company" stuff. Indeed, I see less HDCD players on the market than a year ago. Do you want to know more? http://www.hdcd.com/press_releases/mshdcdfaq.htm http://www.aesdaily.com/2000/saturday/d2_32.shtml http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2000/Sept00/PMIPR.asp David Kirkdorffer ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 18:46:40 -0800 (PST) From: Edgar Kausel Subject: Re: "death" of a prog legend "Marcus Enochsson" wrote (quoting Flower Kings mailing list) >>I've just come back from attending a gig by John >>Wetton, a very very drunk John Wetton. When he came to Chile -the night before he played- he was presented by the Record Shop Company who brought him in order to sign autographs and answer some questions... and he was VERY drunk. Then he played. Some people told he had been drinking lots of Pisco (a powerful chilean drink) a few moments before, but it was a very good, emotive show. Maybe it was because of the drink, but he started the night with "Book of Saturday" with some tears in his eyes. I also was infomed that his Barcelona show last year was pathetic, with John forgetting all the lyrics of his songs. Anyway, I want to say (IMHO) King Crimson best bass player was John Wetton between 1972 and 74. He was just amazing. I can't believe he played those complex lines and singing at the same time... Just check that 7/8 singing and 4/4 bass playing in "Easy Money"... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 21:47:31 EST From: SayAaahh at aol dot com Subject: KclassiKcal Kcrimson I was listening to Pacific 321 (Mouvement Symphonique No.1) by Honnegger today. VERY Crimson-esque. Can readers suggest other "KclassiKcal" pieces that are remenicient of "kCassikC" Kcrimson Vaughan Williams, and in particular his Sinfonia Antartica, come to mind. Any others? David Kirkdorffer ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 01:41:06 -0800 (PST) From: Karl Maybach Subject: Re.: Modern-era listening suggestions? Michael Cox writes asking for advice for buying new-era Crimson. Well, Michael from what you say, it is possible that you won't like new-era Crimson--and, no, you don't deserved to be flamed for it. The band has moved a long way since LTIA and not everybody can expect to be happy about it. If you _do_ want to check out the new stuff, I think most people would agree that the best disks are "Discipline" and "Thrak". However, to my ear, the latest (TCOL) is the closest to the lark's tongue era (and includes a rework of "Fracture" and adds "LTIA part 4"). BTW, add LTIA to the above list and you happen to have my three favorite Crimson albums, followed by the other two Wetton-era disks. BUT, rather than TCOL, I would _strongly_ recommend the newest live "Heavy ConstruKction" disk. I was a bit luke-warm on TCOL until I saw them play it live here in Copenhagen (two tunes from that very concert are on the disk!). Seeing the live performance seemed to untangle the dense sound of TCOL, so the tunes finally "clicked" for me and I started to really love the new stuff. It's a triple CD, so it ain't cheap, but it is much better and includes all of TCOL. It also includes a full disk of improvisations, which might also appeal to the fan of LTIA-era Crimson. Your daughter might be dissapointed, since Bruford is not there, but Pat does a find job. - Karl ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 11:02:55 +0000 (GMT) From: Jon Hill Subject: Re: John Wetton - 'Death of a Prog Legend' Hmm, I don't know where Marcus Enochsson (ET816) saw John Wetton play, but I'm not entirely surprised that his performance was poor. I saw Mr Wetton at the Brook in Southampton early this month and he was great, the first song he played was one of his new ones (his new album is a bit duff in my opinion, but hey) "Heart of Darkness" and he forgot quite a few of the words, but after that he was brilliant. 'Red' was stomping and his new guitarist (John Mitchell I believe) was great. He was spot-on with the lyrics to 'The Nightwatch' which is always tricky, so all well and good. However, I saw him a couple of years ago at the Whitchurch festival (held at a little school in a lovely little town/village - good stuff) and he was awful. He didn't seem to know any of the lyrics to songs he'd been singing for years and so his keyboard player had to do almost all of the vocals for him. I left early to get back to Southampton believing as Marcus now does that I had seen the 'death of a legend'. My point is that everyone has a bad day, and having seen him 2 or 3 times since, he's been great. I still approach his concerts with some trepidation though because I know that since seeing him in Whitchurch it's entirely possible that he could either be excellent or god-awful. Despite this I still recommend his concerts if he's playing near you soon. Jon Hill, University of Southampton - for a few more months before I have to get a job. PS. Ade rules. Jon Hill jh497 at soton dot ac dot uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 11:36:28 GMT From: Les Labbauf Subject: DGM's Communications With Customers. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 13:41:58 +0100 From: Matthew Nolan Subject: Re: HDCD defined from a Telephone Company geek Maybe we need a DSP geek to clarify... > In the phone network, each sample is made 8,000 times per second, with > an 8-bit word length, so the sample rate is 64 K. True. But that's 64 kilobits per second. > On traditional CD's, the word length is 16 bits, so it is sampled 2756 > times per second, to come up with a sample rate of 44,100 bits per second False. On traditional CDs, the word length is 16 bits, it's in stereo (i.e. 2x equivalent to 32 bits). Each pair of 16 bit samples is taken 44,100 times a second = 16 x 2 x 44100 = 1.41 megabits per second. > An HDCD is sampled with a 20-bit word length, at 2205 times per > second, to get 44,100 bits of information per second. Even though the > sampling rate is smaller, the word bit is longer and many people feel that > this results in superior sound definition. False. HDCDs are still sampled at 44,100 times per second. The sampling rate is not smaller. They are sampled at 20 bits resolution so that gives an effective data rate of 1.76 megabits per second. They use proprietary techniques to squeeze the additional information onto a 16 bit CD without sacrificing backward compatibility with regular CD players. You need an HDCD player to get the extra quality out as it's an encode / decode process. > Remember, an lp is an exact analog signal, pressed directly into a vinyl > medium (no digital conversions). That's why clean vinyl, on a nice > turntable, sounds so good. I'm not sure about this one but I heard that, since the very late 70s - as soon as digital delay lines were around and affordable to big commercial facilities, most vinyl master discs were actually cut via a DIGITAL delay line. This allowed the mastering engineer to make adjustments on the fly more accurately as it gave them time to react ahead of the cutting stylus getting the signal. Makes me laugh if this is true! That means many of these great sounding vinyl records have been through at least 1 analogue to digital conversion and at least one digital to analogue conversion. But lets not get into that analogue versus digital, vinyl versus CD debate - please! > Your ears are analog devices, not digital ones. You'd be surprised by how ears work. It's a very complicated bio-mechanical system, but in terms of frequency and amplitude, there are things that look very digital going on! And they're far from linear. But that's no argument *for* digital recordings / media. Just as saying they're analogue is no argument against digital recordings / media ;-) Regards, Matt Nolan. ===================================================================== --Day Job: VLSI Design Engineer--Conexant Digital Infotainment Ltd.-- --Evenings and Weekends: Director-Engineer-Producer--Teeth Records--- ===================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 04:58:36 -0800 (PST) From: Lucas Bleicher Subject: Peart, Bruford and swing Warren Melnick << You have got to be kidding me! Do you think the only place he plays is in Rush? Check out the Buddy Rich tribute CDs that he put together and played on. Then tell me whether or not he swings...>> Well, I was just referring to his drumming on Rush (which I like very much). Unfortunately, I never heard him playing jazz. I'm aware of this CDs (I think Broof plays on one of them, is that true?), but I never saw them in any store... john veerman wrote: <> You got it wrong, the meaning of my phrase was that Neil Peart didn't like to swing on rush, while Bruford liked to. Bruford swings as hell! He's my favourite jazzy drummer, followed by Christian Vander from Magma (he has a jazz quartet that plays some Weather Report-like songs and John Coltrane covers. I have the CD "Au Sunset", which has some very interesting - and heavy - jazz drumming). > Mr. Bleicher, please listen to the A part, a yet > apart - album and you'll hear Broof enjoying the > swing. I bought this album few weeks ago, and I love it! I also have the self-named album, which I like very much to. Are all the Earthworks albums on that level? If so, then I must consider the possibility of buying the whole discography :) I also have Bruford's "One Of A Kind", which is also excelent. Not just for Bruford but for Holdsworth, who is my favourite guitarist nowadays... Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 11:48:25 -0300 From: Eduardo Issao Ito Subject: Re: Bozzio, Levin & Stevens - Black Light Syndrome He is Steve Stevens, former guitarist of Billy Idol. The second Bozzio/Levin/Stevens album "Situation Dangerous" is also very good. And you should hear his solo album "Flamenco A Go Go", its impressive. From CDNOW: "Best known as Billy Idol's flamboyant sidekick, guitarist Steve Stevens took several unexpected turns after working on 1986's Whiplash Smile. He put in time with everyone from Michael Jackson to Vince Neil, played on tribute albums to Hank Marvin and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and released an album under the name Atomic Playboys, which basically served as a showcase for his pyrotechnic guitar work. Yet nothing will raise as many eyebrows as Flamenco a Go Go, wherein the leather-clad axeman turns his attention toward interpretations of classical and Flamenco music. Stevens' feline playing style works remarkably well in this dramatic setting. He shows surprising mastery at balancing traditional passages with contemporary rhythmic sweeps, particularly on such standout tracks as "Our Man in Istanbul" and "Feminova." Even the odd vocal track measures up. If the genre holds his interest long enough, it may prove to be his most fruitful enterprise yet." http://www.cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/SID=274004575/pagename=/RP/CDN/FIND/album.html/artistid=STEVENS*STEVE/itemid=1158696 -- Eduardo Ito. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 19:25:31 +0400 From: "Igor Zolotaryev" Subject: Waters as egomaniac Hi, This lengthy discussion of which bands make Top 10 prog rock bands and which don't has produced more than one snobbish comments about ...well, which bands make it and which don't. I was struck by one ETer who defended Pink Floyd and yet managed to dismiss the Wall as overrated piece of Waters' megalomania. I know this is not a PF mailing list but there's one thing parallel to the KC debate as well. We've had all these whingers complaining about KC not playing Cat Food and Epitaph or Bolero or you name it. Here's one example to look at: the dehydrated version of PF now IS playing all their warhorses and IT IS SOOOOOOO BORING. They haven't written any original since Waters's departure and the one visible result is the Dogs of War, which merited to be covered by Laibach. However, if you look at PF's 1971 - 1983 journey, they clearly progressed and Roger Waters was the driving force behind them. You can see all this evolution from Meddle to the Final Cut, and it made sense because the band (or Waters) had the balls to move from the commonplace asteroids and albatrosses and seven-minute organ doodlings to freaky and complex pre-industrial voice-in-the-head tales of paranoia, alienation, and fears. There's always been complaints about the band not writing the customary long and dreamy pieces so that the audience could get comfortably numb in the beginning and wake up to the familiar intro of the Money encore. Nobody gave a shit about the tension and the simple truth of the music and the lyrics on the Wall or the Final Cut. Indeed, the Final Cut told you more truth about the war - be that WWII in particular or war in general- than all your history books and education combined, Schindler List (the forefather of Titanic), included. With Roger gone, PF has become a fat and expensive and pompous jukebox filled with dated banalities and the legal excuse of three old farts uncapable of a proper recital of their own hits, for which reason they hire a small army enough to stop violence in the former Yugoslavia. And of course, there's more passion in a monastery than at a PF concert. I am so glad KC is alive and well in whatever shape he chooses to be and comes up with the real music demanding open ears and free mind. Oh, it also reqires a fat wallet, but then it's because the music's worth it :))) Peace to all, Igor ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 11:21:21 -0500 From: Adam Aronson Subject: Re : Tony Levin and Yes > in ET#813 Jay asked about the collaborations Tony Levin did with Yes. > > As far as I'm concerned, Tony played on the ABWH studio album, released in > 1989. So there is no Chris Squire on the album, and that is why it's not a > "Yes album". TLev also play bass on all of the ABWH tracks on Onion... er uh, I mean Union as well. > The live "an evening of Yes music plus" is greater than the studio album, > but I don't remember wether or not Tony Levin plays on it... Tony was ill at the time of that show (at Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA) and was 'replaced' by Jeff Berlin. There are numerous soundboard ABWH shows in circulation that feature Tony on bass. Adam ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 11:41:38 -0500 From: Randall dot Hammill at hartfordlife dot com Subject: Adrian in KC I can sort of see the appeal in imagining other singers, drummers,etc in KC (or any other band for that matter). But I do take offense to the sort of commentary like this: <> It has been publicly noted that Adrian was the one who requested a quartet for the current lineup, although I don't think that he had any particular preference about who was in and who was not. As for the ProjeKcts/CoL lineup being designed to kick out anybody - perhaps they were designed to kick out the expectation-laden thick-headed and short-sighted members of the audience. Really, people - if Adrian, or anybody else in the band for that matter, really sucks, why are you here? I have to imagine that the band (and spin-offs) puts out enough music that you like to make it worthwhile to spend your time buying, listening, reading and writing about it. So this may not be your favorite version of the band. I'd be willing to guess that a lot of the fans of this band are fans because they are different. You can go to your friends and ask them if they've ever heard anything like it (usually, no). Well, it will be different next time too. As for Adrian - the only problem he seems to have is his timing. It seems that the only times he gets the urge to check out ET there is another debate about whether he belongs in the band. Well, I will be one of the ones who will publicly say an emphatic YES. The fans show him at the shows that they love what he does, but too few people take the time to put something positive in print. How many people come to watch you do your work and publicly criticize you? Let him do his work, and if you don't like it, don't buy it. If you have some constructive criticism (which is very rare), then share it. This is not really directed towards anybody in particular - the quote is a direct quote, but I use it as an example, it is typical of what I've seen. If you don't like the current music, perhaps you could recommend other music for others who prefer the (Wetton/Boz/Discipline/whatever)lineup that you do. At least that would be useful. Perhaps Toby could kill the (Adrian/Pat/Trey/Boz/whoever) sucks thread again? Randy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 11:45:25 -0500 From: "Tim Ritter" Subject: Bozzio Levin Stevens The Steve Stevens is from the Billy Idol and Atomic Playboys Era...to think such heritage could still produce such a phenominal album gives rock some credit....every once in a long while...if you like that stuff check out Steve Smith with Stuart Hamm and Frank (I like to shred almost as much as that yoyo from Sweden) Gambale...they made two very fascinating albums in the past two years.... Tim Ritter ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 13:49:51 -0300 From: "Paulo Henrique Leocadio" Subject: Re: Leave Adrian Alone On ET issue 814 Jon Benfield so brilliantly stated: " I am disgusted and embarrassed by the recent questions about Adrian being in the band (so is Robert, apparently)I feel like that the newsletter is driving away the band that it is supposed to be in support of. " Yeah, I second and support above statement. I traveled all the way from Sao Paulo (SP/Brazil) to Hartford (CT/USA) just to see them live in November. I will do this again and again and again as long as both I and my pockets are healthy enough. As for myself, I can't see King Crimson without Ade's lyrics, guitar, effects, humanity, riffs, sense of humor and everything he adds to the band. I need to confess that I couldn't imagine the band first without Bruford and then without Levin, but now I see the perfect King Crimson with the current line up. I am a fan for 30 years now, I love everything they release, everything they do and I wait anxiously for every little breath of perspective of a new release (besides the Club that is just PERFECT for me). What do you want guys? The Crims doing things like the Rabin-era Yes, or even the OYE Yes??? Do you want the late night restaurant soundtrack like Marillion? C'mon fellas, Crimson are light-years away from pop or even the classical/symphonic progressive music. We are talking about the ever sound experiments from 4 superb musicians/composers mixing influences, music history and offering top quality and constant high level production to us: the fans. Geez, I brought home from the concert t-shirts, posters, CDs and, above all, and incomparable satisfaction. And I want more. As much as I want Adrian there: I want his voice, his lyrics, his guitar, his perfect match to the band. Paulo H. Leocadio Sao Paulo/SP/Brazil ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 12:15:03 -0500 From: Randall dot Hammill at hartfordlife dot com Subject: HDCD In response to HDCD defined from a Telephone Company geek: I believe that the KC remasters are in 24-bit/96khz (pretty sure about the 24-bit, not sure about the second number). The bottom line is that the sound quality is better, but you won't get the full benefits without a player that specifically indicates that it is capable of playing and HDCD. The other formats (one of which is DVD-A, not DAD), also require special equipment to get the full benefits, but for now are (mostly) backwards-compatible. You can play the HDCDs on regular CD players or DVD players, DVD-A can be played on DVD players. Note that there are new surround formats as well, and a few CDs are available with that twist as well. Robert has indicated that he intends to rerelease the Soundscapes CDs in DTS surround - I can't wait for those... For the average listener, with an average system, the quality will be similar. Spending the money on a high quality CD player won't do you much good unless you have a high quality system to play it through. Just like most people don't have the system to get the best quality from a record (which is why people thought CDs sounded better in the first place). So for most people, just look at this as a taste of things to come, and another round of re-issues over the next 10-15 years. Of course, feel free to spread the news about Crimson by going to your local audio retailer and get them to play it for you on the newest, bestest equipment so you can hear for yourself! Randy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 19:11:43 +0100 From: Nick Loebner Subject: Re: HDCD defined from a Telephone Company geek () Jack Lightfoot wrote: > > Greetings: > HDCD means High Definition Compact Disc. Nice try. High Definition Compatible Digital. Human hearing range is 20-20kHz. CD was chosen as 44.1 kHz as a compromise - it had to be greater than 40kHz 'cos you need a filter to ensure you don't get aliasing artefacts (ugly digital noise) in the analogue signal. "These cycles can be plotted. If you plot an analog signal on an ocilloscope, you get a sine wave.... ...On traditional CD's, the word length is 16 bits, so it is sampled 2756 times per second, to come up with a sample rate of 44,100 bits per second (CD standard)." No no NO! I'm sorry - but you really haven't a clue what you are talking about. When sampling you are measuring an amplitude at a pre-determined frequency (i.e. sample rate). The number of bits applies to the digital representation of the amplitude, i.e. the resolution of the measurement. The sampling frequency (for red-book CD) is always 44.1kHz. The number of bits is 16. "The new Digital Audio Disc (DAD; DVD's audio brother) and SACD (Sony's propriertary system) are 24-bit samples at 192 kHz. That's a word bit which is one third longer and is sampled over 4 times more than traditional CD's." Stop it! DVD-Audio (not DAD ferchrissakes!) is 24/96 (IIRC) but SACD is a completely different beast. It does not use a PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) system (i.e. numerically coding the sampled analog as described), but a PWM (Pulse WIdth Modulation) system. Operating at a much higher frequency, SACD encodes the audio as the WIDTH of the digital pulse - therefore the energy of the digital bitstream is identical to that of the original analog signal. Therefore the analog signal can be reconstructed without using a DAC (a simple filter will suffice). In this way the audio integrity benefits because the decode mechanism is much simpler. Thanks for the lecture in pub-physics - that's my speciality normally! ;-) - Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 12:36:48 -0600 From: "RadioactiveToy71" Subject: The Stevens in BLS In the last ET, Mitchell Pearce, I believe, posted a question regarding the Stevens of Bozzio Levin Stevens. That would be none other than Steve Stevens, once sidekick to Billy Idol (and possibly others as well). You know the guy from the Rebel Yell video with the wild black hair jumping around like a madman on the guitar? Yep, THAT's him! Took me completely off guard when I first heard the Black Light Syndrome album. I had no idea this guy could play as well and in as many diverse styles as he can! Who knew? I hear metal, pop, classical, fusion, *flamenco* fer chrissakes, just about everything...never in a million years would I have guessed he had it in him. Goes to show what MTV did to some of our minds back in the day... FWIW, if you dig Terry Bozzio's playing, check out some of the Joe's Garage / Sheik Yerbouti stuff he (and Belew) did with Zappa. I recently picked up a CD that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of, but it's Bozzio, John Torn (? not Zorn, I know that), and someone else on bass and they're very very good (the CD is in the car and I can't go get it right this second, perhaps another poster could nail it?). Another nice surprise I got was the first album by Niacin, Billy Sheehan's jazz-fusion project. Features him, John Novello on Hammond organ (sweet!!!) and Dennis Chambers on drums. I always thought Billy was a good player, but I tended to shy away from his playing because it was way too technical for my preference (nothing wrong with that, I just got over the two hand tapping thing years ago). Check them out, especially if you dig jazz and fusion! In regards to KC sounding like spooky vampire music, yeah I've had similar experiences. I used to work with a girl who thought Rage Against The Machine were the heaviest and tightest band on earth (and they are very good at what they do, don't get me wrong). I told her, "Hold on, I got something you gotta hear..." Put in THRAK at top volume and scared her half to death. Scared me when I first heard it too. She went on to buy the THRAK album later on, so I guess that's a good thing, huh? Chris ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 15:58:26 -0500 (EST) From: Steven Sullivan Subject: HDCD > Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 09:23:03 -0500 > From: Jack Lightfoot > Subject: HDCD defined from a Telephone Company geek > > Greetings: > HDCD means High Definition Compact Disc. To understand the difference, > I must take you through some analog vs. digital basics. > A regular CD has a word bit (size of the digital sample) which is 16 > bits long. An HDCD's word bit is 20-bits long. > Mr. Nyquist, in his famous theorem, determined that to adequately > sample an analog signal, one must make at least two samples, times the > highest frqequency in that sample. Since the range of human hearing is ~ > 300 Hz to 22,000 Hz, an adequate sample must be at least 44,000 Hz. One > Hertz is equal to one cycle per second. These cycles can be plotted. If you > plot an analog signal on an ocilloscope, you get a sine wave. Plot that > onto a graph, where the vertical axis is amplitude (or cycles) aginst the > horizontal axis (which is time in seconds) and you can plot the number of > cycles per second. Got it? > By sampling these cycles at a certain rate, one can convert analog > signals into digital signals, which are plotted as square waves. Ones or > zeros. On or off. That's how an analog tape source (such as "ITCOTCK" or > other Crimson titles) are converted into binary code for a digital format, > such as CD's. > In the phone network, each sample is made 8,000 times per second, with > an 8-bit word length, so the sample rate is 64 K. > On traditional CD's, the word length is 16 bits, so it is sampled 2756 > times per second, to come up with a sample rate of 44,100 bits per second > (CD standard). > An HDCD is sampled with a 20-bit word length, at 2205 times per > second, to get 44,100 bits of information per second. Even though the > sampling rate is smaller, the word bit is longer and many people feel that > this results in superior sound definiton. I agree. > Downsides are that HDCD's will give up all of their superior sonics in > a regular CD player, hence, you must have an HDCD compatible player to get > everything that is there. But you can still get regular 16-bit sound out of > a traditional CD player and an HDCD disc, just not all of its magic. But *playback* is 16-bit, regardless of whether the DAC is HDCD-compatible or not. > The new Digital Audio Disc (DAD; DVD's audio brother) and SACD (Sony's > propriertary system) are 24-bit samples at 192 kHz. That's a word bit which > is one third longer and is sampled over 4 times more than traditional CD's. > Finally, there is a format which promises to get rid of the tinny > and digital sound associated with CD's compared to good ole' vinyl. > Remember, an lp is an exact analog signal, pressed directly into a vinyl > medium (no digital conversions). That's why clean vinyl, on a nice > turntable, sounds so good. But it is an electro-mechanical medium, not an > optical medium like CD's. It is also fraught with distortions inherent to the medium -- an LP is *inherently* a lower-fidelity medium than 'digital done right'. Some people, often thsoe who grew up listening to vinyl, prefer the 'euphonic distortion' of LP to CDs. And certainly a lousy digital transfer can sound worse to msot people compared to a high-quality LP. But that's nto a flaw inherent in digital (nor is the 'tinnyness' you cite.) The existence of even *one* excellent-sounding CD proves that. > Yes, CD's are convienient (you don't have to turn them over and there > is no needle noise), but they never sound exact. They are tinny and > digital, losing some of the original signal information. Your ears are > analog devices, not digital ones. CD's are adequate, but not great when it > comes to sonics. This is all sheer opinion, which has been taken apart numerous times on rec.audio.high-end, where I would direct you if you want to discuss this further. Properly done, *no* audible information is lost in a digital transfer. Also, hearing is actually 'digital' in that the sound waves are encoded as summed on/off transmissions by neurons. Meanwhile, LPs are *commonly* rolled off at the frequency extremes, rarely have a dynamic range approaching that of CDs, have lower S/N , etc. Again, there's plenty of illumination on these issues available via the r.a.h-e newsgroup, which is moderated and has a very high S/N ;> -S. "Certain areas of electronica smell of prog occasionally. I try not to notice." -- Thom Yorke ------------------------------ End of Elephant Talk Digest #818 ********************************