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From: wjm@whuxj.UUCP (MITCHELL)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: The Great Digital Debate
Message-ID: <106@whuxj.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Feb-84 09:51:19 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxj.106
Posted: Fri Feb  3 09:51:19 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Feb-84 03:48:47 EST
Organization: Bell Labs, Whippany, N.J.
Lines: 42

Some thoughts about the digital debate:-
I have to agree with Phil Karn's comments about controlled testing being the
only way to resove the great digital vs. analog debate.
Let us not lose sight of the fact that CD's are a new technology and as the
technology matures, we'll see better players.  Personally, I expect to see
improvements in the D/A converters and the low-pass filters 
in the next generation of players.  Given the large number of circuits used
in the ANALOG sections of CD players, its not reasonable to expect them to
sound alike.
I also feel (and agree with Phil) that there ARE measurable parameters that
can be used to separate the CD "Stars" from the mediocre models.  However,
since this is a new technology, I don't think we know what they are at this
time.  I'm hoping that we can find them soon.
I'm also hoping for improvements in the recordings themselves - it appears
that recording engineers are going to have to learn about the digital medium
and how recording techniques (specifically that #$!@%& multi-mike business)
interact with it.  One thing that digital HAS done for us is shown us how
lousy multi-miked recordings really sound.
This brings me to one of my pet concerns - while we need standards to get
new recording technologies off the ground (look at what happened to quad)
let us not lock ourselves into an "adequate" digital standard that we'll
regret in a few years.
Frankly, the only digital recordings that sound good to me have been made
using the 16 bit Soundstream system.  I have yet to hear a 14 bit digital
recording that sounds "right" - the sound on many Denons sounds "harsh"
and have a fair amount of quantizing noise (from the 14 bit encoding).
This is an unscientific test, as I've said many times, the only way to
obtain quantifiable results is to run a controlled double-blind experiment
and I'd like to see some testing done to analyze this problem.
In the middle of this, let's not lose sight of what high fidelity is all about-
the reproduction of sound as close to the original performance as possible.
Recording techniques (be they analog or digital) are an means to this goal and
should not be an end in themselves.  Let us judge them by the recordings that
they are capable of producing.
Personally, I've heard some Telarc digital recordings that are quite good,
and based on that I think digital has a bright future in audio, but it may
not be the only way to go.
Bill Mitchell
CSO
Whippany, NJ (whuxj!wjm)
As always these are strictly my personal opinions and not necessarily those
of the Central Services Organization, Inc.