[Mgs] completely OT - USB Turntables, DAK, CD's and LP's

Councill, David dcouncill at msubillings.edu
Mon Mar 23 16:43:04 MST 2009


Bill

To quote Neil Young on digital music -

We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the
missing elements. The ears are the windows to the soul."

However, your issue with my sentence is correct. I screwed up when I
wrote it. I was thinking mp3s when I wrote it but incorrectly referred
to mp3s as digital music in general (and it was early in the morning's
coffee when I wrote it). Granted, mp3 encoding is the primary form is
use today and in the context of the usb turntable, the DAK model is a
mp3 recording turntable. MP3 encoding will result in a loss of quality
(sound depth as I understand it) likely not discernable by most humans
if recorded at 256kb/s or higher. I think I can discern the difference
up to maybe 160 or 192 but then I'm an old guy who spent a lot of time
listening to loud music.

Otherwise, I stand by the context of my previous email along with the
disclaimers. I am only an audiophile.

David Councill
67 BGT
72 B

-----Original Message-----
From: mgs-bounces at autox.team.net [mailto:mgs-bounces at autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of saidel at camden.rutgers.edu
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 3:34 PM
To: mgs at autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Mgs] completely OT - USB Turntables, DAK, CD's and LP's

David,
I have to take issue with your sentence on several grounds. The loss
of fidelity is a function of the encoding method. If you have a
sampling rate that exceeds the human ability to discriminate
differences, then you will not be able to tell the difference between
analog and digital recordings.

I'm not an expert on audiology technology but I believe flac is called
lossless because its encoding properties fit the above requirement.
MP3 is not lossless but if you record at 256 kbytes/sec instead of the
standard 128, then you do exceed the perceptual limitations.

Of course, the size of the file grows commensurately.


Regards,

Bill Saidel
'74MGB, '76MGB
BMCSNJ

Assoc. Prof. Neurobiology
Rutgers University


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