Re: [ARSCLIST] National Recording Registry

[stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

----- Original Message -----
From: "H. Duane Goldman" <thedoctor@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Well lets hope that at some point the sound quality becomes paramount.  It
> surely isn't using less than thoroughly cleaner recordings transferred to
> current digital formats.  Analog technology is still the more accurate
> representation available whether or not Sony & Phillips agree; and they
> were never interested in sound quality, only in a new product to sell.
> Somewhere the people involved got sidetracked by convenience & forgot to
> listen to the product, at least I hope that's the reason.
Well, as I understand it (and I have to admit that after 60 years of (ab)use
and two serious head injuries, I no longer have the hearing left to tell for
sure),
there is a loss of accuracy as far as the fine details of the waveform are
concerned...this is, in fact, mathematically inevitable. However, the human
ear and the human mind which interprets the information are not capable
of hearing any identifiable differences. In fact, in most cases where
listeners
speak of a "digital sound" what they are actually hearing is not the result
of the A/D-conversion inaccuracy...it is actually created by engineers
trying to reconstruct the original sound to please modern listeners (in
their opinion)!
...stevenc