Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Rob wrote:
By what means does adding randomly-selected noise and distortion to a
recording improve its ability to create an illusion of reality?


The thing is - and I know audio 'purists' don't hold with this - tone
controls have been a round for a long time and do just that. Think about
a loudness control - love or loathe, its job is to create that illusion
by (as you seem to enjoy putting it) distortion.

I doubt altering the frequency response is what is meant by adding 'random
noise and distortion'. Although filtering the HF was often used in an
attempt to reduce the 2nd harmonic from vinyl. Before of course some
people came to like that as being 'natural'.


They're both routes to the same thing - creating a pleasing and perhaps
realistic and natural sound. Arny's just using 'distortion' as a
catch-all pejorative. I'm using the word in a different way.

I think that's what you don't follow in this discussion - you're not
*creating* anything - it's laways going to be an approximate copy.

You can get what amounts to an exact copy of an audio signal with good
digital. You can't with analogue. Especially vinyl.


Is an exact copy of an audio signal equivalent to the sound you might
expect and/or enjoy? And that's without getting in to the whole
speaker/room effect thing.

Rob