I can't bring myself to allocate over a gigabyte of storage space to a single-CD album. 24-bit 96kHz albums seem to average just under a gigabyte which suits me fine. This aspect, and the fact I was willing to convert my 24-bit 192kHz files to 24-bit 96kHz, allowed me to change my first 24-bit 192kHz network audio player for one which has a maximum 24-bit 96kHz playback. Truth be told, until participating in this thread, I would've quite happily converted my files to 16-bit 48kHz if I had to and not thought any more about it.

I'd much rather a good quality production and master of a 24-bit 96kHz album, than a 24-bit 192kHz album of poor quality. Shame someone decided it was easier to sell numbers than improved quality. I would've preferred the better quality no matter what numbers were associated with the file. Maybe that's a giveaway when thinking about the relevant skills within the industry. To fall back on the public's lack of knowledge seems a bit defeatist and insecure to me. That said, I guess we do tend to believe anything we're told and spend our money accordingly.

Fortunately, I have such appalling taste in music none of this probably matters a great deal anyway.

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 20:56:38 +0200, John R Leddy wrote:

'Jim Lesurf[_2_ Wrote:
;94195']FWIW I've never felt that going as far as 192k/24 made much
sense for home replay. 96k/24 seems a convenient 'compromise' to me
given the use of decent replay equipment. But YMMV.

It is perhaps worth pointing out to people that if you covert to flac
you will usually find that the resulting 96k/24 file is *not* twice as
big as a 48k/24 flac from the same source.

In general there isn't a lot in the ultrasonic region, and the flac
compression can take advantage of this.

The main difference tends to be that there are more bits devoted to
'noise' in 24bit than 16bit. And flac will faithfully keep those
details.
I can't bring myself to allocate over a gigabyte of storage space to a
single-CD album. 24-bit 96kHz albums seem to average just under a
gigabyte which suits me fine. This aspect, and the fact I was willing to
convert my 24-bit 192kHz files to 24-bit 96kHz, allowed me to change my
first 24-bit 192kHz network audio player for one which has a maximum
24-bit 96kHz playback. Truth be told, until participating in this
thread, I would've quite happily converted my files to 16-bit 48kHz if I
had to and not thought any more about it.

I'd much rather a good quality production and master of a 24-bit 96kHz
album, than a 24-bit 192kHz album of poor quality. Shame someone decided
it was easier to sell numbers than improved quality. I would've
preferred the better quality no matter what numbers were associated with
the file. Maybe that's a giveaway when thinking about the relevant
skills within the industry. To fall back on the public's lack of
knowledge seems a bit defeatist and insecure to me. That said, I guess
we do tend to believe anything we're told and spend our money
accordingly.

Fortunately, I have such appalling taste in music none of this probably
matters a great deal anyway.

I've been following this discussion with a growing dismay as phrases
such as "96k/24 seems a convenient 'compromise' to me" started to rear
their ugly heads.

A guy by the name of Monty Montgomery presented a couple of very
interesting videos that nicely relate to the whole business of digital
audio (and video). The links to those videos can be found on this page:

http://xiph.org/video/

If you haven't already viewed them, I would say they are *well* worth
the time spent in order to learn some basic truths of digital audio
processing.

In episode 2: "Digital Show & Tell" he refers to an article he'd written
entitled, "24/192 music downloads are very silly indeed" where the
feedback he got suggested the need for this "Digital Show & Tell" video.

I'd never read the article before but intrigued, I paused the video so I
could *hand* type "24/192 music downloads are very silly indeed" into the
search box since there was no convenient link offered anywhere. This took
me to:

http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

I read about halfway through to the key facts - I'll read the rest later
on- where he states unequivocally that 16 bit 44.1 CD audio far exceeds
the capabilities of even the most superhuman of hearing abilities. IOW,
once you're dealing with a finalised music performance properly committed
to CD, that's it as far as 'perfection' is concerned.

The only way that a 24/96 "Hi Definition" version is going to sound any
better is if the final mixdown processing used to create the CD had been
comprehensively buggered up. Sadly, for most popular music and 'digital
re-masterings' of analogue studio recordings and professional multi-track
recordings of live performances, the 'buggering up' is the result of
deliberate vandalism, often in the name of 'winning the loudness wars'.

Once you've watched the videos and/or read the article, you can start
freeing up disk space with a clear conscience. :-)

--
Johnny B Good

On 16/07/2015 04:22, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 20:56:38 +0200, John R Leddy wrote:

'Jim Lesurf[_2_ Wrote:
;94195']FWIW I've never felt that going as far as 192k/24 made much
sense for home replay. 96k/24 seems a convenient 'compromise' to me
given the use of decent replay equipment. But YMMV.

It is perhaps worth pointing out to people that if you covert to flac
you will usually find that the resulting 96k/24 file is *not* twice as
big as a 48k/24 flac from the same source.

In general there isn't a lot in the ultrasonic region, and the flac
compression can take advantage of this.

The main difference tends to be that there are more bits devoted to
'noise' in 24bit than 16bit. And flac will faithfully keep those
details.
I can't bring myself to allocate over a gigabyte of storage space to a
single-CD album. 24-bit 96kHz albums seem to average just under a
gigabyte which suits me fine. This aspect, and the fact I was willing to
convert my 24-bit 192kHz files to 24-bit 96kHz, allowed me to change my
first 24-bit 192kHz network audio player for one which has a maximum
24-bit 96kHz playback. Truth be told, until participating in this
thread, I would've quite happily converted my files to 16-bit 48kHz if I
had to and not thought any more about it.

I'd much rather a good quality production and master of a 24-bit 96kHz
album, than a 24-bit 192kHz album of poor quality. Shame someone decided
it was easier to sell numbers than improved quality. I would've
preferred the better quality no matter what numbers were associated with
the file. Maybe that's a giveaway when thinking about the relevant
skills within the industry. To fall back on the public's lack of
knowledge seems a bit defeatist and insecure to me. That said, I guess
we do tend to believe anything we're told and spend our money
accordingly.

Fortunately, I have such appalling taste in music none of this probably
matters a great deal anyway.

I've been following this discussion with a growing dismay as phrases
such as "96k/24 seems a convenient 'compromise' to me" started to rear
their ugly heads.

A guy by the name of Monty Montgomery presented a couple of very
interesting videos that nicely relate to the whole business of digital
audio (and video). The links to those videos can be found on this page:

http://xiph.org/video/

If you haven't already viewed them, I would say they are *well* worth
the time spent in order to learn some basic truths of digital audio
processing.

In episode 2: "Digital Show & Tell" he refers to an article he'd written
entitled, "24/192 music downloads are very silly indeed" where the
feedback he got suggested the need for this "Digital Show & Tell" video.

I'd never read the article before but intrigued, I paused the video so I
could *hand* type "24/192 music downloads are very silly indeed" into the
search box since there was no convenient link offered anywhere. This took
me to:

http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

I read about halfway through to the key facts - I'll read the rest later
on- where he states unequivocally that 16 bit 44.1 CD audio far exceeds
the capabilities of even the most superhuman of hearing abilities. IOW,
once you're dealing with a finalised music performance properly committed
to CD, that's it as far as 'perfection' is concerned.


I'm afraid that just reads like selective and biased, unevidenced and
unreferenced puff and hyperbole to me. Fine if that's the sort of thing
you like to read.

The only way that a 24/96 "Hi Definition" version is going to sound any
better is if the final mixdown processing used to create the CD had been
comprehensively buggered up.

Well, yes, but are you suggesting that regardless of the pre-mix source?
Live, for example?

Sadly, for most popular music and 'digital
re-masterings' of analogue studio recordings and professional multi-track
recordings of live performances, the 'buggering up' is the result of
deliberate vandalism, often in the name of 'winning the loudness wars'.

Once you've watched the videos and/or read the article, you can start
freeing up disk space with a clear conscience. :-)


I don't think you can QED just yet ;-)

The point of interest for me (which I think was the thrust of this part
of the thread?) is: what to do with live and (other) non-digital source
material.


--
Cheers, Rob

In article , RJH
wrote:

The point of interest for me (which I think was the thrust of this part
of the thread?) is: what to do with live and (other) non-digital source
material.

For me at home I take for granted that when I make playing/cleanup digital
transfers of old LPs I do this as 96k/24 with as much care as I can.

But as I've said, I'm happy enough with *well made* audio CDs and R3 320k
aac.

I'd love the BBC to stream radio as 48k/24 flac, though. 8-] Their internal
standard is 48k/24. Maybe one day, if they can survive this nasty
triumphalist government.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 08:44:47 +0100, RJH wrote:

On 16/07/2015 04:22, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 20:56:38 +0200, John R Leddy wrote:

'Jim Lesurf[_2_ Wrote:
;94195']FWIW I've never felt that going as far as 192k/24 made much
sense for home replay. 96k/24 seems a convenient 'compromise' to me
given the use of decent replay equipment. But YMMV.

It is perhaps worth pointing out to people that if you covert to flac
you will usually find that the resulting 96k/24 file is *not* twice
as big as a 48k/24 flac from the same source.

In general there isn't a lot in the ultrasonic region, and the flac
compression can take advantage of this.

The main difference tends to be that there are more bits devoted to
'noise' in 24bit than 16bit. And flac will faithfully keep those
details.
I can't bring myself to allocate over a gigabyte of storage space to a
single-CD album. 24-bit 96kHz albums seem to average just under a
gigabyte which suits me fine. This aspect, and the fact I was willing
to convert my 24-bit 192kHz files to 24-bit 96kHz, allowed me to
change my first 24-bit 192kHz network audio player for one which has a
maximum 24-bit 96kHz playback. Truth be told, until participating in
this thread, I would've quite happily converted my files to 16-bit
48kHz if I had to and not thought any more about it.

I'd much rather a good quality production and master of a 24-bit 96kHz
album, than a 24-bit 192kHz album of poor quality. Shame someone
decided it was easier to sell numbers than improved quality. I
would've preferred the better quality no matter what numbers were
associated with the file. Maybe that's a giveaway when thinking about
the relevant skills within the industry. To fall back on the public's
lack of knowledge seems a bit defeatist and insecure to me. That said,
I guess we do tend to believe anything we're told and spend our money
accordingly.

Fortunately, I have such appalling taste in music none of this
probably matters a great deal anyway.

I've been following this discussion with a growing dismay as phrases
such as "96k/24 seems a convenient 'compromise' to me" started to rear
their ugly heads.

A guy by the name of Monty Montgomery presented a couple of very
interesting videos that nicely relate to the whole business of digital
audio (and video). The links to those videos can be found on this page:

http://xiph.org/video/

If you haven't already viewed them, I would say they are *well* worth
the time spent in order to learn some basic truths of digital audio
processing.

In episode 2: "Digital Show & Tell" he refers to an article he'd
written
entitled, "24/192 music downloads are very silly indeed" where the
feedback he got suggested the need for this "Digital Show & Tell"
video.

I'd never read the article before but intrigued, I paused the video
so I
could *hand* type "24/192 music downloads are very silly indeed" into
the search box since there was no convenient link offered anywhere.
This took me to:

http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

I read about halfway through to the key facts - I'll read the rest
later
on- where he states unequivocally that 16 bit 44.1 CD audio far exceeds
the capabilities of even the most superhuman of hearing abilities. IOW,
once you're dealing with a finalised music performance properly
committed to CD, that's it as far as 'perfection' is concerned.


I'm afraid that just reads like selective and biased, unevidenced and
unreferenced puff and hyperbole to me. Fine if that's the sort of thing
you like to read.

I'm not sure how you managed to come to that conclusion. :-(


The only way that a 24/96 "Hi Definition" version is going to sound
any
better is if the final mixdown processing used to create the CD had
been comprehensively buggered up.

Well, yes, but are you suggesting that regardless of the pre-mix source?
Live, for example?

I believe I did include the phrase "and professional multi-track
recordings of live performances". Yes, it's from the bit of my reply you
quoted below. :-)

Sadly, for most popular music and 'digital
re-masterings' of analogue studio recordings and professional
multi-track recordings of live performances, the 'buggering up' is the
result of deliberate vandalism, often in the name of 'winning the
loudness wars'.

Once you've watched the videos and/or read the article, you can start
freeing up disk space with a clear conscience. :-)


I don't think you can QED just yet ;-)

The point of interest for me (which I think was the thrust of this part
of the thread?) is: what to do with live and (other) non-digital source
material.

In short, "The best possible job (of capturing the sound) that you
can.". After that, you process the resulting audio mix (32 bit floating
point/48 or 96 Kilo samples per second) to recreate a reasonable
facsimile of what an ideally placed listener would have experienced at
the live event in question (including the removal of any nasty transients
or noises that may have been introduced by the recording equipment itself
- excluding, of course, such transients as a knocked over music stand
which can add to the 'atmosphere' of *that* particular performance).

The point he was making was that once the final mix was down mixed and
normalised to fit within the dynamic range of the CD format (with shaped
dithering this is a massive 120dB, comfortably matching the widest limits
between the sensitivity and pain thresholds, marked in red, of human
hearing demonstrated by the Fletcher-Munson equal loudness curve plots)
you had every aspect of the performance you could usefully present (and
then some!) nicely encapsulated by the CD standard.

As a 'final product' of any work of music or other audio event, it more
than amply serves its purpose (unlike vinyl records or high quality reel
to reel tapes). The only caveat being that you're placing your trust in
the professionals involved in the recording and sound processing required
produce a good quality Audio CD.

The only remaining issue, pointed out by Jim, is the question of the
quality of the DACs used to effect a flawless replay of the audio so
carefully encoded into a Music CD. On a technical level at least, this is
a problem that was solved over two decades ago using oversampling
techniques to neatly sidestep both the demands for a 'brickwall' analogue
filter and to push the aliasing/digital artefact noise an octave or more
beyond the 22.05KHz region.

In the very early days, it was extremely expensive to make 16 bit DACs
that had an acceptable enough monotonicity[1] for mass consumer replay
products. The situation today is very much better in this regard.

The solution to the problem of storage and distribution of musical
performances to a level comfortably exceeding the most exacting of
requirements of Hi-Fi audio was developed over 35 years ago with the
advent of the Compact Disc (or rather the linear 16 bit stereo PCM
digital format that was at the heart of the process).

Today, we're no longer limited to optical disc media for the storage of
such data, computer disk drives and portable flash media now provide
viable alternatives by which to store, copy ad infinitum and distribute
audio files. 24 bit 96K samples per second 'Super Audio' adds nothing
usable to the basic 16 bit 44.1 Kilo samples per second CD format as far
as final play out of a 'produced' musical performance is concerned.


[1] ie. the plot of successively increasing binary values of voltage
counting in an unbroken sequence from lowest to highest would show an
unwanted discontinuity in the analogue voltage output plot as the higher
order bits changed state in response to all of the preceding LSBs.

For example, upon the LSBs reaching the value of 1 before clocking over
to all zeros to generate a carry to set the next significant bit to 1 to
indicate a few millivolts larger voltage, the error in summing up the
weighted bit values could produce a voltage a few millivolts *less* or
more than intended. The greater the number of bits used to encode/decode,
the greater the required precision of the laser trimmed resistor network
used in the DAC to accurately translate binary word values into
corresponding analogue voltage levels.

Philips realised that they could use a 4 times oversampling technique
using cheaper yet higher precision 14 bit DACs to achieve exactly the
same dynamic range performance of a conventional 16 bit DAC using a times
one sampling rate.

Not only where they able to solve the 'monotonicity' issue at a stroke,
the oversampling technique also introduced two additional benefits. The
first being that the inevitable digital hash and aliasing products were
all pushed into the 88KHz part of the spectrum, well clear of the
problematic 22KHz region that had mandated the use of 'brickwall'
analogue filtering required of the primitive methods using expensive 16
bit DACs. The second benefit being that cheaper, less ripply analogue
filtering could be employed to protect the following analogue stages (and
the listener) from both digital artefacts and unwanted aliasing products.

Eventually, within a few short years, the manufacturing costs of high
quality 16 bit DACs fell to the point whereby 2 and 4 times oversampling
could be used to 'outdo' the Philips 4 times oversampled 14bit DAC
response to crappy 'straight sampled' 16 bit DAC based products.

The remaining issue with DACs was the analogue output stage clipping
that afflicted some of the earlier products due to inadequate voltage
rail provisioning derived from the "Join the dots" peak amplitude
calculations by some rather naive designers who didn't fully understand
the process of handling a bandwidth limited analogue signal encoded into
the digital domain.

The simple solution for these naive designers was to advise them that if
they were going to persist in a "Join the dots" view of the analogue
output stage requirements then they merely had to double the 'calculated'
minimum rail voltage by a factor of two to be safe.

I suppose there must be plenty of early kit out there with such (easily
remedied at the design stage) flaws in the hands of 'many an audiophile'
who believe their venerable CD player made by famously expensive
manufacturers (Marantz et al?) must be perfection personified since
digital audio recordings cannot possibly suffer the horrors of clipping,
not even as a result of a 'cut and dried' replay process that, in
principle at least, can only be totally perfect.

Indeed there may be some, who may well have (based on auditioning tests)
chosen a CD player flawed by a clippy DAC over one with a non-clipping DAC
because 'it sounded brighter' or 'had more clarity'.

One would hope by now that the more reputable manufacturers of CD
players who subscribe to the best practices of "High Fidelity" have long
since 'put this one to bed', removing any final (misplaced) criticisms of
the, now venerable, CDDA format.


--
Johnny B Good

In article , Johnny B Good
wrote:


The point he was making was that once the final mix was down mixed and
normalised to fit within the dynamic range of the CD format (with shaped
dithering this is a massive 120dB,

Erm. It is misleading to call that the 'dynamic range'.

The basic dynamic range is more like 90 to 96 dB depending on the choice of
dither, etc. But because of the nature of human hearing the perceived range
can be larger, depending on a lot of details.

What is correct is that - correctly dithered/noise shaped - the system
allows the recording and detection on replay of signal patterns well below
-96dBFS. However that comes with a lot of "provided that..." qualifiers.
Simply stating the above value without explaining that can be very
misleading and confuse people.

The "120dB" figure tends to stem from people quoting against
power-frequency spectra that divide the entire range into enough bins that
each individual frequency bin only has an amount of noise/dither that is at
-120dBFS. But the human isn't only hearing a single bin. What the human
*is* doing is employing complex signal processing in their brain/ear to
'pattern recognise' so the 'recognised' waveforms sound clearer above
the noise.


comfortably matching the widest limits between the sensitivity and pain
thresholds, marked in red, of human hearing demonstrated by the
Fletcher-Munson equal loudness curve plots) you had every aspect of the
performance you could usefully present (and then some!) nicely
encapsulated by the CD standard.

Again, the FM curves only show the perceived loudness *for isolated single
sustained tones*. Human hearing reacts differently when that isn't the
*total* input. The curves are also averages, so your hearing or mine might
be markedly different.



The only remaining issue, pointed out by Jim, is the question of the
quality of the DACs used to effect a flawless replay of the audio so
carefully encoded into a Music CD. On a technical level at least, this
is a problem that was solved over two decades ago using oversampling
techniques to neatly sidestep both the demands for a 'brickwall'
analogue filter and to push the aliasing/digital artefact noise an
octave or more beyond the 22.05KHz region.

In principle, yes. In practice people still use flawed ADCs, DACs, and
signal processing. This sometimes shows up when the results are analysed.
e..g the recent Verdi Requiem cover CD from BBC Music Magazine. You might
assume these problems ceased decades ago, but alas, real life isn't so
simple. :-/

[snip other examples of how our understanding has developed, but alas not
everyone may have kept up.]


One would hope by now that the more reputable manufacturers of CD
players who subscribe to the best practices of "High Fidelity" have long
since 'put this one to bed', removing any final (misplaced) criticisms
of the, now venerable, CDDA format.

In practice some makers of replay equipment and CDs have dealt with these
issues. But not every one has, in every case.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Johnny B Good wrote:


Philips realised that they could use a 4 times oversampling technique
using cheaper yet higher precision 14 bit DACs to achieve exactly the
same dynamic range performance of a conventional 16 bit DAC using a times
one sampling rate.

** Philips/Marantz used a pair of 14bit, TDA1540 DACs in a few early CD players - see:

http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/...tda%201540.pdf

To make one of the above convert all the bits on a CD, each 16bit sample was replaced with 4 sequential 14 bit samples with values modulated by a digital filter algorithm. Averaging the result recreated any of the otherwise 4 missing values that a 16bit DCA would normally output.

The same algorithm also included a steep LP filter which had the interesting effect of producing pre and post ringing on each step transition.

It worked well enough and some of the noise was pushed out of the audio band - but the specified THD was rather higher than with good 16 bit DACs as used in the Sony machines of the same era.


Not only where they able to solve the 'monotonicity' issue at a stroke,
the oversampling technique also introduced two additional benefits. The
first being that the inevitable digital hash and aliasing products were
all pushed into the 88KHz part of the spectrum, well clear of the
problematic 22KHz region that had mandated the use of 'brickwall'
analogue filtering required of the primitive methods using expensive 16
bit DACs. The second benefit being that cheaper, less ripply analogue
filtering could be employed to protect the following analogue stages (and
the listener) from both digital artefacts and unwanted aliasing products.

** In fact, CD players using TDA1540 DACs usually had high levels of supersonic hash at the output - viewed on a scope, this amounted to 20 or 30mV rms whenever a CD was playing. This hash defeated most reviewers and others attempts to verify the s/n ratio and THD figures claimed by Philips.

Many early players like the Sony CDP101 included ceramic filter assemblies with 100dB/oct roll off slopes that removed all signs of such hash.



The remaining issue with DACs was the analogue output stage clipping
that afflicted some of the earlier products due to inadequate voltage
rail provisioning derived from the "Join the dots" peak amplitude
calculations by some rather naive designers who didn't fully understand
the process of handling a bandwidth limited analogue signal encoded into
the digital domain.

** Not real sure what you are on about here, but the maximum signal level possible from a CD player is 2Vrms or 2.83V peak. Given that most players have dual 12 or 15 volt supplies for the op-amps, there is no such issue.



.... Phil

In article , Phil
Allison wrote:
** In fact, CD players using TDA1540 DACs usually had high levels of
supersonic hash at the output - viewed on a scope, this amounted to 20
or 30mV rms whenever a CD was playing. This hash defeated most reviewers
and others attempts to verify the s/n ratio and THD figures claimed by
Philips.

I'd echo with that. I used a '1st generation' Marantz player with the same
Philips 14bit x 4 chipset. I added a Toko analogue low pass filter to its
output. This limited the bandwidth to about 19kHz, but reduced the hash. I
felt it sounded better as a result. Used it happily for about a decade.

The filter was a design that used to be made and sold in quantity for use
in the Yamaha-style FM tuners that had active 19kHz pilot tone nulling. So
could use a wider filter to keep a more uniform response up to about 15kHz
than the filters which had to remove the pilot.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On Fri, 17 Jul 2015 23:45:46 -0700, Phil Allison wrote:

Johnny B Good wrote:

====snip====

The remaining issue with DACs was the analogue output stage clipping
that afflicted some of the earlier products due to inadequate voltage
rail provisioning derived from the "Join the dots" peak amplitude
calculations by some rather naive designers who didn't fully understand
the process of handling a bandwidth limited analogue signal encoded
into the digital domain.

** Not real sure what you are on about here, but the maximum signal
level possible from a CD player is 2Vrms or 2.83V peak. Given that most
players have dual 12 or 15 volt supplies for the op-amps, there is no
such issue.


The "Join the dots" approach to deciding the clipping headroom required
in the DAC stages of *some* models of CD players would normally have
sufficed with most music material. The trouble only really became evident
as a result of the "Loudness Wars" techniques where the digital
processing permitted 'soft limiting' to be taken to such an extreme as to
be just shy of 'clipping'.

It was the resulting steep leading transients on 'soft limited'
waveforms that caught out the marginally sufficient of clipping headroom
based DAC/ output buffer amp designs.

In fact this deficiency in some models of CD player only became evident
as a result of the research into the undesired effects of such dynamic
range compression being taken to extremes by the perpetrators of the
"Loudness War".

Unfortunately, I don't seem to have the article(s) in question
bookmarked to offer as a citation and googling "Loudness War" results in
more than enough hits to choke a Blue Whale to death on if each hit
represented just a single minnow's worth of protein.

--
Johnny B Good

In article:

Johnny B Good says...

Unfortunately, I don't seem to have the article(s) in question

Possibly not what you were thinking of, but an interesting article
about digital headroom.

http://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/news...dio-goes-to-11


--
Ken O'Meara

List of UK hi-fi & audio dealers:
http://unsteadyken.esy.es/