Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

"Chesney Christ" wrote in message
...
A certain Keith G, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

Heh heh! - I'm just not the 'type' am I? :-)

Asked the guy who runs the local computer supplies shop about these '£200
audiophile soundcards' when I was on a little project a month or three
ago

The computer supplies guys don't know anything about sound cards.
They'll even try to tell you that the £150 bells-and-whistle
SoundBlaster is the best card you can get, which is obviously wrong.
It's like asking a Renault dealer to sell you a high performance sports
car.


Are you kidding - you don't think they can make one?


The only way to do it is to go to a professional music store. Whether
you agree with his worldview or not, Arny has a good website,


No he doesn't.


and the
cards at the top of his league


"his league"??? Who gives a fiddler's **** about "*his* league"?????


can be found on Ebay for fairly
reasonable money.


I don't do eBay (either way) but thanks anyway.

Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

"Keith G" wrote in message


"Chesney Christ" wrote in message
...

The only way to do it is to go to a professional music store. Whether
you agree with his worldview or not, Arny has a good website,

No he doesn't.

Still bitter, eh Keith?

and the
cards at the top of his league

"his league"??? Who gives a fiddler's **** about "*his* league"?????

40,000 different people a month, or more.

Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

A certain Keith G, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

The computer supplies guys don't know anything about sound cards.
They'll even try to tell you that the £150 bells-and-whistle
SoundBlaster is the best card you can get, which is obviously wrong.
It's like asking a Renault dealer to sell you a high performance sports
car.

Are you kidding - you don't think they can make one?

Whatever it is, it won't exactly be a Ferrari. Not that I have anything
against Renault.

and the
cards at the top of his league

"his league"??? Who gives a fiddler's **** about "*his* league"?????

You and Arny obviously have a bit of history. Feel free to point to an
alternative site which rates high-end PC soundcards.

--

"Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny." - cnn.com

Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 21:21:57 +0100, Chesney Christ
wrote:

A certain Keith G, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

Heh heh! - I'm just not the 'type' am I? :-)

Asked the guy who runs the local computer supplies shop about these '£200
audiophile soundcards' when I was on a little project a month or three ago

The computer supplies guys don't know anything about sound cards.
They'll even try to tell you that the £150 bells-and-whistle
SoundBlaster is the best card you can get, which is obviously wrong.
It's like asking a Renault dealer to sell you a high performance sports
car.

Um, have you read this week's Autocar? Indeed, have you not heard of
the Spider, or the GTA?

The only way to do it is to go to a professional music store. Whether
you agree with his worldview or not, Arny has a good website, and the
cards at the top of his league can be found on Ebay for fairly
reasonable money.

Indeed so.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 23:06:54 +0100, "Keith G"
wrote:

The only way to do it is to go to a professional music store. Whether
you agree with his worldview or not, Arny has a good website,


No he doesn't.

He does if you want to know what are the best soundcards.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 00:46:38 +0100, Chesney Christ
wrote:

A certain Keith G, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

The computer supplies guys don't know anything about sound cards.
They'll even try to tell you that the £150 bells-and-whistle
SoundBlaster is the best card you can get, which is obviously wrong.
It's like asking a Renault dealer to sell you a high performance sports
car.

Are you kidding - you don't think they can make one?

Whatever it is, it won't exactly be a Ferrari. Not that I have anything
against Renault.

Ever driven a 348? Yeeuch.............

and the
cards at the top of his league

"his league"??? Who gives a fiddler's **** about "*his* league"?????

You and Arny obviously have a bit of history. Feel free to point to an
alternative site which rates high-end PC soundcards.

Quite so. Whatever one my think odf his personal style, Arny provides
a ton of excellent information on ghis website. Heck, it was even
recommended by Arcam!!

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 20:45:48 +0100, Jim H
wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 18:47:33 +0100, Keith G wrote:

Given that my own preferences are for vinyl and that I think all
'digital'
music is crap compared with it, I am, nevertheless, interested to know
why
exactly is it that SACDs (stereo) sound so much better than the
equivalent
CDs?

Anyone who says they don't is lying (if only to themselves) - sticks out
like a chapel hatpeg....


I am yet to hear a SACD, but the reason they supposedly sound better is a
higher sample frequency, bringing the digital waveform closer to the
analogue ideal.

Shame then, that the sampling rate of CD is *more* than adequate to
encompass anything you'll find on vinyl.................

Its similar in some ways to having an raster image use more
pixels.

No, it's not. That would be the bit depth.

There is also a simpler method of encoding, although what effect
this has on the sound I'm not sure.

No, Sony screwed that up too, and had to abandon the original 1-bit
DSD for professional use.

That's not to say analogue is ideal, there's a trade off between analogue
accuracy and digital precision.

What's that supposed to mean? What's the difference beteween
'accuracy' and 'precision'?
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 01:09:00 +0100, Paul Dormer
wrote:

"Keith G" wrote:

Given that my own preferences are for vinyl and that I think all 'digital'
music is crap compared with it, I am, nevertheless, interested to know why
exactly is it that SACDs (stereo) sound so much better than the equivalent
CDs?


SACD pits are so small and finely resolved they are capable of
capturing the equivalent of six libraries of information, each.

You're thinking of DVD-A. SACD is pretty much the same as CD.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 14:28:24 +0100, Jim H
wrote:

That's not to say analogue is ideal, there's a trade off between
analogue accuracy and digital precision.

I'm afraid those are only words without an explanation.

Expanation:

Contrary to popular belief the terms 'acuracy' and 'precision' are not
synonyms.

A digital signal may have perfect pcecision, that is, what is
transmitted/pressed is exactly what arrives. however that signal is only
accurate to a certain degree. In the example of cd audio, an atomic sound
is the nearest of about 65,000 options for that 1/44,000 of a second.

Yes, that's about right.

Now, for an analogue signal, the accuracy is perfect, the sound isn't said
to be 'to the nearest x'.

No, that's absolutely wrong. The accuracy is *very* far from
'perfect', being constrained by bandwidth in one direction, and
dynamic range in the other, such that it's only accurate to the same
sort of uncertainty level as the noise floor. In the case of vinyl,
those figures are the equivalent of around 40k sampling rate and 10-12
bits resolution.

I suppose you could argue that a record is 'to
the nearest atom of vinyl' but accuracy on that level is pretty much
irrelevent because an analogue copy is never totally precise - what is
transmitted or pressed will not be exactly the same as the original and
with every copy the errors get worse.

Actually, that would be the many hundreds of molecules contacted by
the stylus profile, not just one atom.

Digital = perfect precision, limited accuracy.
Analogue = limited precision, perfect accuracy.

That's the tradeoff!

Er no, that's bunkum..................
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Why do SACDs sound better? (Soft troll)
 

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 20:45:48 +0100, Jim H
wrote:

That's not to say analogue is ideal, there's a trade off between analogue
accuracy and digital precision.


What's that supposed to mean? What's the difference beteween
'accuracy' and 'precision'?


Look at anyone's digital wris****ch.
Precision means that it will show you the time to the second.
Accuracy means that it is about a minute fast.

Look at my Patek Philippe.
Accuracy means that it is spot on.
Precision means that you can't read the time to within a minute or so.

HTH

Roger.