From: utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!utah-cs!utah-gr!thomas
Newsgroups: net.audio
Title: Re: Digital vs. analog
Article-I.D.: utah-gr.488
Posted: Sun Jul 18 23:45:58 1982
Received: Sat Jul 24 01:36:47 1982



raeh My thanks to Jim Johnson for the comments on the 'rise time/sampling
frequency' issue.  I can flame for quite a while about people who think
they can hear 50kHz (or even 100kHz), but I'll refrain.  (I often wonder
if all the AM radio signals pulsing through their ears drive them crazy.)

I want to emphatically second the point that any analog recording stage
in the process totally destroys the digital advantage (except its
archival quality, more on this later).  The Fleetwood Mac album "Tusk"
(pre-released in platinum, as explained in net.records) was recorded
analog (so they could play their 32-track mixdown games), then transferred
to a digital form for editting and (I think) mastering.  ON THE RECORD
you could hear the tape hiss from the single analog stage.  GROSS!!!

Why then, you say, did they do the digital stage at all?  The way I heard
the story is that the analog MASTER tapes for "Rumours" (these are the
originals, no way to recreate them) suffered during the process of producing
the 10 million copies they sold that the high end was severely depressed
in the later pressings!  They wanted the 'never changes no matter how
many times you play it or copy it' quality of the digital recording
medium for this reason.

To me, this is the overweening reason to go digital, even if there were no
other differences.  A copy of a digital recording is EXACTLY the same as
the original, no added noise or distortion.  Tom Stockham (a pioneer in
digital recording technology) often puts it this way:
	"Digital recording is to analog recording as books are to
	oral tradition."

Too much, I'll stop now.
=Spencer Thomas