From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!alice!rabbit!jj Newsgroups: net.audio Title: Re: Digital vs. analog Article-I.D.: rabbit.655 Posted: Wed Aug 4 11:43:16 1982 Received: Thu Aug 5 04:19:15 1982 References: tekcrd.364 hplabs.607 The different articles posted to the net about digital audio demonstrate a very interesting phenominon, i.e. that of complaining about (I lack the vocabulary to use the proper word here) various alleged problems that exist in digital audio, without either a correct statement of the so-called problem or a reasonable comparison with the performance of the current analog systems. The complaints about the phase response of digital systems are just plain WRONG! I can't attack the argument on technical grounds because it doesn't have any basis in either theory or practice. There have been hardware problems that have, in the past, led to such problems, but I do not consider that a problem with even a set of the most well known hardware constitutes a flaw in the concept. The problem alluded to in the article that this responds to alludes to phase problems. The correspondant does not mention whether this is a fixed, random, or time varying phase problem. Neither is the magnitude of the "phase problem" compared with the phase response of a tape deck such as that used to master a disc. To clear things up a bit.. If the "phase problem" is random, it will cause the system to have a total snr of about 10dB, regardless of the number of bits, etc. Since this is clearly not the case, I dispose of this case. If the phase is time varying (at a fast rate--) it will cause modulation effects that have similar results (no snr). If the phase varies very slowly, it has the same effect as a tape deck. If the phase is non-tracking, but fixed, it doesn't matter, since it's like a perfectly aligned tape deck with NO head skew.(Fat chance) I am becoming tired of defending digital audio systems against people who have complaints which are either wrong or taken out of context. Is there someone else out there with an interest in digital audio? If so, and your are interested in continuing the debate, mail me. If no, I will abandon this group to the uninformed digit haters who seem to think that any new technology should be perfect,and who disregard the performance of current systems in their haste to tear down a new idea. I guess that new ideas will always suffer from conservatives who fear that they will become obsolete. (Very likely, if they refuse to become informed.)