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Path: utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!herbie
From: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong, Computing Services)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Sheffield CDs and why they sound bad
Message-ID: <493@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Oct-84 19:28:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.493
Posted: Wed Oct 10 19:28:26 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Oct-84 06:57:02 EDT
References: <460@watdcsu.UUCP> <46@vice.UUCP>, <176@mouton.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 32

Which is all true, but remember that quantization noise is like IM 
distortion, it is audible at levels that harmonic distortion is not
audible at all.  I was attempting to point out that there is more
to the sound of "digital" that meets the ear.  For all intents and
purposes, dithering the digital signal itself removes all the problems
with quantization noise by randomizing the components of the noise.

As for dynamic range offered by a 16-bit linear system being inadequate,
it has nothing to do with the continuous output power.  One can
easily generate a pulse of about 100uS that can require
thousands of watts to reproduce accurately, and yet not
sound very loud compared to the threshold of pain.  Imagine a bolt of
lightning striking about 500m away.  It has a peak SPL somewhere
around 140+dB.  You aren't immediately deafened and you don't fall to
the ground in pain because the pulse didn't last long enough to transmit
significant energy to your eardrum.  The oft-quoted SPL's for pain is with
a signal that is relatively long-lived by comparison, say one or two
seconds.  Bob Carver has recognized this and has made his amplifiers to
have tremendous reserve power, but only for the short time it is really
needed.  It works because music is, by nature, transient.  He has also
observed that, if it were practical to do so, an amplifer capable of peak
power more than 2000W/ch for about a mS is needed for accurate peak
reproduction with typical speaker efficiencies.  Make of it what you will.


Herb...
Once a hack, always a hack...

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