Comment by tomc1985
7 years ago
So vinyl has only about the equivalent of 10-14 bits of resolution (I don't remember the exact number I heard and it has been a while) and waveforms within our hearing range are far larger than what 192khz can potentially accomodate. The only use I've found for such high-resolution is audio is using it as base material for further effects processing... certain distortion units and whatnot that operate on a sample level can sometimes give nicer output when fed super hi-res audio
No, not at all. Vinyl has a wildly inconsistent noise level where rumble predominates, and people conflate this with bits of resolution. Vinyl's behavior is not easily pinned down relative to 'bits of resolution', because the noise floor is skewed so intensely towards low frequencies.
To say nothing of how generally available vinyl records (especially old ones) have wildly different rms/peak measurements than generally available CDs and digital recordings have. This is partly 'Loudness War' and partly vinyl's inability to even do the loudness war thing and cope with blocks of heavily limited audio in the first place.
So you'll end up with a record where you can play it, and the peaks are 30 freaking dB over the RMS and it sounds amazingly open and uncompressed… while there's also groove noise that is every bit as loud as the music is (admittedly annoying).
A person arguing the vinyl/CD dynamic range thing would make the claim that the record was equivalent to maybe TWO bit digital audio, or four bit. The most cursory listen to such a comparison will show how inadequate it is.
2-bit digital audio? Like only four total values of dynamic range total? 4-bit meaning only 16 total possible amplitudes? Is that even physically possible? ;)
I agree that the quality of the record -- AND its playback equipment -- among other physical factors will dramatically effect the numbers. My "10-14" quote only applies for ideal conditions: a newly-minted, unplayed disc on a high-quality preamp which together with the turntable and clean needles can produce a very low noise floor. Obviously I'm never going to get this with my dad's old Dead vinyl that he played to death, or with cheap needles, or with those crappy Crowley turntables at target....
Anecdotally, on my home system with clean records, I can make nearly-CD-quality recordings, with the differences only really apparent on flat studio monitors or a good Hi-Fi.
> 2-bit digital audio? Like only four total values of dynamic range total? 4-bit meaning only 16 total possible amplitudes? Is that even physically possible? ;)
Surprisingly, yes. With noise shaping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_shaping), very coarsely-quantized digital audio can produce high signal to noise ratios in the audible frequencies, via quantization techniques that push the error towards ultrasonic frequencies.
This doesn't violate information-theoretic limits because noise shaping requires very high sampling rates. The 1-bit Sony DSD format (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Stream_Digital) used a 2.8MHz sample rate.
In the case of vinyl, the effective sample rate is physically limited by the (linear) record speed divided by the vinyl grain size, and to a rough approximation the bit depth would be log of the maximum groove amplitude divided by the grain size. However, the analog cutting mechanism would greatly limit the opportunity for dithering and noise shaping -- for example a needle cannot cut a wave shorter than the tip size.
Plus, the groove on the outside is moving past the needle faster than the inside. The best sounding track on an album is going to be the first one.
Yes, but we are not talking about the mixing/mastering sample rate, but the distribution sample rate/resolution.
High resolution is absolutely important in some mixing scenarios to prevent pre-ringing and aliasing in the effects chain (distortion effects or otherwise). But once you have your hi-res master, there is zero advantage to distribute it that way. At that point, a 48Khz/16-bit FLAC is as good as it gets.