dincz Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 What? Like a CD? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Foxen Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 Usually like youtube. Or like someone who doesn't know how to operate as many parameters as are adjustable in digital realm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardHimself Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 Usually it means something that has been badly encoded. I mean there is really no need to encode at 128 kB/s any more given the huge amounts of data storage offered by modern hard drives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Foxen Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 Inter sample clipping is another digital sounding giveaway that can happen. Explained reasonable well here: http://www.ttyc.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=53740&p=556884#p556882 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor J Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 Frequently it's heard being mouthed by someone's arse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dincz Posted June 13, 2012 Author Share Posted June 13, 2012 (edited) Just venting. Whenever I go looking for reviews of gear I come across this kind of fantasy/sci-fi pseudo-technical gibberish. I guess a 24 bit master sounds digital too. Badly recorded/processed analogue is just as bad. "It sounds like sh*t" is not equal to "It sounds digital". Edited June 13, 2012 by dincz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Foxen Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 Plenty of things can clip in analogue and still sound good though, gives a lot more wiggle room. Some stuff sounds better like that, tape saturation and such. Clipping digital will always sound bad. Less forgiving format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earbrass Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 "It sounds digital" - ie you can hear the quiet bits clearly instead of having to pick them out from amidst the analogue hiss and grunge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 (edited) 24bit audio has more 'wiggle room' than any analogue circuit short of a straight fat short piece of wire. There is [b][i]no[/i][/b] excuse for clipping in digital with 24 bit recording at all. I can record drums with more than 12dB of headroom at 24 bit, garanteeing no overs, no intersampling clipping, absolutel nothing However the sound of analogue is definite and real if we are talking about tape, then there is a definite and real sound to pushing tape a bit, the saturation and gentle compression that results is definitely really nice, especially on drums. Actully go over the top with it though, and it rapidly starts to sound no better than digital clipping. Edited June 13, 2012 by 51m0n Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 Digital is capable of wider frequency range than vinyl, cassette tape. Very high sample rate digital, it can be argued, has better frequncy response than large format tape too, although many people swear by that still due to the other things it gives (yes tape compression is really that nice). Using noise reduction systems a la Dolby even high end ones on multitracks, always sounded like arse to me.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 I think sometimes the human ear just lends itself to more forgiving sounds... Valves...for example.. might round off harsher sounds more naturally or blur them and the ear accepts that as 'better' or more pleasant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 I recall someone telling me an amp 'sounded too digital' recently. What they meant, although not really knowing how to explain it,was that it's flat response (that it is known for) sounded uncoloured and lacking in the peaks and troughs of boosted lows and scooped mids of other heavily EQ'd amplifiers, thus in comparison less exciting to the ear. Funnily it was a D-Class amplifier and one of my little pet-peeves is people calling them digital. Grr! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyfisher Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 [quote name='EdwardHimself' timestamp='1339591310' post='1691022'] Usually it means something that has been badly encoded. I mean there is really no need to encode at 128 kB/s any more given the huge amounts of data storage offered by modern hard drives. [/quote] . . . unless you want to minimise transmission bandwidth because some poor souls are still blighted by slow internet connections. Agree about the storage non-issue though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardHimself Posted June 13, 2012 Share Posted June 13, 2012 [quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1339595361' post='1691127'] . . . unless you want to minimise transmission bandwidth because some poor souls are still blighted by slow internet connections. Agree about the storage non-issue though. [/quote] Good point. Poor sods. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 [quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1339594635' post='1691107'] I think sometimes the human ear just lends itself to more forgiving sounds... Valves...for example.. might round off harsher sounds more naturally or blur them and the ear accepts that as 'better' or more pleasant. [/quote] Nice sounds are nice sounds. We all like nice sounds. Digital is nto by default a less nice sound, if digital is recorded to correctly then it is a way of capturing your nice sounds, it doesnt detract from them. Where I think a lot of the 'digital = harsh' thing comes from is that back when the switch over to digital was happening in big studios (ie very early 80's when the first digital tape machines were beginning to be used, by engineers thrilled that they werent damaging the the sound of the master just by overdubbing to it) the techniques used to capture the sounds were squarely aimed at recording analogue. Recording to tape has a very definite feel, and a sound, and the great recordings made to analogue used techniques that helped make up for shortcomings in tape, for instance they were often recorded over bright (trebly) so that you could then turn that down later, turning down hiss at the same time. Tape speed has a massive impact on the frequency response and sound of the final mix. If you record to digital with all the same techniques and philosphy as you did to tape (because, dammit thats how we have done it since 1950) then you end up with a fairly harsh and nasty sound. Add to this the sudden influx of 8 bit and 16 bit synths as opposed to all the older analogue gear and their very specific super dry sounds then you get a lot of records produced to CD (which no one really new how to master to best at that point) then you get a really really harsh sound. Nowadays I think digital as a recording medium running at at least 48KHz (preferrably 88KHz plus if you have the players/instuments/rooms/mics/preamps/converters/computer horsepower/monitoring chain to make it worth while) and 24bit with all people know about adding interesting colour with preamps and everything else adding 'warmth' or whatever you like before hitting converters absolutely clean is without doubt a methodology for getting a wider choice of final possible sounds than analogue to tape s. But analogue tape still has [i]that[/i] sound Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bremen Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 [quote name='dood' timestamp='1339595272' post='1691122'] Funnily it was a D-Class amplifier and one of my little pet-peeves is people calling them digital. Grr! [/quote] to be fair, they are 'digital' rather than analogue in that the output devices are always fully on or off, ie 1 or 0. Headphones branded as 'digital', though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 [quote name='bremen' timestamp='1339664008' post='1692074'] to be fair, they are 'digital' rather than analogue in that the output devices are always fully on or off, ie 1 or 0 [/quote] It can't quite work like that in terms of dealing with an analogue signal. If it were that straight forward, then the signal at the speaker would only ever be two levels. 0v or (for example) 10v to truly denote an output of 0 or 1 in the digital domain. The speaker would be either at it's resting point, or being pushed out in one direction statically, nothing in between. A digital amplifier would be more common place in a control system, such as one driving a stepper motor for example. It's output only ever needing to be fully on or fully off, possibly using some sort of mark-space ratio to control movement. Coming back to the audio amplifier, unless it involves some sort of DSP circuit, such as the preamplifier in the TC RH450, there is no analogue to digital conversion and thus the signal stays in the analogue domain. Effects units, such as those by Line 6 are digital as they rely wholly on A/D, DSP and D/A conversion. It's pretty safe to call them digital. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xilddx Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 [quote name='dood' timestamp='1339669037' post='1692219'] It can't quite work like that in terms of dealing with an analogue signal. If it were that straight forward, then the signal at the speaker would only ever be two levels. 0v or (for example) 10v to truly denote an output of 0 or 1 in the digital domain. The speaker would be either at it's resting point, or being pushed out in one direction statically, nothing in between. A digital amplifier would be more common place in a control system, such as one driving a stepper motor for example. It's output only ever needing to be fully on or fully off, possibly using some sort of mark-space ratio to control movement. Coming back to the audio amplifier, unless it involves some sort of DSP circuit, such as the preamplifier in the TC RH450, there is no analogue to digital conversion and thus the signal stays in the analogue domain. [b]Effects units, such as those by Line 6 are digital as they rely wholly on A/D, DSP and D/A conversion. It's pretty safe to call them digital.[/b] [/quote] But still no-one can tell the difference between those and analogue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lfalex v1.1 Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 If it sounds "too digital", try using a plectrum instead of your fingers.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commando Jack Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 [quote name='silddx' timestamp='1339673089' post='1692361'] But still no-one can tell the difference between those and analogue [/quote] I wonder if line6 rebranded one of their latest pedals as [i]the analogue version of...[/i] without changing a single thing how many people would say it sounded better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bremen Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 [quote name='dood' timestamp='1339669037' post='1692219'] It can't quite work like that in terms of dealing with an analogue signal. If it were that straight forward, then the signal at the speaker would only ever be two levels. 0v or (for example) 10v to truly denote an output of 0 or 1 in the digital domain. The speaker would be either at it's resting point, or being pushed out in one direction statically, nothing in between. A digital amplifier would be more common place in a control system, such as one driving a stepper motor for example. It's output only ever needing to be fully on or fully off, possibly using some sort of mark-space ratio to control movement. Coming back to the audio amplifier, unless it involves some sort of DSP circuit, such as the preamplifier in the TC RH450, there is no analogue to digital conversion and thus the signal stays in the analogue domain. Effects units, such as those by Line 6 are digital as they rely wholly on A/D, DSP and D/A conversion. It's pretty safe to call them digital. [/quote] Actually, the output as it appears on the output devices[b] is[/b] always either at 0 or rail voltage. It's the output filter choke, cable capacitance, the voice coil inductance and the cone inertia that integrates it and turns it back into an analogue signal. And yes it does use mark/space ratio, and so it does contain an analogue>digital converter of sorts, though not 'digital' as we generally use the term. But I'm splitting hares Here's how it's done: http://www.irf.com/technical-info/refdesigns/iraudamp7d.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 [quote name='bremen' timestamp='1339682237' post='1692616'] Actually, the output as it appears on the output devices[b] is[/b] always either at 0 or rail voltage. It's the output filter choke, cable capacitance, the voice coil inductance and the cone inertia that integrates it and turns it back into an analogue signal. And yes it does use mark/space ratio, and so it does contain an analogue>digital converter of sorts, though not 'digital' as we generally use the term. But I'm splitting hares Here's how it's done: http://www.irf.com/technical-info/refdesigns/iraudamp7d.pdf [/quote] Yup, certainly splitting hairs, that's for sure, but I do stand corrected with reference to the way that the input signal is used to 'modulate' a PWM carrier signal and to quote from another reference 'this signal is used to drive the output devices'. Sure there's digital aspects but as you say, not digital as we generally use the term. In a similar analogy, it looks like a 'kettle lead' but it's not. It's all in the details! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bremen Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 [quote name='dood' timestamp='1339684072' post='1692663'] Yup, certainly splitting hairs, that's for sure, but I do stand corrected with reference to the way that the input signal is used to 'modulate' a PWM carrier signal and to quote from another reference 'this signal is used to drive the output devices'. Sure there's digital aspects but as you say, not digital as we generally use the term. In a similar analogy, it looks like a 'kettle lead' but it's not. It's all in the details! [/quote] When I build my digital amplifier, it's going to have one of these for a power connector: http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/6343/cimg0088ug8.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 Awww Bremen! You took me right back to when I was a kid! I remember our old kettle we used to have and that big ole connector!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardHimself Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 [quote name='bremen' timestamp='1339682237' post='1692616'] Actually, the output as it appears on the output devices[b] is[/b] always either at 0 or rail voltage. It's the output filter choke, cable capacitance, the voice coil inductance and the cone inertia that integrates it and turns it back into an analogue signal. [/quote] I don't want to sound as if I am trying to make out that you are wrong or anything, but surely if that were the case, power amp distortion wouldn't exist? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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