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From: wjm@whuxk.UUCP (MITCHELL)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Spencer's comments about Digital and the Audiophile
Message-ID: <336@whuxk.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Nov-83 10:28:15 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxk.336
Posted: Tue Nov 29 10:28:15 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Nov-83 04:17:45 EST
Lines: 27

In answer to Spencer's questions:
1. Fortunately or unfortunately, I can hear those (BLEEPED) ultrasonic alarms
and try not to shop in stores that use them.  The only thing I buy from those
outfits is Excedrin to cure the headaches the alarms cause :-)
2. Several of the high-end Nak decks (like my 680ZX) go up to at least 22 KHz
(higher if you use the standard -20dB record levels with metal tape).
3. Now that I've answered the flame, let's look at this digital vs. analog
business.  As I said yesterday, I'm somewhat concerned about SOME digital
systems with their 22.05 KHz (44.1 KBit sample rate) cut-off frequency.
I'm NOT knocking digital recording itself - some of the Telarc and Delos
digitally mastered LP's are among the best LP's I've heard and I suspect the
CD versions sound even better.
However, there is (unfortunately) a fair amount of digital garbage out there
(put out by the same people who put out garbage analog recordings).  It appears
that digital recording is much less tolerant of the sloppy recording techniques
used by some large record companies (especially multi-miking) and that the
best digital recordings made so far use much simpler mike setups (like Telarc's
two microphone technique).
"Audio" magazine's reviews have done a good job of separating the CD sheep from
the goats and the real dogs.
4.  One major advantage of CD's is their scrach and damage resistance which will
greatly improve sound quality for most people.  Also, they won't suffer from
the surface noise that LP's produced by several US record companies that don't
seem to care about quality do.
End of Flame
Bill Mitchell
whuxk!wjm