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“lossless, digital data” is a contradiction in terms if the source is analog. When converting analog to digital, resolution is finite.
by tempodox 8y ago
“lossless, digital data” is a contradiction in terms if the source is analog. When converting analog to digital, resolution is finite.
- LordHeini 8y agoNo it is not! As long as you stay in the frequency range of the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem the source signal is indeed lossless. There are a lot of misconceptions about this you should look it up. Don't forget, that a vinyl has frequency limits as well.
- sjwright 8y agoAll practical analog audio signals are band limited and have a nominal noise floor. Given those characteristics, the conversion from analog to digital can be considered mathematically lossless. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theorem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_the... Then you consider the fact that our own ears are band limited and dynamic range limited and you realise pretty quickly that CD audio at 16 bits 44100 Hz is, for all practical purposes, an objectively lossless audio format.
- throwaway2048 8y agoThe mistake is thinking the precision of analog sound is infinite.
- adrianmonk 8y agoIn this context, lossless refers only to what happens after the data is already digital. Some digital formats apply data compression the reverse of which doesn't recover the original bits exactly. Some digital formats (including CD) use no data compression or a form of compression that recreates exactly the same bits. It's similar to the difference between JPEG and PNG. There is a quality parameter when creating a JPEG because the decompressed image will not be exactly the same, but there is no such quality parameter for PNG because PNG will restore the exact value of every pixel.