4 ms·

Why is using a laser not real analog audio?

by mruts 7y ago

fragsworth 7y ago
Since "real" was in quotes, I assume they're talking about the change to sound quality that is caused by the physical touching of the devices. It's not necessarily more clear or better, it's just different, and that's the point of doing something so retro. But if you aren't actually doing that thing, it loses a lot of the psychological value. It's similar in some sense to the reasons why people go to see live concerts. The sound quality isn't better, it's just different, and feels "more real", although for concerts it is also helped by the fact that you're actually there.
- avip 7y ago
  Maybe true for rock concerts. Definitely false for classic or jazz live performances.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Which part is false? "Feels more real" or "sound quality isn't better"? I suspect you mean the latter, though with modern audio tech, well-mic'd and mastered recordings can easily sound ... if not better, then more intense, than live performances. Though there's nothing like seeing the music being performed live.
    - avip 7y ago
      Yes, excuse the ambiguity. To me a philharmonic concert sounds... very different than recorded audio. I'm confident I can double-blindly 100% tell the difference. And so can everyone else. This is one experiment I'd be happy to participate in.
      - OJFord 7y ago
        I don't even really listen to music and I could do that. And the obvious difference: live 'rock' etc. is still coming through speakers.
        wallflower 7y ago
        Steinway Lyngdorf > To demonstrate the veracity of Lyngdorf's "Is it real, or is it Memorex" claim, Birkelund invited the trio to begin performing. After playing for what felt like, at most, 30 seconds, the musicians began to fade out as the volume of a pre-recorded track of the same music was turned up. Although the much too short demo left many in the room a gasp at how remarkably close the live trio and tuned-to-the-room system sounded, Birkelund failed to mention that the Model D system was never silent. https://www.stereophile.com/content/steinway-lyngdorfs-elegant-unveiling https://www.stereophile.com/content/steinway-lyngdorfs-elega...
- stordoff 7y ago
  > The sound quality isn't better For some bands, I'd actually disagree with that. Both what they are playing is better, and their released material is compressed to hell and back[1], which seems to be less prevalent live (though far from gone). No doubt they _could_ do that recorded (anything you can do live you can match in a studio), but they _aren't_ doing. There's also the non-musical elements - there's a difference between just playing some music and putting on a show. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
  - kibibu 7y ago
    In a very concrete way, the inability to apply hard-clipped brick-wall limiting and extreme compression is why vinyl often does sound better than CD - the physics of the needle-in-groove mean that there are limits to the amplitudes you can try to encode without bouncing the damn thing out. So vinyl masters often (but not always) avoid the loudness war and have a wider dynamic range.
    - ScottBurson 7y ago
      Hmm, this seems to be a common idea, but I don't think it's true. As I said above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914699
      - kibibu 7y ago
        The problem isn't with the compression part per se, but rather with clipping. The two typically go hand in hand for modern needle-in-the-red CD masters.
- grawprog 7y ago
  >It's similar in some sense to the reasons why people go to see live concerts. The sound quality isn't better, it's just different, and feels "more real", although for concerts it is also helped by the fact that you're actually there As I don't have thousands of dollars worth of stage speakers, amplifiers and audio equipment, there's a very noticable difference in sound quality between live shows and recorded music, depending on the venue. You're also missing out a pretty big part of live shows, there's a difference between hearing a musician play a song live vs a recording. A recording is almost never one single take straight through and, depending on the artist, can be a fairly different rendition of the song. An example, last concert I went to was cypress hill, they had a different DJ with them that mixed their tunes up pretty differently so the performance was.nothing like listening to one of their albums.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I don't see how CDs, in the abstract, can really be different from records, in that, surely you could apply a suitable filter to a CD decoder to make the output sound exactly like a record. Especially given modern computing power. It's just that, I assume, people have chosen not to.
  - jcelerier 7y ago
    same reason even the best CRT emulation shaders on a 4k screen still don't look as nice as a SNES game in a good CRT TV
    - mrob 7y ago
      That's largely because no currently available 4K screen can replicate the decay curve of CRT phosphors. MicroLED screens could theoretically manage it.
anamexis 7y ago
I would guess (could be wrong) that the laser turntable involves some DSP and a DAC. Normal turntables have a very simple analog signal path, with the needle moving electromagnets which emit the signal.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  There's no reason they would have to be digital - Laserdisc was pure analog (until later discs added digital stereo sound)

Why is using a laser not real analog audio?

by mruts 7y ago

Why is using a laser not real analog audio?

Since "real" was in quotes, I assume they're talking about the change to sound quality that is caused by the physical touching of the devices. It's not necessarily more clear or better, it's just different, and that's the point of doing something so retro. But if you aren't actually doing that thing, it loses a lot of the psychological value. It's similar in some sense to the reasons why people go to see live concerts. The sound quality isn't better, it's just different, and feels "more real", although for concerts it is also helped by the fact that you're actually there.

avip 7y ago
Maybe true for rock concerts. Definitely false for classic or jazz live performances.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Which part is false? "Feels more real" or "sound quality isn't better"? I suspect you mean the latter, though with modern audio tech, well-mic'd and mastered recordings can easily sound ... if not better, then more intense, than live performances. Though there's nothing like seeing the music being performed live.
  - avip 7y ago
    Yes, excuse the ambiguity. To me a philharmonic concert sounds... very different than recorded audio. I'm confident I can double-blindly 100% tell the difference. And so can everyone else. This is one experiment I'd be happy to participate in.
    - OJFord 7y ago
      I don't even really listen to music and I could do that. And the obvious difference: live 'rock' etc. is still coming through speakers.
      - wallflower 7y ago
        Steinway Lyngdorf > To demonstrate the veracity of Lyngdorf's "Is it real, or is it Memorex" claim, Birkelund invited the trio to begin performing. After playing for what felt like, at most, 30 seconds, the musicians began to fade out as the volume of a pre-recorded track of the same music was turned up. Although the much too short demo left many in the room a gasp at how remarkably close the live trio and tuned-to-the-room system sounded, Birkelund failed to mention that the Model D system was never silent. https://www.stereophile.com/content/steinway-lyngdorfs-elegant-unveiling https://www.stereophile.com/content/steinway-lyngdorfs-elega...
stordoff 7y ago
> The sound quality isn't better For some bands, I'd actually disagree with that. Both what they are playing is better, and their released material is compressed to hell and back[1], which seems to be less prevalent live (though far from gone). No doubt they _could_ do that recorded (anything you can do live you can match in a studio), but they _aren't_ doing. There's also the non-musical elements - there's a difference between just playing some music and putting on a show. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
- kibibu 7y ago
  In a very concrete way, the inability to apply hard-clipped brick-wall limiting and extreme compression is why vinyl often does sound better than CD - the physics of the needle-in-groove mean that there are limits to the amplitudes you can try to encode without bouncing the damn thing out. So vinyl masters often (but not always) avoid the loudness war and have a wider dynamic range.
  - ScottBurson 7y ago
    Hmm, this seems to be a common idea, but I don't think it's true. As I said above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914699
    - kibibu 7y ago
      The problem isn't with the compression part per se, but rather with clipping. The two typically go hand in hand for modern needle-in-the-red CD masters.
grawprog 7y ago
>It's similar in some sense to the reasons why people go to see live concerts. The sound quality isn't better, it's just different, and feels "more real", although for concerts it is also helped by the fact that you're actually there As I don't have thousands of dollars worth of stage speakers, amplifiers and audio equipment, there's a very noticable difference in sound quality between live shows and recorded music, depending on the venue. You're also missing out a pretty big part of live shows, there's a difference between hearing a musician play a song live vs a recording. A recording is almost never one single take straight through and, depending on the artist, can be a fairly different rendition of the song. An example, last concert I went to was cypress hill, they had a different DJ with them that mixed their tunes up pretty differently so the performance was.nothing like listening to one of their albums.
perl4ever 7y ago
I don't see how CDs, in the abstract, can really be different from records, in that, surely you could apply a suitable filter to a CD decoder to make the output sound exactly like a record. Especially given modern computing power. It's just that, I assume, people have chosen not to.
- jcelerier 7y ago
  same reason even the best CRT emulation shaders on a 4k screen still don't look as nice as a SNES game in a good CRT TV
  - mrob 7y ago
    That's largely because no currently available 4K screen can replicate the decay curve of CRT phosphors. MicroLED screens could theoretically manage it.

anamexis 7y ago

I would guess (could be wrong) that the laser turntable involves some DSP and a DAC. Normal turntables have a very simple analog signal path, with the needle moving electromagnets which emit the signal.

kalleboo 7y ago
There's no reason they would have to be digital - Laserdisc was pure analog (until later discs added digital stereo sound)