Recording Technology Rant

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bookslover

Puritan Board Doctor
There are persistent rumors that the music CD is going the way of the dodo bird. I surely hope not.

This would mean listening to music on the tinny speakers of your computer or some mobile handheld device with the super-dinky earphones.

What this would represent is a backwards march for technology, in my opinion. We've had more than 100 years of technological advances in the improvement of recorded sound: flat discs replacing cylinders (1890s), the electronic microphone (1925), magnetic recording tape (1948), stereo (1958), digital recording (1981).

Getting rid of the CD and storing and listening to music exclusively as described above would mean getting rid of all this progress.

If this does happen, recording studios may as well junk their zillion-track boards and go back to mono, since we'll all be listening to music in what a 12-year-old considers good sound on his dinky ear piece as he twirls around on his skateboard.

Yuck.

(Besides, what would I do with my couple of thousand CDs?)
 
But why should it mean this? Can't one just dock his mp3 player to his living-room amplifier and speakers? As for your collection, why can it not be ripped to a hard drive? You would have lost nothing of your CD purchases, and would have all the music with none of the clutter. I love this super-portable technology!
 
But why should it mean this? Can't one just dock his mp3 player to his living-room amplifier and speakers? As for your collection, why can it not be ripped to a hard drive? You would have lost nothing of your CD purchases, and would have all the music with none of the clutter. I love this super-portable technology!

This.

Mp3 technology doesn't mean you have to listen through headphones. It actually gives you more options. Almost all new stereos, radios, etc, even car stereos now have an mp3 plug-in.
 
As has been said above, where on earth did you get the idea that moving away from CDs would reduce the quality of listening? Do what most other people do and play your MP3s through your stereo.


Besides, what would I do with my couple of thousand CDs?

Why do you still have a couple thousand CDs? What a burden!!! Put all of your music onto a hard drive (and back it up) and then get rid of your CDs. I sold mine (about 400-500) several years ago.

I didn't know there were still people out there who switched out CDs every time they wanted to listen to something different! (just giving you a hard time....sort of)
 
My son-in-law is a recording engineer and recently a band came in and said they wanted to record everything ANALOG. TJ was thrilled because there really is a different sound to working analog over digital. TJ did back everything up to digital, just in case.

There are more and more digital effects that come close to modeling analog sound and they will improve. As far as playback, you won't be getting tinny music, in fact, the audiofile can still tweak the sound until his ear is content with the right modeling effects, speakers and MONEY.
 
I havn't bought a CD in many years. I have been using MP3 format since 2002. You can get decent headphones that produce good quality sound.(You just got to fork out the cabbage).

I bought the 120gb zune in 2008 and I still have it and I have a set of skull candy headphones that work well in conjuction with each other. Zune was 280.00 and the headphones were 50.00
 
And I am sure that eventually, common mp3 bit rate will surpass that of CDs (320 kbps, isn't it?).
 
Why do you still have a couple thousand CDs? What a burden!!! Put all of your music onto a hard drive (and back it up) and then get rid of your CDs. I sold mine (about 400-500) several years ago.

You did delete any copies that you made when you sold the material subject to copyright, didn't you?
 
Download a copy of Audacity. You can convert your existing music into whatever format they support. If you want to take the time, you can convert whole albums or CDs with a few drag and drops. I have been converting my CDs to MP3 to play in the car. I get about 90 songs average per disc @ 128kbps which is good enough for listening on the road. I may even set up my turntable and pre-amp to transfer some old albums.

I also have an old laptop that I'm considering deleting most of the programs on. I would like to put my music library on the 60G hard drive and use it as my tuner (the radio stations I listen to offer streaming) and player. That should drive 120W into some big JBLs quite nicely. I'll keep the bit rate high for this project.
 
(Besides, what would I do with my couple of thousand CDs?)

Those CDs are going to degrade, my friend. I suggest you find yourself a refurbished TEAC reel to reel to back them up. Plug it into a a decent tube amplifier, and you're set. No iPods to worry about. No ripping. Hours of music. Plenty of heat in the winter. It probably would survive the dreaded EMF attack too.

I checked on prices, and you could probably get set up with some good classic equipment for around $1500, which, oddly, is what I spent on such a system back in 1977.

I do wish I kept that TEAC--it was a 4 channel model and it was really neat for playing tracks backward.
 
If you were concerned about audio quality then even the CD causes some loss in fidelity. The CD was just another form of Analog-to-Digital conversion so moving away from the CD is simply moving from one digital form to another. The CD samples at 44 kHz at 16 bits. Due to the Nyquist rate, the audio must first pass through a low-pass filter to remove all audio frequencies greater than 22KHz (which is generally beyond the range of human hearing). The 16bits of each sample give 2^16 (65,336) different levels of amplitude. An analog signal has an infinite number of levels of amplitude so there's loss every time an amplitude reading is recorded.

MP3 is but one of many other types of digital recording. There's no reason why a CD cannot be ripped to MP3 at the same fidelity.

Also, as noted, don't expect your CD's to last forever. The mylar degrades over time.
 
If you were concerned about audio quality then even the CD causes some loss in fidelity. The CD was just another form of Analog-to-Digital conversion so moving away from the CD is simply moving from one digital form to another. The CD samples at 44 kHz at 16 bits. Due to the Nyquist rate, the audio must first pass through a low-pass filter to remove all audio frequencies greater than 22KHz (which is generally beyond the range of human hearing). The 16bits of each sample give 2^16 (65,336) different levels of amplitude. An analog signal has an infinite number of levels of amplitude so there's loss every time an amplitude reading is recorded.

MP3 is but one of many other types of digital recording. There's no reason why a CD cannot be ripped to MP3 at the same fidelity.

Also, as noted, don't expect your CD's to last forever. The mylar degrades over time.

I saw some "gold" discs that are supposed to last 50-100 years. Are they worth the cost for archiving music or is this just another scam?
 
Rich: If I were you, I'd print off the binary data on sheets of archival paper. 100 years from now, you'll be able to point a scanner at the stack of paper and reconstitute the music without having to worry about degradation or expensive CDs. ;)
 
Rich: If I were you, I'd print off the binary data on sheets of archival paper. 100 years from now, you'll be able to point a scanner at the stack of paper and reconstitute the music without having to worry about degradation or expensive CDs. ;)

Actually, Jonathan, I think laser-etched stone would be better. Probably 5 times in longevity at least. 20 times if you store them in a crevass in the Grand Canyon.
 
I guess I'll just copy all of my 1940's-70's albums on to MP3 and store the originals in an environmentally controlled vault deep below the surface. I'll put my CDs next to them. :)
 
Kidding aside, it would seem that you can keep mp3s indefinitely through proper back up procedures. As file formats change, I imagine it would be nothing to convert them.
 
Rich: If I were you, I'd print off the binary data on sheets of archival paper. 100 years from now, you'll be able to point a scanner at the stack of paper and reconstitute the music without having to worry about degradation or expensive CDs. ;)

Actually, Jonathan, I think laser-etched stone would be better. Probably 5 times in longevity at least. 20 times if you store them in a crevass in the Grand Canyon.

It would, but I doubt the average person will have the resources or the capability to pull that off. I'm trying to come up with practical solutions here. :)
 
Rich: If I were you, I'd print off the binary data on sheets of archival paper. 100 years from now, you'll be able to point a scanner at the stack of paper and reconstitute the music without having to worry about degradation or expensive CDs. ;)

Actually, Jonathan, I think laser-etched stone would be better. Probably 5 times in longevity at least. 20 times if you store them in a crevass in the Grand Canyon.

It would, but I doubt the average person will have the resources or the capability to pull that off. I'm trying to come up with practical solutions here. :)

Just don't forget to add page numbers!
 
I miss high fidelity analog recording tape. The depth is amazing. The subtlety of what is captured is without peer. The storage room needed was, well, without peer as well. But, I do miss it.
 
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