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Author Topic: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?  (Read 22164 times)

Ted Olausson

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #75 on: July 05, 2010, 07:32:43 AM »

dcollins wrote on Sun, 04 July 2010 13:07

bruno putzeys wrote on Sat, 03 July 2010 23:13

So if we can now get people to understand that a dithered digital channel is no different from a noisy analogue channel, we'd be set to enter the 21th century...


So far, I've had zero luck trying to relate this concept to people.  

They have read that "It's all stair-steps" or as I heard last night from a very reputable designer "In digital the lower the signal level, the more distorted it gets" so I wouldn't hold my breath.................


DC


Well, I dont think it is that simple...

Within perfect workingconditions they are the same, what gets in is what gets out.
Digital is digital and the faults introduced by digital (when the lo/hi boundaries are broken) is characteristic for digital, this is ofcourse in theory where everything is perfectly by the book. But digital technology today actually relies on analog components.

If you can manage to manipulate exactly one "analog" informationcarrier at a time with exacly the same conditions everytime, then it would be identical to digital theory, but thats more on the scale of nanotechnology rather than normal "big and heavy and less than perfect" electromechanical analog equipment, where each single informationcarrier is hidden way below the noise.

A vinylneedle touches many molecules, and neither the vinyl or the needle has a perfectly shaped and perfectly smooth surface. Just as the tape has molecules that is less than perfectly organised on the surface and the head-molecule distance will also vary from molecule to molecule. So even if the tapemolecule itself is digital then still the threshold will change because the variations in the distance from the head.

It would be more correct to say that analog equals digital if the digital has enough selfnoise (with enough resolution below) to hide many bits.
Or in other words: 96db of S/N Digital dont equal the same resolution as 96dB S/N analog. 96db Analog is more like maybe 120dB of digital resolution with 96db of noise.

And, Analog usually has a lot of faults that add a new dimension when the workingconditions arent ideal. Like nonlinearities close to the boundaries, some memoryeffects, like heat, from earlier signals and so forth.
And this could *maybe* with the ears integrationwindow and huge processingpower in mind also be regarded as a second level of dither.(Zero crossing varies slightly between each crossing because of random nonlinearities for instance, but put together they give a more precise picture of a single crossing)

And that analog "faulthandling" close to its boundarys with the sound from it that many describe in words like "natural" and "organic" or even "musical", also has to be taken into account when a new design is made regardless of on which technology "the medium itself" is made.

Well, just some fast thoughts from me, feel free to comment it and point out its faults Wink
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sodderboy

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #76 on: July 05, 2010, 11:52:08 AM »

I have cassettes on the brain (EMI recap), and cannot imagine the creatures created by a DNA storage medium recording today's music- they would be Scotty's and Charleton Heston's worst nightmares.
We would have to improve the quality of the source material first!

There are some incredible things being done in labs with inkjet technology these days, which could be an alternative method to magneto-optical.  
Mike
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Barry Hufker

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #77 on: July 05, 2010, 12:21:55 PM »

I admit Mike that two days ago inkjet technology crept into my head but I haven't had a real idea about it as yet.  Something about being able to "write" "bursts" of audio signals but that's all I have so far.

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resolectric

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #78 on: July 05, 2010, 12:37:21 PM »

The future will be (at least for a moment) an evolution of Digital. Something that we might define as Polygital.
Values won't be represented by dual bit information but by multidimensional bit representation in a 3D surface.

Bits will be up/down/left/right and every position in between.
It'll start with four position bits: tetradigital.
It'll evolve from there.

There's an idea of the concept in Zemeckis' Contact movie.

So, it won't be Digital (dual) nor analog, although vinyl discs have multidimensional groove info being sensed by the needle.
That's the basis for the Polydigital concept.


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YZ

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #79 on: July 05, 2010, 01:41:56 PM »

Paulo,

Digital is not only binary.

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regards,

YZ

Andy Peters

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #80 on: July 05, 2010, 02:56:57 PM »

YZ wrote on Mon, 05 July 2010 10:41

Paulo,

Digital is not only binary.




Indeed, multilevel cell memory (MLC) can store more than one bit in one cell. The common two-bit type has a cell that stores charge in four quanta; the read electronics have to discriminate between the different levels so noise margins are reduced as compared to single-level cells (which are binary).

-a
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Larrchild

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #81 on: July 05, 2010, 08:26:17 PM »

4 kinds of people in this world. Those that understood that, and those that didn't.
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Larry Janus
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Barry Hufker

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #82 on: July 05, 2010, 10:59:10 PM »

Isn't it "0100" kinds of people??

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bruno putzeys

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #83 on: July 06, 2010, 01:51:39 AM »

Unfortunately, "two" in base-four (or anything higher than binary for that matter) is written "2".
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Barry Hufker

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #84 on: July 06, 2010, 03:19:53 AM »

Too?


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resolectric

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #85 on: July 06, 2010, 06:27:14 AM »

Larrchild wrote on Tue, 06 July 2010 01:26

4 kinds of people in this world. Those that understood that, and those that didn't.

I understand that! Very Happy


Andy Peters, what can i say... the future always starts in the present!

Still, reality is digital. Even analog is digital. If we can sample at the atomic level, where each atom is a byte and its components are bits, stored in multilevel cells, we'll have a digital representation of everything.
And i mean every thing.
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gentlevoice

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Re: What Would Be Today's State-of-the Art Analog Recorder?
« Reply #86 on: July 21, 2010, 08:33:53 AM »

Hello,

'Bumped into this thread and it looks interesting   Cool

Haven't read it all, though - and might be side-tracking a bit on your present topics - but while reading I came to think of an - in my opinion quite thorough and interesting - article I read recently about humans hearing/registering frequencies outside of what is normally considered audible.

The title is:

Inaudible High-Frequency Sounds Affect Brain Activity:
Hypersonic Effect

and if interested, it can be downloaded from http://jn.physiology.org/ if one makes a search in the keywords field for the title.

They've measured the brain response e.g. to sound components outside of the so-called audible range and compared it with the individuals' subjective perceptions of the sound. And, as far as I can see, it's done in a scientifically sound way.

Thought you might find it interesting ...

Greetings from Denmark,

Jesper M
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