motorollin wrote:
adz wrote:
Simply because a turntable is an analogue device, you hear everything that is pressed into the vinyl. Best way I could describe it is like comparing a sign wave to a bar graph. Sure the bar graph can follow the curves of the sign wave, but you loose the smoothness in the process.
That makes it very clear - thanks! Surely this is a matter of "resolution" though? Make the "bars" on the "bar graph" narrower (and more of them) and the digital representation of the wave, and would therefore sound closer to the vinyl version. Right? And I guess that's roughly how DVD audio works?
Ah, it's not that simple. The process of cutting the master disc from which the vinyls are pressed produces artifacts that are not easily reproducable digitally.
A more correct analysis is that the mechanical nature of the recording introduces all kinds of additional harmonics that were not present in the original signal. No two recording processes will ever produce exactly the same nuances.
You've then got playback itself, where the same effects occur again.
In truth, it's fair to say that the appropriately oversampled and quadratically interpolated digital signal generates a more accurate representation of the original source signal (such DACs are high end though) even given that an analogue media has no meaningful quantization. It's the side effects of the analogue recording that give it it's distinct timbre and warmth.
