While it is fair bit of work, I do have a tape deck and fancy measurement gear. I can measure what folks want. But I don't think it is necessary. On classic audio measurements, tape will lose to digital. I hope everyone agrees on this.
Subjectively, tape sounds wonderful despite its specs especially on classic recordings that used to be analog. Any capture of it on digital would be a second gen copy. It may sound identical or a bit different.
I pan to do an AB test of recording digital on tape one day and performing an AB test. Do folks think the tape will sound the same, worse or better?
You plan to record digital to tape and A/B it against the original digital? Blind? That should be interesting. You should do it the other way around, too. Record a tape to digital, then AB/X blind. Or not, and just let people enjoy what they enjoy.
And Mark, it should come as no surprise that I have answers to all the points in your post, particularly the one about the relevance of the Harman study. But I won't bore you with them. I'd really rather you put me on ignore as I have respectfully requested.
The tape deck record path and playback path will color the sound, so yes, it will sound different as it will not be what you put in. If you record with peaks no more than -10db and then again with peaks at 0db or even slightly into the red on occasion, then the one recorded to 0db peaks will sound more like it has more "information" than the one recorded to -10db, from my previous personal experience with a non-pro
R2R.
@Tom - Like I said "Quite different for the men and women that are actually designing and building the equipment." Apparently you are one of these and so there lies the disconnect with the more casual hobbyist.
@Don - I said in closing "Measurements may be more accurate however conclusions drawn from them are a different matter." Yes you can correlate measurements with what you hear given enough training. LOTS of it. Without that however it's a crap shoot. THAT to me is the problem. There have been people here on this forum who've seen a FR plot or two and have convinced themselves that the product was good without understanding the conditions under which the plots were taken. It's a form of expectation bias too. The irony!
No argument, Jack, except that in some cases not much training is required. Just more than a lot of 'philes care to do... I like the way JA in Stereophile correlates measurements to the listening impressions.
In my mind, the place measurements lag is in time-varying measurements and parameters. That is, measuring the characteristics of say signal decay, or the performance of a component over the time period of a short musical selection. We have the technology, but it is hard to pesent the data in a meaningful way.
Well, look at all the old tape deck tests done by hi-fidelity and audio magazines...you get less distortion there, but less noise floor, but then you knew that already. Pro decks are not slouches, they have pretty good specs with good tape. But to hear the "information" you need to energise the tape. And if Amir does the tests, then these are just my suggestions.
Running simple THD and twin tone IMD at 0db will reveal single digit distortions for IMD and THD varying more at low end of the frequency range, but at -10 all these distortions will be less....just an educated guess on my part, but spectrum will show a slew of odd order distortions, ie "information".
Actually, frequency response tests were run at -20 dB, and occasionally repeated at 0 dB. That makes sense because in most music the top octave is typically down 20 dB or more compared to the 100 - 1000 Hz level. Distortion and S/N were typically measured at 0 dB, but when actually recording peaks are usually recorded at levels closer to clipping, which at 15 ips was (on the Technics 1500 series, for example) more like +6 or +7dB.
You plan to record digital to tape and A/B it against the original digital? Blind? That should be interesting. You should do it the other way around, too. Record a tape to digital, then AB/X blind. Or not, and just let people enjoy what they enjoy.
I am doing the first because I want to see how the tape changes he sound. The reverse is not as interesting to me as I already understand digital systems
I was just saying that Tape looks to store and handle more information than LPs !! according to my music-lover friend at the beginning of the thread.
Now digital came all of a sudden! - I am sure it will measure better than tape (at least for things we usually "measure") - maybe it is just that we are measuring a partial set of attributes....
Something you can't measure is dimensionality or space and time and tape does it better than digital or the vinyl I have heard. Tape is more liquid and flows effortlessly out to the edges. Maybe someday digital will be able to be as 3 dimensional as tape, but I doubt it.
I am doing the first because I want to see how the tape changes he sound. The reverse is not as interesting to me as I already understand digital systems
Amir, could you help me with something I've been trying to wrap my head around for years? That would be resolution in digital. It's said that it is more a function of dithering than bit depth. I don't understand.
rbbert, have you dug up any numbers for tape's equivalent in quantization terms yet?
Amir, could you help me with something I've been trying to wrap my head around for years? That would be resolution in digital. It's said that it is more a function of dithering than bit depth. I don't understand.
It is a non-intuitive concept to be sure. Anytime we take a smooth, analog signal and then represent it in discrete steps in digital, we create distortion for in between values. If we add some random noise to the input signal, we convert that distortion to noise. Using this scheme, we can represent the analog signal with any number of bits we choose. The fewer, the more noise we have to add to get the rid of the noise. The more, the less noise.
It is a non-intuitive concept to be sure. Anytime we take a smooth, analog signal and then represent it in discrete steps in digital, we create distortion for in between values. If we add some random noise to the input signal, we convert that distortion to noise. Using this scheme, we can represent the analog signal with any number of bits we choose. The fewer, the more noise we have to add to get the rid of the noise. The more, the less noise.
So we are trying to turn amplitude value dependent distortion into a common amplitude noise which is harder for the listener to detect/ easier to ignore and this works because the quantization noise masks the low level details ?
I was asked about digital, not tape. I read his article. It is a layman plead, not a scientific explanation: "The magnetic-particle flow past a playback head is equivalent to a 24-hit word, which is amazing resolution." So do I get to say SACD runs at "2.4 MHz" and therefore better than sliced bread? Just because you find big sounding numbers to represent something that doesn't mean anything. He says in his interview that post modification he gets the tape deck to 90 dB signal to noise ratio. We get 6 dB better than that with 16 bit digital with flat dither, and much more with noise shaping. 24-bit resolution cannot happen in real life. Saying anything is the same as 24 bit means forgetting about basics of noise in electronic circuits.
He is basically saying what I posted earlier in the closed thread, that the number of metal oxide particles in one second of 30ips analog tape is roughly comparable to the total number of digital bits in one second of 24/96 (or maybe in his case 24/88.2) PCM digital.
So we are trying to turn amplitude value dependent distortion into a common amplitude noise which is harder for the listener to detect/ easier to ignore and this works because the quantization noise masks the low level details ?
I was asked about digital, not tape. I read his article. It is a layman plead, not a scientific explanation: "The magnetic-particle flow past a playback head is equivalent to a 24-hit word, which is amazing resolution." So do I get to say SACD runs at "2.4 MHz" and therefore better than sliced bread? Just because you find big sounding numbers to represent something that doesn't mean anything. He says in his interview that post modification he gets the tape deck to 90 dB signal to noise ratio. We get 6 dB better than that with 16 bit digital with flat dither, and much more with noise shaping. 24-bit resolution cannot happen in real life. Saying anything is the same as 24 bit means forgetting about basics of noise in electronic circuits.
No Rbbert raised this question earlier. And I remember the topic of bit resolution and how it changes was discussed earlier too. But the question that bears asking is again, with all of its theoretical advantages, why doesn't a high rez digital file sound like the original tape?
I think that Tim's credentials speaker for themself. I'm sure he didn't forget about noise.
I like the way JA in Stereophile correlates measurements to the listening impressions.
