Can Analog Be Hi-rez?

[Ki Choi]

LP up to ~40k is established.

Hi Jack:

Since I have officially got into playing LPs, I am curious to learn how 40Khz signals could have been sourced and recorded onto LPs... As far as I know even the world's best vocal mic Neumann U47 only responses up to 15Khz and more modern U87 goes up to ~20Khz...

Ki

[Bruce B]

Hi Jack:

Since I have officially got into playing LPs, I am curious to learn how 40Khz signals could have been sourced and recorded onto LPs... As far as I know even the world's best vocal mic Neumann U47 only responses up to 15Khz and more modern U87 goes up to ~20Khz...

Ki

The mics I use for location recording go up to 50k.

Earthworks

[mep]

Hi Jack:

Since I have officially got into playing LPs, I am curious to learn how 40Khz signals could have been sourced and recorded onto LPs... As far as I know even the world's best vocal mic Neumann U47 only responses up to 15Khz and more modern U87 goes up to ~20Khz...

Ki

The original quad LPs had a carrier of around 50 kHz cut into them for the decoder to work so cartridges have been able to decode super-high (for audio) frequencies for a very long time.

[NorthStar]

---Soooo, back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, & 80s, they had microphones capable of registering ~40 to 50kHz high audio frequencies?

And it got into our LPs? ...And our cartridges are capable to read those high recorded notes?
...And by the way, which high notes? ...Musical or non-musical ones?

[mep]

---Soooo, back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, & 80s, they have microphones capable of registering ~40 to 50kHz high audio frequencies?

And it got into our LPs? ...And our cartridges are capable to read those high recorded notes?
...And by the way, which high notes? ...Musical or non-musical ones?

Who are you addressing your question to?

[NorthStar]

---To anyone in the know Mark. ...With absolute certitude.

[tomelex]

Interesting test Bruce.
I always appreciate your test.

Somehow though, all this ultrasonic stuff seems weird to me. I have read about folks "feeling" ultraasonics, etc. Digital definitely (redbook anyway) cans stuff above 22Kh hard.

Bias as I learned it in connection with tape was to "override" cross over distortion due to tape and thus, as we get into the utlrasonics then the bias essentially is stronger than those ultrasonics that leak through I suppose. And then, say if you are in your 50's, ears are not hearing past say 16khz, and there is very little amplitude at that level in most music, or little ability for older ears to hear it anyway.

But, yes, I never thought of it before, that of course, if bias is usually 5 times the highest audio signal recorded, and is 100 to 150Khz, then yes, tape can print any frequency up to that, but bias is still needed to print it in the first place and unless it is really high level (and unaturally so as far as real music) then I would expect bias to override it, along with am/fm modulaton noise also overriding these ultra harmonics too.

interesting stuff.

Tom

[tomelex]

---Soooo, back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, & 80s, they had microphones capable of registering ~40 to 50kHz high audio frequencies?

And it got into our LPs? ...And our cartridges are capable to read those high recorded notes?
...And by the way, which high notes? ...Musical or non-musical ones?

Well, there is a lot of non-musical (say 2% atleast second harmonic) but actually that IS musical to many. Hi-fi no, musical, yes. Thats right from the cartridge and simple IMD at 1.5% also coming into play. Also, there are lets say "spits" of harmonics from the cartridge rattling about (remember, records are an amplitude modulation thing, ie like am radio, they (cartridges) respond to any surface irregularity, which introduces amplitude dependent noise modulations which may also be musical to some. Think of the energy in those pops on an lp, lots of high frequencies being released there, that were no recorded on the record. Thats added stuff.

Tom

[NorthStar]

---What is interesting now with our PCs and the tools available at our disposition (Pro Tools, Mixing EQs, etc.), is that we can file our older (and newer) analog music on new digital content from new hi-res mediums (separate digital music servers, or directly in our PC's digital music files) , and with all the new fixes.

It's like we are now the remastering music engineers. ...And we can even recreate our own preferences as far as tone and balance is concerned.
And it's also like we don't have to accept what is imposed upon us, but simply redo it ourselves to our own specific taste.

That's where music is now at (for some) and where it's going even further; on the Internet, from our PCs, and with all the mixing tools available.
Tomorrow there won't be any more arguments as to which format is better between vinyl, CD, or digital content.
Turntables are still in high demand today by the purists mainly because of their investment from the past; not in terms of money, but to continue supporting their vinyl collection.

Now from our PC's programs, many people are transcribing those LP collections (and R2R tape collections).

I think Bruce is an 'avant-gardiste' (in French).
...And the people buying TTs and R2R tape decks are the 'arriere-garde', sort of; or they could be the transcribers, our ancesters.

Bruce, any further advances?

[NorthStar]

---Can you imagine if our PCs & Macs were analog?