Re: [ARSCLIST] Sound card recommendations

[steven c <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Richter" <mrichter@xxxxxxx>
> steven c wrote:
> 
> > Obviously, it is in the interest of society (whether society realizes
> > this or not is open to question) to preserve as much of the total
> > of historic sound recordings (of any nature) as is feasible. Each
> > historic sound recording contains information, and the more
> > information we are able to preserve for our posterity the better
> > off that posterity will be!
> 
> Let us accept as true what you assert to be obvious. I will postulate 
> that higher quality of preservation - more bits, channels, 
> documentation, etc. - takes more resources than less. Then it follows 
> that one must choose a balance between quantity of material preserved 
> and quality of preservation. (Let's discuss separately the desirability 
> of higher quality for material deemed more valuable or more important.)
> 
> Given finite resources and ever-expanding source material, definitions 
> of 'good enough' for various purposes seem appropriate. Otherwise, 
> everyone who is not generating material for archiving will need to be an 
> archivist.
> 
Well, it seems logical to me that the quality of the preservation of a
sound recording is effectively determined by its content! Thus, there
is no reason to preserve stereo versions of mono originals, or to use
more bandwidth than was recorded originally (i.e. preservations of
acoustic 78's flat to 20KHz). As well, if the recording is "spoken
word," the frequency range could be limited without loss of
information and/or intelligibility. This also covers the question
of "higher quality for material deemed more...important"...keep in
mind that a preservation can never be anymore accurate than was
the original recording (unless computer algorithms become much
more powerful!)

Steven C. Barr