Re: [ARSCLIST] Aren't recordings original sources?

[Clark Johnsen <clarkjohnsen@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 2:22 AM, George Brock-Nannestad <pattac@xxxxxxxx>wrote:

> From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad
>
> Hello all, how I hate the subject line even if the content is interesting.
>
> Richard wrote:
>
> .............................
> > I continue to see comments disparaging my use of the phrase "properly
> > designed". I do think that we need to get after manufacturers to
> > properly design equipment so that these synergistic cable effects are
> > minimized. .................................
>
> ----- I would like to draw a parallel. For years it was touted that it
> should
> be impossible to hear a difference between CD decks, because it was all
> digital and hence rock-solid.


Bits are bits! Oh I remember it well. In fact there are some (many?) who
still argue that.


> Some minimized the differences by green-edging
> the CDs, others tried to get jitter-free clock generators. However, it was
> only after Cambridge Audio (UK) discovered and demonstrated that actually
> mechanical vibrations were the cause of the discrepancies that CD decks
> became "properly designed".


Begging your pardon, but problems beyond mechanical vibration have also been
discovered and addressed.


> It had turned out that of the error correction
> available, the CD itself took this much, and varying degrees of errors in
> reading due to simple mechanical took the rest and in many cases even drove
> the error correction to the very audible interpolation.


You don't say!

Actually it was (is) even worse than that.

Plus, vibrations can be self-induced, airborne, and floorborne -- and must
be treated separately. At present the digital domain seems unable to cope
with all these, despite its vaunted power.

>
>
> Another parallel: Otala's discovery of Transient Intermodulation Distortion
> for transistor amplifiers: the effect of feedback loops that were too long
> and hence too slow. Beautiful results on stationary signals, but impossible
> saturation of the first stage on transients. The result was the development
> of local feedback.


Indeed!

>
>
> So it is a continuum of development, and it is only when a technology is
> completely discarded (such as coarse-groove 78 rpm) that the foundations
> that
> that technology was resting on get forgotten, and later generations will
> not
> be an improvement. There has been no fundamental improvement of
> coarse-groove
> 78 rpm reproduction since 1948, even though later technology has been
> tweaked
> into service.


Respectfully beg to differ about 78rpm reproduction. It's advanced
considerably. But you won't hear that on any commercially available LP or
CD, so the case is difficult for me to prove.

clark

>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
> George
>