[lbo-talk] Re: Say BYE BYE to VINYL!

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Sun Jan 30 15:00:03 PST 2005


I hate to pick a quarrel on yet another subject, but I've never really understood this knock against CDs... JJ

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There are two different underlying tech issues. The first and most important is how the recording was made. The best cds have to start with a good digital recording in the first place---where all kinds of fiddling around takes place to get the sound right. Then second, the engineering (fiddling) has to be good. More `dots' better sound. The first few generations of cd's were pretty dead, especially the re-issues because of the losses in conversion.

Now they are much better. But for jazz and classical, the damned musicians are not as good. In classical there seems to have been several stylistic changes that I don't particularly like. For example I don't like Yo-Yo Ma's version of the Bach cello suites. They are played over the top. I like the older smoother versions, but the recordings are wearing out.

It seems to me, because they could jack up the range in digital they used it to under play the quiet parts and over play the loud parts. I could never tell if that was a recording issue or an engineering one. In any event, they ruined the works by pushing the dynamic range into whispers or shouts.

Anyway, getting back to digital v analog, there are significant differences in photography, and I am sorry, but digital images suck. The soft blur the photo-chemical process that surrounds even knife edged shapes does something to the total visual field to soften it and give it a feel or tactical quality that is missing in digital images.

On the other hand, I didn't have a color tv until about five years ago and discovered Data was gold!

CG



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