HEAR ME NOW
I feel the need to hold Russell Deeks to account on a few points in his reply to Roger Britton’s Message Of The Week (November, p14). Cards on the table – I am a music lover and audiophile who prefers CD, though agnostically. I prefer the convenience and the fact that discs do not wear rather than possessing an ‘ideological’ view.
Russell perpetuates a myth or two, and is rather vague in his arguments. Most people know that CD’s original sampling rate was set because theory suggested that higher frequencies were inaudible and therefore irrelevant. The opinion that this was a mistake and that inaudibly high frequencies did affect what we hear gained ground steadily, and SACD and DVD-Audio were created to address this weakness. The latter went nowhere, and large scale double-blind testing has shown that even discerning listeners cannot tell the difference between CD and SACD (I own SACDs and I certainly can’t) with the caveat that at high volumes, a lower noise floor exists in SACD. I am therefore deeply sceptical about the claim that “much of the harmonic information is lost” in CD. I would suggest that in using imprecise terminology and
hinting at lost ‘harmony’, this is an appeal to the heart, not the head.
And if sampling rate beyond CD-grade is not audible, the fact that much of today’s vinyl was originally recorded in digital form is perhaps best not contemplated too much…
I also cannot tell the difference between CD copies taken from vinyl and the original source, suggesting either that there is no magic that doesn’t translate into ones and zeros, or that I am clotheared beyond redemption. I have PQ TGCUQP VQ DGNKGXG VJG NCVVGT |
Simon Bartlett, via email Nearly all music today is indeed recorded digitally, but Simonconveniently overlooks the fact that nearly all modern studios have also moved to 24-bit/96kHz recording as a minimum – partly because this enables more of those ‘inaudible’ frequencies to be heard!As for the 16-bit/44.1kHz sampling rate for CD, as Iunderstand it this rate was chosen not because “higher frequencies were inaudible and therefore irrelevant,” but because such a rate would allow a 60-minute album to fit onto one 10.5cm disc – the initial size proposed for CDs. This was later increased to 12cm to allow a playback time of 74 minutes –longenough for Beethoven’s 9th Symphony to fit onto one disc.
However, as I said last month, what any of us can orcan’t hear isentirely subjective – we certainly aren’t suggesting Mr Bartlett should replace his CDs if he doesn’t want to! Russell Deeks, contributing editor
Following Robert Matthew’s column on Goodhart’s Law (October, p23), we enjoyed this illustration by @sketchplanator on Twitter, which explains the idea perfectly!