Re: Digital transmission?
Most of the problems with CD "sound" is because they are recorded too loud, so they clip. It's instructive to look at oscillogram of Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms" as released on CD in 1985 with the re-release from this century. The "new" version is seriously distorted because of clipping.
The fools in the record companies believe that CDs have to sound "loud" if they're to sell well, so instruct their mastering engineers to drive the CDs into clipping. This also has the side effect of significantly reducing the dynamic range (one of the original selling points of CDs).
As a recording engineer of many years' standing (with a number of major albums in my history), I can assure you that the studio end of things isn't to blame. We always took great care with microphone choice and placement, and took great pains to record at correct levels to whatever medium we were using. Most of the records I worked on eschewed the use of compression (wherever possible), and would apply a minimum amount of limiting to each audio source.
LP records were a "good enough" technology when they arrived in the 1950s - and represented a major leap forward in recording fidelity. However, they were fragile and wore very quickly - again it's instructive to listen to a brand new LP against the same one played (say) 30 times......
CDs were significantly more robust, and - when recorded with the same degree of care - could provide a much improved source of audio for listeners. The CD format - as originally designed by Philips and Sony - was a pretty good medium for its day.
Unfortunately, we have DAB broadcasting which has led to a severe reduction in the quality of audio available "off-air". In an effort to cram ever more stations into the multiplexes, bit rates are reduced, leading to very poor sound quality.
"Digital" is getting a bad name!
Again - it's instructive to listen to BBC Radio 3 from a DAB receiver against their FM service. Despite the audio response only going to 15 kHz, the FM sounds very much better!
The vinyl fad will soon blow over - when listeners get fed up listening to expensive, scratched records!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
