Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
The real problem with digital, at least with uniform PCM is that you store logarithmic data in a linear file format. Sure, adding a bit will add 6db to your dynamic range. But once you go to a more silent part of your music you lose resolution exponentially. A CD has 96db dynamic range on paper? You wish, since going to the range of -90db to -96db your resolution is one single bit - on or off in that whole 6db range - in practice completely unuseable.
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That's just the point at which the signal disappears into the quantisation noise floor (the bit-step quantum is significant compared with the signal amplitude). Vinyl would have given up long before that (the typical DR of a vinyl record is around 70dB - a factor of at least a hundred worse in terms of linear power dynamic range) so it's hard to see how that can be classified as a disadvantage of digital. It's not perfect, but it's much better than the analogue alternatives.
Logarithmically compressed PCM, of course, has it's own issues which are much worse (IMHO) for music reproduction.
Katsunami has it right - CD is technically massively superior to vinyl, but those advantages aren't always apparent due to a tendency for them to be royally messed with excessive DR compression etc.
/JB