[vorbis] 24/96 ?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, Dec 19, 2001 at 02:17:10PM -0500, Wilson wrote:
> > And don't underestimate the importance of your CD-Player being good. A
> > Sony for US$300 just won't do it if you're hyped for Hi-Fi. If your DVD
> > equipment is that much better than your CD-Player, there's a lot room
> > for misinterpretation.
> 
> I have yet to hear a plausible explanation for why a $1000 CD player is
> different from a $100 Discman. Can the "jitter" boogeyman account for the
> differences people say they hear?

A couple of factors are involved... Such as: Crappy analog sections in the
DAC giving a non-flat (and non-flattering) frequency responce or low
impeadence outputs that can't drive your equipment well... or crappy DACs
that produce noise, cause additional quantization, or don't decode linearly.
Finally, the timebase can be crappy (this is your jitter from above) which
can produce a easily ABX able distortion which is hard to see with 'typical'
tests (such as frequency or transient responce tests).. Special test gear is
now available to test for this type of problem, but it's still currently
expensive.. (such tektronix's site for jitter)

Most low end equipment uses a 1-bit dac (meaning that it internally convers
your 44100/16bit signal into a (~~)1MHz/1bit signal then lowpasses it),
usually of poor quality. 

When the first DVD player (Pioneer 919) came into my house, it became the
primary DAC for some time.. We used it to play CDs, etc.. It simply had a
much better DAC then everything else in here.

The difference in sound quality made by a good DAC is simply amazing. 

--- >8 ----
List archives:  http://www.xiph.org/archives/
Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'vorbis-request at xiph.org'
containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body.  No subject is needed.
Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.