On Jul 2, 5:44*am, dave wrote:
LukeP wrote:
On Jul 1, 3:57 pm, Barry wrote:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...7/01/BU2618GKE....

What's an iPod?

I read the article also. *Most people look at the cassette as
equivalent withthe *8-track tape. *But I bet these same people would
be shocked to find out that some of the better cassette decks had way
better specs than a Ipod. *I have seen some of the Naks with freq.
response to 27 khz and my Denon, which was a mid-level deck, has freq.
response to 23 or 24 which I know is more than you can squeeze from
digital at even the highest bit rate. *I'm just sayin'..........

Sad. *You can't hear much above 10 K; *why do you care about 24?

You can buy a credible MP3 player for $20 that'll run circles around
your POS Nakamichi.

Reality check!

I have yet to respond to any post on this group in over a year, but
after 34 years in high end audio (sales, technical sales training,
product planning and development on three continents...) I couldn't
resist...

Frequency range has very little to do with it. ANYTHING that
compresses by any form of digital "bit grooming" can loose vital
information. Case in point... A fairly high priced MP3 recorder/
player with minidisc and computer MP3 capabilities managed to lose the
bells (actually a glockenspiel, I believe) at the beginning of a
Phoebe Snow track that I used as a demo for years (many other
examples, but this is a case in point). Digital compression can lose
textures, details, imaging, transient information in ways that is
COMPLETELY foreign to the human psycho-acoustic mechanism. Our ears
and brain can "fill in" information lost by anything as natural and
simple as bandwidth limiting, BECAUSE IT HAPPENS IN NATURE ALL THE
TIME! If we, as a species, have had to deal with bandwidth limiting
by something as simple as distance or intervening materials such as a
drape or some walls, etc., WE HAVE ACHIEVED THE ABILITY TO RECONSTRUCT
THE MISSING HARMONIC INFORMATION. And we can pull information out of
the noise floor of analog recordings by dithering.

I used one of the few decks that can trump all of those mentioned
above (although the Nakamichi units were excellent), the Tandberg
3014A, and have been able to produce recordings that (on over
$60,000.00 of amps and speakers) rivaled the very best digital
technology available at the time (2005 or so), and was only lacking
compared to an excellent virgin vinyl LP on $10,000 worth of
turntable.

As for bandwidth and digital technology... Anything that has a bit
rate as high as SACD or Meridian lossless packing on DVD Audio can
produce a bandwidth of 50 kHz and beyond. And that is your best hope
of achieving a recording that can compete with high end analog,
PERIOD! I have some SACD remasters of mid-1960 Rolling Stones
recordings that sound BETTER than the British virgin vinyl recordings
of the exact same performances. Of course, digital is quieter, but
I've already mentioned that we can dither significant information that
is below the noise floor in an analog recording. The "noise floor" in
a digital recording is the point of no return. NOTHING exists there,
it's all truncated. Ignored!

I know of NO MP3 device that can compete with the best Tandberg,
Nakamichi, Harman Kardon 400 series CD recorder regardless of the bit
rate. THEY DO NOT EXIST!

And a truly audiophile turntable with a moving coil cartridge can
trump any of the above in most respects, but that's another
subject...