Memory

[Fredxxx]

That sounds like a "no".

[Tim Watts]

+infinity...

yes - the whole regulation of stations has degenerated into a farce.

[Chris J Dixon]

A sound man once explained that the lead musician in a certain ceilidh band was a little deaf, and kept asking for more volume. To satisfy him, the foldback was usually wound up, leaving FOH comfortable for the rest of us.

Chris

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'll leave you to believe an urban myth, then.

I suppose you never wondered why it was such an odd figure? Why it wasn't rounded up to 75 minutes?

[Ian Jackson]

In message , Norman Wells writes

I actually occasionally find some of the +1 channels very useful (especially when I suddenly realise I've missed something on the +0).

[Johny B Good]

God no, of course not! (but neither was the older domestic tape recorders using twice the speed and the older tape formulations they were designed for).

I was using a simple formula of 32K samples per second of 16 bit depth per channel to produce a simple MB equivilent figure that could be used to give the uninitiated a feel for what space a C90 tape would require to store its recorded content in a straight digital format in order to arrive at a quick 'n' dirty answer to the original question "But how much memory did it have?" in Bill's original posting.

Processing it to 192Kbps MP3 would reduce that to about 100MB without any obvious loss of the original audio quality contained in a high quality C90 cassette recording.

I haven't tried any of the lossless compression formats such as flac and so on but I'd imagine the resultant filesizes would give a much more accurate reflection of the data storage equivilency of analogue tapes.

[Jim Lesurf]

4kHz bandwidth doesn't mean 4 samples/sec, and home cassettes and R2Rs tend to be stereo. So your figure above seems to have missed a few factors. However, regardless of that, "I'd say" isn't a basis for such a claim beyond it being an assertion of faith. To try and help, I'd suggest people base what they say on professionally measured results. e.g.

appeared in

Less noise in new UD Hayama et al Hitachi-Maxell, Kyoto, Japan Preprint 918(G-3)

45th AES Convention May 1973

Note the measurements here were for cassette. You could expect significantly better from R2R at 7.5ips. And using better tape.

I can access the primary sources as an AES member, so I don't know if others can find them. However if you can find them, there are a number of measurements. The above and

Tape noise in audio recording Eric D. Daniel Memorex JAES V20#2 1972

are what I'd suggest for a good start, but you may find others you prefer.

If someone wants to really estimate the 'memory capacity' or channel bandwidth in bps of such systems I suggest they take care to show they understand:

A) The distinction between a full-band rms noise power and NPSD plot values.

B) How to calculate the info capacity/rate values when the max signal and NPSD aren't the same at all frequencies in band. Hint: it means having to integrate the shannon equ weighted in accord across the range.

at least! Otherwise the values will probably be nonsense of the kind I've seen more than once already in this thread! :-)

I'd agree. I gave up recording onto analogue cassette and R2R well over a decade ago. That's not a reason to fantasise absurdly low (or high) values for their capability, though.

You're a bit late coming... :-) I certainly wasn't one of the first adopters, but all the computers I've bought in the last few years have used SSD or other solid state 'hard disc' for the main drive(s). Use spinning rust just as large removables.

Jim

[Norman Wells]

I don't deny it. If they didn't exist, though, you'd not only have a better incentive to remember the original, but still be able to watch it later over t'internet. It's a question of whether we could do better with the bandwidth.

[Jim Lesurf]

It depends.

Overall, I have been happy with *classical music* on CD. However this is because of years pre 1984 struggling with trying to find copies of EMI LPs of classical music that didn't have all kinds of very audible flaws. clicks and pops, wow, shallow pressing distortion, etc.

However I've recently been buying some cheap 2nd hand LPs made in the same era. Some are amazingly good. Some classical DGG ones sound essentially perfect. No noticable background noise or clicks, centers holes the right diameter in the right place, etc.

Whereas (sigh) many EMI classical music CDs have a grainy sound. One reason for this turns out to be that they used ADCs for some time that had less than 16bits and/or weren't monotonic, etc. i.e. very poorly converted from the original tapes.

A *good* LP, carefully made and played can deliver good sound. So can a

*good* CD. Alas making a dog's dinner of either was common for some companies. :-/

One possible reason is that many pop/rock CDs are level compressed into clipping at replay. LPs don't clip in the same way, so if you have a cartridge that can track them, the result may sound better. A few years ago a friend let me compare a doubleLP/CD release (Queen EMI). The CDs were measurably and audibly worse than the LPs. Not my taste in music, but the differences were pretty obvious and I found the LPs better for sure.

This has nothing to do with what the media are capable of. Everything to do with the behaviour of the people making the discs from the master recordings.

In the u.t.d-tv group I suspect that will chime with people's reactions to the technical quality of much modern 'digital' TV...

The problem isn't what is possible. It is what is actually done, all too sadly often!

Jim

[Jim Lesurf]

Long enough ago that Cathy was singing with them? :-)

Jim

[Jim Lesurf]

I've recently been listening to some 2nd-hand German pressings of Jazz LPs made in the 1970s. Even 2nd-hand had some of them sound superb.

Jim

[Bill Wright]

If God meant us to have +1 channels he wouldn't have given us PVRs.

Bill

[RJH]

Ah, right. For myself it's a certain 'depth' that the sound brings, that's especially persuasive on things like female vocal. Other words like natural, coherent, lifelike, 3D. I'd suggest the CD leaves something out. It really is a personal thing, and is overall a sound I like.

[RJH]

I understand the need for the use of the word distortion, and agree with what you say. I'd just add that there's the possibility that somewhere within medium and process, the alteration of the original signal makes the sound more lifelike (preferable, better etc).

There has to be a reason for some quite respected musicians and engineers sticking to analogue (over digital) beyond vanity and fashion.

[Clive George]

I very rarely watch stuff live, but still occasionally use the +1 to record a programme I've only just noticed I want to watch later.

[Chris J Dixon]

But even they are limited, and can trip over their own toes at busy programme junctions.

Chris

[Dave Plowman (News)]

CD doesn't leave anything out. It's vinyl which adds something. Distortion. It's that you like.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It may makes some sounds or instruments 'preferable' under some conditions. But not more accurate to the original. Some types of distortion can make some instruments sound more exciting. And others worse. Sadly, when it's the end user system providing that distortion, it can't discriminate.

Many simply don't understand what they are listening to. And don't want to.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You diagram shows exactly what I am saying the 'distance' between flat distortionless signal and the noise floor is about 50db and ends around

4-5khz..

sample rate has nothing to do with anything. I merely calculated that a

4khz FRAME rate you got around 40Kbps throughput.

And extrapolated that to a reasonable fugure of what a digital recording on a cassette MIGHT be able to do.

If you are talking about actual INFORMATION on a tape, well some would say in the case of many recordings there is none of any value at all.

The fact is that most music will fit very adequately in about 128kbps at full quality.

The less instruments there are the less it actually needs.

My ultimate test of a hi-fi system was never to listen to the music, only to the applause afterwards. If you could hear each individual handclap instead of a mush of white noise, you had a very top line system indeed.

someone calculated that the information content of speech was about

50bps by the way.

In terms of getting an intelligible message across rather than a hifi one.

The interesting thing is that freeview is stat muxed. There is no 'bitrate' for any given channel.

so good audio depends on other channels being 'quiet' at that point in time..

[The Natural Philosopher]

where needle resonances and distortion predominate.

Other words

natural resonant IM disortion stuff that wasn't in the original recording, yeah stuff like that..

I'd suggest the CD leaves

No it juts doesn't put anything IN.

I remember years ago - must have been te 70s - visiting a recoding studio and admiring the wonderful array of monitor speakers.

And on top of the mixing console were two really cheap nasty speakers..

"What are those?"

"That's how we hear what it will sound like on a ghettoblaster in Peckham high street" they said "if its that sort of market, we put stuff in and take stuff out so it sounds as good as possible"

You think they didn't do the same for the average dork with a Garrard SP25 and a cheap Shure cartridge?

That's why lot of 'digital remastering' and 'remixes' are going on of classic material.

because it needs to be remixed for digital which doesn't have any of those mechanical resonances and distortions in it.

stick a disc on a record player that isnt going round and start tapping.

the cartridge the arm, the deck..if its a valve amp the valves..every one of those is a resonant system that can and will be picked up by the amplifier.

Now try that on a CD...

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