There is an argument to be made that analog media playback can't possibly offer that many data 
points to be collected. To wit ...

1. when you play a tape, you are fighting the laws of physics. For one thing, no transport provides 
a perfect ride across the heads. Resolution is damaged by wow and flutter (time-smear), plus 
imperfect tape-to-head contact cause by anything from uneven head wear to imperfections in the tape 
surface to simple dust and other particles in the air. There's also static electricity and other 
results of friction. Then there's the fact that some tapes are slit perfectly enough to ride through 
the transport with relatively even track-tracking (i.e. relatively perfect azimuth throughout the 
tape). Tape electronics, especially old ones, are prone to what are now considered high levels of 
distortion and noise, and unless they have been thoroughly overhauled, aging components compound 
these problems.

2. a commercial disk release has mechanically-lowered resolution from the get-go. There are some 
issues with lacquer "memory" (where the groove shrinks back a little bit when it cools after 
cutting -- this is a controversial topic among cutting engineers, but direct-metal mastering was 
invented as a solution to this alleged problem). Then there is resolution-loss in the plating 
process, because the laws of materials science and physics say it's impossible to make a perfect 
imprint (there is some granularity to all materials, plating cannot be perfectly uniform, etc). And, 
the pressing machines can't be perfectly clean on every press, the vinyl biscuit can't be perfectly 
pure, etc. In fact, if you think about disk-manufacturing, it's quite miraculous that the whole 
system got to where it can sound as good as some records do. With shellac records, it's even more so 
because the technologies hadn't evolved as much and shellac itself is a very imperfect carrier 
material. So, before a stylus even hits the groove, you have stages of materials imperfections baked 
in (literally), which results in at least surface noise if not ticks, pops and groove distortion. 
And then there's the matter that no stylus tracks a groove perfectly, there is an inherent noise 
floor in all mechanical playback (dragging a diamond through a groove), and that only the very best 
preamps offer super-low noise floors (this is even more of an issue with low-output moving-coil 
setups).

One argument made by the anti-digital crowd of yore (I don't hear this argument made about 
higher-resolution digital, except by ideologue zealots) is, "no matter how much you sample a sound 
wave, you're still breaking it into chunks and it's not a steady-state wave." But, see above. The 
output from the analog playback system itself is not really a steady-state wave. Physics and 
materials science prevent that from being so. So the question is, which system is actually capturing 
more "resolution"? Let the debate begin!

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Corey Bailey" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 3:14 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Hi-Rez symphony recordings


> Correction:
> Data points per bit should have read: data points per dB of dynamic range (I changed the math, but 
> not the description).
> So, the comparison should read:
>
> Lets take a look at the available data points for each dB of dynamic range for CD quality digital 
> audio: 65,536 (data points) divided by 96 (dB of dynamic range) = 682.6 data points for each dB of 
> dynamic range of a given sample.
>
> Compare that to 24 Bit/ 96K digital audio: 4,294,967,296 (data points) divided by 144 (dB of 
> dynamic range) = 29,826,161 data points for each dB of dynamic range of a given sample. And, there 
> are more than twice a many samples taken! Now, we are talking about some decent resolution.
>
> Also, my hand typed chart got wacked by the forum formatting. Hopefully, you get the idea.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Corey
> Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
> www.baileyzone.net
>
> On 11/22/2015 7:47 PM, Corey Bailey wrote:
>> Mr. Kevil:
>> Let's take a look at Bit Depth as applied to digital audio:  "Bit Depth divides a given sample by 
>> its value."
>> Thus:
>> BIT DEPTH           DATA POINTS    DYNAMIC RANGE
>>        8                                256                         48dB
>>
>>       16                            65,536                      96dB
>>
>>       24 4,294,967,296            144dB
>>
>> Now, lets take a look at the available data points per bit for CD quality digital audio: 65,536 
>> (data points) divided by 96 (dB of dynamic range) = 682.6 data points for each bit of a given 
>> sample.
>>
>> Compare that to 24 Bit/ 96K digital audio: 4,294,967,296 (data points) divided by 144 (dB of 
>> dynamic range) = 29,826,161 data points for each bit of a given sample. And, there are more than 
>> twice a many samples taken! Now, we are talking about some decent resolution.
>>
>> So, even though you have only 70 dB of dynamic range available for those old tape recordings 
>> (before the introduction of Noise Reduction), you will obviously capture much more of that 
>> available dynamic range using the archival standard 24Bit/96K (Hi Rez) sample rate and bit depth.
>>
>> The same logic applies to any of the old audio carriers.
>>
>> Plus, when restoration takes place, the results are less artifact prone when using higher bit 
>> depths and sample rates.
>>
>> Cheers!
>>
>> Corey
>> Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
>> www.baileyzone.net
>>
>>
>> On 11/22/2015 3:03 PM, L. Hunter Kevil wrote:
>>> A transfer of  a 1960s tape marketed in a 24/96 wrapper is what? Doesn't the resolution of the 
>>> tape correspond to the equivalent of an 8- or 12-bit word? If so, what does the wrapper do?
>>
>
>