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Comment by saidajigumi | Hacker News Reader

There were also serious problems in many early digital (and hybrid) audio production chains. Some productions had great engineers on board who'd taken the time to learn the new tools. Others ... were varying degrees from "meh" to "disaster". For example, I have a CD that's unlistenable if you've still got your high-end hearing – there's major high-frequency artifacting. I'll bet that the mastering engineer couldn't even hear the problems.

Many people formed their critical listening opinions during this time, and came to the at-the-time logically supportable conclusion that "analog sounds better". In fact, that was just an unfortunate period of industry-wide learning curve. Much of what followed was rationalization of that early opinion, generally not backed up by the science of audio recording and production.

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I always wonder how some bands (like Dire Straits) seemed to figure this stuff out so early on while a decade later others struggled to do the same.

You think they figured it out early? Go listen to some Miles Davis recordings from the late 50s. Analog tape, two mics, and that was it. And it still sounds better than almost everything made since.

Studio-quality analog has had better than CD-quality audio since the late 50s (lower noise, more headroom). With "modern" studio techniques we've adopted multitrack recording, close mic'ing of instruments, and what not. While these may make the recording process easier, they don't make recordings of a higher quality. Give me a pair of high-quality mics in ORTF configuration and natural, unamplified instruments any day.

Is it fair to compare studio-quality analog with a consumer format for digital? You would have to compare studio-analog with studio-digital and I'd be surprised if the analog comes out on top in any way.

Techniques like close mic'ing aren't really about ease, it's about capturing a different sound and it predates the digital era.

Your preference for particular mics and instruments is kind of irrelevant to digital vs analog as a storage format, isn't it?

> Studio-quality analog has had better than CD-quality audio since the late 50s (lower noise, more headroom).

I'm not sure what you mean by "studio-quality analog". If you literally mean playback from professional studio gear, what's the relevance? What consumers could buy was records.

And records are temperamental. For decent sound quality, you needed expensive turntables. Also a clean environment. If you used mass-consumer turntables, you'd destroy high frequencies. And if your records got dirty and/or scratched, there'd be noise.

Also, if you didn't have space to put the turntable and speakers in different rooms, you'd get low-frequency feedback at high volumes. Which could damage your speakers.

So I did have a decent turntable. And I only played new records once or twice. To record on reel-to-reel tape.

> what's the relevance? What consumers could buy was records.

This subthread, starting from the GGGP, is about digital vs. analogue in the recording+editing+mastering process, not digital vs. analogue in the dubbing+reproduction process.

The relevance is that, despite the introduction of studio-side digital sampling, it made sense (and still makes sense!) to keep to analogue "working copies" (or at least higher-sample-rate lossless digital "working copies") as long as possible in the process, because the point you dub over to 16-bit LPCM ("CD-quality") digital is the point where you throw away information—and audio engineers in the 70s and 80s who didn't realize this are responsible for a fair number of these awful-sounding releases.

Ah. OK. Thanks.

I think what's being referred to was the shoddy way many musicians and producers used digital technology and basically just digitized an analog recording without even bothering to get mixing or levels right on the analog side. Dire Straits in particular was an early adopter of a fully digital pipeline[1] in the studio and used it very well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_in_Arms_(album) was notable as being one of the first CDs recorded as DDD as opposed to AAD (https://www.danielmcadam.com/AAD-ADD-DDD.html) which was much more common in the 80's. It's still sounds great today IMO.

> Studio-quality analog has had better than CD-quality audio since the late 50s (lower noise, more headroom).

I believe you're referring to dynamic range, that is, the ratio between the loudest possible sound and sound level which drowned out by hiss. My understanding was that the very best reel-to-reel studio decks are only capable of a dynamic range equivalent to roughly 14 bits in digital. Do you have any objective source backing up this better-than-CD-quality claim?

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