Article: "Spin Me Round: Why Vinyl is Better Than Digital"

Jim Smith in his book "get better sounds" said something about the recording he did once. It was a classic concert and he startet to record a few seconds before the maestro came on stage. He used an tape recorder and a digital recording maschine. There were 2,3 women talking very quitly before the concert startet.
After the concert he checked both recordings. The whispering of the women could be heard on the Tape, slightly, as the tape noise was almost as high. But there was no signal at all on the CD recorder. Of course it was an older older digital technique, maybe in the 90th, this problem might be fixed nowadays.
But again it is no Nyquest processsing is to blame in this instance.

I would love to have a digital processing where I could listen as long as to my analog rig.
But in my case it might be of no use. I mainly listen to music before the 80th. All music of that time was recorded analog.

wuwulf

Nyquest theorem does not touch the problems of using a computer storage format as a musical transport format where time is important.

Not so. The Nyquist theorem is all about frequency, which by definition is all about time.

Additional there might be 2 things which have even further consequences: the unability of digital to recognise if the data is a real data or if it is error data ... It makes an difference it the wrong data of for exmaple 16 bit is a low bit or a high bit ...  Just some thoughts. I might be wrong,

That's the reason for error correction - Reed Solomon. It works.

He used an tape recorder and a digital recording maschine. There were 2,3 women talking very quitly before the concert startet.
After the concert he checked both recordings. The whispering of the women could be heard on the Tape, slightly, as the tape noise was almost as high

.

Several things at play here and also how it would play out differently today.

The tape recorder was probably set up (often are) so that there was some compression on the loudest peaks. That effectively extends the dynamic range beyond the raw SNR with technically loss of fidelity.

The digital recorder was likely set up so that no peak was at the max, effectively reducing its dynamic range.

You can detect sounds with an SNR < 1, which was or was close to what was happening with the tape player.

The digital recorder was likely a lower quality or older unit (if in the 90's) and was limited to raw 16 bits for recording.

If you did this test today, you would record it at 24 bit, and the voices would be more audible than the tape.  If you down mixed to 16 bit, you would add noise shaped dither to get the perceptive dynamic range up 115+db, and again, the voices would be audible with a lower noise floor than the tape.

Thanks cleeds,
I may be wrong, but my question is what goes in the Nyquest. That it is all about frequency, which by definition is all about time, I am aware of. Which bits go in when.
There is a hearable difference at least to my ears :-) between analog an digital. Digital does all better, but than why I feel it still lacks the vital engagement when listening.

Thanks audio2design,
It is nice to get a more detailled analysis. As I said this problem might not occur today. It was more thought as an example because at that period people that 16 bit is perfect. It could be there is still more we do not know today even we have 24bit.

My digital side ist reasonable modern and cost around 3500 Euro; my analog side is double as expensive. Listenimg to the latest CDs of known HighFidelity manufacturer I feel there are lots of dynamic, details, name it. I love it, but after a few songs it still does not touch me. My analog records are ordinary, most of them, some bought new, some came as gift, some found on the flee market. Cheap recording sound defenitely cheap. But most records, even still not in the HiFi league of the best CDs, catch my interest in a way digital does not.
Again I believe everything is right with digital from a pure mathematical point, but why than it is still wrong for some? It must not be in the many calculatons, it must be what goes in the calculatens and what changes between calculations over time. There is a difference even the difference is only perceived by some unlucky people like me.
Additional there is that filtering thing which does or had once the effect of preringing of 16 bit CDs. It might be a thing of the past as 96KHz does shift things to a frequence area where it should not be perceivable. Or is it not? We know so much about matahmatics, but so less about our hearing. But what worries me is that people invented the CD format knowing of that problem, which is an uncertainty, as knowbody can be sure how listener reacts on an complete unnatural behavior. All we end up is that we know a lot but still not all.