Hi guys - Kijanki, you make a very good point about jitter (and explains yet another reason why digital has never sounded as good as analog for me), and the intermodulation distortions. I guess I thought that jitter had more to do with timing, but I suppose that it would indeed produce harmonic distortion as well.
Al, I do understand now much more where you are coming from, thanks very much! I will have to read up on these types of electronic distortions some more. When I took a graduate level acoustics course, it was geared (as was the very fine textbook which has always been my main reference ever since) to performing musicians and live acoustics, not recordings and electronic equipment. In fact, I am not sure that purely electronic distortions were discussed at all, I will have to look that up. I have never been one to judge audio equipment by the specs, anyway, so these types of things have never held much interest for me. This discussion has certainly got me curious, though!
I will have to check out the article you linked when I have some more time to give it serious attention. Just reading over your quotes from it, it seems like very good info. The text I mentioned goes into great detail about all of those issues mentioned. If you care to look it up, it is entitled The Musician's Guide to Acoustics, by Murray Campbell and Clive Greated, and was published by Schirmer. I do see, getting it out, that the last couple of chapters discuss electronics briefly (I think mostly from the perspective of electronic instruments rather than audio equipment, though), but the book is basically about acoustic instruments and how they behave, and how the room affects them. So my knowledge of acoustics is much more in that line, things that affect live performance rather than recording playback.
What is particularly interesting to me is your discussion of different amplitudes of the harmonics having such a big effect. I am starting to come around, but it would be good to find some info on that in particular. That would certainly seem to be one of the biggest differences between live and recorded sound, then, and probably a much bigger difference than I have thought. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge - between you and Atmasphere in particular, I have received quite an education on this site.
Al, I do understand now much more where you are coming from, thanks very much! I will have to read up on these types of electronic distortions some more. When I took a graduate level acoustics course, it was geared (as was the very fine textbook which has always been my main reference ever since) to performing musicians and live acoustics, not recordings and electronic equipment. In fact, I am not sure that purely electronic distortions were discussed at all, I will have to look that up. I have never been one to judge audio equipment by the specs, anyway, so these types of things have never held much interest for me. This discussion has certainly got me curious, though!
I will have to check out the article you linked when I have some more time to give it serious attention. Just reading over your quotes from it, it seems like very good info. The text I mentioned goes into great detail about all of those issues mentioned. If you care to look it up, it is entitled The Musician's Guide to Acoustics, by Murray Campbell and Clive Greated, and was published by Schirmer. I do see, getting it out, that the last couple of chapters discuss electronics briefly (I think mostly from the perspective of electronic instruments rather than audio equipment, though), but the book is basically about acoustic instruments and how they behave, and how the room affects them. So my knowledge of acoustics is much more in that line, things that affect live performance rather than recording playback.
What is particularly interesting to me is your discussion of different amplitudes of the harmonics having such a big effect. I am starting to come around, but it would be good to find some info on that in particular. That would certainly seem to be one of the biggest differences between live and recorded sound, then, and probably a much bigger difference than I have thought. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge - between you and Atmasphere in particular, I have received quite an education on this site.