Short answer: no. Because like (gulp) geoff said the data is not on the disc in 1's and 0's, its encoded in pits and lands of varying length. So the data is not there in digital form but rather digital form encoded into pits and lands that are decoded. Which for those following closely means its not digital at all. But not quite analog either. But enough so variations in speed, vibration, scatter, etc all introduce noise and accounts for why analog type tweaks produce improvement in what is supposed to be digital.
Theoretical question about how CD's work
Theoretically, can the contents of a CD be printed out onto sheets of paper in 1’s & 0’s, re-entered digit by digit (say, by a generous helper monkey with an infinite lifespan) into some sort of program, and the same sound will be replicated? Just trying to understand how CD’s work (though I’ve been trying for 25 years and it still seems like magic to me).
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From the same reviewer who explained USB transmission so wonderfully, here's a great explanation of how CDs work: https://6moons.com/audioreviews/psaudio7/perfectwave.html As stated, it's not done digitally but ends up in the digital realm. All the best, Nonoise |
@Millercarbon, it seemed to me to be implicit in the OP’s question that the monkey would have to be provided with some means of converting the physical representation of 1’s and 0’s that is used by the CD medium (namely the transitions between pits and lands that I referred to in the first paragraph of my previous post, and that has also been referred to by Geoff, you, and others), into actual 1 and 0 numbers that could be written out. One way in which that could be done would be to provide the monkey with a computer having a CD/DVD drive and a program such as EAC. By using that program he would assure bit-perfect reads of the data into the computer. (Or in the relatively unusual case that a CD is simply unreadable after many successive attempts, without uncorrectable errors occurring, the program would flag an error). All of that is of course no different than what many of us do when ripping. The computer could then be provided, if desired, with a simple program that would convert the ripped data into a visible/printable series of 1’s and 0’s, and of course that could be accomplished with bit-perfect accuracy. Providing the monkey with those provisions would make my previous short answer of "yes" to the OP’s question entirely applicable, as well as saving the monkey a good deal of time by automating much of the process. Regards, -- Al |
Short answer: yes. If you want to get a better grasp of the process you would need to understand the basic concepts of ANALOG and DIGITAL. Sampling is the process that takes you from Analog to Digital. You take a "sample" of an analog event and turn it into a number, a digit. This is sampling. There are 2 key elemnts to how sampling is done: how often do you take the sample and how precisely you do that. The Red Book audio standard (the one CDs are made out of) calls for samples to be done 44.100 times a second and with a precision of 16 bits. So within those boudaries you can build an excat replica of the input signal by any mean, including the Monkey you mention. This is what would be called "bit perfect" in that the bits are exactly copied. The copy the monkey would have made would be absolutely non recognizable form the original and if played on the same playback system would sound 100% the same. There are many misconceptins around, I'll mention a few: QUITE The encoded data - the pits and lands do not actually represent digital data, not really UNQUOTE Yes they absolutely do ! QUOTE The series of pits and lands, their various lengths and the transitions from pits to lands and lands to pits are converted to meaningful digital data downstream. So, since the lengths of pits and lands is variable precise timing is critical ... UNQUOTE Precise timing is indeed critical in that the samples need to be payed back at exactly 44.1 KHz. But that is implicit in the standard, NOT HARDCODED in the digital domain ! BTW your it's an intersting question You can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(signal_processing) And spend more or less the rest of your life digging ! Enjoy ! Mark. |
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