Glad you are liking the Orchid uber. I have mine in my computer system. It sounds better than my turntable in that system by a considerable margin and the turntable, cartridge and phono stage cost close to three times as much as the Orchid. In my main system, I'd say digital vs. analog is a toss up, with each doing some things better than the other. Again, much bigger investment in the vinyl rig.
Bits Are Bits, Right?
So I'm currently heading down the path of exploring which CD-Rs sound best in my CD player, along with what burn speeds sound best and what CD burners make the best CDs. I already know from my research that the more accurately the pits are placed on the CD (e.g. less jitter in the recorded data), the better chance I stand at getting the CD to sound good. There is a counter-argument to this idea that goes something like this: "Bits are bits and as long as the CD player can read them, the accuracy of the spacing doesn't matter because everything is thrown into a buffer which removes the effect of any jitter written into the data during burning." I know I don't agree with that logic, but for the life of me I can't remember the technical reasons. I know I used to know. Haha!
So who here knows why buffers don't solve all of our problems in the digital realm? How come timing accuracy matters in the stages before the data buffer?
So who here knows why buffers don't solve all of our problems in the digital realm? How come timing accuracy matters in the stages before the data buffer?
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mkgus OP Yes, digital only exists as a mathematical concept. All of reality is analog (at least the reality we deal with - at the scale of Planck time and Planck lengths things may be different). A stream of “digital” data is an analog signal that a computer has to interpret as a 1 or a 0 by deciding when the value has changed enough and at what time to be interpreted as a different bit. >>>>No, actually reality is more like digital. At the quantum level, which is really where the rubber meets the road let me remind you, gentle readers, that everything can be described by its quantum state; electrons have certain quantum states and require a certain amount of energy to get to the next level/orbit. That is more like Digital than Analog, I.e., having non-continuous states. In an analog world the electrons would not have non-continuous orbits. Light also is described by quantum states. To whit, “The photon model accounts for anomalous observations, including the properties of black-body radiation, that others (notably Max Planck) had tried to explain using semiclassical models. In that model, light is described by Maxwell’s equations, but material objects emit and absorb light in quantized amounts (i.e., they change energy only by certain particular discrete amounts). Although these semiclassical models contributed to the development of quantum mechanics, many further experiments[3][4] beginning with the phenomenon of Compton scattering of single photons by electrons, validated Einstein’s hypothesis that light itself is quantized.[5]” |
Greg The Orchid took some burning in to warm up to my ears and a change of IC but now, oh yes it's good, nay it's very good. And I just have stock tube in it as awaiting arrival of the WE tube. It's in my main rig where it contends with a record rig at least 4 times cost. In my second system I just use a $50 Google Chromecast Audio puck that produces amazing SQ for what it is. Imagine what $50 of total record replay equipment would look and sound like.... |
Uberwaltz - you’re right. I’m not being fair to the media. I personally believe that a computer has the greatest potential to sound best of all the mediums, however, computers are notoriously noisy environments and very few computer parts are built with maximizing audio quality in mind. A CD player is a type of computer, albeit one that sounds better, dollar for dollar, than what we typical call computers because they are simpler in nature and purposely built to sound good. Note that I said “potential,” and not “in practice.” |
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