29 Dec
2012
29 Dec
'12
12:27 p.m.
On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 09:03:32PM -0500, Al Thompson wrote:
And every extra circuit you cram in the signal chain
merely ads noise,
distortion, and other coloration. Who can forget the debates about
whether the CONVENIENCE of CAM was really worth the unavoidable
degradation in quality due to the VCAs most consoles used. If a
defective component (fader, pot) is adding noise or distortion, then it
should be replaced, and not used as "justification" that digital is better.
The only 'justification' is that such maintenance can be extremely
expensive and in many cases almost impossible or impractical, in
the case of single PCB mixers for example. If you want regular
maintainance, the extra cost of modular equipment pays off rather
fast.
Also a switch or pot doesn't have to be really defective, in many
cases this is a sort of degradation that goes unnoticed for a long
time. The point I wanted to make is that much supposedly superior
analog equipment is real life less perfect that it is believed to be.
There's nothing 'musical' to the type of distortion caused by a dirty
switch.
Ciao,
--
FA
A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.
It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)