WIRED SCIENCE | Audio Files | PBS

Magnetic tape and vinyl grooves almost died with the digital era. But in a world where, iPods and MP3s rule, some audio aficionados never gave up LPs, record needles, and cassettes. Did digital sound destroy the warmth and simplicity of analog? Host Ziya Tong, with the help of some golden-ear experts, sets out to settle the debate over the digital/analog divide.

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• wired
• science
• pbs
• chris
• hardwick
• kcet
• digital
• analog
• sound
• audio

[SaturdaySaviour17]

I like Albini's production work and I am a huge Failure fan , but I'm going to have to agree with Ken on this one. Digital sounds great and is indeed much easier to use than analog, not saying that analog is horrible. It's funny because Albini produced Failure's first album Comfort. The music is great on the album, but the production is not the best and is definitely the worst out of Failure's three albums. Albini admitted that he didn't like the sound of Comfort

[Amishman35]

Analog is good because it's easy to get more bandwidth...record the tape at 30ips instead of 15ips, make an AM radio station go out to 10 kHz per sideband instead of 5kHz with a crystal oscillator, make the cassette recorder head gap smaller. Digital works on thresholds, a slightly mangled pulse from a wearing medium representing a digital bit of an audio sample can be copied onto new media with a clean pulse. Analog has generation loss. With digital, you're stuck the with original bandwidth.

[njf56]

I don't know whose side should I take. I like Ken Andrews as much as I do Steve Albini (Albini actually worked with Andrews's former band Failure on their debut album Comfort.)

[SPASTICsocietyx]

GREAT NORTHERN!!!

[TERRANCIO]

And i saw that show, the "Golden-ear Experts" FAILED 45% of the times when they were trying to note the difference between Analog and Digital! haha, i forgot those Gods names, lol, the fat one was the Bigger mouth! at the end before the results he said: is there any prize? You Failed!

[TERRANCIO]

Thats the stupidest thing ive heard in a long time, music was not Meant to be recorded, thats not the goal or nature of the sound, recording was just a tool to keep music and move music around or Sound for that matter, so music was meant to be reproduced in a Natural way, meaning Played Live! i know they make up sentences just to sound witty, imitating the Quotes from Books, but its stupid!

[AtheistAaron]

"Compact discs blow! Music was not meant to be heard with such clarity!" - David Cross, from Mr. Show