Q & a

[Andrew]

Instead of me posting whatever crap i have written in the past about audio engineering I'd like you guys to throw anything you can think of about music tech and production etc. also about instrument gear..

anything. I know everything.

[Gray Gray]

okay man, maybe you can help me out with this, I notice that some DATs and CD recorders have a 16-, 20-, or 24-bit A/D D/A converter, while others have a 1-bit converter. Which provides better quality? Or is the sample rate the key to quality?

[Andrew]

Well the industry standard for CDs (redbook standard) are you sample at frequency of 44.1 khz and 16 bit per sec. You usually record in 24 bit then down sample to 16 bit because 24 bit is just ridic quality. Ive forgotten what bit rate dvds are...

Therer is no machine that goes 1 bit silly. but to answer your question id say 24 is the better quality hence we record with that standard.

(and i cant figure out my xbox hdcable go figure)

[Andrew]

and Boy you've done your research !

[Gray Gray]

Therer is no machine that goes 1 bit silly.


Really, I thought that 1 bit converters were high-speed converters which process digital data 1 bit at a time and are considered superior to multi-bit converters as they provide higher linearity (smoother wave output) and, theoretically, no switching noise.

[Andrew]

What the hell is switching noise? you mean dither? like adding a random signal when down sampling? Whether youre converting 24 bits/s or 1 bit its a matter of rates and thus has nothing to do with a 'smoother wave output'. Plus there arnt two things like single bit convertors or multi bit. they are just settings on a computer from the same cicurity. i think youre getting confused young one

[Gray Gray]

The DAC typically uses a different resistor for each bit. A 4-bit DAC needs 4 resistors working in parallel to provide a steady analog signal. When you get to the 16-bit or even 32-bit level found in CDs and DVDs, the number of gradations required per resistor makes it very difficult to precisely match values. For example, a typical 16-bit DAC would have 16 resistors requiring a total of 65,536 gradations.

What a 1-bit Dual D/A converter does is allow the digital-to-analog conversion to happen without the need for all those extra resistors. Essentially, this type of DAC does not use a bank of resistors operating in parallel. Instead, it creates a carefully modulated signal from the digital. The converter relies on noise shaping, a phenomenon that takes advantage of the human ear's inability to notice noise when it occurs in higher frequencies. Basically, the human ear is most sensitive to noise at 5 KHz, and is almost unable to detect it at 20 KHz.

....

[Andrew]

Ok then explain to me what you think that means. You cant just post something like that and ignore what i just said. non the less i guess you proved your one point that 1 bit coverters exsist, but this crack head who wrote it thinks it helps the quality of sound. I know from experience it dosnt and even if it did whole point of this one bit conversion seems like its there to get ride of noise in a/d and d/a when in fact circuity nowadays work so well anything from a slr camera to a audio interface has such a low signal to noise ratio humans wont even notice or the normal systems wont be able to pick it up.

[Gray Gray]

Ok then explain to me what you think that means. You cant just post something like that and ignore what i just said. non the less i guess you proved your one point that 1 bit coverters exsist, but this crack head who wrote it thinks it helps the quality of sound. I know from experience it dosnt and even if it did whole point of this one bit conversion seems like its there to get ride of noise in a/d and d/a when in fact circuity nowadays work so well anything from a slr camera to a audio interface has such a low signal to noise ratio humans wont even notice or the normal systems wont be able to pick it up.


well it also prove that it they don't use the same circuitry as your pior post suggested

and .. also ...when your listening to shit on the dogs .... you can pick up everything

[Andrew]

About the HT-5.. I have my pedal board hooked up to the effects loop and for some bizarre reason when I turn on the gain channel and turn on one of the presets on my DL4 (the filter sweep whatever it’s called) it cuts a huge amount of volume from the guitar. For the other presets its not so noticeable but it still does it, funny enough this doesn’t happen for the other delays I have on the board. This doesn't happen on the clean. Any thoughts Mr. Chappell?

[Gray Gray]

Take it out of the FX Loop and try it in the guitar chain. See if it does the same thing.

[Andrew]

genius.

If i stick that shit on the direct signal then the noise floor of each individual pedal would added up on after the other creating a whole new problem of it's own. The whole point of the effects loop is so that it bypasses that when it needs to, and all my delay signals and reverb would be overdriven by the gain channel which would sound like your mommy daddy fucking. It would sound even worse than just the ducking of volume.

[Gray Gray]

well i dunno mabye it would help you to narrow down the the problem.....

or why dont you try adjusting the output of that specific preset / perhaps you are killing the dry signal, and just listening to the filtered repeats...?

[Andrew]

possibly. or your face!

[Andrew]

and i cant reajust it without wiping the preset.. and i dont remeber the settings i had for it because i made it years ago.. Oh god you might be right.. god dang it

[Racho]

Okay...since you guys are kind of tip toe-ing around the same discussion...

What kind of resistor would I need to get in order to eliminate the static frequency that comes from the power supply from my laptop? I always have to unplug my laptop in order to record the analog inputs to get rid of the static charged distortion and that's fucking annoying.

http://www.numark.com/djio would one of these solve it?? Because I'm going to buy it for something else anyway

thanks for sharing your knowledge guyyyyys I love y'all

[Andrew]

Hi Rachel.

Maybe you should check out the rest of the forum because I covered this in a thread.

Noise Control in Audio Systems
http://www.anuspower.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50

Have a great day.

anuspower tech support