Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
Another nail in the coffin of the CD?
Posted by Uncle Sil on 21 November 2009 - 9:20am.
CD player production ends at Linn
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8368895.stm
"The firm, which makes systems costing from £2,500 to more than £100,000, said discerning customers recognised the superior quality of digital streaming. "
Is digital streaming really superior?
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BBC laziness?
My guess is that it's typically lazy BBC journalism and someone who doesn't understand, and can't be arsed to pick up the phone to get clarification, has poorly paraphrased a press release.
The end result of a sound system is only ever going to be as good as the source. I'm interested to know what the source of the streamed signal is.
I expect the press release suggested that "Digital Streaming is superior to what it was 10 years ago and people with lots of money prefer using streaming to CDs"
This suggests the Beeb were
This suggests the Beeb were a bit confused "Yet it continues to make turntables for vinyl records, as there remains a demand for the quality of sound compression offered by older record technology."
However, yes Linn does offer its downloads at a range of quality levels and the top is more like SACD than CD
"Linn, which has its own small record label, foresees a move to what it calls Studio Master Quality material, available for download."
http://www.linnrecords.com/catalogue.aspx?format=studio
Clarification
My thoughts exactly.
Unless the source is FLAC or similarly lossless, then surely there's no way digital streaming can match CD quality.
This is probably more accurate.
"We could not avoid the bare facts: CD players and printed disc media are on an unstoppable and accelerating demise, to be replaced with music streaming and downloading. The emergence of higher-than-CD quality downloads means, for the arguably the first time since the introduction of mass-market digital music, quality is finally on the rise."
Higher than CD quality downloads?
http://blogs.linn.co.uk/giladt/
Depends where it's streaming from
In my opinion FLAC and other lossless formats are just a stop-gap until we have the bandwidth to fire uncompressed audio around easily in a consumer environment. "Digital quality" is a nebulous term as there is no inherent quality in something simply being from a digital source - it's all about what digitised it at one end and what is turning it back into sound at the other end, and what happened in between.
That said, the better-than-CD-quality downloads from Bowers and Wilkins are most impressive.
http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/display.aspx?infid=3550
Why?
What's the advantage of not compressing? Surely if the processor at the decompressing end can keep up then all you're doing by streaming uncompressed files is clogging up the network unnecesarily.
Just... because (honestly, I don't have a good reason)
I simply worry about that compression/decompression layer in the middle and how it really doesn't need to be there.
Certainly I wouldn't advocate FLAC as a long-term storage solution because if there comes a time when the drivers to compress and decompress the audio are no longer available then your files will be useless. That all may change if FLAC takes off in a big way, but it is much easier to recover data from an uncompressed format. I've never used FLAC seriously enough to judge it in terms of how long it takes to compress and decompress, or how robust it is in terms of error correction, etc., which I'd imagine is a big deal if you are talking about streaming it over the Internet as opposed to a home network.
All that said I freely admit that I have issues with the concept of lossless audio which I just can't logically explain. In my head, one minute of digital audio at CD quality ought to be a certain size in terms of data, and if it's not then I feel nervous about what isn't there.
Two things
1. FLAC is open source so it's unlikely to just disappear and as it's lossless there will be no issues (except the time taken to run a sodding great batch file!) in converting files to a different format. It's platform independent so as long as you can read the medium it's on it should live forever.
2. We're used to any digital data we have being processed before we hear it. Even with a traditional red book CD the data gets checked and error corrected (if necessary) before it hits the D to A. As long as the processing circuitry has reformed the original before it gets to the analog stage I can't what the issue would be. After all the data lost during lossless compression is completely unnecessary as long as you know the algorithm at the other end and you have enough time to process it (which we do on both counts).
A few observations.
Crudely put, FLAC or any other 'lossless' compression format simply examines the stream of 1s and 0s that make up a digital file and recognises patterns which repeat within the data. It then stores information about the patterns in such a way that the number of 1s and 0s needed to store the file is reduced, ensuring at the same time that the original pattern can be recreated on demand. Hence the file is compressed, but it's done in a 'lossless' fashion.
This is in contrast to lossy formats like MP3 that actually chuck away extraneous information (1s and 0s) on the basis that we can't hear it anyway when it's detail swamped in the mix. Cue swirly whirly swishy aural artefacts if you crank the compression up too far.
What FLAC is typically used to 'compress' however is 'Red Book' CD standard recorded music. Which has already been compromised from the (mostly) analogue source by dint of the digital recording parameters used to create the initial file. Hence CD is bettered by SACD which is bettered by DVD-A which is bettered by good vinyl which is bettered by being in the studio or at the gig. Assuming the desk engineer is any good.
It isn't any 'easier to recover data from an uncompressed format' at all. It's only less likely that a format will become less widely used.
Decompressing a FLAC file takes seconds. A five minute CD quality track stored in FLAC format will be recovered in less than 15 seconds on a decent PC or Mac.
As long as you're happy with CD quality audio, there's nothing to lose (sic) except wasted bandwidth if you deploy music files in FLAC form. It may well be of course, that bandwidth simply isn't an issue any more.
Stimpy will have something useful to add to this if he reads the thread, I'm sure.
Disk wear
There is another reason to use a compressed file and that's where several clients are accessing different streams from the same hard drive there will be more head moving. Also, even with a single client, the less information stored or retrieved from a disk means less wear and tear on the drive. Obviously once everything is solid state this won't really be a problem but I would guess that by then, bandwidth won't be a problem either.
Stimpy comments:
Nothing more to say, Vulp; I reckon you've covered it all there :-)
As long as the compression/decompression algorithm is truly lossless then it's of no consequence. As Vulp said, using FLAC reduces file size but adds in a further process step. I guess maybe one day the speed of broadband might be such that we can all exchange raw 1411kbps WAVs, or even higher rate 'direct to streaming' files, but I suspect that will be some time yet.
In the world of 'serious' bootleg collectors, FLAC compression of 1411kbps WAVs is becoming (has become?) the standard.
Using some sort of wrapper for files does of course provide the extra level of security that the compression/decompression process validates the integrity of file. If a FLAC doesn't unpack cleanly then I know straight away that there's a problem. Exchanging/torrenting raw WAVs doesn't necessarily provide that level of confidence.
FWIW
Apple lossless is routinely transcoded into something else on my laptop before it is sent wirelessly to my Squeezebox. No obvious sonic problem that I have noticed.
But I haven't yet taken the plunge a la Stimpy to having *everything* streamed from a hard disk yet, mainly because I live in the week in a small flat and can always nip into stairwell where the CDs live--and alternate weekends see me at the FPO's house, where my 120Gb iPod goes w/ me. What tempts me right now though are the "superdocks", like Onkyo's, which have found a way to get iPod audio out in digital form and into an amp, bypassing the built-in DAC.
BTW Stimpy, did you get a system for the Stimpette yet ? A colleague here has bought a Pure Sensia and Avanti Flow, likes them both.
Get streaming
It took about a year to rip everything and organise it properly and while I was doing it we still tended to put CDs in if we wanted music but we've been all streaming for about 4 years now and I wouldn't go back to CDs. As soon as we knew that everything was streamable we've hardly used the CD player.
Digital quality
Lossless streaming around the house is already here.
CDs use 1.41Mbps, B&W offer 24bit 48KHz lossless requiring 2.3Mbps, while Linn have 24bit 192KHz available that requires 9.2Mbps - the standard wireless around the house uses 54Mbps.
So if one compares the 16bits at 44.1kHz available on a CD to the 24x192 available from Linn then digital streaming can be far superior to CDs, even vinyl.
CD's have blocked the rise of digital quality by being a hardware standard carved in stone 30 years ago. With downloads the 'quality' is just an economic dial that can be turned from 'direct from the mixing desk' to 'free online streaming'.
Pardon a cynic, but
in the grand scheme of things, how many CD systems does Linn sell in a year, and what proportion of the global population of CD players would that equate to ? If their base price is GBP2500, I'm guessing it'll be several decimal places the wrong side of stuff all.
I would be much more impressed if Toshiba, Sony or one of the other big players cut the cord entirely.
Interesting to see what Linn's niche competitors
and the big players *are* doing.
Naim have launched a very well received streamer, the Uniti, but have kept a CD player in that.
Meridian do still make a dedicated CD player and afaik are very big in niche AV including DVD replay. For streaming they have bought the Soolos system and added that into their range:
http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2009/09/04/meridian-sooloos-20-streams-like...
(edit: Interestingly though, like B&W and some others they are testing/fishing in more "consumer" waters as well with the appearance of the F80
http://www.russandrews.com/category-Meridian-F80-Pmeridian.htm
in the Heathrow T5 Dixons-where it rubs shoulders with Bose et al.)
The Japanese seem to be ranking CD pretty low in priority as you'd expect, one feels a bitter pill for Sony must be to have started selling iPod docks ...
myself, in my preferred niche (midprice semi-traditional hifi) I am looking to see how Arcam replaces this, only about 5 years old iirc,
http://www.arcam.co.uk/products,solo,Music-Systems,SoloMusic.htm
as they surely have to pretty soon, and following their noisy rivals at AVI who really do seem to "get it":
http://www.avihifi.co.uk/
Can I still play my
Jimmy Shand 78s?
Yes
But at 76.4
just plug this in
http://www.rega.co.uk/html/planar78.htm
the special Jimmy Shand button is an undocumented feature
Crickey!
They fink of everyfin don't they?
Marvellous.
who was
it who used to punctuate his show with random bits of Shand-Noel Edmonds ?
Honestly, no idea...
But it sounds likely!
Time to post this song... can't find Thompson himself singing it, but this is pretty good...
And the man himself...
looks lovely
But at £220 I'll stick to my old gramaphone thanks. (Incidentally, am I the only one, or is this section on 78s and turntables the only bit of this debate you understand?)
I have an old 'horn' gramophone
with half-a-dozen 78s - I have to admit that it's used mainly for decorative purposes these days though.
Sob, I remember my parent's 78 player.
Reader, I broke it.
Proper HMV it was, with the dog and everything. I was too enthusiastic a music fan even at the age of 6, and managed to break the main spring. Doing! No more 'Teddy Bear's Picnic'. Sob.
And every bear that ever there was
http://www.radiodismuke.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1247
Inane grin.
Vulpes feels the strong Proustian pull of infantile regression. All he needs is some Canadian dollars. Lots of them.
meanwhile
saw one of these
http://www.johnlewis.com/230662901/Product.aspx
in John Lewis y'day--future archaeologists will see this as a key devotional element of the Cult of Mac (whose leader will be believed to be a mythical figure called Bill Gates ...)
Ewwww!!
That's SO not an Apple product.