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Analog vs. Digital

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Digital audio is becoming ever more popular, and soon will be the standard audio production method. It is important to know the differences of digital and analog audio. Most importantly you need to know the weaknesses of digital audio.

The standard party line on this subject appears to be this: digital audio is more accurate but harsher, whereas analog audio is warmer but noisier. Since digital audio is the new technology it makes sense to focus on overcoming its flaws as innovation is more likely to address them.

Why is digital audio harsh and analog warm?

Analog audio utilizes electrical voltage induced waveforms to reproduce recorded sound. Analog technology allows the potential of unlimited voltage iterations (or variables) to achieve better accuracy. The equivalent to voltage iterations in the digital realm is bit rate. Bit rate refers to how many bits are used to reproduce each sample. Bit rate is theoretically unlimited as well but in most current hi-tech hardware it is limited to 24bit.

Sample rate refers to how often per second a reproduction is captured from the source audio. The more samples the more realistic the sound theoretically. However in reality the human brain has perceptual limits. At certain level of quality people often can't tell good from better. This is why a well encoded Mp3 can sound as good as a much bigger wav file. (I won't even get into the fact that most audio playback hardware is limited in is ability to playback sound faithfully).

Prior to the rise of digital audio, the best analogue recording technology could deliver 96khz sample rates. Digital audio has reached 96khz recording technology, in fact 192hz is on the way. Digital audio still sounds harsher... Why?

One of the weak links in digital audio is bit rate limitations. For example, in 8 bit audio, 8 bits are used to draw each sample. Imagine 8 bits drawing a wave form (or even a smiley face). Well that is a pretty jagged, harsh sounding wave (or smiley face). Obviously 8 is not enough. Currently 24 bit is the professional standard with 56bit on the way. 24bit resolution in current hardware implementation does not appear to equal the smoothness the best analogue recording equipment is capable of.

On a bed of nails the closer the nails are together (and consequently the more there are), and the less jagged the nails are the less likely you are to feel pain laying down on it. Digital audio from a far appears to be a very great looking comfortable bed but when you lay on it, it feels kind of harsh. Analogue audio is a less accurate potentially misshapen victorian bed of nails but the nails are less jagged, and are as close together as 96khz digital. This makes for a more comfy, warmer feel. Also analogue audio is capable of a lower bottom end (the thump of bass) which also contributes to the warmth.

So all digital audio needs to do is to continue to increase bit rate resolution capability, improve the bottom end and digital sound will eventually surpass even the best analog has right now. The demise of analog is inevitable. Until then many top producers are using digital/analog hybrid systems. Recording and/or editing in digital, and then using analog effects and mastering to warm things up. There are even digital effects that try to emulate that analog sound, Tracks 24 mastering software is a good example of this.

thanks to multimedian.com