Talk:Myths (Vinyl)

"The term "analog", by definition, means that the signal is not and cannot be a perfect reproduction of the original - it is merely an "analogue" of the existing signal, corrupted in the process of encoding."

This is not accurate, analogue has two definitions. One is a noun and refers to "a person or thing seen as comparable to another", the other is the adjective form that has nothing to do with the noun. In the world of science it is the adjective form that is used, which means "relating to or using information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity rather than digitally"

These definitions are from the Oxford English Dictionary, retrieved from here: http://www.wordreference.com/definition/analogue

In fact I submit that this entire section: Vinyl is better than digital because the analog signal on the vinyl tracks the analog signal exactly, while digital is quantized into steps of the article be deleted.

The logical foundation of the argument is faulty at best. Vinyls are not better than CD's as far as objective terms can dictate, but analog is fundamentally and demonstrably more accurate than digital. I will now demonstrate:

If one were to record a sound wave simultaneously into an ideal analogue audio signal and an ideal digital audio signal, then the analogue signal will always be a more accurate reproduction than the digital one. No matter how small the quantization of the digital audio would be, it would still be separated into discrete variation, where the analogue would, again, be unseparated, as a continuous variation wave. An ideal analogue recording could theoretically produce an exact electrical representation of the mechanical energy of the sound wave, where even an ideal digital could not.

Furthermore analogue recording does not "encode." Digital audio signals replicate audio through a series of "code," that is, they represent a mechanical wave of air pressure in a "code" of information, that is then read by some decoding instrument that can produce sound waves.

Analogue on the other hand uses a transducer to convert the mechanical energy of the wave into electrical energy, and possibly into magnetic energy in the form of "tape," and then uses another transducer on the output end of the system to convert back from electrical or magnetic energy into mechanical energy, in other words, a sound wave.

In fact, returning to the original quote, Digital signals are actually disqualified from exact accuracy by their definition. To be digital by definition means to be sampled, or quantized, or represented as discrete, rather than continuous, variation.

I do not disagree with the overall point of this article, but if you take vinyl as nothing more than analogous to analogue audio signals in general, then it has an accuracy advantage over any digital signal, regardless of any means taken to mask the quantization of wave variation, including dithering or any kind of sample blending. The section seems to be reaching for advantages for digital formats by intentionally confusing the issue, in an article that already proves basically without question that present digital audio signals are objectively superior to present analogue signals.

I will check back in a day to see if a counterargument has been posted, and then will remove the original sentence for factual inaccuracy.

As an afterthought, some of the definition confusion may be coming from the fact that we spell analogue without the last two letters in the United States when we refer to the adjective form, but still include the "ue" when using the noun form.

ENHANCEMENT

After seeing the retractions and additions that were made, I recognized that an expert contribution was required, since one inaccuracy was replaced with another. I decided to revert and start from that version as base, but essentially duplicated the retractions anyway by the time I was done.

In recognition of the above objections, I decided to update the section to reflect modern digital usage patterns that more sharply delineate the technical advantages of digital storage and processing versus analog. Regarding the prior request for technical corrections to the quantization verbiage, I left it as is because it is a great layperson-friendly explanation, and I could see no way to improve it without damaging it, so I just elaborated a little around the edges to explain better (I hope).