WEBVTT - TechStuff Builds a Sound System 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.960 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.160 I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.880 with how Stuff Works and I love all things tech. 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.079 And listener Carl Ludwig asked that I do an episode 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:29.360 about the various components of a high end audio system. 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:31.880 That's a tall order. So there are a few technological 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.839 topics that are kind of mine fields, right, things that 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:42.760 have a lot of very strong opposing opinions. I don't 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.800 know that there's any issue in tech where the real 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:52.000 fanatics of that technology have as many fundamental disagreements as 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:57.120 those in the high end audio equipment field. It's it's 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:02.920 got elements of mysticism in there, because it's all about experience, 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:05.520 you know this, this idea of the audio experience. Their 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.160 devotees of audio systems, who will argue to the grave 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.680 that the most important components are the speakers. For example, 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.600 they'll say, the speakers are absolutely where you have to 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.800 spend the most attention and time and money to get 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.360 the right ones. Others will say, no, no, no, you're wrong. 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:25.720 The most important piece of equipment in a high end 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.160 audio system is the pre amplifier. You've got to have 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.640 the best pre amp or else everything else is going 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.200 to be a shambles. Then there are others who will say, no, no, no, 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:38.920 it's the source audio, the CD player or the turntable 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:41.920 that's the most important component. And you get these arguments. 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.399 If you go to any high end audio forum, you 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.080 will see what I'm talking about. And then there's gonna 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:50.840 be some audio files who will say this, this particular 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.200 system I built, it's superior to all others, and it 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:58.000 has these incredibly expensive components that create the most amazing 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.560 listening experience you will ever have. And then others will 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:04.640 say the system you put together is garbage, and the 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.800 arguments you make are without merit. Here's a good system 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.640 that I put together for a fraction of the cost, 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.080 and it's much better, and the arguments continue. So what 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.560 I'm getting at is that the experience of hearing a 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.200 sound is actually incredibly subjective. You know, you might think 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.880 of it, well, a sound is a physical phenomenon, right, 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:30.440 sound is vibration, So how can it be subjective? Well, yeah, 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.480 it's it's a physical phenomenon, But the way we perceive 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:39.880 it ultimately is by processing the information in the gray 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.600 matter in our skulls. Our brains do that last step 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:49.000 for the experience of sound. We take in sound as 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:53.040 a physical thing, but we process it as a mental thing, 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:57.600 and therein lies the problem. It is possible for two 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:02.680 different people to have to them two different experiences listening 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.720 to the same sound system. To one person it might 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.679 sound perfect, and to the other it might not sound perfect. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.160 And it doesn't mean one person's right and one person 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.640 is wrong. For each person that might be the true answer. 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.640 And it also gets really tricky because audio files use 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:27.720 really kind of vague language to describe sound. They want 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:33.440 a listening experience to be as close to the being 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.240 present at the recording session as possible, for example, although 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.320 these days that gets harder and harder to do because 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:43.760 there's so much post production in music that there's no 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.480 such thing as a recording session kind of experience for 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.200 some of that music. But let's say it's a symphonic piece, 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.560 you know, classical music, it might mean that an audiophile 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:55.920 wants to be able to make a clear distinction between 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.160 individual instruments, and they'll talk about sound having quality is 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:06.440 like warmth or brightness, and being able to create a space, 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:12.760 a spatial quality to the music. And these are interesting terms, 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.840 like if you experience the sound, you might say, well, 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.400 I get what they're saying, but there's not really a 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:25.600 quantitative way two express those ideas in many in many cases, 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:30.839 so it almost becomes a spiritual experience, and thus it 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:35.120 becomes very complicated to talk about the technology. Now that 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.720 being said, audio component manufacturers have a product they want 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.520 to sell, and selling and experience is pretty hard to 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.400 do unless you can convince a customer to come in 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:50.120 for a demonstration and to sit through a demonstration that 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:55.080 includes lots of different variables and to kind of come 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.719 to that conclusion of this particular high end audio system 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.120 is the one for me because it produces the sound 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:05.880 that I feel is superior. So since that's not possible 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.880 with everyone, a lot of component manufacturers will focus instead 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.760 on numbers. So numbers. You know, we were comfortable with numbers, 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.279 and typically we say the higher the number is, the 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.600 better the thing is, right, The more megapixels that camera has, 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.960 the better the camera is. Right. Not necessarily the same 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.440 is true with high end audio equipment. You'll start to 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.360 see numbers being bandied around for all sorts of stuff, 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.800 but that does not necessarily tell you how good it 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.080 will sound to you. This, by the way, makes me 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.960 think of a famous scene in the comedy This is 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:44.279 Spinal Tap, where the character Nigel Toughness explains to his 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:50.440 his documentarian that his martial stack amplifier has dials that 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.479 go up to eleven. And he says, most bands use 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.440 equipment that maxes out at ten, which means if they 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.320 need something extra and they're already at ten, there's nowhere 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.359 else to go. But he can go up to eleven, 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:06.120 so he can go one more than they can. And 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:10.000 then that documentary in character called Marty de burgh E, says, well, 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.000 why don't you just make ten louder and make ten 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:18.240 the top number? And then Nigel's responses these go to eleven. 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.120 It's a very silly scene, but it illustrates my point. 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.440 Some companies will cite numbers in a way that sounds 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.000 meaningful but may not actually make a real difference in 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:32.240 the experience of listening to audio. Another element that makes 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.680 it hard to sell audio components is that there's been 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:40.920 a major shift, specifically in the last decade, where we've 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:46.200 seen the the real focus of the audio experience skew 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:51.039 heavily toward convenience over fidelity. By that, I mean it 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.080 is wicked convenient to be able to carry an entire 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.520 music library around on a portable device and listen wherever 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:01.720 you go, or more commonly these days, you're using a 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.560 device to log into a music streaming service and then 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.800 listen on demand to practically any song you can think of, 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.000 though in reality, obviously you only have access to whatever 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:18.160 music labels that service has made agreements with, So you 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.040 might think of a song and look for and find out, oh, well, 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:23.040 that's not available on this service. But you get what 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:27.120 I mean. You can have thousands, hundreds of thousands of 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.760 songs available to you, and it's all through this portable device. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.720 The audio experience just needs to be good enough. It 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.200 doesn't have to be fantastic. It just has to have 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:42.880 enough fidelity where the convenience is the most important factor. 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:48.920 Now audio files. People who truly strive to get that 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:53.520 that amazing audio reproduction experience, they shudder at the thought 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.920 of this because to them, the idea of listening to 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.680 music that's in a lossy format over an inner connection 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:05.000 SAPs the audio of its character and its depth, And 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.240 these days, audio systems, those high end audio systems are 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.040 becoming more of a niche market than ever before. And 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.960 the luxury systems were always a niche market because they're 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:18.760 incredibly expensive. You know, you're talking about thousands of dollars 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:23.240 per component. But even the mid range market stuff, the 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.760 stuff that was in the hundreds of dollars, that's becoming 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.480 more of a niche market because there are fewer people 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:34.800 who want to collect music physical media of music, and 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.640 want to have a big sound system. Not that there 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:42.800 aren't any, but there are fewer of them. So in 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:44.520 this episode, I am not going to give you a 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.080 checklist of specific brand names and models that you need 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:49.520 to go out and buy if you want to build 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.480 a dream audio system, because what sounds great to me 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:54.880 might not sound great to you, and it would be 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.160 a disservice. This reminds us that the experience of hearing 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.760 something is dependent not just on a physical phenomena, but 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:06.480 mental processing, and goodness knows, the way I process information 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:11.240 in my brain is whackadoodle crazy. But what I can 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.720 do is walk through the various parts of a typical 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.120 high end audio system and talk about what each one does. 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:20.520 And I do think it's possible for the quality of 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.280 the sound produced by a system to change just by 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.600 swapping out a component or two. Now, some might make 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.040 a much more noticeable impact than others. Some might be 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:33.160 subtle enough to go largely unnoticed. And while you might 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.400 get better performance from a certain type of high end 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.120 product than a less costly version, I don't think that's 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.400 necessarily true across the board. I don't think higher price 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:49.079 always equals better quality. Again, it's subjective. So in some cases, 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:53.559 you might find that a system that is relatively inexpensive 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:58.360 is producing an experience that you find particularly compelling. That's 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.120 the wonderful thing about it. Of course, the opposite. It's 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.160 also true. You might find that a really expensive system 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.880 is the one that genuinely sounds the best to you, 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.600 in which case you have some important decisions to make. 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.400 All right, So, let's say that you want to put 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:15.440 together an audio system, and you're not going to go 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.160 out and buy a cheap all in one system. You're 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.120 not going to buy an off the shelf stereo system 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.559 all in one thing. You want something with more modularity. 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.240 Maybe you want to create the best possible experience according 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.200 to your preferences. Maybe you also want the option to 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.360 replace modular parts with upgrades when you can afford them. 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.560 So you might say, well, based on my budget, I'm 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.880 gonna buy an amplifier and all these other components, but 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.520 I'm not gonna go with the amplifier that would be 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:45.440 my first choice. It's too expensive. I'll go with a 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.319 lower cost version, and then maybe later when I've saved 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.800 up money, I'll swap that out. Because if it's a 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.040 modular system, you can do that. You can take one 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.560 piece out and replace it with another one. It's also 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.720 easier to make repairs. If something breaks and you've identified 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.720 which part of the chain is the broken one, you 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:08.040 can disconnect that and then go and get it fixed. Basically, 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.880 your audio system will consist of these parts. You've got 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.080 your sound sources. These are the components that are creating 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.720 the signals that go through the rest of the system. 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.360 It's the origin point for the signal. So in a 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.280 digital system, you can talk about CD player. With an 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.160 analog system, it might be a turntable, it could be 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:29.600 other sources as well, and you can have hybrid systems 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.200 where it's both digital and analog systems. That's totally possible. 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:39.000 Then you have things like amplifiers, pre amplifiers and receivers. 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.679 These take in signals from a sound source and then 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.720 they send that signal onto speakers. And you might say, well, 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:49.760 why would you why would you have an in between component, 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.520 Because general logic says the more components you put in 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.880 between an origin and its destination, the more opportunities there 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:03.440 are two we can a signal. Well, it's because for 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.840 a speaker to work, to drive the drivers inside a speaker, 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:11.280 to make those speaker diaphragms vibrate properly to reproduce sound, 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.520 you need to have a stronger signal than what these 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.959 origin sources can create. The signals, the electric signals they 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.440 create are too weak to drive that speaker on their own. 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:26.360 So an amplifier's job is to take that incoming signal 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:32.040 and amplify it, to boost it without introducing any noise, 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.680 if possible, so to to replicate that signal as precisely 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:41.120 as possible, but at a greater amplitude, and then send 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.880 that onto the speakers. Then, of course you have the speakers. 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.679 That's the component that actually creates the vibrations that we 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.920 experience the sound. They have the drivers inside the vibrate, 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.040 they take in the incoming electric signal, and then through 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.840 electro magnets caused the diaphragms inside the speaker drivers to 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.000 move in and out. Laterally, that causes air molecules to move, 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.800 of which propagates a sound. And then, of course, between 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.920 all of these components, you have your various interconnects or cables, 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:09.520 and the cables carry the signal from one part of 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.640 the system to the next part of the system, and 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.600 each of those parts are important to some extent, and 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.440 it's also important to remember that a sound system made 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.720 up of components is really only going to perform as 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.160 well as the weakest part of the system. So you 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.760 might have a killer amplification system, you might have really 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.400 sweet speakers, but then you've got a super cheap vinyl turntable, 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.200 and the signal that vinyl turntable is going to supply 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.319 to the rest of that system might not be very good. 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:40.360 You might get a lot of noise in there. That 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.520 means you're gonna get an amazing reproduction of a crappy 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:48.240 audio signal. Likewise, you might have a phenomenal turntable that 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:54.199 creates a really clear, fantastic signal and you've got great amplifiers, 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.040 they take that signal and they boost it up reliably. 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.520 But then you've got really weedy speakers and the sound 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:02.559 you get is really tenny, and there's not a lot 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.120 of base, and it's not truly representative of what the 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.120 rest of the system could do if there were better 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:11.880 speakers attached to it. And also note that when I 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.520 say better, I don't necessarily mean more expensive. Sometimes budget 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.520 or mid cost components can perform just as well or 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.720 better than the super high end stuff. It all depends 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:26.080 upon the full system. Now this isn't just me dismissing 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.920 luxury products. There have been numerous tests, many of them 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:34.760 blind studies, that have demonstrated that, at least with certain components, 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:39.120 listeners are unable to identify which one is supposedly the 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.160 top performing piece of equipment with a regularity that suggests 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.400 that it was better than just by chance alone. So 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.440 in other words, you could have a test where you've 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:53.520 got three different amplifiers, let's say, and you have one 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.680 that's a really high end luxury amplifier, you've got one 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.880 that's a mid range one that's a budget and you 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:00.800 might find through your test thing that people are just 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:05.320 not reliably able to identify the luxury component with a 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.520 lot of them. A lot of these tests, I see 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:12.400 that whatever is the lowest price piece of equipment, people 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.080 tend to be able to point at that and say 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.600 that's just not as good as these other ones. So 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.760 there is there is a point where performance will drop 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:26.080 off if the component was not made with good materials 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:31.040 and and good engineering. But there can be times where 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.800 something that is supposed to be a super high performing 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:39.720 piece isn't distinguishable from a mid range component, for example. 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.080 And again it's a subjective experience. It may very well 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.840 be that to one person the luxury piece of equipment 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:52.000 does create a better sound, to another person that just doesn't. Uh. 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:53.960 And in other cases it may just be people saying 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:55.640 I can't really tell the difference, so I'm just going 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.520 to kind of guess. So it's hard to say. Now 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:00.320 we've got all that ambiguity out the way. When we 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:05.560 come back, I'll start breaking down the individual components more closely. 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:16.920 But first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay, 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.640 let's start with those source components, as those are the 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.080 ones providing the signal sent to the rest of the system. 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:28.120 Some would argue, and I would probably be among them, 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.920 that this is probably the most important component of the 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.480 sound system, because again, if your audio source is sending 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.800 out a crappy signal for whatever reason, it really doesn't 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.160 matter how good the rest of the components are. You 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:46.240 can't improve a crappy signal. Really, you're going to get 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.920 a subpar experience. You might be able to have some 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.640 noise correction and some other elements worked in with those components, 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.960 but ultimately you want that original signal to be as 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:01.200 good as possible. So generally speaking, we can divide all 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.840 of these audio sources into two broad categories. You've got 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.679 analog that would be stuff like a turntable or an 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:12.920 analog cassette deck. Analog components don't require any signal processing 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.200 apart from amplification to drive us as speakers. And then 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.880 you have digital. Digital components include stuff like compact disc 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:24.560 players or DVD audio players. These components require something called 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.640 a digital to analog converter to take that digital information 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.600 and change it into an analog signal. Now, the reason 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.480 for this is the nature of analog versus digital and 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.520 analog signal is continuous. Think of it as a sign wave. 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.600 All right, it's one continuous line. It's got peaks and 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:47.600 Scott valleys, but it's uninterrupted. That's analog. Digital is really 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.600 more of a series of instances, almost like snapshots, right, 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.840 we call those samples. So you take a sound and 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:02.760 you take samples, snapshots of that sound at a specific interval, 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.760 and you that could be thousands and thousands of times 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:10.960 per second, but it's not continuous. It's almost like animation 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.560 if you think of cells and animation. It's a series 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:15.359 of images and when you play it back at a 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.920 certain speed, it appears to be seamless movement. Well, it's 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.560 kind of like that, except we're talking about snapshots of data, 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.600 and when you play them back at proper speed, then 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:33.520 it can simulate a seamless sign wave. But you still 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.760 have to take one more step. You still have to 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:41.280 take that digital information and turn it into an analog signal. 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.800 It's not truly an analog wave, no matter how many 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:49.240 times you're sampling a sound per second, It doesn't matter 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.960 how many samples you have, it's not an analog wave. 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.840 So technically, you take a digital to audio converter and 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:01.119 they take this fixed point value, this set a fixed 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.959 point values that represent a sound and they translate that 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:11.720 into a physical variable voltage. So, uh, this continuously variable 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:16.000 signal is something that the rest of the system can handle. 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.359 So many c D players, in fact, a lot of 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.760 consumer CD players, especially the stuff that's not meant to 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.400 go in high end audio systems, have an integrated digital 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.920 to audio converter included in their design. It's part of 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.199 the system. So if you've ever had just a regular 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.120 CD player or home audio system that's connected to speakers, 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.320 and you're thinking I didn't need anything special, well, it's 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.879 because the d a C, the digital audio converter, was 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:47.479 built directly into the product. But if you're a super 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:52.159 audio file you can essue that stuff. You could say, no, 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:54.840 I'm not gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:59.119 a standalone d a C device, So you would connect 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:03.119 your digital store, which for CDs that would probably be 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:07.359 a transport. A transport is technically it's essentially a CD player. 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.720 It just doesn't have a d A C. So it's 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.440 a CD player. It can read the data off the disk, 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:15.240 but it doesn't have the digital to audio converters. So 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.320 if you hooked up this kind of CD player to speakers, 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.600 nothing would happen. You would need the digital to audio 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.800 converter in between those. Uh so it's it's it's almost 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:30.359 like a CD player that's missing apart and the standalone 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.960 D a C would convert that incoming digital signal into 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.760 an analog one and send that along the rest of 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.680 the system to the amplifier and then ultimately to the speakers. 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.360 Another potential source of digital signal is a computer system. Right, 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.360 we don't just have CD players and DVD players. In fact, 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.480 fewer and fewer people are using those for their audio. 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.280 A lot more people are using computers. I talked about 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.880 that earlier with the convenience argument. We store a lot 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:00.480 of music and digital file formats these days. The quality 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.480 of audio you're gonna get from a digital file largely 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.520 depends upon the type of file you're using. There are 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.760 lots of different file formats, some of which use heavy 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:15.640 compression and uh file types like MP three those are 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.719 lossy formats. So in order to compress file sizes, and 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.040 the whole purpose of that is to make the more manageable, right, 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.800 to shrink the file size down so they're easier to 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:30.400 store and to pull up and and send in order 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:33.600 to make that happen to compress that information, what the 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:38.240 format does is essentially a ditches digital information that makes 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.879 up part of that sound. Now, in theory, the compression 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:46.120 algorithms are eliminating frequencies that we would otherwise be unable 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:48.680 to hear, So, in other words, it's just trying to 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.840 get rid of superfluous information that we would never perceive 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.720 in the first place. The range of human hearing is limited. 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.679 Typically we describe it as being between twenty hurts and 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:05.000 twin d thousand hurts. Those frequencies mark the edges of 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:08.919 human hearing for the for the average person, anything below 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:13.400 twenty hurts or above twenty thou hurts for nearly everyone 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:17.159 is imperceptible. So one way you can reduce a sound 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:21.480 file size is you look for any data that references 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.359 frequencies that are outside the range of human hearing, and 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:26.320 you say, well, I don't need it because there's no 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:28.919 way to perceive it, so get rid of it. Dump it. 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.280 If there are two or more instruments that are playing 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.320 and one is slightly louder than the other, or significantly 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.000 louder than the other, we often can't hear the softer one. Uh, 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:41.760 if there's a really loud sound, we typically cannot hear 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:46.600 the sound immediately following that. It's just a quality of 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:50.400 human hearing. So again, a compression algorithm might say, well, 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.760 here's the sound, and it's amplitude as such that the 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:57.800 listeners never going to hear this next sound that is 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:01.440 in the file, So we're gonna dump that too. Right again, 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:03.959 if you can't perceive it, why would you save it? 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:09.280 That's the the logic behind us. But this can actually 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:12.320 change the quality of the sound we hear, even if 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:14.760 it isn't in a direct way. So one thing that 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:17.040 could happen is you could have a really you know, 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:20.920 low bit rate for this kind of compression, and then 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:27.600 you end up creating a a pretty lossy file. Your 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:30.359 your file is going to be smaller, but the fidelity 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:32.000 is going to be very low to the point where 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:35.520 you're gonna be able to hear it. Moreover, compression algorithms 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:40.560 tend to reduce dynamics, so we call dynamics would be 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:43.760 the description of the difference between the softest and the 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:50.440 loudest sounds in a recording, and uh, compression tends to 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:54.000 squish all that in a bit so that your loudest 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.560 loud sounds and your softest soft sounds are closer together. 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:01.639 You have less dynamic range. And because more of us 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:04.360 listen to digital music and have sort of moved away 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:11.600 from analog sources, music itself has moved away from creating 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:16.600 songs with really great dynamic range. We see musicians focusing 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:20.760 on ranges that have less dynamics in them. We're seeing 0:24:20.840 --> 0:24:23.640 music produced with that smaller dynamic range from the very start, 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:27.920 Why would you craft something with great dynamic complexity if 0:24:27.960 --> 0:24:29.840 no one's ever going to hear it, Because they're listening 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:33.400 to a compressed digital stream over the internet. So it's 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:36.800 actually changing the way people make and record music, not 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:39.760 just store it and play it back. But then they're 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:44.840 also lossless file formats. These are digital files that preserve 0:24:45.000 --> 0:24:48.919 all the information from a recorded session. Then the quality 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:52.119 of your listening session is dependent upon three main factors. 0:24:52.640 --> 0:24:55.080