Xiph's Episode 2: _Digital Show & Tell_ is out, Second digital media geekout video from Xiph.Org Options

[xiphmont]

Xiph Episode 2: Digital Show & Tell is out!

"The second video from Xiph.Org explores multiple facets of digital audio signals and how they really behave in the real world. Sampling, quantization, dither, band-limiting, and vintage bench equipment all in one video!"

It's a followup in a sense to the 24/192 article of last year. Other videos: http://xiph.org/video/

This post has been edited by greynol: Feb 27 2013, 17:43

Reason for edit: Removed the "!" from the title per news submission guidelines

[2Bdecided]

Beautifully done. It should be required viewing/reading.

no one ever ruined a great recording by not dithering the final master

You'd "ruin" any digital fade-outs for anyone who chose to turn up the volume to hear them better.

Cheers,
David.

[xiphmont]

Beautifully done. It should be required viewing/reading.

no one ever ruined a great recording by not dithering the final master

You'd "ruin" any digital fade-outs for anyone who chose to turn up the volume to hear them better.

Cheers,
David.

I thought it was HA (perhaps another objectivist site) that ran a listening test that found some folks _preferred_ the undithered fades-- they liked that the fade went to black instead of noise. I could be misremembering badly, since I went back to try to find that test and found no hint of it. Does anyone else remember this? It was from several years ago at least.

[Kees de Visser]

I thought it was HA (perhaps another objectivist site) that ran a listening test that found some folks _preferred_ the undithered fades-- they liked that the fade went to black instead of noise.

Sounds like an interesting test. Did they include the third option "dithered fade back to digital black" ? A non-dithered fade can sound grainy since the distortion products are all over the spectrum. My first DAW (1990 Sonic Solutions) had an option to automatically switch off dither after the input signal stopped. The adjustable switch-off delay range was quite large, from 1 ms up to many seconds IIRC. Now you mention this, I haven't seen this option in modern DAW's.

@krabapple

This turning up fades to hear them better, is this a common thing to do?

Well, as an audio pro I have a +20dB button on my monitoring amp to make sure there are no indiscreet comments of artists left in the master
Also don't underestimate the effect of radio-style compressors (Orban Optimod e.g.). Low level signals can become much louder than intended by the mastering engineer.