General Forum

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

adlcorbett — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:08:30 GMT

Why is this Beosound 5 being launched with a 500G HDD, come on, that is pathetic for a leading edge company - we all buy B&O for years - In a few years with HD video and better sound quality this won't store anything.

You can buy 500G for £50 in the UK, so why add a low quality PC box when we could just plug it into a PC where we store all of our stuff?

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

Puncher — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:56:30 GMT

If played on a player that doesn't support HDCD decoding, the peaks can have additional compression that isn't expanded during playback and so is audible.

Personally I wouldn't persue if I didn't have a suitable decoder and given that the available titles are pretty much the same as SACD I would probably go that route and get the increased word size and higher sample rate.

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

Alex — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:44:21 GMT

I suppose it's due to mastering costs. 20 bit and 16 bit masters need to be produced.

There's also the extra cost involved in actually implementing the decoding hardware. It's owned and patented by Microsoft.

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

wonderfulelectric — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:33:14 GMT

Oh yeah! HDCD does seem to make a huge difference but why the lack of decoders around? I mean there is an increasing lack of support in the cd players and D/A converters around. I have never got a chance to really hear HDCD decoded before, but even without the decoding it does sound quite impressive. In my opinion all CDs should be HDCD! Is it more expensive to produce them or something?

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

Alex — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:24:08 GMT

HDCD has already provided an extra 4 bits (an extra 24 dB dynamic range) of information per sample on a standard format CD. No higher sample rate unfortunately though...

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

wonderfulelectric — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:37:38 GMT

Of course. What I meant was like CD is sorta of an open format with no copyright protection whatsoever, if Sony would just remake the format "CD" to 24bit/96khz like and upgrade or something then yeah everyone will have access to it. The industry could have just displaced the older cd format/players, and it could have happened way sooner than the introduction of DVD-A and SACD or even DVDs.

And Puncher. Do you have a problem with me expressing my opinions or something? Why all the disagreements in most of my posts?

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

Puncher — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:19:10 GMT

I don't see how we are "stuck" with CD's - high resolution audio has been available for several years in the SACD and DVD-Audio formats (albeit incorporating copy protection schemes) however they just failed to take off, it seems the general public is happy with CD quality and recently have shown they are quite prepared to put up with much lower quality, compressed music.

The other problem is that you need a different disc format (as in the formats mentioned) - normal CD's couldn't hold an album full of 24 bit 96Khz music.

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

wonderfulelectric — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:26:28 GMT

Remember a few years back, there was a record player that uses like a laser reading system instead of a tonearm? I wonder whether it got rid of all the harmonic problems associated with Vinyl playback.

Anyways the only reason why we are stuck with CDs right now is because of those darn copyright people, they didn't want to change regular cd recordings to 24/96khz because of the lack of protection against piracy so there will be no point doing it. Imagine that all the cds we purchase today are in high resolution, wouldn't that be swell?

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

Alex — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 07:17:43 GMT

Llewelyn:
Alex:
wonderfulelectric:
Well then so I guess you disagree that a good vinyl/mastertape will sound better than a DVD then.
Vinyl is technically inferior to DVD
Vinyl and digital media both have their merits, but I would argue that vinyl is actually technically superior since it produces a pure analogue wave and digital by its very nature is a replication of that wave created by 0s and 1s, which will never be exact (or always have a rough edge) however high the sampling rate is.
Imo, its the sub harmonics that smooth analogue waves create which gives vinyl that magic warmth that cds etc just don't have.

In theory yes, although in reality it's completely different. Vinyl produces huge amounts of 2nd and 3rd degree harmonics, relatively high levels of channel crosstalk (as opposed to the complete channel separation you get with CD), large amounts of wow and flutter (even on the best decks) and there's also the added complication of the RIAA curve, which varies considerably between different pre-amps.

The only 'issue' with CD as a medium is the way the data is quantized, which causes a small amount of distortion, and the limited sampling rate.

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

wonderfulelectric — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:04:56 GMT

Llewelyn:
Alex:
wonderfulelectric:
Well then so I guess you disagree that a good vinyl/mastertape will sound better than a DVD then.
Vinyl is technically inferior to DVD
Vinyl and digital media both have their merits, but I would argue that vinyl is actually technically superior since it produces a pure analogue wave and digital by its very nature is a replication of that wave created by 0s and 1s, which will never be exact (or always have a rough edge) however high the sampling rate is.
Imo, its the sub harmonics that smooth analogue waves create which gives vinyl that magic warmth that cds etc just don't have.

haha. The only reason why I am not liking Vinyl that much is the sub harmonics. It's like an unwanted additive. Well to each his own.

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

.......... — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:55:40 GMT

Alex:
wonderfulelectric:
Well then so I guess you disagree that a good vinyl/mastertape will sound better than a DVD then.
Vinyl is technically inferior to DVD

Vinyl and digital media both have their merits, but I would argue that vinyl is actually technically superior since it produces a pure analogue wave and digital by its very nature is a replication of that wave created by 0s and 1s, which will never be exact (or always have a rough edge) however high the sampling rate is.

Imo, its the sub harmonics that smooth analogue waves create which gives vinyl that magic warmth that cds etc just don't have.

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

Movie — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:35:37 GMT

No problem.

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

bayerische — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:45:23 GMT

It's, it's .... it's a CIRCLE!

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

Keith Saunders — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:05:44 GMT

Have you looked HERE yet ?

Re: BeoSound 5: What could it be?

Alex — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:46:58 GMT

Yes, I've heard some of the Steve Winwood mastertapes. Sounded very good but I couldn't compare it to CD.

I don't have any particular preference. I love vinyl because of the 'event' it puts into listening to music (as hard as B&O try with their CD players, there's something missing in comparison to getting the record out of it's sleeve, cleaning it, lowering the tonearm etc...). I also love the larger artwork and the feeling of quality over a CD.

Some albums are better on vinyl, others better on CD. For example, last night I was listening to Joni Mitchell's Court & Spark on vinyl, which sounded superb - the same goes for Coldcut's Sound Mirrors. However, compare something like Nightmares on Wax's Carboot Soul on vinyl and CD, and CD wins hands down. In this case I would choose CD.