"digital compression of sound vs analog" war

    Hello,


    seems like we have two camps here - one is saying that you can hear the "crappiness" of digital audio, the other says it's all B******T.


    This is a documentary film (good to say it is made by Harman corp.) about how the artists give their best, they search for ultimate sound full of dynamics, details and clarity of every aspect of the given album and we stupid people just destroy their efforst by using cheapo earplugs that come with every iPhone and listen to their music using mp3...


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDZcz-V29_M



    The other camp says, that anything higher than 128kbps you can't tell from original CD, and that the first camp is just using misleading phrases and cliche that prooves nothing.


    http://lifehacker.com/5921889/…at-mp3-bitrate-experiment



    The first camp often reacts by saying that yes - if you compare the mp3 to CD, then the quality difference may not be so noticeable, but take that 128kbps and listen to it next to vinyl record through good speakers and voilà - it's night and day difference. [Edit - I forgot one of their arguments and that is that people now will sacrifice anything for convenience]


    To complicate things even more there is third camp which to me seems not to be fighting the analog/digital war, bur rather well known "loudness war" and keeps saying that it's not the problem of the digital format but that is often associated with high compression for the most possible loudness.


    What has all this to do with Kemper?


    Well Kemper is digital device. But is capturing the analog sound of a tube amp (I know, it doesn't necessarily have to be, but mainly it is used for these applications). I wonder if the last few percent that are missing in each profile to be dead on accurate (I mean not like 96% but 100%) could be attributed to the digital format that Kemper is puting out?


    Or maybe there is slight but noticebale compression and degradation in every digital format like the first camp says?


    Or maybe it is not and the difference between original and the profile is down to other things like different room and how even the most expensive monitors are not absolutely accurate in their reproduction?


    I wonder what you guys think! Is that cork sniffing and plain placebo? Or maybe excuses for artist to say their records does not sound as good as they maybe wanted (so they say it's because you listen to it using "crappy" sounding mp3) and the record became more/less a failure? Or it's true and when you're listening to your old vinyls and playing your old all-tube marshall along with it and you can definitely tell that it's milion times better and you are using Kemper for it's close enough convinient "I can take all my studio sounds on tour and 99% of the people won't recongize it's not the real deal and I don't need a truck full of gear" sound package?


    Thanks 8)

    Edited 4 times, last by cool21 ().

    To me personally, there is no war.
    I consume Vinyl, CD, Mp3 (highly coded with VBR) and AAC.
    I play my profiler through different active monitors (EV ZLX 12P, Yamaha DXR 10, Atomic CLR) as well as my tube amps (Marshall 6100, Vox AC 30 HW, Vox AC 15 Heritage).


    There are perceivable differences. These are not relevant to me in a given actual scenario, i.e. I don't feel I compromise my audio quality at all by playing or consuming one or the other.


    Highly compressed remasters to win the loudness war are the exception. I simply dislike them.

    Hey cool :)


    Have you tried to profile an amp, then listen to both the amp and the profile from the same monitors in the control room and felt like the profile was lacking something?


    Trying to understand where you're coming from :)

    Well...


    I've heard a bunch of reviews of that harmon corp video thing - and none of them good, even if they did think it raised some interesting or relevant points. The key message seems to be "misleading marketing", so I won't bother watching it.


    Anyway...


    If the Kemper is designed and implemented well, and they really have gleaned the proper parameters for a proper profiling to be possible, then it doesn't matter if it is digital. Digital IN ITSELF does NOT impart a particular sound by itself. While analog often does (and this is what many people feel are missing from digital - whether they truly hear/feel it, or it is placebo effect from being told they SHOULD hear a difference).


    Digital can EMULATE the analog artifacts, and a lot of plugins these later years are marketed with that key selling point - bringing analogue "sound" into the digital domain. Some of them have gotten rave reviews from professional mixers and have created quite a stir.


    Many many hit records have been mixed entirely on computer, so I don't worry about that. I worry about my own skill level instead.


    I do think you can tell the difference between 160 kbps mp3s and the original CD - but a lot depends on your listening environment. Earphones, not so much. Though I think once you get down to 128 kbps, you can hear it on those even.


    So looking at my latest itunes purchase, I see it is in 256 kbps. That tells me I don't need to worry. Basically, they're (in that video marketing thing) comparing a totally outdated bit rate with vinyl. So much for objectivity. Then why not compare crappy mp3s to an old wax roll from Edison's time, and draw the conclusion that ANALOGUE sucks? :)


    And then they (from what I hear) kind of mix TRACK COMPRESSION - I mean, as an affect, the "compressor" - with DATA COMPRESSION - which is really out there, and has nothing to do with each other.


    Now, the loudness wars I can get behind sucks. I get fatigued listening to that brickwalled stuff. My ears don't know what to focus on, nothing really stands out. It doesn't move me.


    On the other hand, I have listened to crappy, crappy mp3s that moved me.



    Again, to bring it back to the kemper: it's a snapshot of an analogue chain and how it reacts to an input. If the algorhithms are programmed correctly, and the DNA properly mapped, then it should not matter. Don't forget, most of the vinyl discs out there are of records THAT HAVE BEEN RECORDED AND MIXED ON DIGITAL SYSTEMS. Just keep that little fact in mind when people get too fanatic :)

    Quote from viabcroce

    Hey cool :)


    Have you tried to profile an amp, then listen to both the amp and the profile from the same monitors in the control room and felt like the profile was lacking something?


    Trying to understand where you're coming from :)

    Hello,


    no, I don't seem to be missing anything, but some profiles are not like 100% of the thing, I'd say they are like 90-98% there. I think Kemper is awesome :) Just curious what other people think about the topic because I've been thinking about the digital/analog thing a lot lately and I'm trying to get as much views and opinions from the pro's as I can. That is why I asked you guys here :thumbup:

    Thanks for great view on the topic Michael_dk!! :thumbup:

    A number of blind tests, both with the Kemper and with other modellers like Guitar Rig or the AxeFX, have found that people really can't tell (say) a JCM 800 from a good model. Soloed, they can sometimes hear a difference, but not enough to say which one is real. The same goes for mp3s, past a certain point... I think 128kbps is still audibly different from a CD, but not enough to sound "worse" for most people on typical speakers. For audiophile types with proper rooms and three-million-dollar steroes, I've heard that 192kbps is around where you stop being able to tell.


    Most of the people who insist that analog is better are actually going for things like tube warmth, which is both technically worse (it's distortion) and something you could easily do with an mp3 anyway by playing it through a tube stereo.

    I'm a long way from being a pro but I am a member of the forum so I'll give my opinion anyway as a keen amateur ;)


    Digital vs analogue can get very confusing if you're lumping different formats for reproducing an end result (a finished song) in with different techniques of making the song / mixing. And then you have to wonder what the end-user is listening on / the room they are listening in etc. All make a difference to how something sounds.


    For me, I don't like 128k MP3 - I can hear a chorus / phase thing going on with high hats and a few other unwelcome effects that drive me nuts. I haven't bothered blind testing 'what bitrate can I no longer hear a difference vs CD' but what I do know is that my aging iPod 'classic' holds more than I own when I rip at 320k using EAC so that's what I do. It sounds good to me. I'm also happier with 320k streamed Spotify in my little home-made studio that I have ever been with vinyl or CD in our living room. The difference? In my studio, I've spent a couple of hundred pounds on home made audio treatment which means that I've got a far better chance of hearing the entire audio spectrum at the levels the maker intended as opposed to having bloated bass etc. due to standing waves in the room. Maybe the vinyl would still be better? I don't know. The convenience of the format that allows me to listen to pretty much anything I fancy right now means I'll forgive it even if it is a couple of percent off perfection. I'm more than happy with the quality of modern compression formats though I agree the old ones weren't so good.


    So for me, the current reproduction format isn't an issue. I never thought I'd hear myself say that but these days I'm happy with it.


    As to making the noises in the first place? With the Kemper, you can, of course, make your own profiles. For me, the best thing has been that other people with years of experience at putting a mic on a speaker cabinet can do it for me so as I don't have to :) For a recorded sound, it's hard to beat.


    And as to 'how many percent is it'? Again, I'm just an amateur but what I do know is that a lot of what you hear on a record will have been tweaked to get it to sit in a mix...... The last song I did had a notch cut in the lovely Kemper tone to help the vocals not clash. In isolation, the tone sounded worse. In the song? That cut was needed.


    Then we get to 'analogue warmth / analogue distortion'. Well, this stuff tends to be perceived as good by many people. Certainly the Kemper produces the harmonics / warmth that we know and love and there are many plugins you can use inside your DAW that try to add these things back into a digital system for other instruments. If you take a look at this, for example.... http://www.slatedigital.com/products/vcc/


    The basic idea is that a traditional console is not perfect. It introduces certain distortions into the chain that were not intended but our ears seem to like them. Mixing 'in the box' obviously lacks these 'imperfections'. This is one of many, many plugins that put some of those imperfections back in. Whether it works / is worth it is down to the individual :)



    I agree with pretty much everything in this post :)

    Quote from cool21

    Hello,


    no, I don't seem to be missing anything, but some profiles are not like 100% of the thing, I'd say they are like 90-98% there.


    And this was actually my question: what are you comparing in order to determine that the profiles are not 100% accurate?

    Quote from viabcroce

    And this was actually my question: what are you comparing in order to determine that the profiles are not 100% accurate?

    Hi,


    soundwise they are spot on. The missing 2% may be like when you play two notes that are dissonant and then bend the other one you don't get the ghost notes or the speaker cry (or I don't know what's that called :) ) . This I don't see as a problem. Right on the contrary but if we are talking 100% accuracy here, then the feel and these very subtle tiny things has to be exact. But maybe the last 2% or so can be also "thanks" to digital conversion? That was a part of my original question.

    Quote from cool21

    Hi,


    soundwise they are spot on. The missing 2% may be like when you play two notes that are dissonant and then bend the other one you don't get the ghost notes or the speaker cry (or I don't know what's that called :) ) . This I don't see as a problem. Right on the contrary but if we are talking 100% accuracy here, then the feel and these very subtle tiny things has to be exact. But maybe the last 2% or so can be also "thanks" to digital conversion? That was a part of my original question.




    Hmmm...


    My first guess would be that if this is indeed the case (i.e. that effect not being present in the profiled versions of the amps), then I would assume that this is due to the profiling process not capturing this - i.e. a "parameter" not explored by the profiler in the process, and thus not included in the profile. I would imagine that it COULD be captured. Then again, I'm a mechanical engineer, not an electronic one :)


    Maybe someone else has some light to shed?


    Anyway - if that effect can be recorded with an interface into a computer, then the lack of the effect in the kemper can not be inherent to the DIGITAL FORMAT, but only a shortcoming (or deliberate design choice) of the profiler. Whether it would be a shortcoming is up to people's personal tastes, I guess.

    Quote from cool21

    The missing 2% may be like when you play two notes that are dissonant and then bend the other one you don't get the ghost notes or the speaker cry


    I guess you're referring to intermodulation.
    I get that from my tube amps and from the profiles I made from them.


    Most perceived differences between the amp and the profile are probably due to (even small) differences in volume between the two systems.


    I always found modelers to be somewhat 'stiff'.
    not easy to get a good sound out of them and even if you succeed, it doesn't 'move with you' if you know what I mean.
    the phrasing is lost, there is no 'feedback' you can work with as a player. I always found this very frustrating and as a result my playing suffered.


    coming from other digital guitar preamps I was shocked to hear myself play through the Profiler at first. I had to re-learn a few basic things that I had discarded during my 'modeler days'.


    the Profiler has that very same quality that good tube amps give you - it lets you know when you 'could play better' and pushes you as a player.


    since you used second hand phrases like 'it is said...' etc., I can tell you first hand: a properly made profile is right there where it should be. :)

    Hi,


    Yes it's true! Real amps and Kemper's profile is not the same. Amen! Soon comparison. I still like the sound of a live amp, no matter whether in the mix or live. Just sounds more natural.


    Stay Metal!

    Those ghost notes are an amusing story.
    We had about five threads in the past where users claimed that the sound is not accurate because these ghost notes happen when bending strings against each other. They said real amps don't do it.
    Both real amps and the Profiler do it of cause.
    It depends in the gain.

    Often KPA users compare their own amp with a profile of the same amp type made by another user.


    This will not sound "right" or "the same" in most cases - there are many reasons for this:
    -different amp settings
    -the two amps simply sound different - type variation, other tubes...
    -other speakers used
    -microphone coloring
    ...


    Solution: Try other profiles from your favorite amp - or create your own ones.


    If everything is done right - then the KPA sounds EXTREMELY close to the real amp.

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    Great Profiles --> soundside.de

    The whole "KPA vs. real amp" subject is the perfect analogy to "digital vs. analog" thing. There´s is so much blabla about it. People can talk about it for lightyears. Once you put them in a real blind test they all get silent. In the last years i did thousands of profiles and 95% were spot on.