Is Digital actually better than Analog?

There are secondary (reflected) sound waves which come from the sides and rear of concert halls and other large venues that do get recorded onto two channel formats. And with proper processing can be extracted and redirected to additional channels/speakers, even though in an actual concert hall setting, I never noticed sound as coming from anywhere but the stage -- reverberation is all enveloping; only echos seem to come from "somewhere" and are greatly frowned upon in the design of concert halls ;--)

Nevertheless, a good two channel system in an acoustically adjusted listening room will produce all those secondary waves accurately and from the (seemingly) appropriate directions using only two speakers, and it's not clear whether the necessary information is captured any better by analog or digital recording techniques. With a purly digital recording/playback process (DDD), my sense is that it's a tough thing to achieve using plain ol' Redbook, and maybe that's the attraction of SACD or DVDA for some. However I have several (Redbook) HDCDs and XRCDs whose sonics equal my best LPs.

So anyone who has really great gear of both kinds really should try some of the XRCD releases -- especially the orchestral ones made from the old RCA and Colombia mastertapes which you can (if, like me, you have them) compare with their original LP counterparts. I think you'd be very surprised at how much great sound never made it onto the original vinyl ;--)
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Interesting observations Nsgarch. I gave up on multichannel attempts at recreating a concert hall at home many years ago. I also agree that there is a lot of information on the disc's to be recovered, much of it is the out of phase information present in the recording venue, which unfortunately is hard to reproduce at home unless you have a perfect acoustic.

In a less than perfect acoustic, there is an old fashion method of getting that 'hall sound' which is cheap and easy to set up (so long as your not too anal about absolutes). I can't recall off hand the name of the designer, but the idea was to place two small speakers in the rear of the room, or preferrably one on each side of the listening seat. Connect the speakers in a loop with one wire connected from the positive post of an amp to the speaker A, then from speaker A to speaker B then back to the hot positive post of the other channel in the amp. You insert somewhere into this loop and attenuator so you can balance the sound with the main system. The side/rear speakers output is kept very low and only produces out of phase info but the room sounds energized and more like a concert hall. Using a seperate amp you can turn it on and off at will, but its possible to wire this into the main amp (I'm to anal to do that).

This type of ambiance extraction existed before Yamaha and some 'other outfit long gone' (I had one of 'long gones' units) produced a unit which did the same, but added digital delay's so you could select hall size and all that other stuff. I think the extraction you are referring to comes from equipment made by suceeding manufacturers. Got to be too fussy for me and actually never sounded as good as the cheapo way. Although from all I've heard maybe ARC got it right in their unit.

Fun stuff if you've got the space, and I think I'd find this much more interesting that the new multi channel recordings and the replay requirements.

FWIW.

Nsgarch wrote.....

"However I have several (Redbook) HDCDs and XRCDs whose sonics equal my best LPs.

So anyone who has really great gear of both kinds really should try some of the XRCD releases -- especially the orchestral ones made from the old RCA and Colombia mastertapes which you can (if, like me, you have them) compare with their original LP counterparts. I think you'd be very surprised at how much great sound never made it onto the original vinyl ;--)"

gosh. there are times i wish i had not vowed to abstain from posting on digital verses vinyl threads.....like right NOW!!!

Well Mike, there was a (dark) time when certain major recording companies were trying to get the most onto vinyl instead of the most out of vinyl -- i.e. Dynagroove (and don't think RCA was the only culprit) but thank God for Mercury! My point is that a lot of old mastertapes which were never really properly cut onto vinyl have received new (and better) lives on XRCD.

Would they sound even better if transfered to properly cut and stamped discs? Probably. As a matter of fact, I recently heard a couple of those classical (RCA) releases on R2R 7ips tape, and except for a little hiss, the tape sounded way better than the LP. Better than the XRCD? I couldn't say, too close.
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Pauly,

Harvard University School of medecine (early 50's)NEJM
Bell Labs
MIT
USC
repeating Harvards study---THX
A few more that have simply confirmed earlier Bell Labs findings in the 1940's

Scientifically proven. Its the information that motivated serious companies to spend serious money to try Quadraphonic, the boat anchor of home audio.

As for your overly simplistic view of what surround does for the audio signal, Well ten years from now you'll undertsand finally.

Nsgarch,

Nevertheless, a good two channel system in an acoustically adjusted listening room will produce all those secondary waves accurately and from the (seemingly) appropriate directions using only two speakers.

Sorry absolutely wishful thinking, counting on phantom speakers will never give consistent results like having real speakers. And there are toher factors that profundly affect 2 channel playback of digital in a very negative way.

no time to elaborate you won't believe me anyway.