Re: Levels & Curves

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@xxxxxxxxx>]

If you check the archives for this group, you'll see this issue has been
discussed in detail before.

Rather than go into it in again (it is probably still "out there" in
cyberspace)  I'll confine myself to one of my observations about human
neuro-physiology-psychology.

Humans crave analogue processes and artifacts.  Digital is relatively
foreign in nature, although some would argue that fractal geometry makes
the world go round.  Nature if full of mathematical "errors" or
variations, some probably due to sloppy "book-keeping" and some very
necessary for survival of life (Evolution is a good example of making
good use of errors and mishaps).

Anyway, our own nervous system is full of analogue noise.  Go into an
isolation room and listen to the background noise of blood flow through
your head, and other noises.  Go into a pitch dark room, and see the
random chemical and electrical firing of synapses creating color and
light patterns in the retina and brain.  Try holding absolutely still
and notice how much twitching and balance correction is constantly going
on in the muscular and nerve fibres.

We are full of noise, aural pink, white, etc, visual, etc.  It gives us
a sense of comfort.  In the womb we develop with it, heart beat which
changes speed and depth and rhythm, breathing, peristaltic sympathetic
muscle action in the intestines, stomach noises, etc.

We get nervous from too much silence.  We were jungle beings, where
there was always noise, wind, rain, rustling or leaves, animal calls,
water flowing...

My point?  We tend to accept analogue noise more readily than digital
noise.  That is why all that hiss and crackle and pop and turntable
rumble from vinyl LPs is termed "warmth" and why film grain with it's
random placement and size is more acceptable than digital pixelization or
noise.

Our nature and culture labels these things differently and perceives
them with different intent.

So, is an LP or a CD "purer" sound?  Can the human perceive beyond 44.1
Khz sampling rates; are human perceptible harmonics really lost on a CD?
   Or is it just that we crave that analogue noise that we inherently
relate to as "warmth"?

Well, my theory is that the thinness some report in CD audio is just the
loss of all that background random noise we tend to crave.  I suspect
the same might be somewhat true of digital visual artifacts.  As some
have said, they "like" film grain, but I haven't heard too many like
pixelized noise.

Art




gary wrote:

 > And there are still audiophiles with vacuum tube electronics and 
turntables.
 > About 5 or 6 years ago, some old Western Electric employees opened up a
 > vacuum tube factory because the market was still there and the quality of
 > foreign sources was slipping.
 >
 >
 >
 >>-----Original Message-----
 >>From: owner-scan@leben.com [mailto:owner-scan@leben.com]On Behalf Of
 >>Dave King
 >>Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 6:20 AM
 >>To: scan@leben.com
 >>Subject: Re: Levels & Curves
 >>
 >>
 >>Gary --  real photograph?  I love comments like this for their stubborn
 >>intransigence.  I have a friend who asked me, "do you make any real
 >>photographs still?"  I asked him if he ever listened to any real music
 >>still.  (He listens to CDs).  The basis of photography is recording with
 >>lenses, conversion to digital doesn't change that!
 >>
 >>
 >
 > -
 > Turn off HTML mail features. Keep quoted material short. Use accurate
 > subject lines. http://www.leben.com/lists for list instructions.
 >
 > .
 >
 >




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