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Concept
Comparison of analog and digital recording
Summary
Sound can be recorded and stored and played using either digital or analog techniques. Both techniques introduce errors and distortions in the sound, and these methods can be systematically compared. Musicians and listeners have argued over the superiority of digital versus analog sound recordings. Arguments for analog systems include the absence of fundamental error mechanisms which are present in digital audio systems, including aliasing and associated anti-aliasing filter implementation, jitter and quantization noise. Advocates of digital point to the high levels of performance possible with digital audio, including excellent linearity in the audible band and low levels of noise and distortion.
Two prominent differences in performance between the two methods are the bandwidth and the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N ratio). The bandwidth of the digital system is determined, according to the Nyquist frequency, by the sample rate used. The bandwidth of an analog system is dependent on the physical and electronic capabilities of the analog circuits. The S/N ratio of a digital system may be limited by the bit depth of the digitization process, but the electronic implementation of conversion circuits introduces additional noise. In an analog system, other natural analog noise sources exist, such as flicker noise and imperfections in the recording medium. Other performance differences are specific to the systems under comparison, such as the ability for more transparent filtering algorithms in digital systems and the harmonic saturation and speed variations of analog systems.
The dynamic range of an audio system is a measure of the difference between the smallest and largest amplitude values that can be represented in a medium. Digital and analog differ in both the methods of transfer and storage, as well as the behavior exhibited by the systems due to these methods.
The dynamic range of digital audio systems can exceed that of analog audio systems. Consumer analog cassette tapes have a dynamic range of 60 to 70 dB.
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