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-- Will a digital mixer "binarify" my vinyl??

Am I the only one that see's this instead of an actual thread ? Wierd...

nope, I see it just fine. And to answer the thread topic question, yes and no. A digital mixer will use both a DAC and an ADC (Digital to analog converter, analog to digital converter, respectively). Things in binary are just a series of pulses (known as a pulsetrain). This is more commonly known as a series of "on" and "off" commands strung together (or ones and zeroes if you wanna get even less accurate).

What a digital mixer will do is take the analog sound output by the audio source (in your case, I assume a turntable) and using the ADC, convert the wave into a pulsetrain. The neat thing about this is once it's in binary form, you can use DSP (digital signal processing) effects, such as time-stretching without pitch modulation.

Even if you decide to not use a DSP effect, the audio signal is still digitized. However, as stated earlier, no human ear is capable of hearing a binary stream (indeed, no ear is capable of hearing a binary stream, period. Unless you're from another planet and have the ability to hear electronic pulsetrains. But that's a different matter). So on its' way out of the mixer and into, say, the amplifier, it will go through a DAC and convert the binary stream into an analog waveform that can be heard through speakers, or anything else that creates compressions in the air based on the amplifier's signal.

So is there a noticable loss in audio quality since it is converted to digital?

quote:

Originally posted by vhx1 So is there a noticable loss in audio quality since it is converted to digital?

If everything goes well, there is an unnoticable loss in audio quality.

woah where'd my post go? Oh well, tranc3 answered my question so its all good.

oh, and uh, +1 to make up for my lost post

quote:

Originally posted by Endo oh, and uh, +1 to make up for my lost post

word up, and a +1 from dartman for good measure.

quote:

Originally posted by vhx1 So is there a noticable loss in audio quality since it is converted to digital?

Depends on your setup. The old adage "the chain is only as strong as the weakest link" applies very well here. Assuming all your connections are as noise-free as possible and so on, but your mixer is, say, a certifiable piece of shit, then yes, your sound quality will degrade.

Quite frankly, basically anything that samples at a lower rate than cds will definitely result in a noticeable loss of quality. And even cds lose quality over the original source, but most people can't really tell the difference.

But if you want to be completely sure that your mixer isn't the proverbial "weak link," then make sure things like the SNR (Signal to noise ratio) and frequency response are at least as good as the rest of your equipment.

quote:

Originally posted by Endo woah where'd my post go? Oh well, tranc3 answered my question so its all good. oh, and uh, +1 to make up for my lost post

LoL, I thought I was the only one that saw a blank thread when I clicked on it... odd...

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