Adveser Messages: 434 Registered: July 2009 Location: USA
Illuminati (1st Degree)
Interestingly enough, Rush's last live album "Snakes and Arrows Live" actually hits the upper limits of CD technology. Considering that in the past that every other live album has been straight from the sound board and the last four have been digital, I wonder why this one is especially accurate and why I haven't seen any other live album, modern or classic, that is hitting 20Khz.
The only conclusion I have is that they used an amazing engineer to record the show and delicately placed the mics, gates, compressors and pre-amped everything just right. I'm really impressed by this one considering live albums are known to have significant fidelity problems unless exciters and other tricks are used. Naturally, I'm talking about loud rock music that is being recorded at 110-120db from every direction.
This makes me really hopeful when they start actually recording on that 20-96Khz region that they have had available for many years now. With 24-bit depth rate the slight movement of air the decay of a cymbal would produce is no longer going to get lost in the dither and noise floor.
I think "realistic" sound is only a few years away. We just need engineers willing to experiment and get it right and actually find a way to release high-quality audio.