Recording Classical Music

CHAPTER 2 Audio Chain From Sound Source to Listener

Source—Mic—Amp—ADC—DAW—DAC—Amp—Speaker—Listener

Integrity within an Audio Chain

When listening to recordings, people hear analog copies of sound sources, and even though coloring of the sound can occur at every stage from microphone to loudspeaker, many recordists try to maintain a neutral audio path, so that the copy duplicates the original as closely as technology allows. However, since the audio signal passes through a number of devices as it travels along the chain, a certain amount of degradation is bound to occur when the small amounts of deterioration introduced by each device sum together.

In acoustic recording, a microphone makes an electrical copy of all the complex waveforms that ...