Yes, I agree.
 
An analysis of added noise is easy to describe, but the cumulative effect of warbling frequency shifts caused by clock irregularities is very hard to describe, understand, or even appreciate.
 
best regards,
mike

mike_mccue
An analysis of added noise is easy to describe, but the cumulative effect of warbling frequency shifts caused by clock irregularities is very hard to describe, understand, or even appreciate.

 
How about "very likely completely inaudible, given modern clock technology".


 
Of course if you're really concerned about jitter, you could just run a test and see if you can actually measure any jitter artifacts above the analog noise floor.
 

"very hard to describe, understand, or even appreciate."

 
These are an audio snake oil salesman's dream words! - an audio problem (almost) no one really understands and can't even really describe!

drewfx1

mike_mccue
An analysis of added noise is easy to describe, but the cumulative effect of warbling frequency shifts caused by clock irregularities is very hard to describe, understand, or even appreciate.

 
How about "very likely completely inaudible, given modern clock technology".


 
Of course if you're really concerned about jitter, you could just run a test and see if you can actually measure any jitter artifacts above the analog noise floor.
 

"very hard to describe, understand, or even appreciate."

 
These are an audio snake oil salesman's dream words! - an audio problem (almost) no one really understands and can't even really describe!

 
Sure, I get what you are are saying about the dynamic range.
 
I got no pony in the show... I recommended a Behringer ADA 8000 just yesterday. :-)
 
 
We see clock drift every day at work... We jam sync from master to slave and genlock everything to keep it as good as possible.
 
I often wonder what goes on in a hard ware device that has 24+ streams criss crossing a dsp matrix.
 
What is the possibility that some warbling in the ultrasonic isn't actually bugging the snot out of you?
 
 
 
That ringing in my ear? How can we prove or disprove that I hear it? Could just be my imagination, yet the effect is palpable.
 
 
best regards,
mike
 
 

...and anyways, back to the actual sentiment I was hoping to convey; while it is sort of easy to think about adding 1/60th of the amount of snr 60 times to arrive at the same average snr as you have in any single track. (more or less), I'll opine that it is a little harder to consider the harmonic implications of having 60 tracks ebb and flow (how ever slightly... and I don't disagree with that at all). Let me put it this way... I don't know FFT math very well... so it's sort of hard for me to think about having 60 inputs, for example, to mix together while the modulation (If you will) interacts in additive synthesis.
 
That's sort of what I was trying to get at.
 
 
...and if you believe that I got a bridge in London I'm looking to sell.
 
 
best regards,
mike

The absolute worst case signal in terms of jitter is a maximum amplitude high frequency sine wave. Sixty (or however many) tracks of real world audio is cupcakes in comparison.

I will agree with everybody at the same time. 
The order of importance for a track is:
#1 the performance/material
#2 the instrument (same as #1 in the case of  vocals)
#3 how the track is mixed, skill of the engineer.
#4 The mic placement (A well placed SM57 is better than a poorly placed U87)
#5 the Mic choice, There is a right place for Dynamic, Condenser , and Ribbon, plus Large and small of each.
#6 The preamp, A bad one and really take the life out of a track
#7 The converters. Bad clocking/converters really adds nasty distortion.
 
I read a comment I will never forget. "It's amazing how much a singer sound like themselves through any microphone"
 
With the converters down at the bottom of the list, everything else is more important. Back in the late 90's I had two different sets of converters. ADAT's had 18 bit converters built in, and I had a V8 Big block. The big block was only 16 bit, but man did it sound great vs the ADAT's converters.
 
With low track counts (say 12 and under), the high end converters will not make much of a change. Once you start getting to 32+ tracks and looping stuff out/in for using analog gear, then good converters help preserve the quality of everything going on. If you like fighting word clocking with multiple converters (I hate that game) I actually think a mix turns out best when a mixture of converters are used. This is just like using a mixture of preamps and Mics. If I record 24 tracks using all U87's and Neve preamps, the mix will not turn out as well vs using a mixture of U87's, SM57's and 58's with a ribbon and 421 in there recorded through a wide selection of cheaper preamps.
 
I like to vary the sources input chains as much as practical.....key word....practical. Different sources blend together easier. This includes the converters as they do add a sonic signature like any piece of Audio gear.
 
I identified this with my first decent tube mic, The Groove tube MDa1. The mic sounds great for a single track. Try to use that mic for multiple track say vocals and guitar, the two tracks will fight each other for the same sonic space forcing one to EQ them differently just so they can co-exist. Once I found that out, I experimented and found that any variance you can practically create helps the blend when it's all done.

Nobody will listen to me, but the converter debate is dead, if you don't go in and out of the box.  Even the rough stuff I've recorded on various converters over the years (I've used Creamware, Presonus, Lexicon and Motu), sound great, if, if you know how to mix properly (this is the digital paradigm, which is, if you know how to emulate analogue to the T within the digital realm, the waves console emulators are excellent, even the Cakewalk stuff is) .  
 
Now, again the caveat is, as long as you're not going in and out of the box-I suspect then converters are still important.  But I don't think converters are important if you are just recording analogue, and not going in and out of the box.  I've got to get around to writing a paper on this, and publishing.
 
Ben  

This was (is) a GREAT thread.  My thanks to everyone who contributed, and bitflipper for starting it.

Since I posted on this thread my Presonus converters have likely been surpassed by much better kit. They still work for me. 
I'm hearing that the word is cumulative when listening to a mix. The cumulative effect of sloppy tracks or really bad converters adds up. EQ filters can mud the sound up. Might be very slight, but it adds up. A little bad is bad...a lot of bad makes worse and a lot of worse makes a bad mix.
Then engineers think a good clean mix is too good and clean, so they add intentional distortion ( ok call it coloration if you want) into it. So the engineer goes from, " I don't like this old distorted gear" to " I'm getting new clean sounding gear" to " my gear sounds too darned clean so it needs some dirt added. Sounds like a circular jerkular to me :)