Prophet 2000 chips

[Joachim Verghese]

On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 WeAreAs1 at aol.com wrote:

> It's true that the P2000 sounds especially great for a 12-bit machine, but I
> don't think it's solely because of the analog circuitry.

I agree with this, and I think the main reason why the P2000 sounds good
is because of the uncompromised sample read-out and DAC mechanism.

First of all, each of the eight voices has its own 12-bit DAC - there's
no demultiplexing of analogue signals. Second, the P2000 uses variable
rate playback, not the add/drop (or linear interpolation) method which
was commonly used in fixed-playback-rate designs. In other words, less
digital distortion.

Obviously, fixed-playback-rate sample read-out can sound good too, but
you need to implement some pretty advanced DSP algortihms for that.
And 24 or 32-bit DSP ("internal") precision is essential.

-joachim