Are there still classical listeners that play their music on LPs? Our local record store does very well with used rock/pop LPs but can't give away the classical stuff.
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16-bit... It really is enough!
- Thread starter MusicNBeer
- Start date
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
I certainly do.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Enough of them to keep 6,798 classical LPs in stock:
https://store.acousticsounds.com/index.cfm?get=results&genreid=10&CategoryID=5
Second only to pop/rock at 12k.
Yeah, it's not as common at used record stores.
But it's a decent sized new/reissue market.
There is a reason why it ended up at 44.1 instead of 48, 50, 42.6 or some other number. In the 1970's when they were developing the CD, the only practical medium to record so much digital data was video tape. They recorded bits as black and white dots in the raster scan lines. 44.1K was an optimal rate that can be used on both NTSC and PAL format video recorders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/44,100_Hz#Recording_on_video_equipment
I wasn't reading all posts here, but as long as current DAC sources are having a SINAD of 121-122 dB while playing 24-bits audio files, I see no reason to stick to the theoretical SINAD of 96 dB of a CD record, which sometimes ends up having less than 90 dB of SINAD if it's an AAD record, perhaps with peaks at -3 dBFS (not mentioning the passive and active components from the disc-player that may cause a drop of 1-2 dB from SINAD too).
I will always consider 24-bits superior, because with 16-bits audio you need to listen to a perfectly recorder song, with almost 0 dBFS peaks (I'm not speaking about "loudness war" here), while usually there are many songs out there with peaks not even getting to -3 dBFS.
Also, what is the dynamic of human hearing?
If there will ever be a voting pool, I will definitely vote for 24-bits/48 kHz audio, as more than 48 kHz are not really needed and it can actually harm the audio chain if an analogue low-pass filter is not correctly implemented in the audio amplifier.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Leaving production / mixing bit depths out of it....
What are you listening to, from an AAD source, that has 90 dB of dynamic range?
Because I have several 15 IPS reel to reel decks and I can tell you that they / the tape are not capable of 90 dB of dynamic range. 70-77 dB, *maybe* with noise reduction.
I know that, but I was just trying to point out that AAD compact discs still exists and their final SINAD is definitely below 16-bits resolution or 96 dB SINAD. This is why I said "less than 90 dB of SINAD".
However, audible differences may or may not be perceived, but this is not an excuse to stick to an audio format that is "technically" below our theoretical hearing.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Cheers. I wasn't aware that there was a decent market for new classical records. The only ones I play these days are some of my old direct to disk records which never made it across to digital.
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Oh no, not this again.
Thanks @MusicNBeer , for keeping the crazy busy and away from other threads for a few weeks ;-)
And for the rest of you, what are some hi-res tracks you can recommend where I can definitely hear the difference? I can hear 16bit harshness on some tracks, but it's hard to tell. I need better examples. Thanks a bunch! /s
Thanks @MusicNBeer , for keeping the crazy busy and away from other threads for a few weeks ;-)
And for the rest of you, what are some hi-res tracks you can recommend where I can definitely hear the difference? I can hear 16bit harshness on some tracks, but it's hard to tell. I need better examples. Thanks a bunch! /s
I'm sure it does.
You definitely have a very good point here (https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/dynamic-range-loudness-war), but you need to read again my initial post, otherwise ASR makes no sense in getting objective measurements to DACs and amps.
It made me laugh so I assumed you were.
Joking apart my guess is it is the extra reverb from mechanical (mainly) and airborne (maybe) feedback.
I base this on measuring how substantial this is, particularly at LF, deciding to site my record player outside the listening room to avoid it and being disappointed by the sound once I did.
From by experience I would be prepared to be £1 of my own money that here is nothing on any uncompressed music recording anywhere near 16-bit dynamic range, never mind 24-bit. And there are very few, if any, uncompressed recordings released by big record companies.
A noise dose meter with no level control and no volume control that was wanted to record all noises humans could hear for damage analysis, for example, would benefit from the 21-bits of actual dynamic range plausibly achieveable in the input to output of such a device.
Any recorder with a level control and any replay system with a volume control does not.
LPs sound pretty reasonable to me and if 16 bit was needed, never mind 24-bit, they would sound dire.
It's probably not the right way to do a comparison unless you can be absolutely sure the two examples are identical masterings and nothing inappropriate was done when they converted the file to 16/44. A good way of doing a comparison is to load up any hi res file into Foobar with the DBX plugin and do the test yourself. Most wouldn't pick the hi res from a 320kbs MP3 in that test, let alone 16/44.
Alternatively, could take up the test conducted by Mark Waldrep where he uses genuine hi res files (ie at least 24/96 all the way through from recording to end products, rather than anolog or CD quality sources). He too was a believer and now is emphatically convinced that hi res does not make a difference to human ears on playback. And he has nothing to gain and plenty to lose from this as hi res recordings is his business model. Quite rightly though, as he states, hi res is still important on the recording and production side of things, just no difference on playback.
https://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6993
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Serious or facetious?
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
+1
And that, plus the Monty video, is all that needs to be said on the topic.
Everything else is just placebo fantasies or mental masturbation.
The Waldrep article and the Monty video just need to be put in a sticky post as the combination of the two hits all the angles -- listening, production, physics.
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