A surprise on Qobuz...

[krabapple]

They're common enough in biomedical science that people who read them are aware of the pros and cons.

In audio science---not so much.

 

[Zapper]

Can anyone hear 40khz?

Is that something people claim to do?

 

[krabapple]

I agree with that, except "prove" - I don't see any claims of proof there. It is evidence. It is evidence that contradicts unsupportable claims that no-one can hear high-rez, as has been made on this thread. But it is also evidence that most of us can't, most of the time.

It's not primary research, and it certainly can't begin to explain 'what' those unicorn listeners from that subset of studies were actually hearing. IOW it raises more questions than it answers.

 

[kemmler3D]

Is that something people claim to do?

Actually, that's an interesting question. Not directly, not often, but you do see people buying supertweeters and seeking out recordings of >96khz samping rate... there are a lot of people that will imply they can hear the difference between sound reproduced with/without content that high, very few if any will actually claim they could hear a single 40khz tone. Perhaps that tells us everything we need to know about the hi-rez market...

 

[Zapper]

They're common enough in biomedical science that people who read them are aware of the pros and cons.

In audio science---not so much.

In ASR -- not so much, for sure! Reiss's JAES audience was surely better equipped to evaluate his claims, with their uncertainties and provisional nature included, and less prone to the absolutist thinking we have here.

 

[krabapple]

Is that something people claim to do?

'Hi rez' typically denotes at least 88 kHz SR (which has a 44 khz bandwidth); for some prejudicial reasons , a 48kHz SR (24 kHz bandwidth) is not usually referred to as 'hi rez'.

So unless the researchers have tried to progressively bandlimit the signal to define the cause (no such studies immediately come to mind) the supposedly perceived 'hi rez' frequencies could range up to and beyond 40kHz. Which is preposterous in the face of much physiological and psychoacoustic data.

Meanwhile, 16 vs 24 bit *is* audible...under certain well known conditions which do not resemble normal listening: for example, listening at high volume to reverb tails of truncated 24bit-->16bit audio.

 

[Zapper]

It's not primary research, and it certainly can't begin to explain 'what' those unicorn listeners from that subset of studies were actually hearing. IOW it raises more questions than it answers.

That's a good thing. More questions lead to more understanding.

 

[krabapple]

In ASR -- not so much, for sure! Reiss's JAES audience was surely better equipped to evaluate his claims, with their uncertainties and provisional nature included, and less prone to the absolutist thinking we have here.

I very much doubt JAES readers were very familiar with meta-analyses.

 

[krabapple]

That's a good thing. More questions lead to more understanding.

Hey, anyone's free to knock themselves out trying to conclusively verify the ability of that cohort Reiss claims to have identified. I wouldn't bet on working scientists bothering much any time soon, at least not based on that skinny evidence, with virtually no medical relevance. Unless some deep-pocket audiophile steps forth to fund the research.

But you would think the majors in the audio industry would have done it by now, no? Imagine being able to honestly tout high-rez.

 

[danadam]

Besides, wouldn't it be useful to show, say, a frequency of 20 Khz sampled in
- 16/44.1 and 16/192
- 24/44.1 and 24/192

To clearly show where the “theoretical improvement” of the digitization of an analog signal is located. Because as they say in France: "we break them small with the steps of the stairs which gives a choppy, digital, harsh sound..."

44.1k:

192k:

Both on the same graph:

As for 16 vs 24 bits, I don't how to convey on a picture that the only difference is a background noise at inaudible level.

 

[Zapper]

But you would think the majors in the audio industry would have done it by now, no? Imagine being able to honestly tout high-

Well no. Like you said, it's a mouse. At best it's evidence that a few people can hear the difference with training, cherry-picked source material, and ideal conditions. In order words, a "don't care" for almost everyone, all the time. That's weak sauce for the marketing dept. Much better to show staircase waveforms.

Personally I have no use for high rez. I stream Spotify to my BT earbuds, and output analog from the cheapo DAC in the WiiM mini right into my Genelecs.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Its great merit is also to provide the PDF of the record booklets and not just the cover photo... when the publisher provides it...

Sadly, they often don’t. For example, while they carry many Delos recordings (kudos!), none of them come with booklets, even though the vast majority of those are available for free to anyone from the Delos website. What’s worse, their metadata (even simple things like track names, artists and composers) are all over the place with Delos recordings.

 

[Galliardist]

I tell you about a bygone era dating back to the introduction of MQA and the position of Qobuz at that time and you respond by showing what can be found today on this platform which has since changed of owner...

I think I was OK doing that, as you were responding to me in the context of a discussion about whether MQA files exist on Qobuz today!

As an aside, any streaming service that passes bit perfect lossless 24 bit files with all the information intact will "support" MQA files, so that tells us that Qobuz is passing tracks as supplied: a good thing. However, you need a DAC that does full processing of MQA files to know which is which.

We'll have to live with that, because if Qobuz was to implement anything that told us files were MQA they risk being sued by the patent troll that holds the MQA related DRM patent.

 

[IAtaman]

I never claimed proof. I do claim evidence. Not only the conclusions of this paper, but that of the original research that this summarizes. There is strong evidence that some (not all) people can distinguish high rez audio with statistical validity.

There is no strong evidence that some people can distinguish high res with statistical validity. One meta analysis does not truth maketh. There are meta analysis that claim consuming higher than average protein increases risk of cancer, there are meta analysis that say it does not. Even the article does not claim the evidence is strong, what makes you think it is? (In summary, these results imply that, though the effect is perhaps small and difficult to detect [...])

 

[IAtaman]

You haven't shown any evidence at all to the contrary, just strong but unsupported opinions. Note that the burden of proof is on you to prove that no-one can distinguish high-rez. Good luck with that.

The burden of proof on me, or on anyone else who claims 44.1KHz is as good as it gets for what we can hear, is as heavy as the burden of proving there is no flying spaghetti monster.

If you have a continuous time signal with information as high as 20KHz and band limited at that frequency, which you'd like to convert to discrete time data, the sampling rate you need to perfectly recreate the analog signal without any information loss is 40KHz. That is not a meta analysis, or misquoted conclusions section of a paper published on AES, that is a mathematical fact.

People do not understand that, and think the more samples the more accurate the reproduction. That is not the case. Sampling rates above 44KHz does not make the sound more accurate. Companies like Qobuz take advantage of the ignorance of people by publishing articles such as the one discussed in the thread, continuing to spread the misinformation.

If people claim they can distinguish high sample rates from 44.1KHz that can mean either there is a problem in the production or reproduction chain that causes ultrasonic signals to interfere with the actual sound, or people can hear above 20KHz.

People can not hear above 20KHz. In fact, most of audiophiles who claim they can hear the difference in hi res recordings with their NOS "filters" probably can not even hear 16KHz.

So even though it is possible that people can detect high sampling rates with the right recording, right equipment and setup, and a bit explanation as to what they need to listen for, what they can detect is not simply a result of the sampling rate, but most likely the sonic artifacts that high sampling rate and inadequate production / consumption equipment interact to create, which also seems to be the actual conclusion of the paper you have referred (italics emphasis is in the original paper, not my addition)

"In summary, these results imply that, though the effect is perhaps small and difficult to detect, the perceived fidelity of an audio recording and playback chain is affected by operating beyond conventional consumer oriented levels."

In any case, vibrations above 20KHz are not sound and they are most certainly not music. There is no "Concerto for 32KHz Major". No one makes music for humans with ultrasonics in mind. If you are hearing differences between a 44.1KHz and higher sampling rate signal, what you are hearing is not music. Especially for those who can detect high sampling rates, it is probably the best they stick to 44.1KHz or 48K so that all that non musical information their system fails to filter out does not interfere with their music.

 

[IAtaman]

In ASR -- not so much, for sure! Reiss's JAES audience was surely better equipped to evaluate his claims, with their uncertainties and provisional nature included, and less prone to the absolutist thinking we have here.

I suspect you might be confusing naivety with open mindedness. There is no actual scientific reason to keep an "open mind" for the existence of the flying spaghetti monster. Ruling it out as "not likely until it is proven otherwise" is not absolutism.

 

[Phorize]

It’s deceptive marketing. Not “fine”

It's straight up lying, not that the 'hires' moniker is a technical standard anyway, it's marketing bullshit that's not worth the pixels it's written on from a technical standpoint. Qobuz also started putting fairly meaningless hardware 'reviews' in the app, with an admittedly small amount of what hifi style BS about the speed of the bass or whatever. I can live with the slightly dirty feeling that I get knowing I'm subsidising moderate levels of misinformation but if it escalates it will be tidal for me when my subscription comes up.

 

[bluefuzz]

But I don't know why you are invoking this person and his or her plight.

Perhaps because, in a former life, I used to be that person. Having to conjure up appealing graphics to sell products and services that no-one in their right mind should need or want is a soul destroying occupation. Please pardon my empathy with their plight.

My objection is that Qobuz representation of the difference between 320k MP3 and CD codings is ridiculous and extremely misleading.

Absolutely. That was the first thing I noticed too. There's no doubt Qobuz' graphic is a mess but I'd still be interested to see if anyone can make a better, more accurate one that could still be used to promote the service. Or is the consensus such that anyone selling Hi-Res should be tarred and feathered as a common criminal? I was of the impression that Qobuz is a fairly popular service among the ASR crowd, but it seems not ...

I subscribed to Qobuz for a while. Try as I might, I couldn't hear any difference between their Hi-Res tracks and the standard Redbook formats or even lossy Spotify. However, I always played the Hi-Res versions anyway 'just to be on the safe side!' Make of that what you will ... ;-)

 

[Phorize]

Perhaps because, in a former life, I used to be that person. Having to conjure up appealing graphics to sell products and services that no-one in their right mind should need or want is a soul destroying occupation. Please pardon my empathy with their plight.



Absolutely. That was the first thing I noticed too. There's no doubt Qobuz' graphic is a mess but I'd still be interested to see if anyone can make a better, more accurate one that could still be used to promote the service. Or is the consensus such that anyone selling Hi-Res should be tarred and feathered as a common criminal? I was of the impression that Qobuz is a fairly popular service among the ASR crowd, but it seems not ...

I subscribed to Qobuz for a while. Try as I might, I couldn't hear any difference between their Hi-Res tracks and the standard Redbook formats or even lossy Spotify. However, I always played the Hi-Res versions anyway 'just to be on the safe side!' Make of that what you will ... ;-)

https://drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf

Worth a read, you'll be pleased to know that you are not alone in noticing that the emperor is in fact not wearing any clothes.

 

[IAtaman]

Absolutely. That was the first thing I noticed too. There's no doubt Qobuz' graphic is a mess but I'd still be interested to see if anyone can make a better, more accurate one that could still be used to promote the service. Or is the consensus such that anyone selling Hi-Res should be tarred and feathered as a common criminal? I was of the impression that Qobuz is a fairly popular service among the ASR crowd, but it seems not ...

I can think of a few people from the industry who'd look good covered in tar and feathers.

I guess you can promote 24bit / 48KHz as lower noise floor and more suitable for your modern DACs filters? Newer DAC chips seems to have better filters that fully attenuate at 24KHz so maybe 48KHz sampling can help with that?