Bandcamp offer 24 bit download - any idea why?

[JeremyFife]

Are we looking at the same thing???

How do these look the same??? The energy spectrum looks completely different.

In general, 24-bit content indicates a master that has not yet been converted to 16 bit for streaming to masses. Since there is no way to know if the person performing that conversion can do it in a perceptually lossless way (noise shaped dither), then I prefer to get the 24 bit version. Stuff on Bandcamp is very cheap anyway so I don't mind paying extra.
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Thanks @amirm I was unsure of my interpretation of the analysis. The files sound the same to me and when I mixed them in Audacity they appeared to null.

The energy spectrum is different - I just didn't know what that meant in practice.

Cost difference is minimal, and I'm happy to support Adrienne. I guess I was hoping that this is not a cynical rip-off.
I think I'm happy with what's going on.

Again, thanks all

Edit: just saw the comments that the display scale in Musicscope differs between the files and there's probably no difference after all. Thanks @voodooless

 

[goat76]

Fun thing about bandcamp is that you sometimes get a 24bit version unknowingly i looked at the file size and then had a closer look at some uploads !

So some artist does not make any fuzz at all about this they just upload thier 24/48 original and do not bother to make any other version , why should they

I think most artists would like to sell their music with the highest possible quality for a regular price no matter if it's 16-bit or 24-bit, it's mostly the recording companies and streaming services who see the selling point of charging more for the “Hi-Res” version.

The headline of this thread is a little bit wrong. It's not like Bandcamp has just started to “offer” music in Hi-Res, that has been going on since the very beginning as it has always been up to the artists themselves (and their record companies) what they upload to the site, as Bandcamp is mostly meant as a platform and have nothing to do with what is uploaded (as long as it's not illegal content). Most bands likely don't care to charge more for the 24-bit version, they upload the digital files, and sometimes as you have noted, it happens to be the 24-bit version of the album.

Soon, I don't think anyone will charge more for 24-bit files than the regular 16-bit files. That is already happening as Qobuz, Apple, and soon also Tidal are not charging more for Hi-Res.



The Adrianne Lenker song has the same mastering for both versions, so it's up to the listeners if they can hear the difference in the 24-bit file vs the 16-bit file.

 

[JeremyFife]

I think most artists would like to sell their music with the highest possible quality for a regular price no matter if it's 16-bit or 24-bit, it's mostly the recording companies and streaming services who see the selling point of charging more for the “Hi-Res” version.

The headline of this thread is a little bit wrong. It's not like Bandcamp has just started to “offer” music in Hi-Res, that has been going on since the very beginning as it has always been up to the artists themselves (and their record companies) what they upload to the site, as Bandcamp is mostly meant as a platform and have nothing to do with what is uploaded (as long as it's not illegal content). Most bands likely don't care to charge more for the 24-bit version, they upload the digital files, and sometimes as you have noted, it happens to be the 24-bit version of the album.

Soon, I don't think anyone will charge more for 24-bit files than the regular 16-bit files. That is already happening as Qobuz, Apple, and soon also Tidal are not charging more for Hi-Res.



The Adrianne Lenker song has the same mastering for both versions, so it's up to the listeners if they can hear the difference in the 24-bit file vs the 16-bit file.

View attachment 358113

Thanks - I'm going to see if I can work out what I'm doing wrong with MasVis!

 

[danadam]

Based on the "Sadness as a gift" sample, the amount of noise in the recording itself is so high, that even if it is a legitimate 24-bit version, it won't matter at all. The noise is comparable to 10-bit dither. Here's spectrum of the 1st second:

So I would say that even 16-bit is an overkill and something like 12-bit would be enough. In attachment there are two 10-seconds samples, one 16-bit and the other 12-bit.

 

[goat76]

Thanks - I'm going to see if I can work out what I'm doing wrong with MasVis!

I know what the problem is, you are using the downloaded original MasVis which has never supported 24-bit files.

I use the newer online version which does support 24-bit files. You find it here: https://andreasarvidsson.github.io/MasvisOnline/

 

[JeremyFife]

I know what the problem is, you are using the downloaded original MasVis which has never supported 24-bit files.

I use the newer online version which does support 24-bit files. You find it here: https://andreasarvidsson.github.io/MasvisOnline/

Brilliant, I didn't know about this. Thanks

 

[kemmler3D]

The energy spectrum looks completely different.

Every other metric looks the same including the peak / RMS levels, so my assumption is that the spectrograph visualization incorrectly scales gain for 24 vs 16-bit, which is also what it looked like in the other app's screenshot. At a glance the spectrograph looked the same to me, but with higher gain on the 24-bit one.

 

[Audiofire]

16 bits are generally better for collecting a massive amount of music releases, because of storage capacity. That's not different from 44.1 or 48 kHz.