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hi res music equipment

Lambda

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96dBa? is still more than enough.
Well no.
I have no problem hearing 6dB at 6khz And 130dB at 20hz for a view cycles.

And having a higher sampling rate can give you more dynamic trough noise shaping at lower frequency. Thats a fact and how for exaple DSD works with 1 bit...
 

antcollinet

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Bottom line is "most"?? people can't hear anything better than CD quality 44/16 bit. Middle aged and older probably can't even manage that. **

Sure - maybe 14 year olds with exceptional hearing might do a bit better than 16 bits under ideal test coniditions or with excellent headphones, but probably not easy to distinguish in real peoples listening rooms. **

So don't sweat it. If you are not able to hear a difference you are in the vast majority. Be glad you don't have to spend extra money to buy and listen to the best music you can hear.

Then:
Get a drink
Put on your favourite music
Kick back, relax and enjoy it.


**there may be traces of opinion in these statements. Certainly I'm not about to dig out any papers to back them up. ;)
 
OP
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K, Guys , it seems even if I spend $$ I will never hear better than what I am currently listening to, I may try Tidal just to see, it just seems odd that all the buzz of people suggest that one needs much better equipment than I have to listen to better audio.
my Denon is 2007 with the best audio possible is optical to connect the tv. So, I will accept that Cd probably is the best I can discern with any equipment.
 
OP
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Bottom line is "most"?? people can't hear anything better than CD quality 44/16 bit. Middle aged and older probably can't even manage that. **

Sure - maybe 14 year olds with exceptional hearing might do a bit better than 16 bits under ideal test coniditions or with excellent headphones, but probably not easy to distinguish in real peoples listening rooms. **

So don't sweat it. If you are not able to hear a difference you are in the vast majority. Be glad you don't have to spend extra money to buy and listen to the best music you can hear.

Then:
Get a drink
Put on your favourite music
Kick back, relax and enjoy it.


**there may be traces of opinion in these statements. Certainly I'm not about to dig out any papers to back them up. ;)
Thanks Tony, I just thought it was my older Denon and tv connection issue
 

M00ndancer

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K, Guys , it seems even if I spend $$ I will never hear better than what I am currently listening to, I may try Tidal just to see, it just seems odd that all the buzz of people suggest that one needs much better equipment than I have to listen to better audio.
my Denon is 2007 with the best audio possible is optical to connect the tv. So, I will accept that Cd probably is the best I can discern with any equipment.
The thing that can improve the audio is the final part of the chain. Speakers, DSP, room treatment.
 

antcollinet

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The thing that can improve the audio is the final part of the chain. Speakers, DSP, room treatment.
Trudat

I've listened to music more in the last 3 months, than the previous 10 years. Why? I bought some new speakers that sound simply stunning to my 59yo ears. I didn't spend a fortune - just 3 times my previous speaker purchase at around £700.

I'm still powering them from a 15+yo Sony AVR, and a poorly measuring DAC (soundblaster omni 5.1 measured at the bottom end of the orange section of the DAC chart with Sinad about 80db).

Still loving it all.
 
OP
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The thing that can improve the audio is the final part of the chain. Speakers, DSP, room treatment.
Speakers make sense of course, room acoustics too, DSP? The Denon has a mic that one uses to set up the Room A.
Speakers are so subjective, now I may purchase headphones, this can be another topic if it will sound better? New Grado maybe ?
I appreciate these replies , I purchased in 74 ess amt 1 towers , Ariston Audio sme 3009 II improved with different cartridges. Marantz receiver 2325. Only the speakers remain which may be rebuilt.
thanks again
 
OP
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Speakers make sense of course, room acoustics too, DSP? The Denon has a mic that one uses to set up the Room A.
Speakers are so subjective, now I may purchase headphones, this can be another topic if it will sound better? New Grado maybe ?
I appreciate these replies , I purchased in 74 ess amt 1 towers , Ariston Audio sme 3009 II improved with different cartridges. Marantz receiver 2325. Only the speakers remain which may be rebuilt.
thanks again
Oh, I still listen to the studio 60 v4 too, headphones as my Wife will live in peace lol
 
OP
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Trudat

I've listened to music more in the last 3 months, than the previous 10 years. Why? I bought some new speakers that sound simply stunning to my 59yo ears. I didn't spend a fortune - just 3 times my previous speaker purchase at around £700.

I'm still powering them from a 15+yo Sony AVR, and a poorly measuring DAC (soundblaster omni 5.1 measured at the bottom end of the orange section of the DAC chart with Sinad about 80db).

Still loving it all.
Good stuff
 

steve59

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is this the perfect sound forever camp? if so my mistake.
 

JaccoW

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I can hear the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and a cd-quality FLAC most some of the time. On the right speakers, in a quiet room and at higher volume.

In certain songs I can enjoy the advantages of hi-res music through my Laptop > DAC > speaker combo. But that's not because I can hear it but because I can sometimes feel (like an extra low rumble) it. But it's very small and I'm not sure whetherI could hear it in a blind test if I downsampled it. But generally anything above 16-bit/44.1kHz isn't audibly better.

I can see it if I watch the spectrogram of certain audio files but that's it. And sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to record it in lower resolution...
Now I am not an audio professional but I can gather the basics from a spectogram with a guide like this: Understanding spectograms - iZOTOPE
Click on the images and open those in a new tab for the higher resolution images.

Here is someone's LP recording of Dave Brubeck's famous song Take Five:

24-bit/176kHz FLAC 6154kbps
  • What the hell is going on around the 55kHz mark?
    • Probably a hum somewhere in the recording setup. But at a frequency we cannot hear.
    • Your cat would probably go crazy though.
  • What is that line around 28kHz?
  • If this would have been recorded at 16/24-bit/48kHz you probably wouldn't miss a thing. Instead of the 24-bit/176kHz file we have now at 6154k/s for a nearly 250Mb file size.
Here is a slightly hi-res file of a song called Broken by 44th Move. I can see a clear difference in the spectogram. But besides sounding fuller and with better highs it is amazing how decent the 128kbps Mp3 can sound. And I can hardly hear a difference between the FLAC and the 320kbps mp3.

16-bit/48kHz FLAC 903kbps


16-bit/48kHz Mp3 320kbps


16-bit/48kHz Mp3 128kbps


And here is one of the few files I have that I know for sure were originally hi-res. A usb-stick hi-res release of the original Ghost in the Shell movie soundtrack.


24-bit/96kHz FLAC 2828kbps
  • Some buzz at 16kHz, 21kHz, 22kHz, 27kHz and 32kHz.
  • The strong vertical lines would usually be clicks and pops... but this is an acoustic song with percussion and chanting.


48kHz Mp3 320kbps


48kHz Mp3 128kbps


And just for fun; an 8kbps Mp3. It sounds a bit like trying to play a song through a birthday card speaker while holding it underwater. While your 5 year old nephew is trying to follow along with a flute... and failing. o_O

8kHz Mp3 8kbps
 
OP
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Thanks so much, i did try a site that asked one to try to pick the best audio, i tries 3 out of 6 songs, t really had to listen and did get the best audio for all three. 128 kbps, 320 , and it had one labelled lossless WAV, I really had to listen and the 320 was extremely similar.
I just thought the higher number like 24 32 etc would have to be so detectable, so in the end i think good speakers is where the $ should be spent?
 

BN1

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I had an interesting experience recently. With old ears & damaged hearing, I've been very skeptical of those who claim to have "golden ears". I typically fail to hear any differences on the various hi-rez tests out there. I have been listening to 160 kbps on Spotify for background music and it sounds ok but I have gotten tired of Spotify's intrusive ads and was considering a move to premium streaming. A lot has happened around lossless streaming this year and deals abound in the $8 - $10/mo range (except for Spotify ...). I started a subscription to Amazon Music HD primarily because it is the best deal out there for CD or better music. When I listened to AMHD on my decent HT 5.1.2 system I was impressed by the sound quality of CD/96/192 songs but on my distributed system, playing thru ceiling speakers and downscaled to CD quality, not so much difference there. Maybe a bit of bias playing in here but, so far, I'm enjoying the difference.
 

antcollinet

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I had an interesting experience recently. With old ears & damaged hearing, I've been very skeptical of those who claim to have "golden ears". I typically fail to hear any differences on the various hi-rez tests out there. I have been listening to 160 kbps on Spotify for background music and it sounds ok but I have gotten tired of Spotify's intrusive ads and was considering a move to premium streaming. A lot has happened around lossless streaming this year and deals abound in the $8 - $10/mo range (except for Spotify ...). I started a subscription to Amazon Music HD primarily because it is the best deal out there for CD or better music. When I listened to AMHD on my decent HT 5.1.2 system I was impressed by the sound quality of CD/96/192 songs but on my distributed system, playing thru ceiling speakers and downscaled to CD quality, not so much difference there. Maybe a bit of bias playing in here but, so far, I'm enjoying the difference.
I’ve yet to hear *any* distributed / ceiling speaker driven audio system that even approaches medium FI. I’m not surprised you were unable to detect a difference there.
 
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