High Resolution Audio: Does It Matter?

[March Audio]

They are surely a different mastering. Which Talking Heads albums do you have in 24/96?

They are different masterings

 

[Don Hills]

Think of it this way:
Flutter causes rapid speeding up and slowing down of the tape as it passes the head. This will result in a given point on the recorded waveform being read slightly earlier or later than it should. This is simply our old friend "jitter". The time resolution of even 44.1k sample rate is more than adequate to capture this jitter. (Time resolution of 44.1 K sampling rate is in the picosecond range.)

 

[NorthSky]

Talking Heads in highres multirich-channel and stereo audio hi-fi sound; add the moving pictures with it, for true reall immersive experience:

Audio
- English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (two mixes; theatrical and studio @ 48kHz/16-bit)
- English: LPCM 2.0 (two mixes; theatrical and studio @ 48kHz/16-bit)

• https://www.theaterbyte.com/bluray-...e-2015-restoration-uk-blu-ray-review.html?amp

 

[Thomas savage]

Well, I guess those Talking Heads albums I've been listening to in 24/96 sound so much more spacious and atmospheric to me than any CD release (and more like I remember them on vinyl) because of my over-active imagination/confirmation bias/gullibility.

Thanks for bursting my bubble, you heartless b'strd

I remember reading over at that Steve Hoffman forum about some special mastering techniques for some of their stuff.
Iv 2 versions of ‘ stop making sense’ the oldest CD sounds the best by Miles , less compressed with a huge accurate sound stage.

One of my favourite bands, the CD’s are hit and miss I think they ( mastering engineers) messed up the newer ones personally but glad your enjoying the downloadable stuff. I have his collaboration with st. Vincent but though I like the music the recording is crap imo, too loud.

 

[Thomas savage]

Oh as a aside, i left my hifi on for a few days ( kinda accidentally) and listening to various stuff yesterday I’m positive it sounds better. More natural.

One just has to suck it up and make room for the idea this is just all in ya head.

 

[Krunok]

Oh as a aside, a left my hifi on for a few days ( kinda accidentally) and listening to various stuff yesterday I’m positive it sounds better. More natural.

One just has to suck it up and make room for the idea this is just all in ya head.

M8, I wanna try whatever you took yesterday!

 

[andreasmaaan]

I remember reading over at that Steve Hoffman forum about some special mastering techniques for some of their stuff.
Iv 2 versions of ‘ stop making sense’ the oldest CD sounds the best by Miles , less compressed with a huge accurate sound stage.

One of my favourite bands, the CD’s are hit and miss I think they ( mastering engineers) messed up the newer ones personally but glad your enjoying the downloadable stuff. I have his collaboration with st. Vincent but though I like the music the recording is crap imo, too loud.

Agree about the mastering of the St Vincent collaboration. Saw them touring that album down at MONA's music festival in Tasmania. Was an incredible gig.

 

[TuneInSoul]

Upsampling doesn't make sound more 'flat' nor more natural. It just produces sample values in between the not yet upsampled values.
It adds no data that has not been in the original file. Just calculated values.



You mentioned recording devices which is not the DAC but ADC. It usually is of much higher resolution than the final 'product' you buy which can be CD or some other type of file usually at a lower resolution than the recording.

Most important: recording technique, engineer, microphones and placement, mixing and mastering engineer. After that the most important is the headphone/speaker, after that the ears and brain of the listener.
I think almost all ADC's and DAC's these days perform (much) better than our ears.
The choice of a DAC should be based on the formats you want it to play, which input connections it has (USB/SPDIF/Optical) and other functionalities, looks and how it interfaces with the following gear.
Balanced or not is not of any importance for home playback.
Only interesting for studios and live performances where long audiolines run alongside mains cables for lighting etc.
Amps should be able to properly drive the headphone/speaker with some extra headroom which signifies its importance.
For playback 96/24 is more than enough, why would 192kHz be needed ?



Bit depth is more important than samplerate when it comes to resolution.
Why would the sound be Lo-Fi below 192kHz ?
Can you hear up to 60-80kHz ?
Would 192kHz and 12 bits enough ? 16 bits ? 24 bits ? 32 bits ?

Sorry,there is a mistake in the most important part, I mean simple 6.35mm headphones which sound balanced. Not balanced headphones.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Oh as a aside, i left my hifi on for a few days ( kinda accidentally) and listening to various stuff yesterday I’m positive it sounds better. More natural.

One just has to suck it up and make room for the idea this is just all in ya head.

I have had this impression myself but of course impossible to A/B test!

 

[Thomas savage]

I have had this impression myself but of course impossible to A/B test!

Umm, I think the difference is quite stark so if it were determined by the various bits of hifi then we’d know about it already . So for me it’s a matter of being ‘primed’ subconsciously, the effect is no less real and the phenomenon behind it is why so called subjectivist fall out with the self defined objectivists imo.

To go further would require a food analogy and/or a car analogy so I think I will leave it there *( all my pants are dirty so I don’t fancy putting them on my head).


* the new punishment for the use of the for mentioned analogies.

 

[Krunok]

Umm, I think the difference is quite stark so if it were determined by the various bits of hifi then we’d know about it already . So for me it’s a matter of being ‘primed’ subconsciously, the effect is no less real and the phenomenon behind it is why so called subjectivist fall out with the self defined objectivists imo.

To go further would require a food analogy and/or a car analogy so I think I will leave it there *( all my pants are dirty so I don’t fancy putting them on my head).


* the new punishment for the use of the for mentioned analogies.

I pretty much always have a feeling my car accelerates faster after I change the engine oil.

 

[pkane]

I pretty much always have a feeling my car accelerates faster after I change the engine oil.

You have to try car wash with wax — the difference is not subtle

 

[Thomas savage]

I pretty much always have a feeling my car accelerates faster after I change the engine oil.

Pants on head , now!

 

[Thomas savage]

You have to try car wash with wax — the difference is not subtle

You too, pants on head!

 

[Krunok]

Pants on head , now!

All right, all right, no need to shout..

 

[Hypnotoad]

I pretty much always have a feeling my car accelerates faster after I change the engine oil.

Also notice that my system sounds better when I'm happy and relaxed. There have been recent studies that show the panacea/expectation effect may not be all peoples imagination. They found in one test of "pretend" pain killers that the brain actually can produce pain relieving chemicals as it does when the person takes real pain killers.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Is it possible to run a test. That is not blind test but a lies test.
The procedure I imagine is like this.
Prepare a few hires recordings.
Prepare people(both people who know stuff and people who don't know hires).
Let half of them listen to the tracks in both hires and cd quality.
For the other half of the people, tell them they are hires and cd quality but in fact all cd quality.
Ask them, do they hear difference and describe the differences.

When analyzing the results, we look for the consistency of the description of the tracks and the accuracy of each group.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Is it possible to run a test. That is not blind test but a lies test.
The procedure I imagine is like this.
Prepare a few hires recordings.
Prepare people(both people who know stuff and people who don't know hires).
Let half of them listen to the tracks in both hires and cd quality.
For the other half of the people, tell them they are hires and cd quality but in fact all cd quality.
Ask them, do they hear difference and describe the differences.

When analyzing the results, we look for the consistency of the description of the tracks and the accuracy of each group.

Variations of such testing has been done. One a live recording of musical instruments with very high quality gear and no altering the recording. Playback on quality gear with musical students for test subjects. 44 khz, 88 khz and 88 khz downsampled to 44 khz. All blind. 44 was not heard as different from 88. 44 downsampled was heard as different from 88. The suspicion being the downsampling was being heard. Even though they were using one of the very best downsamplers in iZotope.

Look for a 44.1 khz vs 88.2 khz discrimination paper by Amandine Pras.

I think you can download it from here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257068631_Sampling_Rate_Discrimination_441_kHz_vs_882_kHz

You also can get the convention paper here with a Facebook or Google account.
http://www.academia.edu/441305/Sampling_Rate_Discrimination_44.1_KHz_Vs._88.2_KHz

 

[Shadrach]

Something has gone horribly wrong here. This is not a rabbit hole the intelligent objectivists should go down.
Forget about all the papers and DBT tests for a moment and think about what actually happens and happened in the past in the recording studio. Better still, go to a studio and see for yourselves.
Pre digital mixing desks.
Many of the microphones used in studios were response limited and prone to distortion at extremes.
What the microphones did pick up went to the mixing desk; a pile of electronics.
We know what electronics can do to signals, there are measurements here that show well regarded electronics doing some pretty awful things to signals.
A lot of music was recorded to tape or even acetate as the physical storage medium. I can’t prove this but I doubt even the best gear and storage medium matched the dynamic range a decent modern dac can manage. Basically, the information isn’t on the master tapes, or acetates to begin with.
The analogue version of hi res then was the twelve inch record. I could definitely hear a difference on those but even then I never knew if I was listening to what an engineer had changed, or the advantages of the twelve inch.
More recently more music got recorded on a digital desk and these have ADC built in. Do we think ADC are of superior specifications to DACs?
I’ve not seen one measured but somehow I doubt it. Back to the state of the art DAC tests then where I think the performance may be comparable.
Of course, sound engineers are the absolute masters of “Oh I’ll just”. All those tools on their desk, they can’t help themselves.
Then you’ve got the interpolation algorithms, none of which are perfect.
The list goes on.
So, what is it you are listening to?
Unless the recording was done digitally in the first place with equipment that was capable of capturing the full range of the instruments played you may well be listening to noise, because that is what interpolation will sound like on it’s own. It only makes sense with adjacent frequencies and even then it may not have been on the original recording.
I thought the idea was high fidelity. With replay equipment you can aim for fidelity to whatever medium you have. Unfortunately that doesn’t necessarily mean fidelity to what went on in the studio.
A point was made earlier that classical music fares better in general.
I can’t listen to recorded classical music and no it’s not because my replay gear is rubbish. Stereo just doesn’t hack it.
If I want to listen to High Resolution music I go to a concert.

None of the above means I don’t think aiming to get the highest resolution possible on the master medium isn’t a great idea which I fully support. What it does mean for me, is if I have trouble distinguishing between CBR 320 and redbook in a DBT, but a recording engineer can tell which limiters were used in a recording then I’m probably too deaf, or untrained to worry about it. I think many here would fall into this category under test.

 

[RayDunzl]

Do we think ADC are of superior specifications to DACs?

No, but they would seem to be at least functionally equivalent, based on the 8 generation Digital -> DAC -> Analog -> ADC -> Digital loop testing performed elsewhere here.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-choose-the-8th-generation-digital-copy.6827/