Inside High res Music (Antonio Forcione) (Video)

[Kagemusha]

Great video, thanks!
I only buy CD or 16/44.1 FLACS. I know I could not hear the differences in formats above that.

 

[sarumbear]

@amirm what about bit depth? Especially SINAD is one of the main createria of all your measurements?

 

[BDWoody]

How about 16 bit vs 24 bit?
Do we have more dynamic range or just indistinguishable resolution?

Do you have either a space that could make use of, or music that requires more than 96dB of dynamic range? Remember you start from your ambient noise and add that 96 to it...

24 bit gives 144dB, which for recording and mastering has utility, but for normal listening, doesn't make it better in the way many assume.

 

[Kachda]

The question is then why buy or stream any High-Res music if everything above 20khz is noise ?

 

[sarumbear]

Do you have either a space that could make use of, or music that requires more than 96dB of dynamic range? Remember you start from your ambient noise and add that 96 to it...

24 bit gives 144dB, which for recording and mastering has utility, but for normal listening, doesn't make it better in the way many assume.

I think you are confusing dynamic range with signal to noise ratio. Otherwise, 96dB SINAD would be all we need on any active audio equipment.

 

[BranoO]

Hey might want to avoid inter-sample overs, In this way, it creates a tiny bit softer way of clipping.

Not sure if the problem is intersample overs in this case... I don't know if it's just the way it was ripped on Spotify but, for example, in the song called Cowboy, you can clearly hear the distortion when the three sing together. Or am I missing something? I had an itch to buy the CD but then I found a buyer review complaining about the sound quality... Then I changed my mind.

 

[sarumbear]

Amir, can you please change the waterfall to multi-colour.
Blue background
Green is low
Yellow low medium
Orange mild
Red high
Pink very high
White extremely Loud!

Excellent idea but how can you do that in Audition?

 

[sarumbear]

It's got "real" audio up to 24kHz and crap from 24 - 48 kHz.

But what else were you expecting when even the layman knows that the audio range extends at most to 24kHz (for new born humans and dogs)?

 

[tjf]

@amirm what about bit depth? Especially SINAD is one of the main createria of all your measurements?

I'm especially curious about the distortion levels upon conversion to analog (via a suitably transparent DAC topology) of a 16 bit vs. 24 bit recording -- at the recorded volume levels of say: -5db, -10db, -15db, -20db, -30db, and so on, as these volume levels in a given modern recording are where most of your average audio levels reside, or am I missing something with this assumption??

 

[Kagemusha]

Some good reading here.

 

[Pennyless Audiophile]

Yes, this can be seen quite often nowadays. And it drives me mad too. Why do they ruin what could otherwise be a great music...? One good example is an album called "Woman to Woman" by Beverley Craven, Judie Tzuke and Julia Fordham. Gorgeous songs but the recording quality is awful - a lot of compression, clipping...

It is the "Loudness War", your track must sound as loud as any other not to be skipped in streaming or on the radio. Also, with some musical genres, the mix and the mastering is designed to sound well from the mobile phone speaker, the Bluetooth speakers, in the car or with cheap earplugs.
Most of the modern pop music sounds horrible from a decent system.

 

[LoyK]

From my experience higher sample rate is needed when doing digital music production and plays a really small role in the playback of the actual master/finished track.

The best video on why samplerate/oversampling matters in digital audio production IMO:

 

[Pennyless Audiophile]

Yes indeed, I paid extra for a 96 KHz FLAC purchase of Spoon's Hot Thoughts album:

View attachment 127893

And this is what the file contains:

View attachment 127894

It's got "real" audio up to 24kHz and crap from 24 - 48 kHz.

As they say, caveat emptor. You just get ripped off buying "Hi Res" versions of albums online. If you're realllly lucky you might even get a PDF with the liner notes along with it, more likely just the cover art image, and 50% non-musical content.

Pay less, buy the CD, rip it to FLAC and key the liner notes, and enjoy the content you paid for.

Because it was derived from a 48kHz recording, I believe, Hi Res makes no sense, well in general..., but even less so when the recording is not Hi Res.

 

[Pennyless Audiophile]

The question is then why buy or stream any High-Res music if everything above 20khz is noise ?

There are some researches that hint that even if you do not hear the higher frequencies, you may still perceive them through vibrations of your organs, but as far as I know the jury is still out. Point is a) are you sure you can reproduce them at home? b) given how well a conventional CD may sound, the difference must be minuscule, if exists.

 

[BranoO]

It is the "Loudness War", your track must sound as loud as any other not to be skipped in streaming or on the radio. Also, with some musical genres, the mix and the mastering is designed to sound well from the mobile phone speaker, the Bluetooth speakers, in the car or with cheap earplugs.
Most of the modern pop music sounds horrible from a decent system.

I fully agree with you, I know what loudness war is (more loudness = more people tuning in your radio/TV station = more money from ads) but IMHO that should be done in broadcasting studios, not in recording studios.

 

[AdamG]

Oh School Time with Teacher @amirm. Can I have more Sir?

 

[Kachda]

There are some researches that hint that even if you do not hear the higher frequencies, you may still perceive them through vibrations of your organs, but as far as I know the jury is still out. Point is a) are you sure you can reproduce them at home? b) given how well a conventional CD may sound, the difference must be minuscule, if exists.

If anything reproducing those high frequency sounds will be a problem with conventional tweeters due to horrible breakup of metal dome tweeters above audible range. I am not sure if that can cause distortion in the audible band as well.

 

[charleski]

@amirm what about bit depth? Especially SINAD is one of the main createria of all your measurements?

Even though your source is 16bit with 96dB of SNR, there's a point to having a far higher SINAD in the reproduction chain to provide headroom for DSP. It's not uncommon for ReplayGain to apply 9dB or more of gain reduction, and then you have to budget for preamp gain reduction in the EQ on top of that. The DSP will be converting the signal to 24bits so this can be done cleanly in the digital domain, and a 120dB DAC just means you can be sure that the DSP hasn't caused any loss of resolution.

 

[Andysu]

But what else were you expecting when even the layman knows that the audio range extends at most to 24kHz (for new born humans and dogs)?

I read about this way back in a magazine mid 1990's still have it, that sub bass lows often has "garbage below 20hz" well maybe way back but today often there are some fundamental low frequencies now being used since dolby digital extended the low frequency not just in LFE.1 but in all channels. The higher end? Not much point now and dolby digital only goes to 20KHz and has very little up at that range to entertain Dogs Cats and Bats, never mind human hearing as we have the weakest of the hearing and that doesn't mean my Cats can't feel low frequencies below 40Hz so my Cats have the better hearing range 40Hz to 90KHz compared to us at 20Hz to 20KHz or maybe 20Hz to 10KHz at best. Or maybe that is unfair maybe us at 40Hz to 8KHz co I would bet most on daily basis don't often hear highs above 8KHz and lows below 30Hz, but here's the thing. When walking around you feel infersonic low. When blowing your nose or sniffing it can range up to 20KHz oh yeah dso get that mic and RTA out and Sniff you'll see it a Sniffing noise that goes up to 20KHz. Oh if you wear earplugs you'd hear an annoying THUMP! THUMP! when walking around it is easy to understand why how you hear it. I know and I find it annoying as that translates to SPL dB I guess what SPL I don't know but sounds like well above 80dB or maybe it its actually lower SPL?

 

[BranoO]

Hey might want to avoid inter-sample overs, In this way, it creates a tiny bit softer way of clipping.

By the way, could you please provide some hints on how to avoid inter-sample overs? Does it require a special DAC or other hardware / software..? Or do I stray too much from the main topic?