Is Hi-Res Audio better because filter is outside audible range?

[welwynnick]

Hi there Welwynnick, a very merry Xmas 2u2!

Your attempt at framing me to be the hopeless denier is a reversal of how this works.

You performed a double sighted test, in which both researchers (you and your witness) were hoping for evidence they then imagined they found.
Mind you, i am not denying you found it, but i am denying you've proven anything.
If you had, that would be braking news indeed, under normal circumstances at normal listening levels, as relevant in ASR.

Your signal generator was hooked to an acoustic transducer, so someone could test whether they would hear a sound @21,5kHz.
This transducer, by the sheer nature of transducers, thus also produced harmonics @10,75kHz, 5,375kHz, summing effects, etc.
There is not a shred of evidence, or even any probable cause, to assume those are not the reason you perceived a sound.
Actually, rather the opposite, it is very probable that is what produced your perception.
Perhaps 50dB down, but near the centre of human's most sensitive frequency range.

Were you measuring with a mic at the same time and place your ears were listening?
Then you undoubtedly noticed the mic registered above effects, and a couple more.
What is your point exactly? You heard something? Of course you did.

There's a reason test setups are meticulously designed, thought through and described by scientists, before 'evidence' is presented as possibly valid. And even then, peer reviewing will put everything to the test again. That is why your phone, your car and your amplifier function. Science is far from flawless, but its methodology works.

Cheers!

Hypothetically, if all of that was actually true, I'd be claiming to hear 22kHz instead of 21.5kHz.

 

[Audiofire]

What is it with this obsession to prove something that is entirely marginal and totally irrelevant to music or any reproduction thereof?

You're right that it does not matter for music and dB is also a limit, but falsifiability is science and we should try to embrace it.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I used to hear 21.5kHz, but I don't have any evidence, just a witness, Andy the workshop engineer at KJ WestOne, London. He was driving the signal generator.

I was also there, disguised as a dustbin, and I saw that Andy only turned the signal generator up to 13.6 kHz.
(see? we can all play this game!)

 

[Y~BNA]

Tx for clarifying the harmonics below the fundamental are a subset called subharmonics. While transducers may not produce them (although i would suspect they would, if the fundamental of said subharmonic is near a harmonic of the lower f resonance of any physical component) and they do not spontaneously evolve in air either, there's many other things that can and will be excited by a tone, any tone, that can produce subharmonics. Any object can be excited by soundwave energy if the frequency is right and the energy sufficient. And as you mention, intermodulation can be a factor. And what else?

The statement that some adult can hear a sound at 21,5kHz because they perceived it in a doubly sighted test without control group and without any other clarification of the test setup, just sounds quite lazy and somewhat ludicrous. Some fora stipulate that people posting controversial statements are obliged to supply credible evidence or suffer moderation. I think that might be a good idea, especially in the audio field, where opinions are like you-know-what-holes: everybody has one.

No offense to anyone, just having a good time.

 

[Y~BNA]

Honored by all the replies/contributions btw!

 

[NTK]

 

[Y~BNA]

Now THAT is someone presenting (partial) evidence. A very interesting article, proving that under some circumstances tones of 28kHz might be noticed by some listeners (3 out of 32 ears, i.e. three separate tested people by a single ear, or by 3 outta 4 ears in two people). If they exceed a minimum of 100dB @50cm from the ear. The listeners were between 16 and 25 it said?

However, there ARE subharmonic distortions in the signal that, although masked by pink noise, lay very liberally within normal hearing freq. range, at levels around 15-20dB, which is very low but above hearing treshold. The article shows some 'supersonic' sounds turn out not to be supersonic for some people, which is very interesting. And the article shows how hard it is to actually find hard evidence for this, as the experiment itself is not even 100% watertight.

But interesting for welwynnick, myself and anyone following this. Tx to NTK's valuable contribution! Welwynnick may be right and i may be wrong in the described listening experiment!

 

[voodooless]

Even if true it still does not prove the initial premise:

“Hi-Res Audio is better because filter is outside audible range”​

 

[Y~BNA]

Yeahhhh.. of course you're right about that, sorry for kidnapping the thread in that direction!

On the bright side: i DID mention the experiment where SACD's and DVD's, with their higher wordlength ('bitdepth?) and resolution were tested against 16/44.1, in an extensive and well designed test setup. Outcome: random!!!!

NOW i looked it up, because as i said, we should not pose (potentially) controversial claims without presenting evidence. Meyer and Moran, two respected sound tech professionals and AES members famous for other things besides this test setup, were in fact the perpetrators of said experiment. You can check it out here: https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=70893.0 (this is the article sort of ripped by someone and shown on audiocircle, but you can find plenty more search results).

The SACD's & DVD's did in fact sound better, but they still did after being fed through a 16/44.1 A/D/A bottle neck, proving that the reason they sounded better had to be something else. This is also explained, and not surprising in the least.

So the answer to the original question of this thread would be: "No, it is not better, not because the filters are outside audible range, and not for any other reason either."

So why do high end DAC's internally upsample to 24 or 32-bit wordlength? To enable manipulation of the digital data/stream without touching the original 16-bit encoded information (96dB DNR, etc.).

I am not an electronics technician or a DSP pro by any means, but this is the explanation on ESS Tech's famous 32bit DACs (on their own site, if i remember correctly). Sounds plausible to me. At the output the signal is back to 16/44.1 btw, which makes it even more plausible (assuming we're talking cases where this by now ancient format is still being used).

Cheers y'all!

 

[Salt]

If I understand correctly: a SACD or DVD record, mixed and mastered using SACD or DVD basically, will sound better at CD at 44.1/16 compared to if basically produced on that rate.
Not?

 

[Y~BNA]

I'm not sure i understand your phrase? Typo's?

If i do, the answer is: SACD and DVD do sometimes sound better, not on account of higher resolution (as demonstrated by Meyer & Moran) but on account of more care put into recording, production, and not partaking in the loudness war. So the higher res/bitdepth in itself doesn't help, the producers' practices just take their targeted market section into account and produce accordingly.

In short, YES, you're generally better off buying audio on SACD or DVD, and NO, that's not because of high definition.
As has been common knowledge for a while (after early ailings of poor CD production practice were overcome), 16/44.1 is totally transparent to the human ear.

 

[Salt]

I'm not sure i understand your phrase? Typo's?

If i do, the answer is: SACD and DVD do sometimes sound better, not on account of higher resolution (as demonstrated by Meyer & Moran) but on account of more care put into recording, production, and not partaking in the loudness war. So the higher res/bitdepth in itself doesn't help, the producers' practices just take their targeted market section into account and produce accordingly.

In short, YES, you're generally better off buying audio on SACD or DVD, and NO, that's not because of high definition.
As has been common knowledge for a while (after early ailings of poor CD production practice were overcome), 16/44.1 is totally transparent to the human ear.

This answers my question, thanks.