Amazon HD is really CD quality, not hi res. Their Ultra is hi res. But you pay for Amazon HD, which includes both Amazon's HD and Ultra. So this is one that falls on both sides.
I'll say that I think I can hear the difference between lossy and the CD quality. But I don't think I can tell a difference from CD quality to Hi Res.
I voted for the top one, but not sure if this fits. Also, I have Amazon music for other reasons (i.e.: family members that want to listen on their Echos and don't care about quality), so the add-on for Amazon HD is not much.
Your "but"s and "and"s seem mixed up i.e. I'd rather say: "don't pay but can discern" and "don't pay and can't discern".
2. Let us also park the whole MQA debate, its lossiness or not, legitimacy of advertised benefits etc and just go with if you consume MQA that decodes to above 16/44.1 it is "Hi-res" for the purposes of this poll. So Tidal Masters go in the Hi-res category.
This will all go horribly wrong I am sure as we all love criticising polls- but, humour me.
Edit, let's go with the Wikipedia definition for "hi res". So CD is not hi-res for this poll
"High-resolution audio (High-definition audio or HD audio) is a term for audio files with greater than 44.1 kHz sample rate or higher than 16-bit audio bit depth. It commonly refers to 96 or 192 kHz sample rates. However, there also exist 44.1 kHz/24-bit, 48 kHz/24-bit and 88.2 kHz/24-bit recordings that are labeled HD Audio."
Always one.... I would say, if there is that mqa Cd on the shelf as well as the plain redbook vanilla version, you are paying for that hi res for the purpose of this poll.More to pick up the "criticising polls and annoy JimBob54" baton and run with it than for any rational reason I'd just like to point out that MQA CDs exist (fully Red Book compliant CDs at that) which play both regular (ish...not sure what "deblurring" is) music as you'd expect on a normal CD when inserted into a normal CD player, but which also supply high resolution audio when you're suitably equipped...
Indeed, that's the reason why I have *some* albums in high resolution, they are vinyl rips that sound better to me than the CD release - even after the ripping process. For example Noctourniquet by the Mars Volta, which had an awful CD release that clips.Someone once said that 95% of a recording's quality is baked in before the music starts playing.
If so, can you really discern the difference?I do and I can... Whether the latter is really there or is the added price-tag placebo effect, jury is still out
If so, can you really discern the difference?
Sorry for my archaic language (Is it? I'm not a native speaker), but it is used in the the poll.Had to look-up the definition (in Google search):
Discern: perceive or recognize
....had to look-up that one too:
Perceive: become aware or conscious of (something); come to realize or understand.
...decided to stop there. So yes, I think I can subscribe to the "perceive" (even if not "recognize") portion of the "discern" definition.
The corresponding bit depth and sample rate of analog signal are based on the bandwidth and SNR. For example, if the bandwidth is 50 kHz and SNR 120 dB, the analog signal corresponds to 100 kHz sample rate and about 20 bits of depth.it is converted to analog, at which time it becomes null/null or ∞/∞, depending on how you want to define a comparison of analog to digital.
That is simply not true. Non-integer ratio resampling is a little more complicated, but the result is no less accurate than with an integer ratio. If you believe otherwise, you'd better steer clear of any ESS based devices.In general, converting a file from 44 to 96 will not sound as good as converting a file from 44 to 88, or from 88 to 44 as long as it always remained an exact multiple of 44
What I meant was - if you are unsure if it is placebo or not, have you tried to abx downsampled, high res audio to its original? If not, how did you establish that you hear a difference to begin with?
I'm not trying to be facetious here, I'm merely curious about your reasoning
I took this to mean hi-res vs the highest audio quality that Spotify provides. I can't hear a difference between the two.For the sake of this poll, let us define a few things:
1. "paying for" - if you subscribe to Tidal, Amazon HD, Qobuz lets assume one way or another you are "paying" for hi res files. Even if, like Tidal, the MQA bit comes as part of the lossless tier.
2. Let us also park the whole MQA debate, its lossiness or not, legitimacy of advertised benefits etc and just go with if you consume MQA that decodes to above 16/44.1 it is "Hi-res" for the purposes of this poll. So Tidal Masters go in the Hi-res category.
This will all go horribly wrong I am sure as we all love criticising polls- but, humour me.
Edit, let's go with the Wikipedia definition for "hi res". So CD is not hi-res for this poll
"High-resolution audio (High-definition audio or HD audio) is a term for audio files with greater than 44.1 kHz sample rate or higher than 16-bit audio bit depth. It commonly refers to 96 or 192 kHz sample rates. However, there also exist 44.1 kHz/24-bit, 48 kHz/24-bit and 88.2 kHz/24-bit recordings that are labeled HD Audio."