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24/192 music downloads make no sense

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Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#71

Post by some-guy »

derefr wrote: post #50

So, no point in 24/192 because it makes no difference in playback... but having lossless downloads is important in part for enabling remix culture? There's a bit of a double-standard here. Maybe I can't hear 24/192 audio, but isn't it better input for sampling?

The article is specifying 24/192 as useless for playback quality only. Halfway down he addresses the benefits of 24/192 for the sake of mixing and mastering different digital audio signals, but a final mix offers no benefit to the human listener when choosing between 16bit/44Khz and 24bit/192Khz.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#72

Post by tonecluster »

Some [consumer] digital low-pass filter can benefit from higher sampling rates, leading to an overall better representation of the analog signal up to 20kHz. But there are diminishing returns as the filter "folds" the octaves above 22kHz; A rate of 96k for certain lowpass filters is better than 48k, but at some point there's little (if any) benefit by going to 192k or 384k. For recording studios, go as high as you can in both bit-rate and bit-depth. Especially when you're processing the signal "in the box". Give the software as much data as possible to operate without introducing errors and artifacts. There are diminishing returns there as well, but RTFM for (for example) UA gear and software and you're good to go.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#74

Post by sanoli »

JonnieCache wrote: post #7
andy_ppp wrote: post #5

Why do high quality DACs clearly sound better then? And they sound better with better files. Maybe it really is all in my head but I mean listening to a £20000 hifi the other day (vinyl) really just shocked me. I was listening to Marvin Gaye on my friends system and I could hear that there were several different backing singers all moving and at different distances from the microphone. Are there any double blind tria…

>Why do high quality DACs clearly sound better then? And they sound better with better files. Maybe it really is all on my head but I mean listening to a £20000 hifi the other day... You were listening to £20,000 worth of amps and speakers, and you were most likely in an acoustically treated room. Also, novelty is almost always euphonic when it isn't overtly bad. This fact is often neglected. You hear something you d…

> higher end DACs do sound better

This hasn't passed the blind tests either. A good, 100 dollar dac (a schiit or an odac) will sound just as good as a 1000 dollar dac.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#76

Post by aidenn0 »

tonecluster wrote: post #72

Some [consumer] digital low-pass filter can benefit from higher sampling rates, leading to an overall better representation of the analog signal up to 20kHz. But there are diminishing returns as the filter "folds" the octaves above 22kHz; A rate of 96k for certain lowpass filters is better than 48k, but at some point there's little (if any) benefit by going to 192k or 384k. For recording studios, go as high as you ca…

TFA mentions that for recording and mastering there is a use. Furthermore, the headline implies it see the term "downloads" in the title.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#77

Post by tonecluster »

aidenn0 wrote: post #76
tonecluster wrote: post #72

Some [consumer] digital low-pass filter can benefit from higher sampling rates, leading to an overall better representation of the analog signal up to 20kHz. But there are diminishing returns as the filter "folds" the octaves above 22kHz; A rate of 96k for certain lowpass filters is better than 48k, but at some point there's little (if any) benefit by going to 192k or 384k. For recording studios, go as high as you ca…

TFA mentions that for recording and mastering there is a use. Furthermore, the headline implies it see the term "downloads" in the title.

Yep, I read that too. Even so, there are low-pass filters in some consumer gear that benefit from, say, 96k sampling rates and result in better quality sound. This does imply that at 44.1 or 48 they don't represent up to 20kHz properly, of course.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#78

Post by JonnieCache »

sanoli wrote: post #74
JonnieCache wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do high quality DACs clearly sound better then? And they sound better with better files. Maybe it really is all on my head but I mean listening to a £20000 hifi the other day... You were listening to £20,000 worth of amps and speakers, and you were most likely in an acoustically treated room. Also, novelty is almost always euphonic when it isn't overtly bad. This fact is often neglected. You hear something you d…

> higher end DACs do sound better This hasn't passed the blind tests either. A good, 100 dollar dac (a schiit or an odac) will sound just as good as a 1000 dollar dac.

Higher end DACs. My fireface 400 has many DACs in it and it cost £549 new when it came out, in 2007. It sounds obviously better than the ~£80 USB soundcards and various built-in DACs in laptops. I've done A/B testing. (I didn't buy it for the converters btw, I bought it for the features and the build quality, which are unmatched.)

Forget about spending £1000s though. I'm sure that ODAC thing sounds better than the RME, I saw that test where it was identical to the various industry standard units.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#79

Post by malandrew »

earlz wrote: post #26

I can't hear a difference between 96khz/44khz in it's raw form. However, I can tell the difference from effects in audio mixing. The extra detail can really make a difference in how well an audio effect VST works. I have a 96khz/24bit interface that I use and ATH-M30X headphones, and I can tell a difference between at least some 24bit FLAC files and 16bit highest-quality-possible MP3s. I was mixing my own music and t…

For those interesting in different versions of an album where it was mastered by a different audio engineer, you should check out the Steve Hoffman forums: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#80

Post by msandford »

niels_olson wrote: post #61
ska wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is pretty clear about this too - higher bitdepths and sampling rates can be quite useful in mixing and recording situations. They're pointless for playback.

> higher bitdepths and sampling rates can be quite useful in mixing That is really the central issue. It's much like imaging since the time of Ansel Adams: the sensor can capture more dynamic range than the human eye can experience. The producer may have use for that range when editing, but the audience will never know what was -- may have been -- missed. And we're not talking about limits of reproduction. We're talk…

> That is really the central issue. It's much like imaging since the time of Ansel Adams: the sensor can capture more dynamic range than the human eye can experience.

That's not really true. Dynamic range refers to the difference between the biggest value that isn't clipped and the smallest value that isn't rounded to zero. The human eye is a logarithmic detector, cameras are linear. The only reason HDR is a thing is because cameras DON'T have enough dynamic range.

http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/21579/how-does-the-...

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