Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

xiph.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 445 posts

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#41

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

mrob wrote: post #15

Super-high sample rate could make a difference if you're sampling it and pitching it down heavily to make a bass-line. But in practice, I think most such audio has very little information above 20kHz. Ordinary microphones are designed for audible frequencies, and ultra-sonics are easily lost in production. What music actually contains interesting ultra-sonic information for slowed-down listening?

If anything, wouldn't the high sample rate be a liability when trying to shift pitch? If it captures too much outside the range of human hearing, then that ultrasound might suddenly become audible when you change pitch, which could sound weird.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#42

Post by sp332 »

kobeya wrote: post #39
sp332 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, when you're editing music it can be helpful to have super high sample rates and lots of bits to work with. But for listening, it's just a waste of space.

He was talking about listening.

tomc1985 said "fed through distortion/compression/warming effects processors" which is editing, not listening.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#43

Post by kobeya »

anyfoo wrote: post #26
squarefoot wrote: post #13

FTA: "192kHz digital music files offer no benefits. They're not quite neutral either; practical fidelity is slightly worse. The ultrasonics are a liability during playback." I would expect the samples to be interpolated before the final DA conversion takes place, so no extra ultrasonics should be involved. And there would be filters for them anyway, we still have to use them for 44.1, 48, 96 etc.

Wasn't the point that if you have a system capable of outputting a 192kHz analog signal on the DAC, essentially hitting your speakers with 96kHz audio, any non-linearity starting at the DAC and beyond could cause distortion in the actually audible range? And if you do any downsampling, or any low pass filtering in general, then having 192kHz sampling is even more useless, in addition to only having the "benefit" of a…

We need the extra frequencies to communicate over the air updates to our mind control implants, obviously.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#44

Post by mrob »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #41
mrob wrote: post #15

Super-high sample rate could make a difference if you're sampling it and pitching it down heavily to make a bass-line. But in practice, I think most such audio has very little information above 20kHz. Ordinary microphones are designed for audible frequencies, and ultra-sonics are easily lost in production. What music actually contains interesting ultra-sonic information for slowed-down listening?

If anything, wouldn't the high sample rate be a liability when trying to shift pitch? If it captures too much outside the range of human hearing, then that ultrasound might suddenly become audible when you change pitch, which could sound weird.

Exactly, and the weirdness might be interesting.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#45

Post by pzone »

tomc1985 wrote: post #24
hamandcheese wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

24/192 can capture audio well beyond what we can hear. These sounds can, though, lead to distortion that is within our hearing range, depending on the equipment used. Therefore, rather than just being useless extra data, it can be actively harmful to the listening experience.

It's not that much different to think of than 480p vs 4K/2160p -- dramatically higher resolution, increasing the width and length of the 'grid' that sound is recorded into -- except that in the case of audio fidelity, quality after a certain point causes problems with playback systems, resulting in audible artifacts and distortion.

That analogy works if you modify it:

- 480p vs 2160p is measuring the resolution of your cell phone propped up on a pillow at the other end of your living room

- experimental evidence shows that your eyesight is not good enough to pick up on the increased resolution, you've maxed out your sensory perception

- Your phone stutters trying to stream at 4k so the playback might actually be worse.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#46

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Veratyr wrote: post #30

Perhaps this is a silly question but the explanations mostly make perfect sense to me but in the case of sample rate, what happens when two waves with very different frequencies overlap? Say I've got an 18kHz wave and a 9kHz wave and the 9kHz wave is ever so slightly out of phase. Then imagine there are 10 different waves under 20kHz all interfering with each other in different wages. Is it still possible to reproduc…

IIRC, I think the article's point about maximum volume was about how you'd need to turn the volume up to deafening levels before the small differences would be noticeable.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#47

Post by [deleted] »

mrob wrote: post #44
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, wouldn't the high sample rate be a liability when trying to shift pitch? If it captures too much outside the range of human hearing, then that ultrasound might suddenly become audible when you change pitch, which could sound weird.

Exactly, and the weirdness might be interesting.

[deleted]

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#48

Post by anyfoo »

0xCMP wrote: post #9

I've always been able to tell when something on Spotify I've heard before is lower quality now. I can instinctively tell in my car when that's the case. It's mostly due to how loud certain parts of the song are or how it sounds at higher volumes. I guess, given what he says, that wouldn't be the case if made sure they were the same dB.

It is well known that music media for "popular" consumption are often intentionally mastered with much less dynamic. This is called "compression", but has, on the surface, nothing to do with compression of bits* . It's the dynamic that's compressed, making quieter and louder sounds be closer together.

For markets with people that are more likely to care about sound quality, though, a much larger dynamic range is preserved. This is why the same album often sounds better on vinyl than on digital media[1]. It has nothing to do with the media, it's the superior mastering that was consciously chosen.

The Wikipedia article on the Loudness War[2] offers a good explanation.

* Well, technically, music with compressed dynamic has less entropy, so can be encoded at a lower bitrate without loss.

[1] See this database for example: http://dr.loudness-war.info [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#49

Post by zkSNARK »

SmooL wrote: post #33
zkSNARK wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that is the case. Most systems which I have used actually sound better at the higher sampling rates. This is not because the sampling rates cause anything to sound better, but because the hardware works better at those rates. In a blind test, you wouldn't be able to decide which one you liked better, only that there is a difference. At least on the machines I have, there are some clearly audible differences.

"In a blind test, you wouldn't be able to decide which one you liked better, only that there is a difference" That would have to be the noise. The math doesn't lie...

I'm not talking about noise or other artifacts from the conversion process. I am talking about differences in bass and treble balance that come from different engineering in the converters at different frequencies. In some converters, there are actually completely different circuits that engage for different frequencies. The converters that I have experienced do this, and they all have a noticeable effect on what we hear.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012)

#50

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

mrob wrote: post #44
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, wouldn't the high sample rate be a liability when trying to shift pitch? If it captures too much outside the range of human hearing, then that ultrasound might suddenly become audible when you change pitch, which could sound weird.

Exactly, and the weirdness might be interesting.

Ah, right. And if ultrasound is actually much like regular sound, it may sound perfectly normal.
Post reply on HN