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

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

#241

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

hashmal wrote: post #236
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #190

Not entirely silly. Yes, the purported benefits of this high-fidelity audio are imaginary or even include undesirable traits. However, when most "remasters" of pop music today involve the dynamics being boosted to "loudness wars" standards for a target audience of people listening to the music through earbuds in the street, the 24/192 downloads or SACD releases are often the only way to hear the album with real dynam…

How does 24/192 help with dynamic range?

It has nothing to do with the 24/192 values themselves, but rather the treatment given to the recording during the mastering. Because 24/192 and SACD are "audiophile formats", the engineers who master the recordings expect them to be listened to in serious listening environments that are relatively noise-insulated so that very soft parts can be heard clearly, and there are no complaining neighbours so the loud parts can really blast. Consequently, an ample dynamic range is preserved.

"Remastered" reissues on the other formats – CD or lower-bitrate downloads – are nowadays expected to be listened to through cheap earbuds or speakers and perhaps in noisy urban environments. So, the engineer applies "loudness wars" treatment, compressing their dynamic range so the listener can still hear the quiet parts even with all the noise around them.

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

#242

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

akvadrako wrote: post #240
hashmal wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does 24/192 help with dynamic range?

That's the 24-bit part, which provides more play room then 16-bit. Normally 16 is plenty, by consider an example track which is heavily compressed so only the top 1% of range is used: 16-bits = 2^16 * 0.01 = 655 discrete levels 24-bits = 2^24 * 0.01 = 168000 discrete levels

No, that has nothing to do with it. See my reply above.

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

#243

Post by djaychela »

akvadrako wrote: post #240
hashmal wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does 24/192 help with dynamic range?

That's the 24-bit part, which provides more play room then 16-bit. Normally 16 is plenty, by consider an example track which is heavily compressed so only the top 1% of range is used: 16-bits = 2^16 * 0.01 = 655 discrete levels 24-bits = 2^24 * 0.01 = 168000 discrete levels

I think you have the wrong end of the stick there. Even if a track is heavily multiband compressed, it's still using the full range of levels, as audio will oscillate between -ve and +ve for each cycle, potentially using most of the 65,536 levels available at 16-bit (and the 16777216 levels at 24 bit). The 0.01 is not relevant.

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

#245

Post by function_seven »

arrrvalue wrote: post #228
function_seven wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re talking about something orthogonal to the question at hand. It’s like complaining that the 4K TV sucks at VR. Of course it does. It’s not meant to provide VR. Same thing with sampling and bit-depth. Those address digital encoding of analog signals. They have nothing to say about speaker design, number of audio channels, room acoustics, or the myriad other factors that go into replicating a live stage performan…

It's not obvious that 2 channels of recorded audio aren't sufficient to recreate a convincing stereo image; suggesting that I'm seeking the equivalent of VR is specious. And you haven't answered my question about the array of 20kHz tone generators. In fact, NOBODY has, and yet the question has been down-voted! How is that even possible? Posing a novel experiment which might invalidate the populist view considered har…

Regarding your question about the wall of tone generators:

I imagine a pair of microphones inserted into the ear canals of a dummy head should be able to capture what a real person sitting there would. Once the signals are captured, and assuming perfect frequency response of the microphones and noiseless transfer of the signals to an ADC, 44.1kHz would absolutely be enough to perfectly encode the 20Hz frequencies.

I put emphasis on the frequency response of the microphones. They’d have to match the frequency response of the human ear. Meaning they would not capture ultrasonics, just like our ears don’t.

I am less sure of the math behind bit-depth and how it relates to our own dynamic range. I also agree that if you intend to transform the recording, mix it with others, etc, then go ahead and encode at higher bitrates and even with a higher frequency (both mic and ADC sampling). But the final product, being sold for direct listening, need not be sampled at a rate that’s beyond our hearing. No more than a video recording should be able to encode colors in the ultraviolet spectrum (A better analogy than my previous one)

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

#246

Post by boomlinde »

arrrvalue wrote: post #151
romwell wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>as engineers we will never solve this problem [reproduce a live acoustic music performance] as long as the "44.1kHz is good enough" dogma is perpetuated It's the opposite. We are never going to solve this problem if we are going to focus on things that have nothing to do with the problem. Compare and contrast: >as engineers we will never solve this problem as long as the "copper wires are good enough" dogma is perpe…

interesting viewpoint, however, did you think about the experiment I presented? without an answer, sample rate and cabling cannot be considered equivalent distractions on the road to high fidelity.

Did you think about your experiment? What's your own conclusion, and what other conclusions would you expect others to make? "Just think about it" is not a very convincing argument.

The microphones would probably be the bottleneck in reproducing the sound. If your microphone setup doesn't perfectly model the ears of the listener (with respect to how the headphones are worn and their frequency response), you're not going to be able to plausibly reproduce the whole sound field using a stereo recording. That has little to do with sample rate, though.

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

#247

Post by Tepix »

lz400 wrote: post #214
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If you download mp3/spotify" You are misconstruing Monty's argument here. He is very much against mp3...in fact he says he could tell the difference between high bitrate mp3 and 16 bit 44k wav. The real point of the video is that 16 bit 44k wav is beyond sufficient...don't need to go beyond that to 24-bit 192kHz.

As far as I know, people consistently fail to tell the difference in blind A/B tests in listening between (any decent) FLAC and a well ripped mp3 from the same source. I know I can't. I can't link to proper double blind studies but that's the general consensus in the non-BS-audiophile community as far as I know.

c't magazine did a test all the way back in 2000 (see https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Kreuzverhoertest-287592.html) and even the best test listeners were unable to tell 256kbit mp3 and the original apart.

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

#248

Post by aw3c2 »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #241
hashmal wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does 24/192 help with dynamic range?

It has nothing to do with the 24/192 values themselves, but rather the treatment given to the recording during the mastering. Because 24/192 and SACD are "audiophile formats", the engineers who master the recordings expect them to be listened to in serious listening environments that are relatively noise-insulated so that very soft parts can be heard clearly, and there are no complaining neighbours so the loud parts…

You are proving the point. Treating the audio well, not giving in to the loudness, has only correlation with 24/192 releases (if you say so), there is no causation.

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

#249

Post by Mizza »

jahnu wrote: post #18

I've said it before, this video demo is one of the very best I've ever seen. https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml So well prepared, so well presented, so little that could be removed without ruining it. I aspire to do such good demos but always fall so short.

Thanks for sharing! Well worth the watch, and gave me a bonus dose of ASMR. Commenting needlessly to show my appreciation and to hopefully inspire a future version of myself to watch this again.

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

#250

Post by kierenj »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #190

Not entirely silly. Yes, the purported benefits of this high-fidelity audio are imaginary or even include undesirable traits. However, when most "remasters" of pop music today involve the dynamics being boosted to "loudness wars" standards for a target audience of people listening to the music through earbuds in the street, the 24/192 downloads or SACD releases are often the only way to hear the album with real dynam…

Did you check out the article? 16 bits can cover the range very well, more than you (or anyone) could ever distinguish
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