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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)

#281

Post by colejohnson66 »

Steve44 wrote: post #278
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It has nothing to do with the 24/192 values themselves, but rather the treatment given to the recording during the mastering I noticed a similar thing with TV a few years ago. Despite watching a standard def. channel on a SD TV some programmes had a very noticeably better image quality. I think these had been shot and edited in HD and although the 'last mile' was still in SD there had been less degradation in the p…

It’s the same reason downsampling 4K to 1080p looks better than shooting in 1080p.

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

#282

Post by 72deluxe »

lz400 wrote: post #270
ycombinete wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdote is that I've done a number of these tests (Foobar has a plugin that allows you to do them on yourself), and I can reliably tell the difference between FLAC and 128 MP3, but can't tell the difference on 256 MP3 and up.

Yes, I've heard people putting the threshold in ~192kbps. Above that it's pretty much impossible these days. I can also tell the difference in 128kpbs, although sometimes it's a bit of nitpicking (can only hear differences in the sounds of hihats and things like that)

I think the type of music you are listening to assists with being able to differentiate. To me (much rock, blues, guitar music) 128kbps MP3 sounds like somebody chewed it first. Cymbals and bizarre snares that sound like the snare is now made of paper indicate the low bitrate.

But 256+ and I certainly cannot tell the difference reliably.

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

#283

Post by kierenj »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #253
kierenj wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sigh. Please see my other reply. It isn't a matter of bit rate (indeed, 16 bits could be more than enough). It is a matter of how engineers serve the targeted markets of each format.

I'm not sure how it's not even more "silly" then. Investing in additional infrastructure, equipment, and effort, when all you need to do is turn down the compressor ratio in the mix... Sounds silly to me.

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

#284

Post by 72deluxe »

QAPereo wrote: post #86
tzs wrote: post #83

What about for non-humans? Consider a dog that lives with a musician who plays, for example, trumpet. The musician plays the trumpet at home to practice, and also records his practices to review. A trumpet produces significant acoustic energy out to about 100 KHz [1]. When the musician plays live the dog hears a rich musical instrument. When the musician plays back his recordings, half the frequency range that the do…

In my experience as a long time trumpet playing dog owner, the dog is generally thrilled when there is less richness in the noise, and generally less trumpet playing period. I say this with experience owning many dogs and having played the trumpet in a range from really badly and inexpertly, to pretty good... they don't care. Trumpets in person are just way too loud and a bit too much in general for most dogs.

And perhaps too loud for humans?

I only say this because most people are happy listening to music on CDs but when in the presence of a live band (eg an orchestra) it is suddenly obvious how incredibly loud it is. My brother is a drummer and I find it incredibly loud; I am a bass player and I don't play loud although he sometimes complains that there's "too much bass". Perhaps we just go deaf in our relative audio spectrum.

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

#285

Post by 72deluxe »

jaquers wrote: post #85
rconti wrote: post #74

Off topic, but I've noticed in the gym, sometimes the music playing from the instructor's iPhone through one of those cheap Ion Block Rocker bluetooth speakers (big boxy one, looks like a guitar amp) has very very noticeable pitch sag in various parts of various songs. It's via bluetooth, and the source is Pandora. I even googled Pandora and pitch change, and found some forums with folks discussing bluetooth causing…

At my greatest aspiration, I'm no more than a casual music listener - however I am very conscious of pitch. On more than one occasion, I've noticed that a song I'm familiar with seems off pitch, as in lower or higher key than I think of it in my head - and I seem to notice that particularly around shitty speakers or bluetooth or some combination of the two. Glad to know I'm not crazy :) To your point, I would lean to…

Would it perhaps be because the bluetooth speakers typically cannot reproduce bass below a certain range and so play the harmonics of the bass note or use the resonance of the item they are placed on to "produce" the bass note? In truth you are not hearing the bass note - you are hearing the harmonics and your brain is making up the missing low note.

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

#286

Post by dm319 »

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.

Apart from it being a great video, I'm sad to say that I'm surprised my phone isn't burning my fingers after watching all the way through it. It's like these people know something about multimedia on the internet.

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

#287

Post by Fifer82 »

z3t4 wrote: post #269
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…

Sadly most people have never experienced good sound. When you hear it though. But taste can be very different.

I have! I really have! My friend spends all his money on audio. I sadly just don't understand. You are correct. I was going to say that he pays infinite money for what to me is a 10% increase in enjoyment, but perhaps for you and him, your brain is better with sound, and you guys might get a 1000% improvement for your dollar.

Although in any case, nothing justifies the pricetag dished out to audio enthusiasts.

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

#288

Post by nimish »

flavio81 wrote: post #65

Good points in the article, but it has some flaws. The problem whenever somebody writes about digital audio, is that it is very tempting to hold on to sampling theory (Nyquist limit, etc) and totally discard the problems of implementing an actual Analog-Digital and Digital-Analog chain that works perfectly at 44100Hz sample rate. I agree with the assesment that 16 bit depth is good enough; even 14 bit is good enough…

Modern DACs and ADCs (sigma-delta) get around this entirely by oversampling/upsampling then low pass filtering in the digital domain with a minimal if any analog LPF. This avoids all the issues you describe and with noise shaping the added noise is inaudible (unless you want to claim you can hear -100dBFS which would be pretty amazing)

>So they are mentioning alternative (b). The problem is that oversampling does not solve all problems. Oversampling implies that the filtering is done on the digital domain and there are several choices of filtering you could use, for example FIR (Finite Impulse Response), IIR (infinite impulse response), etc. And each one of these choices have side effects...

Citation needed here, oversampling solves virtually all the problems + with modern DSP the FIR filters can be made extremely good. the induced noise of modern adc/dac's is seriously tiny, and swamped by the recording noise of your audio.

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

#289

Post by titzer »

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…

With the higher 24 bit resolution, would it not be possible for someone to "decompress" the dynamic range with less distortion than 16 bit?

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

#290

Post by wvh »

72deluxe wrote: post #279
mtzet wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed the same thing with LP's. While LP's are technically inferior to red book CD's, they're often mastered better.

Why is this? I only have 16 bit 44.1kHz "normal" CDs and I notice some terrible mastering jobs, eg. RHCP Stadium Arcadium loses the snare for the first track and is like listening to minutes of distortion yet apparently the vinyl was really well mastered. Is there a technical reason why the mastering is so different for the two mediums, CD versus vinyl?

Just guessing, but maybe the CD version is also used for radio play, and needs to be mastered as loud as possible not to lose the war?

I guess special purpose releases don't usually end up on the radio so they can be mastered for people who actually appreciate music. ;)

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