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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)

#291

Post by akvadrako »

djaychela wrote: post #243
akvadrako wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, I don't have it wrong. Compression means it's effectively using less of the range and the dynamics could be represented with fewer bits in an optimal encoding. All the levels may be used in track, but it's more biased towards the high end.

To help you understand, imagine 1-bit audio. What would it sound like? For each frequency, you can only have a single volume, i.e. it's maximally compressed.

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

#292

Post by akvadrako »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #242
akvadrako wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your reply is not the whole picture. Compression reduces the effective number of bits of resolution.

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

#293

Post by soneil »

sk5t wrote: post #199
amygdyl wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt that the presenter is a very rare example of a engineer who felt that his expression and purpose was attractive to his imagined audience. Without diversion via the questions embedded in the profession and the perception and self perception of the male geek working and academic world, I so rarely see a presenter reacting to a sense of apparent human warmth in the room, and beyond the lens, which even with the m…

What kind of software generated this comment?

Hah, so cynical. No, this is just how audiophiles describe anything. Even their floorboards.

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

#294

Post by toothbrush »

Buge wrote: post #258
shams93 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 192 is really for low latency not for anything you can actually hear. You can't hear the difference past 48khz. An audio interface that can do 192 gets you down to 5ms latency where you can finger drum without being thrown off. But it has nothing to do with audio quality. Like if you use guitar rig you will have the lowest possible latency for realtime computer generated guitar effects at 192.

Where do you get the 5ms from? Why is 192 more likely to have lower latency? I would think the higher bandwidth required by 192 has the possibility to slow your computer down and cause more latency.

I believe the parent might be referring to the myth about attack of signal falling "between the cracks" of digital sampling. This is debunked in the video linked elsewhere, in the chapter titled "bandlimitation and timing". I might be wrong about the parent poster's meaning, though.

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

#295

Post by dep_b »

anyfoo wrote: post #125
dep_b wrote: post #109

Without even reading the article I already know that it's extremely hard that hearing the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/192 indeed is really hard if not impossible. I only use higher bitrates when creating music so when I mix or record I don't need to make the levels go almost into red to get a hot enough signal, I can do all kinds of changes like slowing down or up, distortion, EQ, compression without losing any…

No, not "really hard if not impossible", it is impossible. The article itself cites that no one has ever been observed to be able to do so.

More than 44 is useful for tempo matching while mixing

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

#296

Post by Applejinx »

xiphmont wrote: post #225
hammock wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty amazing.. why wouldnt he set up his own sound to eliminate more of that signal generator fan noise though. So distracting.

I did, but I didn't want to wear a lapel mic for the video and deal with the extra hassle. It was just me (no helpers) and a couple cameras. Wired mics suspended overhead kept sound setup from adding to the logistics for each take. The sound was done similarly to the previous video, which hadn't drawn comments. This time though, a sizable fraction of people said it was distracting.

And yet you insist on being the authority for what's permissible? I think you should stop publicly clamoring for limitations to audio resolution on the grounds that you're not representative of enough listeners. I don't mind one bit that you don't hear these things, or that you represent even a majority of people who don't hear these things… but they don't represent the market for commercial audio. You're doing harm, please stop.

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

#297

Post by Applejinx »

kazinator wrote: post #147
Const-me wrote: post #134

If the only thing you do with your music is listen, then yes, 24/192 delivers questionable value compared to the more popular 16/44.1 or 16/48 formats. However, all musicians I know use these high-rez formats internally. The reason for that, when you apply audio effects, especially complex VST ones, these discretization artifacts noticeably decrease the result quality. Maybe, the musicians who distribute their music…

I do not believe it. 24 bits is definitely needed for processing (better yet, use floating-point). Not 192 kHz; no friggin' way. Repeated processing through multiple blocks at a given sample rate does not produce cumulative discretization problems in the time domain; it's just not how the math works.

Lots of my plugin users are resorting to massive oversampling, even when it's not appropriate, simply because in their experience so many of the plugins they use are substantially better when oversampled. 192K is an extremely low rate for oversampling.

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

#298

Post by Blahah »

copperx wrote: post #257
akvadrako wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As Barbie would say: Audio engineering is hard! Let's play with the calculator.

Barbie has piloted commercial airliners, been on a scientific space mission, and has an M.D., so I don't think she'd be likely to say that.

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

#299

Post by [deleted] »

kierenj wrote: post #283
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#300

Post by 5zBFyURxgY »

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…

Still very silly IMAO. Very, very few recordings are done in 24/192 because of the many implications this has on your entire studio setup.

You'll need an exceptional good clock to start with, and all other equipment needs to align to that clock. Then all plugins/processing you use needs to be in the same 24/192 domain, otherwise your signal is reduced to the limit of that plugin/processing and all previous efforts are lost.

Most music producers use samples, most are 16/44, so what's the point to try to get that to 24/192, filling the signal with zero's..

If a piece of music is in very rare occasion truly 24/192 then the listener who downloaded the track still needs a exceptional good clock (that are both expensive and hard to find) to playback without signal reduction.

IMAO 24/192 is just a marketing thing for audiophiles that don't really understand the implications. 24/96 should be a reasonable limit for now, although personally I think 24/48 is enough for very high quality audio.

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