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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)

#391

Post by kazinator »

Applejinx wrote: post #297
kazinator wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That could be simply that some of these plugins are either written to specifically work correctly only at 192 kHz; i.e. it's a matter of matching the format they expect.

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

#392

Post by ladzoppelin »

JohnBooty wrote: post #329
aw3c2 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, absolutely. 16 bit samples give 100db+ of perceived dynamic range, more than would ever be needed. The other poster is not saying otherwise, though. They're just saying that "hi-def" formats, while technically unnecessary for end-user listening, are often the only way to obtain a decently-mastered recording. There's no technical reason for things to be that way. But that's how things are. It's sort of like buy…

But there is a technical reason for them as the tools used to master/make music work better at the higher formats. Its not "superstition" its digital audio.

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

#393

Post by Applejinx »

abpavel wrote: post #373
Applejinx wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder how you measure the quality difference for higher rates? 384K, 512K and beyond? I hear from audiophiles that there is a very distinct difference, but there is absolutely no basis for it in science.

Not so: this oversampling is mostly about generating distortion products without aliasing, so in the context I mean, the difference is obvious. But, it's a tradeoff- purer behavior under distortion, versus a dead quality that comes from extreme over-processing. I've never seen an audiophile talk about 384K+ sampling rate unless they mean DSD, and with that, it's for getting the known unstable HF behavior up and out of the audible range.

Oversampling in studio recording is mostly about eliminating aliasing in software that's producing distortion, and it's only relevant in that context: I don't think it's nearly so relevant on, say, an EQ.

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

#394

Post by anyfoo »

dep_b wrote: post #295
anyfoo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, the article also mentions how 24/192 can be useful for production and editing.

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

#395

Post by anyfoo »

0xCMP wrote: post #387
anyfoo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pres…

So how about for Spotify? It's all digital media, but I pay more to be able to have the highest quality version streamed/pre-downloaded for songs and I can pretty much tell the difference. I've had anecdotal experiences were I noticed a distinct difference and checked to find out somehow my settings were changed. Is it that Spotify changes the dynamic for lower and high quality encodings of the songs?

I don't know what Spotify does. It's possible that they use compression on the "non high quality" media, it's also possible that you are hearing other differences that are the result of different encoding parameters.

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

#396

Post by davidgerard »

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…

Yep - non-shitty masterings are the one legitimate reason for "hi-res" audio. Even if you could downsample it to 16/44 with no perceptible difference.

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

#397

Post by davidgerard »

haywirez wrote: post #346
DCKing wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loudness war seems to have been a temporary problem, prevalent mostly because music was primarily listened as downloads of individual files or small collections of files. Music streaming services have since become a very important music listening medium. Spotify, Google Music, Apple Music and others do normalization of these loudness levels. This neutralizes the loudness wars as it makes loudness wars treatment o…

The loudness war was great. I totally appreciate the extremes it reached and the new music production techniques that were developed in response. Some utterly squashed, distorted albums like The Prodigy's Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned are masterpieces. Same goes for some 10-15 year old Mr. Oizo, SebastiAn albums. Over-compression can be very aesthetic. Dynamic range is overrated...

It's a genre thing. Lotta dance music these days sounds wrong if it doesn't have the particular distortion of overdoing the hard limiter. Like rock'n'roll without distortion on the guitar.

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

#398

Post by aw3c2 »

ladzoppelin wrote: post #392
JohnBooty wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, absolutely. 16 bit samples give 100db+ of perceived dynamic range, more than would ever be needed. The other poster is not saying otherwise, though. They're just saying that "hi-def" formats, while technically unnecessary for end-user listening, are often the only way to obtain a decently-mastered recording. There's no technical reason for things to be that way. But that's how things are. It's sort of like buy…

But there is a technical reason for them as the tools used to master/make music work better at the higher formats. Its not "superstition" its digital audio.

Yes, but this is about Music Downloads.

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

#399

Post by nullc »

soundwave106 wrote: post #368
5zBFyURxgY wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ar…

This depends on whether you are in the studio or are just playing back things. In the studio, I would say that 24 bit at least should be the norm for recording purposes. 24 bit recording gives you very noticeable increased headroom (about 20dB). This gives you quite a bit more flexibility recording lower levels without concerning yourself about the noise floor. The difference isn't huge for most prosumer setups in pr…

> This gives you quite a bit more flexibility recording lower levels without concerning yourself about the noise floor.

To be fair, that only applies to the digital part of your signal chain. The analog portion is going to have nowhere near 24 bits of room above the noise floor.

The article is pretty clear that 24/192 can be reasonable for production-- it's just not reasonable for playback.

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

#400

Post by nullc »

zkSNARK wrote: post #25
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.

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.

> you wouldn't be able to decide which one you liked better, only that there is a difference.

Yet people have been reliably _unable_ to do this.

The gold standard in listening tests for this is an ABX where you are simply trying to show that you can discern a difference.

When properly setup and calibrated people are unable to show that they can distinguish 48kHz and 192kHz.

Moreover, by the numbers, audio hardware tends to work less well at higher rates if they're different, because running them at higher rates makes their own internal noise shaping less powerful. (Though for anything done well the distinction should still be inaudible).

Finally, if you do have cruddy converters that sound significantly different at different rates nothing stops you from using a transparent software resampler (SSRC is well respected for good reason) to put the audio at whatever rate you want.. until you get better hardware. :)

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