24/192 Music Downloads Are Very Silly Indeed (2012) • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by rplst8 » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 6:48 PM UTC

anentropic wrote: post #369

rplst8 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastering for "high fidelity" 24-bit audio on iTunes is an oxymoron. The compression algorithms used for AAC and MP3 are going to the worsen the sound quality in a manner that renders the extended dynamic range of 24-bit audio is useless.

even on mp3s where the bitrate is low enough to hear some compression artefacts you would still be able to perceive the difference in dynamic range and the iTunes files are 256 kbps AACs, you can't hear the compression remember that 'compression' in this context is data compression and not audio compression (which acts directly on the dynamic range of the source)

> the iTunes files are 256 kbps AACs, you can't hear the compression

I can most certainly hear the compression when compared with CD digital audio.

I fully understand the difference between data compression and dynamic range (not audio) compression.

What I'm saying is, lossy data compressed audio formats are already compromised enough to rule it out as a medium for audiophile use. Worrying about the dynamic range at that point is moot. It's going to be played on tiny, terrible sounding speakers.

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

#402

Post by dom0 » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 7:22 PM UTC

ljcn wrote: post #389

dagw wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who knows nothing about 'good' headsets, should I get the 32, 80 or 250 Ohm

It shouldn't make much too much difference unless you like to listen to them really loud (damaging-your-hearing levels). Two things come to mind though: voltage/current delivery of your amp, and damping ratio. The first depends on the characteristics of your amplifier. Some are better at delivering current, some voltage. The lower impedance (32) is better suited to high-current/low-voltage sources, which includes mos…

> Conversely, the higher impedance (250) is better for high-voltage/low-current sources like tube amps.

Headphone outputs of mixers fall into this category as well. Proper audio interfaces and sound cards have no issues at all driving 250 Ω to deafening volumes. Laptops no issues as well (for me).

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

#403

Post by TheRealDunkirk » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 7:41 PM UTC

xiphmont wrote: post #232

josteink wrote: post #223

I've done signal and sound-processing courses at the university. I know the Nyquist-Shannon theorem. I know all about samples, and digital sound not been square staircases. I know and understand how incorrect down-sampling from high frequencies can cause distortion in the form of sub-harmonics in the audioable range. I know about audible dynamic range and how many decibels of extra range 8-bits are going to give you.…

I collect vintage headphones, and especially relish the truly absurd ones I can't believe anyone thought were a saleable item. I'm up to about 300 different models.

Would love to see a shot of the collection on /r/headphones.

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

#404

Post by TheRealDunkirk » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 7:57 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #167

"Under ideal laboratory conditions, humans can hear sound as low as 12 Hz[8] and as high as 28 kHz..." From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_range#Humans That explains why some people can tell the difference between 44.1 khz and the higher-resolution sampling rates. It also means that the ideal audiophile sampling rate is somewhere between 58khz and 60khz, not 192khz.

You just need these speakers (http://magico.net/product/ultimate.php) to reproduce those frequencies! The problem, of course, is whether even "prosumer" recordings keep frequencies higher than 20 or 22kHz, even if they were recorded on equipment that sampled at 192? Seems like most would LPF the rest away in the process of mastering for the masses.

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

#405

Post by codeulike » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 8:16 PM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #380

codeulike wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel really sorry for audiophiles because they have to spend lots of money on expensive equipment to eliminate the perceived shortcomings that the rest of us are not troubled by during our enjoyment of music.

There is plenty of music that you wouldn't even get to enjoy if you didn't invest in some higher-end equipment and made some effort to improve your listening environment, because you wouldn't be able to hear it at all: the opening of Schnittke's Symphony No. 3 in the BIS recording, Nono’s Prometeo , Ligeti’s Cello Concerto as I mentioned above, most of Knaifel’s music issued on ECM or several of that label’s Pärt rec…

I'll just wait to hear those pieces in concert I guess : )

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

#406

Post by sjwright » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 8:18 PM UTC

dom0 wrote: post #260

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…

In practice, all audio converters are modulation converters of some sort, because it is simply too expensive to achieve the high AC linearity wanted at the required sampling frequencies with other kinds of converters. This already relaxes LPF requirements. In practice, signal quality issues are usually layout and supply issues, not problems with the converter itself. In practice, the speakers and ears are the worst p…

The speakers are often the most influential parts of a hi-fi, but they're not the worst part. The worst part is almost always the room itself. Nothing comes close for screwing up the signal path.

(I tend to avoid discussing the other critical parts — original recording quality and the listener's ears — because these are often immutable constants.)

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

#407

Post by sjwright » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

photojosh wrote: post #123

exikyut wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes for some genuinely interesting thought experiments. What if, this actually becomes possible, but we discover that because we previously couldn't hear these frequencies, our instruments and equipment are HORRIBLY mis-tuned and sound terrible? We may end up having to re-record tons of stuff. Something something premature optimization. And part of me is glad that the art of hand-making instruments is not yet…

Higher frequencies aren't even in most recordings, so we wouldn't have to re-record them for that reason. And if they were (such as in 96 kHz hi-res audio), you could just run it through a low-pass filter to strip off the higher frequencies.

Even if the engineer pressed the "192" button on their field recorder or DAW, chances are the instrument isn't going to be doing much interesting over 20kHz and/or the microphone isn't going to be particularly sensitive over 20kHz.

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

#408

Post by tripzilch » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 8:23 PM UTC

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...

I have to say that (IMHO) Prodigy went over the top with that on The Day Is My Enemy. Thing is you can hear it on the tails of the crash cymbals, you can hear them get ducked in a "stuttery" manner when the compression from the drums hits. Actually, great production technique should be able to work around that and make it both loud without messing up the cymbal tails (or maybe just truncate them, just not have them stutter).

I found the album a bit tiring to listen to because of the continuous loudness. No particular parts really stood out to me, because everything was just sort of loud and it just seemed to go in one ear, out the other. I could pay real close attention, one can always listen better :) But again it is a bit tiring and you can't do much else.

Then again, I just really prefer their first 2-3 albums, which have quite a different sound altogether.

And I'm curious which Oizo albums you're referring to? I love his stuff, and yes some of his tracks are quite loud, (but not all the time, the whole track), but they never quite struck me as a typical "loudness war" type of loudness. Unless I'm thinking of the wrong tracks here (No Day Massacre? Last Night a DJ Killed My Dog?), he seems to like to hit a well sound-designed overdriven bass buzz, with not too much else playing at the same time (and where it does, close attention to envelopes, cutting off hits, ms transient timings) if you do that right and just normalize to max amplitude, you're 95% of the way there (at which point my experience is that compression on top of that usually fucks up that careful detail work, but maybe I need more practice or a different plugin). Possibly I'm thinking of the wrong tracks here, at least you gave me an reason to re-listen his stuff with a different ear/attention (loudness sound-design), which is always interesting :)

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

#409

Post by tripzilch » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 8:38 PM UTC

5zBFyURxgY wrote: post #300

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 ar…

First of, I agree that 24/192 is not very useful for most circumstances (also for the dynamics thing, you still need a 24/192 master done without all the compressions).

But your arguments aren't quite right, IMO. If you have a 16/44 sample, and you don't play it at full volume, you get some use out of those extra bits. Especially if you have a volume envelope.

Also many modern samples are actually saved as 24 (or 32 bit even). Especially if they're my own creation from noodling around with softsynths, but they're shared like that as well, obviously.

Then, if you apply a plugin or effect that supports 192/24 output, on a 16/44 sample, you still get useful information in those additional bits, even if the sample did not. Think of the very quiet end of a reverb tail, for instance.

But that's for producers. It's always good to have your working stuff in high quality, you never know how far you'll end up amplifying those low order bits.

So I can see the use for 24 bit audio (in certain contexts), but I'm really not so sure at all what the 192kHz is good for. Since it's waaaayyy above the human hearing range, all I can think of is dithering. You can hide a lot of your dithering noise in the ultrasonic range (which almost seems like free lunch IMHO) and then ... you obtained even more (virtual) bits of fidelity! Which you didn't really need cause you were using 24 bit audio in the first place.

I agree it's mostly a marketing gimmick, otherwise.

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

#410

Post by tripzilch » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 8:44 PM UTC

justin66 wrote: post #355

JohnBooty wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the 24/192 downloads or SACD releases are often the only way to hear the album with real dynamic range. Yeah, this is often true. Some of Green Day's (a band I've never previously been into) albums were released in 24/192 or 24/96 a few years back and they actually sounded really great, with real dynamic range. Also true? The completely absurd fact that sometimes a vinyl rip of an album will actually have the highest…

> Yeah, this is often true. Some of Green Day's (a band I've never previously been into) albums were released in 24/192 or 24/96 a few years back and they actually sounded really great, with real dynamic range. Back in the day you'd occasionally see remastered "gold" discs released. The advertising made a big deal about the disc material. Those probably sounded different too (they managed to sell them at a great prem…

Yeah it's still the artist's choice how much dynamic range is needed to express their music. More dynamic range just for the sake of it, seems just as bad as sausage flattening to get as loud sound as possible.