There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. • Hacker News Board

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#11

Post by coopersloan » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 9:53 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #5

coopersloan wrote: post #3

Huh, I think people truly advocating 192 as a distribution format will be few and far in between, a really good and cheaper sampling system can be put together at 96. Still, a lot of things in this article perplex me. Human hearing is limited to 20k because frequencies higher than that are perceived as painful? Dont agree with that one. 24 bit doesn't offer any advantages to sound quality? Sheesh. And the crux of the…

"Don't agree with that one" and "Sheesh" are pretty weak counters to detailed, objective arguments based on extensive research and decades of test data.

Principle frequencies well above 20k as well as their sympathetic harmonics are pretty easily audible by me, try it.

24 bit is also extremely easy to hear. Arguably more important during the recording phase when headroom is valuable.

Its just as easy to qualify everything with "placebo effect", as it is to be dismissive

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#12

Post by cmer » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 9:55 PM UTC

Joeboy wrote: post #10

cmer wrote: post #4

There's a lot of scientific-sounded content in this, but unfortunately most of it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm an ex-audio engineer and studied digital and analog audio engineering; this has been debated to death over the last 15 years. Digitally recording a triangle is the best example of why 48kHz is very limiting. The distinct sound of the triangle constitutes of a high fundamental frequency, ballpark 5…

> Digitally recording a triangle is the best example of why 48kHz is very limiting The article's about distribution, not recording. I don't think anybody disputes the usefulness of higher sampling rates when recording. > In theory, it's true that the human hear can't hear above ~18kHz, but it can hear the influence of the very high pitch harmonics on a lower frequency. ...and 48kHz audio contains those lower frequenc…

Stripping frequencies above 20kHz negates the effect on the lower frequencies since those lower frequencies are not "modified" by the higher ones. The human hear can actually hear the very high harmonics when they're combined with a lower fundamental frequency.

For example, the human hear will hear a 30kHz frequency if it's fundamental is 10kHz. If it's played at 44.1kHz, the 30kHz frequency is gone and all you'll hear is 10kHz, not a "different sounding" 10kHz.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#13

Post by colanderman » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

cmer wrote: post #4

There's a lot of scientific-sounded content in this, but unfortunately most of it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm an ex-audio engineer and studied digital and analog audio engineering; this has been debated to death over the last 15 years. Digitally recording a triangle is the best example of why 48kHz is very limiting. The distinct sound of the triangle constitutes of a high fundamental frequency, ballpark 5…

That data doesn't back your point at all. That data concerns what frequencies are present, not what frequencies can be heard.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#14

Post by wickedchicken » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

For an article containing a lot of "well, if you knew signal processing..." there are two fairly major oversights:

1) Any well-designed system is going to have headroom. Period. Just because 48kHz can capture the frequencies the human hear theoretically, it's always good to have a little wiggle room. This comes into play even more with interactive situations: humans are particularly sensitive to jitter. Having an "overkill" sample rate lets you seamlessly sync things easier without anyone noticing.

2) 192kHz comes with an additional benefit besides higher frequencies: it also means more granular timing for the start and stop of transients. More accurate reverb would be the obvious example. I don't know if the human ear can discern the difference between 0.03ms and 0.005ms but it's something I don't see mentioned often.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#15

Post by tompagenet2 » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

coopersloan wrote: post #11

brazzy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't agree with that one" and "Sheesh" are pretty weak counters to detailed, objective arguments based on extensive research and decades of test data.

Principle frequencies well above 20k as well as their sympathetic harmonics are pretty easily audible by me, try it. 24 bit is also extremely easy to hear. Arguably more important during the recording phase when headroom is valuable. Its just as easy to qualify everything with "placebo effect", as it is to be dismissive

There will always be people with slightly wider sensory perception than others, but are you honestly saying that you can easily hear sounds "well above" 20kHz? Have you tested this in a double blind test? I know that sounds like a lot of effort, but it would be interesting. You would be somewhat unusual if you could hear, say, 22kHz.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#16

Post by amouat » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 9:57 PM UTC

cmer wrote: post #4

There's a lot of scientific-sounded content in this, but unfortunately most of it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm an ex-audio engineer and studied digital and analog audio engineering; this has been debated to death over the last 15 years. Digitally recording a triangle is the best example of why 48kHz is very limiting. The distinct sound of the triangle constitutes of a high fundamental frequency, ballpark 5…

I'm no sound engineer, but as far as I can tell, the main point of that paper is that some instruments produce harmonics at frequencies greater than 20kHz, not that these frequencies matter to humans. However, section X references other papers that apparently make this claim.

Just because it is difficult to record a triangle does not necessarily mean it is impossible to accurately recreate the sound (to human ears) using 48kHz.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#17

Post by leephillips » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 9:57 PM UTC

cmer wrote: post #4

There's a lot of scientific-sounded content in this, but unfortunately most of it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm an ex-audio engineer and studied digital and analog audio engineering; this has been debated to death over the last 15 years. Digitally recording a triangle is the best example of why 48kHz is very limiting. The distinct sound of the triangle constitutes of a high fundamental frequency, ballpark 5…

The linked article was accurate. You are confused.

"I'm an ex-audio engineer"

Hard to believe.

"The distinct sound of the triangle constitutes of a high fundamental frequency, ballpark 10kHz"

That's a pretty high note - higher than the top key on the piano. But an "audio engineer" would know that.

"many very high-pitch harmonics"

Since the next harmonic after the fundamental would be at 20khz, which only young people can hear, and none of the others are audible to any human, I don't understand what you are talking about.

"Most of these harmonics are 20kHz."

OK, you don't either.

"it can hear the influence of the very high pitch harmonics on a lower frequency."

Sure....

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#18

Post by newman314 » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 9:58 PM UTC

nwhitehead wrote: post #8

cmer wrote: post #4

There's a lot of scientific-sounded content in this, but unfortunately most of it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm an ex-audio engineer and studied digital and analog audio engineering; this has been debated to death over the last 15 years. Digitally recording a triangle is the best example of why 48kHz is very limiting. The distinct sound of the triangle constitutes of a high fundamental frequency, ballpark 5…

The article doesn't suggest only using 48kHz for recording and mixing. I don't think the author would disagree that recording triangles is difficult. He would argue that once you've decided what final audible frequencies you want to present to the listener, the best way to distribute them is at 16-bit 44.1/48kHz. It's a compelling case.

What if you want to sample the song later?

That's one thing I find concerning with the move to digital. With analog media, you can go back, re-record and get an improved result (provided the source is good) but District 9 (which was shot on Red One) will never have improved quality other than resampling because the source is set to a particular digital format with associated data quality.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#19

Post by cmer » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 9:58 PM UTC

nwhitehead wrote: post #8

cmer wrote: post #4

There's a lot of scientific-sounded content in this, but unfortunately most of it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm an ex-audio engineer and studied digital and analog audio engineering; this has been debated to death over the last 15 years. Digitally recording a triangle is the best example of why 48kHz is very limiting. The distinct sound of the triangle constitutes of a high fundamental frequency, ballpark 5…

The article doesn't suggest only using 48kHz for recording and mixing. I don't think the author would disagree that recording triangles is difficult. He would argue that once you've decided what final audible frequencies you want to present to the listener, the best way to distribute them is at 16-bit 44.1/48kHz. It's a compelling case.

I completely disagree with the article having heard the difference many times myself. You can't record at 192kHz and hope to keep the same quality by distributing the final mix in 44.1kHz. It just doesn't work that way.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#20

Post by mkn » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 10:01 PM UTC

coopersloan wrote: post #3

Huh, I think people truly advocating 192 as a distribution format will be few and far in between, a really good and cheaper sampling system can be put together at 96. Still, a lot of things in this article perplex me. Human hearing is limited to 20k because frequencies higher than that are perceived as painful? Dont agree with that one. 24 bit doesn't offer any advantages to sound quality? Sheesh. And the crux of the…

"Human hearing is limited to 20k because frequencies higher than that are perceived as painful? Dont agree with that one."

Yeah, that's a silly one. I disagree with it, too. It's a good thing it appears nowhere in the fine article. Are you actually confused about the difference between frequency and amplitude? Or did you misread the article?

"24 bit doesn't offer any advantages to sound quality? Sheesh."

As brazzy rightly points out, "Sheesh" isn't a reasoned statement. It's an ejaculation. And, it turns out, the author talked about why sound engineers record with 24 bits; It has to do with pragmatic reasons about leaving room for the highest and lowest frequencies in the audio being recorded without clipping, as well as with the author's discussion of Nyquist considerations in the distributed product.

Your post is wrong in so many ways that would have been easily fixed by reading the linked article with even 8th-grade reading skills that the reasonable reader has to wonder if you're being deliberately obtuse. Are you?