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

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

#171

Post by nullc »

xiphmont wrote: post #75
wickedchicken wrote: post #14

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 "ov…

1) 48kHz sampling does include headroom. 2) increased sampling rate does not improve timing. This also has been researched in detail (because it sounds like it could possibly be true given that the ears can phase match to much greater granularity than the sample clock). It was found false in practice, and in retrospect, the sampling theorem explains why. The Griesinger link discusses this with illustrations, and prov…

To avoid the trouble of digging up the link: http://www.davidgriesinger.com/intermod.ppt

Slides 29-35 address this point.

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

#172

Post by sjwright »

mistercow wrote: post #150

> Can you see the LED flash when you press a button? No? Not even the tiniest amount? I used to be able to see it when I was a kid (it looked very faintly red), but I just tried it and couldn't see it at all. That's actually a little bit disturbing.

Almost certainly because it was a different remote control when you were a kid. Some remote controls emit a lot closer to visible light than others.

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

#173

Post by SpiderX »

runeks wrote: post #110
Anechoic wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, the human hear will hear a 30kHz frequency if it's fundamental is 10kHz You are going to have to provide me with a citation to back that up because that goes against everything I've learned and experience in 17 years of working in acoustics.

It's definitely possible for two sounds to be indistinguishable when played separately, but when played together it is revealed that they are in fact different (see link below). Whether this applies for sounds with frequencies above 20kHz I don't know. I'd like to see a citation as well. Doesn't seem like it would be the hardest experiment to set up either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_(music)#Sound_files

Me and my brother would sing at each other in certain tones such that we created harmonics in both our ears. It wasn't pleasant, but it was interesting. Regardless, I'd smash my equipment if it made harmonics like that.

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

#174

Post by nitrogen »

davesims wrote: post #152
sjwright wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have also spent many hours spent in high-end recording and mastering environments, and it's my observation that most engineers suffer from confirmation bias just like everyone else on the planet. I've caught engineers using L1-Ultramaximizer (or similar) to bounce a recording down to 16-bit/44.1khz as part of the mastering process, and they're always surprised when they're completely unable to hear the difference e…

Audio, perhaps like the wine industry, is a vast bastion of confirmation bias and subjectivity, no argument there. But I know what my ears hear, and IMO there is absolutely a vast different between 44.1 and 192. I'm not sure how you can even question it. Someone else on the thread was saying it's impossible to hear the difference between 16bit and 24bit. I don't even know what to say to that. It's like telling me the…

You just need to consider more plausible explanations for the difference you are hearing, such as low-quality sample rate conversion on the playback devices you are using, clock jitter that is less audible at 192k than 44.1k, no dithering on the 16-bit output resulting in quantization noise on quiet sounds, etc.

If you're listening to quiet music in a quiet room at high volumes on very low noise equipment, you can hear a difference in the noise floor level between dithered 16-bit and 24-bit, but at that volume level if that music (or movie) also has full-amplitude signals you'll be reaching peaks over 110dB SPL.

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

#175

Post by sp332 »

marcusf wrote: post #139
marcusf wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might sound/be stupid for asking, but what's the actual physical response from something at 22 kHz+? I have a hard time picking up a pure sine > 17 kHz. I doubt I'd get any aural response from anything at 22 kHz, so what's the deal?

...of course I mean audible. Or spectral? Not aural, anyway. English is not my first language. Sorry.

That's really good actually, I'm not even sure I know the difference between aural and audible. (<- also, that sentence is a run-on and not good English haha)

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

#176

Post by jwatte »

The sampling theorem is for static signals and perfect filters. Turns out, music isn't static. Once you have transients in the program, you need higher bandwidth or you will end up with phasing effects (time domain aliasing.) This is plain from the math!

Filters are also not perfect (but good oversampling filters are not the weakest link)

Further, even perfectly dithered 16 bit data can't go 20 dB below the quantization floor, unless you give up on frequency response on the high end. Again, this is plain math.

With a calibrated 105 dB low-distortion sound system, in a quiet room, I can hear imperfections from 16 bit, 44 kHz material, especially in soft flutes and triangle type percussion. Of course, D class amplifiers, and MP3 encoding, do worse things to the signal, so let's start there. But 20 bit, 96 kHz (or at least 64 kHz) are scientifically defensible, when analyzing the math and the physics involved. No snake oil needed!

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

#177

Post by stan_rogers »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #36

What I would love to have is: independent instrument/vocals tracks along with a default recommended "mix". The default mix would be used for normal playback and independent tracks would be great for custom mix / karaoke etc. Is this too unrealistic to expect? Has something like this been tried before?

That was predicted (and suggested) by Glenn Gould some forty years ago. At the time, anything with higher fidelity than, say, a bad telephone connection, was analogue, but we were stepping into the world of quadraphonic sound (which died soon after in the analogue kingdom), but he was a big proponent of the listener as participant (hey, it was Toronto and McLuhan was still around) and was convinced that technology was the only limiting factor at the time. (To put thing in perspective, he was also very much anti-concert--he hated what he called the "non-take-two-ness" of live performance.) Let's just say that the idea was no more popular among artists then than it is now.

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

#178

Post by jff »

davesims wrote: post #152
sjwright wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have also spent many hours spent in high-end recording and mastering environments, and it's my observation that most engineers suffer from confirmation bias just like everyone else on the planet. I've caught engineers using L1-Ultramaximizer (or similar) to bounce a recording down to 16-bit/44.1khz as part of the mastering process, and they're always surprised when they're completely unable to hear the difference e…

Audio, perhaps like the wine industry, is a vast bastion of confirmation bias and subjectivity, no argument there. But I know what my ears hear, and IMO there is absolutely a vast different between 44.1 and 192. I'm not sure how you can even question it. Someone else on the thread was saying it's impossible to hear the difference between 16bit and 24bit. I don't even know what to say to that. It's like telling me the…

Regarding your wine anecdote: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/you-are-no...

If I gave you a bottle of "Table Red" with a '75 Lafite label, I'm sure you'd tell me how rich and wonderful it was. The problem here is that, as you said, "I know what my ears hear". You know you're listening to 192, wow it sure sounds great!

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

#179

Post by JangoSteve »

Even without debating the science and signal processing arguments raised...

In any test where a listener can tell two choices apart via any means apart from listening, the results will usually be what the listener expected in advance; this is called confirmation bias and it's similar to the placebo effect. It means people 'hear' differences because of subconscious cues and preferences that have nothing to do with the audio, like preferring a more expensive (or more attractive) amplifier over a cheaper option.

The human brain is designed to notice patterns and differences, even where none exist. This tendency can't just be turned off when a person is asked to make objective decisions; it's completely subconscious. Nor can a bias be defeated by mere skepticism. Controlled experimentation shows that awareness of confirmation bias actually increases rather than decreases the effect!

Doesn't that completely negate his conclusion, that there is no point to distributing 24/192 music? If people want to pay for 24/192, and even he just admitted that they will legitimately enjoy it more, how can you conclude there is no point?

Life is short. I want to enjoy things. Whether or not my enjoyment can be quantified or scientifically defended, I really don't give a shit. But that's okay, if you don't want to sell me 24/192 music, Amazon will. Between this and DRM-free content, it's no wonder I buy all my music from Amazon these days.

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

#180

Post by cwp »

JangoSteve wrote: post #179

Even without debating the science and signal processing arguments raised... In any test where a listener can tell two choices apart via any means apart from listening, the results will usually be what the listener expected in advance; this is called confirmation bias and it's similar to the placebo effect. It means people 'hear' differences because of subconscious cues and preferences that have nothing to do with the…

Well, if we accept that argument, then just about any means of signalling "this sounds better!" will work. How about we choose something that doesn't waste bandwidth?
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