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.

#261

Post by FrankBooth » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 9:31 AM UTC

nullc wrote: post #235

noonespecial wrote: post #73

I was under the impression that two inaudible high frequency tones could interfere with each other to create an audible interference pattern. (I think known as a "beat frequency"). If this is the case, then all of the arguments in the world about the maximum audible single frequency are irrelevant. Imagine music composed entirely of these beat frequencies and performed with a pair of oscillators between 25kHz and 35k…

Alas, they don't— you can easily demonstrate this for yourself. Startup an audio editor and generate tones at 25k and 28k (make sure you can't hear them— otherwise you have severe distortion screwing up your test) then play both at once. You will not hear a 3kHz tone. The tone you get from an acoustic beat is not a real tone— it's a perceptual quark that requires you to be able to hear the tones in the first place.

I tried this in Audacity, with the project set to 96kHz and two tones at 25kHz and 28kHz. I couldn't hear either of the tones individually, but I could hear a tone when played together. This is on Windows 7 with the sound card configured for 24-bit/48kHz. Am I running into resampling artifacts somewhere in the chain?

EDIT: it turns out Audacity won't generate a tone above 20kHz (the UI accepts the value, but when you reopen it the value has been rounded down), so both of my generated tones were actually 20kHz.

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

#262

Post by joccam » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 10:02 AM UTC

Sometimes less is more. The debate goes on. Why not just let the music play? And by that I mean high resolution music. All you need is one person who can hear high frequencies, and all the technical mumble-jumble becomes hogwash.

People actually _believe_ the 20KHz argument that anything above is inaudible. That's hogwash. I know because I can hear (or sense) higher frequencies, and I do not have the absolute best ears I've ever "met."

For example, last week I attended a A/V equipment event with very high-end equipment. It was packed --- over 600 people for one evening. 6 rooms of equipment. I'm sure all six served the same fare according to the 20-20KHz argument of this piece, yet they all sounded quite (or even extremely) different.

The 20 KHz argument is a myth. For people who can't hear the difference, no problem. But please do refrain from ruining or hobbling music for the rest of us... who can hear a wider frequency range.

Yes, some people are color blind. Does that mean the rest of us shouldn't use color? I hope not.

Music is an important wholesome and potentially emotional part of human life. Please do not cap it with "false optimizations".

24-bit/192 KHz is not inferior to CD quality sound. If you don't believe me, try a Linn system sourced on a Klimax DS with some high bitrate Linn classical music (or the Beatles Masters USB release!). If you can't hear the difference compared to low bit-rate (including CD quality) material, I assure you someone can. The low bit-rate will sound flat, hollow, less lively, or/and more coarse. Any number of problems exhibit at inadequate bit levels.

Vinyl is analogue quality (no discrete digital distortion). CD quality is a large step down from vinyl. A/V is just trying to get vinyl like quality from digital. We don't need nay-sayers impeding progress. If you can't hear the difference, please let someone who can hear make the informed decisions.

Thanks.

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

#263

Post by _delirium » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 10:06 AM UTC

joccam wrote: post #262

Sometimes less is more. The debate goes on. Why not just let the music play? And by that I mean high resolution music. All you need is one person who can hear high frequencies, and all the technical mumble-jumble becomes hogwash. People actually _believe_ the 20KHz argument that anything above is inaudible. That's hogwash. I know because I can hear (or sense) higher frequencies, and I do not have the absolute best ea…

It's not a myth, but a fact established in laboratory studies. Your anecdotal claims to hear frequencies that scientific evidence suggests you cannot hear doesn't overturn science. I'd be convinced if you correctly identified which speakers were reproducing 21 kHz frequencies in a double-blind test, though.

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

#264

Post by _delirium » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 10:11 AM UTC

Derbasti wrote: post #242

ferongr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Same goes for 16/24 bit, however, the difference between 16 and 24 bit is actually audible. This [1] (widely accepted in the scientific audio community) study's conclusions disagree with your assertion. >44100 is not a bad sampling rate, but it necessitates very sharp aliasing filters, which are audibly bad. This is not the 1980s, hardware has progressed beyond that point. Modern (i.e. anything from 1995 onwards) DA…

> Modern (i.e. anything from 1995 onwards) DACs do not suffer from aliasing problems. True, but they do so using (long, high-quality) high-cut filters. And these filters are pretty sharp, as they have to close within, say, 18-22.1 kHz. You can design them as linear-phase FIR filters with oversampling and all the good stuff, but physics dictates that sharp filters introduce distortion. A sharp filter like that is audi…

I'm not aware of any (blind) listening tests actually showing that a modern, high-quality DAC for 44 kHz audio introduces audible distortion compared to a similarly high-quality DAC for, say, 96 kHz audio, though. It's not theoretically impossible that the lowpass would introduce some sort of noticeable distortion, but I haven't run into substantiated evidence that it actually does.

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

#265

Post by joccam » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 10:12 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #263

joccam wrote: post #262

Sometimes less is more. The debate goes on. Why not just let the music play? And by that I mean high resolution music. All you need is one person who can hear high frequencies, and all the technical mumble-jumble becomes hogwash. People actually _believe_ the 20KHz argument that anything above is inaudible. That's hogwash. I know because I can hear (or sense) higher frequencies, and I do not have the absolute best ea…

It's not a myth, but a fact established in laboratory studies. Your anecdotal claims to hear frequencies that scientific evidence suggests you cannot hear doesn't overturn science. I'd be convinced if you correctly identified which speakers were reproducing 21 kHz frequencies in a double-blind test, though.

Isn't science verified through (wait for it...) experimentation? So how does my hearing not invalidate your science?

That's the problem with the theoretical science. When it's false, it's false. Come up with a new hypothesis; this one's false as it pertains to human hearing. There's information theory, and then there's auditory reality. Reality confounds the theory as applied to hearing. I don't know where the fault lies, and I don't really care.

But it's really annoying and frustrating having people nix progress out of idealistic theory, "laboratory" studies, and ignorance. The experiments (my experiences and numerous others) don't lie.

Double-blind is great, but I can already tell the differences between all six rooms of equipment from last week. One of the rooms was so extreme, I wanted to run out of the room due to discomfort (but I was polite and stayed all 30 minutes). In other words, double-blind was unnecessary. Someone whose ears I respect a great deal, loved that room. Even golden ears don't all hear the same. But I don't need double-blind to confirm trivial experience. The proof is already in the listening.

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

#266

Post by _delirium » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 10:15 AM UTC

joccam wrote: post #265

_delirium wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a myth, but a fact established in laboratory studies. Your anecdotal claims to hear frequencies that scientific evidence suggests you cannot hear doesn't overturn science. I'd be convinced if you correctly identified which speakers were reproducing 21 kHz frequencies in a double-blind test, though.

Isn't science verified through (wait for it...) experimentation? So how does my hearing not invalidate your science? That's the problem with the theoretical science. When it's false, it's false. Come up with a new hypothesis; this one's false as it pertains to human hearing. There's information theory, and then there's auditory reality. Reality confounds the theory as applied to hearing. I don't know where the fault…

> So how does my hearing not invalidate your science?

Because it's not a blind study. In audio, claiming something sounds better than something else is low-strength evidence, because it doesn't: 1) distinguish psychological bias (which is very strong in this area) from actual audible results; or 2) distinguish which characteristics of speakers, if any, you may be hearing.

If you can consistently ABX two speakers that have similar characteristics except that one reproduces frequencies over 20 kHz while the other doesn't (with identical performance below 20 kHz), I'd be convinced. One possibility is to use the same speaker but insert a high-quality 20 kHz lowpass in the chain during part of the test; or use the same speaker but with 44 kHz versus 96 kHz source material. I've never seen a controlled, blind case where a human can tell the difference there.

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

#267

Post by joccam » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 10:26 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #266

joccam wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't science verified through (wait for it...) experimentation? So how does my hearing not invalidate your science? That's the problem with the theoretical science. When it's false, it's false. Come up with a new hypothesis; this one's false as it pertains to human hearing. There's information theory, and then there's auditory reality. Reality confounds the theory as applied to hearing. I don't know where the fault…

> So how does my hearing not invalidate your science? Because it's not a blind study. In audio, claiming something sounds better than something else is low-strength evidence, because it doesn't: 1) distinguish psychological bias (which is very strong in this area) from actual audible results; or 2) distinguish which characteristics of speakers, if any, you may be hearing. If you can consistently ABX two speakers that…

The psychological component is a red herring. Even though I already have a system (bias), I don't care about the other systems. I went to the show for enjoyment, education, and appreciation. Some of the systems were unknown to me (no bias), and some were known and surprised me in some ways (again, some bias overridden). So bias can be important, but it's not relevant in this case. So bias doesn't invalidate my experience.

As for the double-blind and high frequencies, I believe I've already done the test. I have had my hearing tested several times. One of them, I recall the tester actually asked me to repeat some tests... it was funny. The testing was at very high frequencies. I believe she thought I was guessing the higher/lower frequencies... and getting lucky. So (I strongly suspect) she wanted to "prove" to herself what you want to prove --- that noone can hear above 20KHz. I disappointed her. I think she even threw in some placebo tests (no frequencies at all). It was funny. She never explained herself. I suspect she just thought I got lucky again.

How to really test this stuff? Get one of the audio designers to test... but they will laugh in the testers' faces. They do this stuff for a living... to build real products... for real live customers who can hear the differences. Dave Wilson was at the A/V show. Try listening to a pair of Wilson Audio speakers. I bet he can hear better than just about anyone... His speakers (when sourced and driven properly) are that good. But he wouldn't waste his time on such tests. He has customers to serve and a business to run.

I doubt lab experiments look to disprove their theories once and for all. That's a social prejudice built into the lab experiments. Fix that, and you'll end up with a better hypothesis.

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

#268

Post by kokey » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 10:35 AM UTC

leouznw wrote: post #55

I know a bit of sound engineering, waves and so.. I totally agree with the title and the first 60 lines of article, and I add my POV: 1. Most of the people doesn't care, 2. What apple did is just about marketing, 3. Most of the people who says that care is pretending, 4. Zeppelin still rock the shit in a poor quality mono mp3 recorded by a drunk guy in the audience of a concert in 73.

I do care, but I'm not the average user. Apple has always catered well for those in audio and video, up to professional levels. These are markets that retain Apple users, even when Steve Jobs was between Apples. It seems like Apple is only requesting masters to come in a higher resolution, not that consumers will generally end up with these. I think this is entirely fair since before you want to modify something (e.g. to remaster it for iTunes) you want to start off at a good quality high resolution.

That said, if Apple also allows high quality recordings to be sold, it will be useful. For example of their acapellas, instrumental tracks or samples, it would be convenient for others who want to want to remix it, and iTunes would be a platform for this trade.

Also for tracks DJs play. Most compression throw away a lot of the bass which people can't hear, but this is bass you can feel rumbling through your guts on a big sound system and is part of the experience.

For the rest, they were happy with low rate AAC files on the early iPods, they are happy with the sound coming from their crappy little iPod dock, for them it won't make a difference as long as it's a chart music track from a memorable and impressionable time of their life.

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

#269

Post by joccam » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 10:37 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #266

joccam wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't science verified through (wait for it...) experimentation? So how does my hearing not invalidate your science? That's the problem with the theoretical science. When it's false, it's false. Come up with a new hypothesis; this one's false as it pertains to human hearing. There's information theory, and then there's auditory reality. Reality confounds the theory as applied to hearing. I don't know where the fault…

> So how does my hearing not invalidate your science? Because it's not a blind study. In audio, claiming something sounds better than something else is low-strength evidence, because it doesn't: 1) distinguish psychological bias (which is very strong in this area) from actual audible results; or 2) distinguish which characteristics of speakers, if any, you may be hearing. If you can consistently ABX two speakers that…

If CD quality (44.1 KHz/16 bit) is that good, why hasn't the market for vinyl (analogue >> 192 KHz/24-bit) just withered away and died (instead of reviving)?

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

#270

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 06, 2012, 11:22 AM UTC

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #212

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 an audio engineer, too, and I agree that this has been debated to death. And I agree that frequencies above the threshold of hearing are more important than standard dogma (based on Nyquist theory combined with Pure tone audiometry) allows. It helps explain how audio gear with a 100kHz bandwidth sounds clearer than gear with a 20kHz bandwidth even when they measure the same in the audible band. Have you read the…

[deleted]