Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
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Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
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Re: Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
#2It's not only the difference (or none) between 16 or 24-bit, but it's mostly about the quality of the DAC that is being used - in this case a very high-end one.
Then again, it's been proven time and time again that the average person can't even hear the difference between mp3 or FLAC.
Considering you'd also need proper high-end monitor headphones, i believe this is more about marketing, the brand and the pitch than it is about what you actually get or can actually use.
+ it can only hold about 2000 FLAC files even with expansion card.
Re: Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
#3It's not only the difference (or none) between 16 or 24-bit, but it's mostly about the quality of the DAC that is being used - in this case a very high-end one. Then again, it's been proven time and time again that the average person can't even hear the difference between mp3 or FLAC. Considering you'd also need proper high-end monitor headphones, i believe this is more about marketing, the brand and the pitch than i…
without the big name attached I doubt it would have had much traction. Its merely a very good marketing exercise. Snake oil for the 21st century. No better than all the joke techies used to make about HDMI cables.
I always like Alan Parson's quote, audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment
Re: Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
#4Surely the test is slightly invalidated by converting an MP3 to wav? surely you would take a master/studio recording and convert that to wav/whatever
Re: Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
#5One thing that is alluded to but perhaps not explored fully is the use of noise-shaping dither techniques which rely on pushing the noise out into the ultrasonic region. Xiph mentions it in the context of 16 bit resolution, but I believe it interacts with the discussion of 192 kHz sampling.
Significant noise power at ultrasonic frequencies (or even a skewing towards higher audible frequencies) represents a problem for tweeters & amplifiers both in terms of the intermodulation distortion mentioned in Xiph's article and in terms of power dissipation at the business end. IIRC Dell and VLC are having a falling-out because VLC's soft clipping is damaging the speakers in certain Dell laptops.
Re: Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
#6Newborns can hear a SNR of about 120dB which is around 21-bit. So 24-bit seems useless for playing back audio.
But I always wonder how much of the sound we hear by feeling (skin, hair vibrations). Because maybe I can't hear 1Hz, but I can very well feel it.
Re: Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
#7Surely the test is slightly invalidated by converting an MP3 to wav? surely you would take a master/studio recording and convert that to wav/whatever
The test is most likely invalid - unless told otherwise SoX adds dither. Try adding -D, I expect the results will be different.
Re: Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
#8Weird that the author uses a 'ordinary MP3' as source for the test. Garbage in, garbage out. Right? Would be a better test with a very high rez audio file.
Re: Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
#9The author is likely using a 16-bit audio card to listen to the result, which is going to clip the least significant bits off anyway. If you undo the shifting with sox -v 4096, the quantization noise in the 16-bit version is audible, even on laptop speakers.
Re: Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.
#10This test is pretty uninteresting, but I'm glad the author linked to the Xiph article because it's one of the best articles on the subject I've read.