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24/192 music downloads are silly

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Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#81

Post by induscreep »

errantspark wrote: post #18

I once spent ~2 hours explaining all of this (well maybe not all of it) to a friend of mine who was studying sound design at the time. He didn't believe me. I even transcoded some 24/192 FLAC Pink Floyd I had lying around and made him do a double blind test to show him that he'd prefer the slightly louder song every time, even if the louder song was 192kbps vs the FLAC. He did. He still doesn't believe me. He still t…

Maybe it depends on the song as well? Classical music is supposed to have a much greater frequency spectrum - meaning, the effects of MP3 encoding becomes apparent when played on high fidelity equipment.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#82

Post by the_duck »

There's a special irony to the fact that this high fidelity audio format is being promoted by Neil Young. Young's a rock musician. He's been around loud noises (e.g. rock concerts) most of his life. He's also 69 years old. Our ability to hear high frequencies decreases dramatically with age and exposure [1]. If anyone were able to discriminate 24/192 from 16/44.1, it sure as heck wouldn't be an elderly rock musician.

[1]: http://www.patient.co.uk/health/presbyacusis-hearing-loss-of...

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#83

Post by masklinn »

nnnnni wrote: post #50
masklinn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people buy $500 wooden knobs to make their volume pots sound better. (or was that a hoax? i can't tell anymore) Some people buy small pyramids to elevate their cables off the floor, some people buy mats to put onto your CDs before putting the CD in a player ( http://dagogo.com/millenniums-m-cd-mat-carbon-cd-damper-revi... ), some people buy $1000+/meter digital interconnect cables ( http://www.theabsolutesound…

$350/m HDMI cables... so, Monster?

Far from me the idea to defend them, but $350/m is about 3 times higher than Monster's most bullshitty bullshit cable. Even their "2000HD HyperSpeed HDMI cable" only had a $115/m MSRP in 5ft, falling to $32/m in 35ft: http://www.monsterproducts.com/Monster_Video_ISF_2000HD_Hype...

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#84

Post by scarecrowbob »

TylerE wrote: post #65
Dylan16807 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but they're including a healthy margin by not caring about frequencies above 20KHz.

The margin isn't exactly healthy at 44.1khz. The video guys went with 48khz for a reason.

Yes, timing to video frames :D

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#85

Post by caseydurfee »

Fascinating article. Is there any reason to believe that upsampling an audio file should produce a better analog signal than playing it at its native sample rate?

I find that playing high quality mp3's through an upsampling DSP filter and a 24/192 DAC seems to produce a better listening experience. (As the article points out, this could be due to confirmation bias, or the filter making the music a tiny bit louder.) Intuitively it makes sense to me that the DAC sending signals twice as frequently to the headphones would produce a smoother analog signal, but is that actually true?

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#86

Post by [deleted] »

nnnnni wrote: post #54
diydsp wrote: post #41

I agree with the silliness of 192kHz, but not 24-bits. Here is why: In typical PCM recordings, like CDs, mid-range frequencies (e.g. 1kHz to 4kHz) are recorded with lower amplitudes because our ears are more sensitive to them. Sampling theory is correct and 16-bits can reproduce any waveform with ~100dB of range, however, in a complex waveform consisting of low, mid and high frequencies, the mid- and hi-range frequen…

There's also the fact that you can FEEL some sounds that you can't hear. Chris Randall of Sister Machine Gun (at least used to?) use a low-frequency generator at live shows to produce a sound that the audience could feel but not hear in order to make the music more intense. I suspect that you'd gain some of that effect with a larger bit size. ...or I could be completely wrong. Whatever.

[deleted]

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#87

Post by anigbrowl »

errantspark wrote: post #18

I once spent ~2 hours explaining all of this (well maybe not all of it) to a friend of mine who was studying sound design at the time. He didn't believe me. I even transcoded some 24/192 FLAC Pink Floyd I had lying around and made him do a double blind test to show him that he'd prefer the slightly louder song every time, even if the louder song was 192kbps vs the FLAC. He did. He still doesn't believe me. He still t…

If it's any consolation, I'm a pro sound engineer and I entirely agree with you. I do like 24 bits (although I'd be satisfied with 20 bits) but I can't be bothered recording at anything higher than 96khz and even that is mainly wiggle room in case I want to do extreme pitch-shifting or suchlike. Most of the time I use 24 bits/48Khz.

Sometimes I think I'd like to buy some expensive measurement microphones and record at 192Khz for Science, eg to find out if there are tunes in cricket stridulations or whatnot. But then I get over it.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#88

Post by zippergz »

caseydurfee wrote: post #85

Fascinating article. Is there any reason to believe that upsampling an audio file should produce a better analog signal than playing it at its native sample rate? I find that playing high quality mp3's through an upsampling DSP filter and a 24/192 DAC seems to produce a better listening experience. (As the article points out, this could be due to confirmation bias, or the filter making the music a tiny bit louder.) I…

Maybe it's just a better DAC overall? Even at the same bitrate, I think a better DAC can make a difference.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#89

Post by alkonaut »

24bit absolutely makes sense in the age of streaming devices pushing sound to digital inputs on powered speakers. Simply for convenience reasons I want to adjust the playback volume already at my phone. I have no analog volume control (or rather, it's a configuration knob you set up once)

If you play back a sample at 1/8 the volume, you still have 21bits of range from a 24bit sample. Playing a 16bit sample at 1/8 volume is basically a 13bit range, which is bad.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#90

Post by copperx »

IvyMike wrote: post #44
bsder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until phones are 600dpi like paper, I'm fine with display resolution continuing to increase, thanks.

Let's do the math. If I didn't screw it up (and I probably did), an 8k iphone 6 would be around 1600 dpi.

Imagine being able to use a physical magnifier to see more information on the screen. Wouldn't that be great? at least for a curious child?
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