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24/192 music downloads are silly

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Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#91

Post by masklinn »

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…

> 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?

No. Watch the Digital Media Primer and Digital Show & Tell, Monty (the article's author) explains how digital sound encoding works and why the analog signal will be reproduced beyond your ability to notice imperfections either way: http://xiph.org/video/

And that's for native 24/192, in your case since it's been upsampled the 24/192 signal can't have more information than the original 16/44.1, since that's all the information that went into it.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#92

Post by MBCook »

I wonder how many people see 24/192 and think "24-bit, 192kbps" sound instead of "24-bit, 192khz sound", getting the units wrong.

MP3s are (often/traditionally) 128kbps, so 192kbps would be better, and 24 is more than 16, so it too must be better.

For the people who do get the units, you still have the 'more is better' problem. We've finally gotten past the point of everyone trying to make ultra-compact 30MP cameras because consumers have realized that their current camera is 'good enough' and that more MP doesn't always make the picture sharper.

Could this just be the same thing in the sound world?

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#93

Post by copperx »

xorcist wrote: post #79
chubot wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is baffling to me that people even talk about 24/192. There are such vast differences in audio quality related to speakers, loudness, amplifier, mastering, and EQ, before you even get to the source format. For some reason people seem to latch on to the format thing, before being able to make judgements about the more important factors.

It doesn't end there. For most people, I strongly suspect moving around your furniture would affect your sound reproduction more than changing your equipment.

Most people listen to music using headphones nowadays.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#94

Post by capnrefsmmat »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #68
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct way to attack this isn't by attacking the theory. It's to gather a lot of people and ask them to press a button indicating whether the audio they hear is 16-bit or 24-bit. If the results are no better than chance, then 24-bit doesn't matter, regardless of how sound the underlying argument is. EDIT: The experiment would also be extremely difficult to design. For example, you'd need to run this test with mu…

If the results are no better than chance, it means the study methodology is flawed OR there's no effect.

No, it means the study methodology is flawed OR the effect is too small to be detected with the sample size.

So you'd have to decide in advance what difference is meaningful and choose your sample size to ensure you can detect it.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#95

Post by xorcist »

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…

I don't understand what you mean, so I can't say you're wrong, but higher frequencies are not more quantized than low.

In fact, you should be very careful about to think about quantization in digital sound reproduction, because it can easily lead you astray. Think of bit depth as a measure of dynamic range. Do look at that digital music primer for geeks posted elsewhere in this thread, it makes for awesome reading.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#96

Post by masklinn »

copperx wrote: post #90
IvyMike wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'd think a curious child with a magnifier would be more interested in seing what the display is made of.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#97

Post by IvyMike »

copperx wrote: post #90
IvyMike wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm imagining the computer consoles in Brazil. https://imgur.com/pFUTYH2

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#98

Post by masklinn »

TylerE wrote: post #67
reportingsjr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh, 16/44.1 can't be "upconverted" to 24/192. Once you lose that information is gone it is gone forever.

Dure, but there's no reason to expect you lose anything, either, barring implementation errors. Lots of the TV you watch looks fine, despite being a 720p signal displayed on a 1080p display. Same concept.

He means the "information loss" from encoding the analog signal to 16/44.1

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#99

Post by hamiltonkibbe »

xorcist wrote: post #95
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…

I don't understand what you mean, so I can't say you're wrong, but higher frequencies are not more quantized than low. In fact, you should be very careful about to think about quantization in digital sound reproduction, because it can easily lead you astray. Think of bit depth as a measure of dynamic range. Do look at that digital music primer for geeks posted elsewhere in this thread, it makes for awesome reading.

He was referring to the specific example he gave in which the higher-frequency had an amplitude of 2^6 and the lower frequency sinusoid had an amplitude of 2^10

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#100

Post by arh68 »

The author is largely right. It all comes down to the master. And the lossless format. The numbers here don't matter, what matters is will the masters be better for 24/96..24/192..32/384? If yes, prefer the 24/96. Don't prefer it for numbers' sake.

Personally I can't ABX anything above 192kbps, lame vs flac. Very occasionally a pre-echo reveals itself, but hardly ever. V2 is fine, 16/44.1 is fine, V0 & 320 are indistinguishable from flac, but buying anything but lossless is a crap deal.

The 'volume knob' trick, once you notice it, makes it basically impossible to objectively compare 2 headphones, or two amps. I can't match within a 1/4 dB with my fingers.

    Humans almost universally consider louder audio to sound better,
    and .2dB is enough to establish this preference.
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