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24/192 music downloads are silly

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Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#391

Post by badsock »

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #269
badsock wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting that! However, it's worth point out that that study has its detractors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_effect I find the intermodulation argument a convincing one - it's hard to not have it affect the test, and if they haven't taken specific steps to avoid it then it would be easy to join a large amount of tests that have fallen prey to it. I note, however, that Wikipedia doesn't mention a…

What gets me about the intermodulation effect is that some people want to have it both ways. They are so stuck in the 'there is no difference' camp they fail to see the self contradiction in the argument. On one hand, higher frequencies above 20KHz can't be heard at all, so there's no point having them! You can't hear them! Then on the other hand, higher frequencies above 20kHz affect the audible region of the sound…

Intermodulation in this case is distortion that wasn't in the source material. It's a product of the failings of the playback system to perfectly recreate high frequencies without distorting the lower ones, and will vary depending on which system it is played on.

Certainly some people find certain kinds of distortion pleasant, but the people arguing for 192kHz claim increased fidelity, not pleasing distortion - when it is just the opposite for any stereo that introduces these artefacts.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#392

Post by lectrick »

masklinn wrote: post #30
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…

> 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…

The first paragraph in the power cord "review" sounds like it is rapidly approaching Poe's Law

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#393

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

kazinator wrote: post #390
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bose knows marketing. I've got excellent bookshelf speakers that were cheaper than the equivalent from Bose, but the reviews and tests showed them to be way better. My (small!) speakers end up producing way too much bass for the room they're in, in fact, and I use Foobar 2000 with the "MathAudio Room EQ" plug-in to get a flatter speaker response from them. But their problem isn't that they can't produce bass notes.

Whoosh ... I think my comment went over some people's heads. A "one note bass" isn't a good thing, technically. I did not say that Bose is great at making speakers with excellent bass.

A little too subtle, I think. Sounded too much like you were using understatement.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#394

Post by badsock »

ecocentrik wrote: post #378
ChrisGranger wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit depth affects dynamic range, and that's it. The only thing a 24-bit sample can do better than a 16-bit sample is accurately reproduce the difference between very loud sounds and very quiet ones. That's all. For the vast, vast majority of music listeners, the difference will be insignificant, as they don't listen in an environment where a dynamic range of 144 dB can be used to anywhere near its full effect.

This is slightly incorrect. The combination of bit length and sampling rate determine both dynamic range and frequency fidelity. Although it's common to hear the two values used to represent these two separate physical measurements, it's just another case of explaining new tech (80s CDs) to old technical consumers (70s hi-fi types). You can measure a reduction in dynamic range by reducing either sampling rate or bit…

In your last example about the harmonics, I can see that being so in the most simple case, but surely that's a limitation of the playback system, not the storage medium. And isn't that addressed by the oversampling that is used almost universally in DACs now?

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#395

Post by hackinthebochs »

cthalupa wrote: post #181
threeseed wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Self-styled audiophiles are, by and large, idiots with way too much money plagued by magical thinking. Not just that. But the arrogance and fanboyism is rampant. God forbid you ever consider buying a Bose or Beats product.

Bose and beats* are by, every /objective/ measure, shitty products. Subjectively, you might like them, but the faithfulness of audio reproduction is not a subjective matter. You can play a tone and measure how well that tone is actually played back. You can then also objectively compare things that produce that playback quality at various price points and figure out if they're priced competitively. There is plenty of…

The biggest problem "audiophiles" don't seem to get is that accurate reproduction is not the end goal of music. Enjoyment is. Audiophiles have convinced themselves to find enjoyment from accurate reproduction, and that's OK. But the majority of the world does not see it that way.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#396

Post by mcguire »

Completely unrelated question:

"Can you see the Apple Remote's LED flash when you press a button [4]? No? [Some other remotes] may be just barely visible in complete blackness with dark-adjusted eyes [5]. All would be blindingly, painfully bright if they were well inside the visible spectrum."

Ok, what happens if you point a remote at an infrared camera?

A little research on the FLIR website shows cameras with a range of 7500-13500nm, which would be 22-40THz (?); the remotes are 300-380THz. Sigh.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#397

Post by ecocentrik »

badsock wrote: post #394
ecocentrik wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is slightly incorrect. The combination of bit length and sampling rate determine both dynamic range and frequency fidelity. Although it's common to hear the two values used to represent these two separate physical measurements, it's just another case of explaining new tech (80s CDs) to old technical consumers (70s hi-fi types). You can measure a reduction in dynamic range by reducing either sampling rate or bit…

In your last example about the harmonics, I can see that being so in the most simple case, but surely that's a limitation of the playback system, not the storage medium. And isn't that addressed by the oversampling that is used almost universally in DACs now?

It's a limitation of the recording/storage medium and is addressed by oversampling and low pass filters in ADCs in acoustical recording. Most audio recording, processing and mixing is performed in 24 or 32 bit. Once the data is down sampled for distribution in 16bit 44.1Khz you run into the limitation again where you have fewer samples to represent higher frequencies. The only remedy is to attenuate those frequencies before downsampling. I'm unsure of the role oversampling plays in DACs so I can't speak to that.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#398

Post by Florin_Andrei »

Bahamut wrote: post #286
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> God forbid you ever consider buying a Bose or Beats product. Meh, they're okay, but there are better choices out there. I've a pair of Sennheiser HD600 and it's one of those things that make you go "holy cow, all the hype is justified". And no, I'm not one of those folks who think gold-plated cables make a difference. Right now I'm listening to MP3 Internet radio on a pair of cheap behind the neck street cans.

I have a pair of Sennheister 280 HD Pros - they've lasted me about 7 years, an excellent set of headphones. I used it to help critique music for lots of artists on their production, and I know lots of artists who use it as a cheap pair of mixing headphones. Work bought me a pair of 380 HD Pros, and I'm impressed on how much of an upgrade they are over the 280s - I can only imagine how good the other Sennheisers are.

Open back vs closed back.

The 280s are closed back. Great for isolation, for not letting ambient sound interfere with the music. It also changes the way the transducers work, a little bit.

The 600s are open back. Obviously there's no isolation, but the transducers work more freely. It's a bit easier to distinguish tiny sounds from a huge background.

I've both the 600 and the 280. Great phones both, in different ways.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#400

Post by badsock »

ecocentrik wrote: post #397
badsock wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your last example about the harmonics, I can see that being so in the most simple case, but surely that's a limitation of the playback system, not the storage medium. And isn't that addressed by the oversampling that is used almost universally in DACs now?

It's a limitation of the recording/storage medium and is addressed by oversampling and low pass filters in ADCs in acoustical recording. Most audio recording, processing and mixing is performed in 24 or 32 bit. Once the data is down sampled for distribution in 16bit 44.1Khz you run into the limitation again where you have fewer samples to represent higher frequencies. The only remedy is to attenuate those frequencies…

My understanding is that oversampling is done in DACs so that digital filters can be applied without introducing the effects that you describe at the top end of the frequency range. Basically it interpolates to a higher sample rate so that there's more play in filter selection/application.

In terms of attenuating the high frequencies before downsampling - have I misinterpreted Nyquist? I thought that there was no loss in fidelity, right up to half the sampling rate.

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