24/192 music downloads are silly • Hacker News Board

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#401

Post by ecocentrik » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 7:16 PM UTC

badsock wrote: post #400

ecocentrik wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 los…

I figured it had something to do with the application of digital filters. There are only two significant samples of a source at half the sampling rate, so it should be able to represent a frequency at exactly half the sampling rate but I can't see how it could accurately represent a frequency at just a few hz below 1/2 the sampling rate. Notice I'm using the word frequency. A sine wave with a frequency of 22,050hz encoded at 16 bit 44Khz is not going to look anything like a sine wave.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#402

Post by intopieces » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 7:29 PM UTC

_broody wrote: post #369

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to try the Beyer some time. Agreed on the Sennheiser ergonmics - and the price. I can't stand the Sonys. They're specifically designed for tracking & editing - all that screech points up Bad Things Happening. But they fatigue my ears. Laugh now, but I landed on the Koss KTXPRO1 ( which are $20 to $40 ) and have basically stopped looking :) Most comfortable thing I've ever used and they're actually pretty flat,…

That's nothing laugh-worthy. Audio equipment faces massive diminishing returns. If you're looking for midrange sound you might as well pay attention to the people recommending sub-$50 headphones as to the ones talking of $150. For instance, the $30 Panasonic HTF600s is better-sounding than the $160 ATH-M50x frequently recommended as an entry-level audiophile headset. As for studio-quality headphones, chinese Superlux…

As a die hard fan of the M50x (and no qualifications whatsoever for judging headphones) I'll have to explore those Panasonics you mention. I haven't considered that company as a quality maker of audio gear since the portable CD player era. Did you do the test yourself, or are you going off of a review site? I typically rely on head-fi, but I'm always looking for a recommendation in this field.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#403

Post by Nursie » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 7:35 PM UTC

elwell wrote: post #39

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 is no better, then the person who thinks it is better benefits from it. If it is better, then the person who thinks it is better benefits from it. If it is no better, then the person who thinks it is no better doesn't benefit from it. If it is better, then the person who thinks it is no better doesn't benefit from it. If the objective is subjective benefit, then placebo is a benefit; assuming your bank account…

Did you read the article?

He explores (and technically explains) how higher sampling rates can actually be much worse due to equipment.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#404

Post by KeytarHero » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 7:48 PM UTC

derf_ wrote: post #137

KeytarHero wrote: post #104

24/192 playback isn't entirely silly. It's probably true that you can't hear a difference between a perfectly reconstructed 16/44.1k audio and perfectly reconstructed 24/192k audio. But the quality of your DAC certainly does matter, as well as the analog hardware that's after it. If a device has a 24/192k DAC, it means the manufacturer didn't just use the cheapest DAC they could find, and it's more likely to be high-…

Did you read the article? "The ultrasonics are a liability during playback.... Neither audio transducers nor power amplifiers are free of distortion, and distortion tends to increase rapidly at the lowest and highest frequencies. ...any nonlinearity will shift some of the ultrasonic content down into the audible range as an uncontrolled spray of intermodulation distortion products covering the entire audible spectrum…

That's what audio mastering is for. A good mastering engineer tests their masters on iPhone headphones as well as studio monitors.

> I would not expect a willingness to exploit consumers' magical thinking to be a good signal for quality engineering.

Companies do this all the time, not just in audio, and they have for years. I don't know why most consumers would need a phone with a camera more than 8 MP, when most users will only ever display it on a 1080p (~2 MP) screen. I don't know why anyone needs a screen with more than 300 PPI. I don't know why anyone needs a TV with higher than 120 Hz refresh. But guess what, if Nokia puts a 41-megapixel sensor on their phone, I'm willing to bet they've also got a darn good lens. If Google wants to put an almost 500 PPI screen on their phone, I'm guessing they've chosen a screen that also has pretty good contrast & color.

Sample rate/depth is one thing device manufacturers can do to easily send the message "we care about audio quality" to the general consumer market, just like how a 41 MP phone camera tells you they are serious abut the quality of their camera.

Obviously you shouldn't judge a phone's camera or screen by the number of pixels alone. Unfortunately, it's much easier to directly compare screens and cameras than it is phone DACs. I wish there was a good benchmark system for audio hardware, but it's really hard to find accurate, unbiased, quantitative information.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#405

Post by badsock » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 7:49 PM UTC

ecocentrik wrote: post #401

badsock wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 los…

I figured it had something to do with the application of digital filters. There are only two significant samples of a source at half the sampling rate, so it should be able to represent a frequency at exactly half the sampling rate but I can't see how it could accurately represent a frequency at just a few hz below 1/2 the sampling rate. Notice I'm using the word frequency. A sine wave with a frequency of 22,050hz en…

Right, 22,050hz looks exactly like a triangle wave on a computer screen. The thing is that a triangle wave is composed of a fundamental sine wave (22kHz), and a series of ascending odd harmonics above it. So after the filters nix everything above 22kHz it looks exactly like a sine wave on a scope.

So you're right that you lose information as you go higher in frequency, but there is also commensurately less need for information to recreate it precisely because the filters remove the detail anyway (and if not the filters, the human ear).

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#406

Post by KeytarHero » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 7:49 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #122

KeytarHero wrote: post #104

24/192 playback isn't entirely silly. It's probably true that you can't hear a difference between a perfectly reconstructed 16/44.1k audio and perfectly reconstructed 24/192k audio. But the quality of your DAC certainly does matter, as well as the analog hardware that's after it. If a device has a 24/192k DAC, it means the manufacturer didn't just use the cheapest DAC they could find, and it's more likely to be high-…

Not sure about that... when 100mbps hubs started rolling out, there were 10mbps ones that actually ran better... same goes for the 100/1gbit change. Eventually the higher capacity cheap versions got good/better enough. But just because the sample rates are higher, doesn't mean the parts/materials are better.

You're right, it doesn't - a high-quality 44.1k DAC will out-perform a low-quality 192k DAC any day. But device manufacturers (especially when it comes to phones) are generally not using high-quality DACs. As I said, I wish phone manufacturers advertised which DACs they were using.

A hub is different. A hub is a device you buy specifically for its networking performance. On the other hand, 99% of the market doesn't buy their phone for its audio quality.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#407

Post by elwell » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 7:53 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #403

elwell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is no better, then the person who thinks it is better benefits from it. If it is better, then the person who thinks it is better benefits from it. If it is no better, then the person who thinks it is no better doesn't benefit from it. If it is better, then the person who thinks it is no better doesn't benefit from it. If the objective is subjective benefit, then placebo is a benefit; assuming your bank account…

Did you read the article? He explores (and technically explains) how higher sampling rates can actually be much worse due to equipment.

I should add the combination:

If it is worse, then the person who thinks it is better benefits from it.

If it is worse, then the person who thinks it is worse loses value with it.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#408

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 8:04 PM UTC

KeytarHero wrote: post #404

derf_ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? "The ultrasonics are a liability during playback.... Neither audio transducers nor power amplifiers are free of distortion, and distortion tends to increase rapidly at the lowest and highest frequencies. ...any nonlinearity will shift some of the ultrasonic content down into the audible range as an uncontrolled spray of intermodulation distortion products covering the entire audible spectrum…

That's what audio mastering is for. A good mastering engineer tests their masters on iPhone headphones as well as studio monitors. > I would not expect a willingness to exploit consumers' magical thinking to be a good signal for quality engineering. Companies do this all the time, not just in audio, and they have for years. I don't know why most consumers would need a phone with a camera more than 8 MP, when most use…

> I don't know why most consumers would need a phone with a camera more than 8 MP, when most users will only ever display it on a 1080p (~2 MP) screen.

(1) Many computers, TVs, tablets, smartphones, and laptops now have screens with greater than 1080p resolution ("Quad HD" 2560x1440 is particularly common), so I don't thinks it true that most will only ever display pictures on a 1080p screen, heck, many of them will be taking pictures on devices with greater than a 1080p screen.

(2) Often pictures, after being taken, will be cropped; so the image that will be viewed on a screen (of whatever size) will be some subset of the full picture taken.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#409

Post by tsotha » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

danohuiginn wrote: post #359

tsotha wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Self-styled audiophiles are, by and large, idiots with way too much money plagued by magical thinking. I agree on the "plagued by magical thinking" part, but not all these people are idiots. Some of them are quite intelligent, in fact. I think they just want to be "in the know", and are able to suspend their normal skepticism in order to belong. One of the smartest and most productive programmers I ever met was take…

The most generous approach to audiophiles is to allow for a placebo effect. i.e. they get greater enjoyment from listening to what they believe is a perfect sound system, regardless of whether the gold-plated cables actually do anything.

I think that's exactly right.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#410

Post by davidgerard » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

chubot wrote: post #35

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…

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.

I mind the Alan Parsons interview - a sound engineer whose own music is favoured by many audiophiles - who says, guess what: fix the room first.

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/10/alan-parsons-on-audiophiles...

"I do think in the domestic environment, the people that have sufficient equipment don’t pay enough attention to room acoustics. The pro audio guy will prioritize room acoustics and do the necessary treatments to make the room sound right. The hi-fi world attaches less importance to room acoustics, and prioritizes equipment; they are looking more at brand names and reputation."