There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. • Hacker News Board

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#151

Post by bigiain » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:38 PM UTC

ErikRogneby wrote: post #105

sjwright wrote: post #78

I must say I get rather irritated when people spend time worrying about dubious 'tweaker' methods to improve their audio, when the most under-performing component of most people's sound equipment also has the lowest-hanging fruit: The room itself. When people ask me where they should spend money to improve the quality of their hi-fi or home theater system, in nearly every case my response will be something like "get…

I agree. It should be about the performance, not the sonics. There are plenty of old Motown and even Beatles recordings with distorted vocals, bad edits, etc. Your brain passes right over them because of the emotional content of the music.

This.

I worked out a long time ago, that I enjoy listening to _music_, not HiFi gear.

My advice to people who ask how to make their system sound better? Buy some music you enjoy more…

I can enjoy a wonderful performance of a great tune played through my laptop speakers - much more that I enjoy test tones or gear-demo-tracks through sound gear worth something north of a new car…

(not that I haven't been "that guy" in my past…)

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#152

Post by davesims » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:38 PM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #116

davesims wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another "ex audio engineer" here, you can believe or not at your leisure. Many hours spent in high-end recording and mastering environments. I'm not sure what your background in audio is, but everything he says is correct. High end frequencies well past 15k and up (22.1k actually) are widely acknowledged to influence the lower frequencies and play a huge role in the perception of the quality of a recording. This is a…

I have also spent many hours spent in high-end recording and mastering environments, and it's my observation that most engineers suffer from confirmation bias just like everyone else on the planet. I've caught engineers using L1-Ultramaximizer (or similar) to bounce a recording down to 16-bit/44.1khz as part of the mastering process, and they're always surprised when they're completely unable to hear the difference e…

Audio, perhaps like the wine industry, is a vast bastion of confirmation bias and subjectivity, no argument there.

But I know what my ears hear, and IMO there is absolutely a vast different between 44.1 and 192. I'm not sure how you can even question it. Someone else on the thread was saying it's impossible to hear the difference between 16bit and 24bit. I don't even know what to say to that. It's like telling me the glass of Gallo "Table Red" you're drinking is as good as my '75 Lafite. All I can say is "cheers" and just enjoy.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#153

Post by pjscott » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:39 PM UTC

eatmyshorts wrote: post #129

Anechoic wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, the human hear will hear a 30kHz frequency if it's fundamental is 10kHz You are going to have to provide me with a citation to back that up because that goes against everything I've learned and experience in 17 years of working in acoustics.

Here is a Wikipedia article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound Basically, if you produce two ultrasonic frequencies, they will create an interference pattern at a much lower frequency than either of the individual frequencies. Modulate a signal on the difference between two signals, and you can create a directional speaker, since ultrasonic sounds tend to be highly directional (so long…

That's very cool, but it requires pretty high-intensity ultrasound to be noticeable. I doubt that will be the case with ordinary music.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#154

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:40 PM UTC

jaylevitt wrote: post #104

aiscott wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[edited: I was wrong]

But at a given sample rate, if I'm sampling at bit depth 2, doesn't that quantization error end up temporally shifting the sine wave I'm reconstructing?

[deleted]

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#155

Post by Anechoic » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:41 PM UTC

eatmyshorts wrote: post #129

Anechoic wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, the human hear will hear a 30kHz frequency if it's fundamental is 10kHz You are going to have to provide me with a citation to back that up because that goes against everything I've learned and experience in 17 years of working in acoustics.

Here is a Wikipedia article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound Basically, if you produce two ultrasonic frequencies, they will create an interference pattern at a much lower frequency than either of the individual frequencies. Modulate a signal on the difference between two signals, and you can create a directional speaker, since ultrasonic sounds tend to be highly directional (so long…

That article describes hetrodyning which happens because ultrasonic frequencies at high amplitudes interacts nonlinearly with air. You are not going to see that effect with sound waves generated near the audible spectrum, and normal loudspeakers are going to generate ultrasonic sound waves.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#156

Post by bigiain » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:42 PM UTC

marcusf wrote: post #127

Anechoic wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree one-hundred percent about the room (although the prescription isn't always as simple as "get a thicker rug" etc). The other issue regarding high-frequency sound reproduction is that in most cases, the loudspeaker won't be outputting much beyond 22-25 kHz (assuming very good quality loudspeakers, cheap consumer grade units might struggle to hit a -6 dB point at 18 kHz) and even for the speakers that have usable…

I might sound/be stupid for asking, but what's the actual physical response from something at 22 kHz+? I have a hard time picking up a pure sine > 17 kHz. I doubt I'd get any aural response from anything at 22 kHz, so what's the deal?

The deal is just that you're getting older. Your ears just don't work as well as a 12year old's. Neither do anybody else's your age (within the bounds of typical human variation - probably well over 95% of use _never_ heard 22kHz, not matter _how_ "young" our ears were).

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#157

Post by nullc » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:43 PM UTC

tompagenet2 wrote: post #15

coopersloan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Principle frequencies well above 20k as well as their sympathetic harmonics are pretty easily audible by me, try it. 24 bit is also extremely easy to hear. Arguably more important during the recording phase when headroom is valuable. Its just as easy to qualify everything with "placebo effect", as it is to be dismissive

There will always be people with slightly wider sensory perception than others, but are you honestly saying that you can easily hear sounds "well above" 20kHz? Have you tested this in a double blind test? I know that sounds like a lot of effort, but it would be interesting. You would be somewhat unusual if you could hear, say, 22kHz.

Not somewhat unusual. A one of a kind specimen.

If you test this and hear something, it's almost certainly because the ultrasonic signal is being distorted by your amplifier and speakers and you're hearing distortion products that are ending up at frequencies you can hear.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#158

Post by aiscott » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:44 PM UTC

rmcclellan wrote: post #109

aiscott wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[edited: I was wrong]

This is completely incorrect, by shannon ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_samplin... ). The sampling frequency determines the maximum frequency that can be captured, not the temporal resolution. That said, a transient containing higher frequencies will be sharper than a transient that doesn't, but its onset time resolution will not be determined at all by the sample rate. Said another way, two b…

You are right.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#159

Post by bigiain » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:45 PM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #78

I must say I get rather irritated when people spend time worrying about dubious 'tweaker' methods to improve their audio, when the most under-performing component of most people's sound equipment also has the lowest-hanging fruit: The room itself. When people ask me where they should spend money to improve the quality of their hi-fi or home theater system, in nearly every case my response will be something like "get…

" … when the most under-performing component of most people's sound equipment also has the lowest-hanging fruit:"

And I was _so_ sure the next sentence was going to be something like:

"No, do not have any suggestions that will make your sound equipment make Justin Bieber sound better…"

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#160

Post by nitrogen » Mon, Mar 05, 2012, 11:47 PM UTC

brigade wrote: post #119

sjwright wrote: post #78

I must say I get rather irritated when people spend time worrying about dubious 'tweaker' methods to improve their audio, when the most under-performing component of most people's sound equipment also has the lowest-hanging fruit: The room itself. When people ask me where they should spend money to improve the quality of their hi-fi or home theater system, in nearly every case my response will be something like "get…

I'd disagree, at least among the people I know: they all have cheap HTIB systems and the single biggest, most cost-effective improvement you can make from there is to buy better speakers. Then you can worry about your room.

You might be surprised how much of a difference EQ can make. As an experiment I once used 12 bands of parametric EQ to adjust the speakers in a cheap, old LCD monitor. Sure, you're not going to get any better bass response than before, but stereo imaging (nonexistent before EQ, perfect phantom localization after), spectral balance, clarity, distortion (due to not exciting resonances in the monitor), etc. were significantly improved. Most people could have added an EQ'd subwoofer to those tinny LCD speakers and been completely satisfied.

One of the many things EQ can't fix, of course, is room reflections, which can be helped by room treatments and speakers with a directivity better suited to the room.