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

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

#201

Post by davesims »

hackermom wrote: post #114
davesims wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, it's funny to see this late-nineties debate get re-hashed here. Also kind of fun. If it were true that there's no audible difference between 16 and 24 bit, companies like Alesis, Otari, ProTools, etc. wouldn't have spent the last 15 years ditching 16 bit like an old pair of smelly sneakers. (better metaphors welcome). Seriously, anyone who has sat down in a real listening environment for 5 minutes A/Bing 16 vs 2…

Yes, and anyone who has ever sat down infront of an LCD flatscreen watching their favorite movie on DVD/BD using gold-plated $200 HDMI cable instead of $4.99 Walmart HDMI cable see the extra sharpness immediately. This is why non-gold plated non-OFC HDMI cables are down to $4.99 a piece from their original $49.99 during introduction.

That's cute. Obviously you've never recorded a rock band while riding the pre to compensate for 16bit's terrible noise floor and horribly limited headroom. You've never had the joy of ruining a perfectly good take because of that wonderful sound it makes when the volume spikes into digital distortion despite compressing the wazoo out of the input source. Glorious sound, digital distortion. Run a dentist drill through an old Speak & Spell and you'd just about have it.

You've never rented an expensive tube EQ during a mix to cover up 16bit's grating harshness from 10k to 15k. Or tried like mad to make the bass drum sound like a freaking bass drum and not a pie pan slamming against the back of a plastic trash can. And yes, we had good mics and pres, all standard studio stuff. Decent, not brilliant, converters, but it was the 16bit that was the problem. Getting those 20bit XTs for the first time was like walking into the Promised Land.

Sure, there's lots of marketing ploys out there, lots of snake oil. Moving up from 16 bit was not one of them.

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

#202

Post by dedward »

polshaw wrote: post #131
Anechoic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, even in that case, the room can still overpower the speaker. A $200 HTIB system in a properly treated room will sound a lot better than $28,000 Wilson Watt Puppies in a bathroom for example.

Sure, but that's a rather contrived example-- most people have a fairly normal room, and the average joe would be best served by getting a good pair of speakers, and a reasonable amplifier and DAC, before worrying seriously about room acoustics.

I'd even skip the dac (I mean I might not.... but a decent amplifier, and I just mean decent, like something that still works from the 70's or 80's) and a decent pair of tower speakers (needn't be expensive), and, well, just don't use the shittiest cables you can find (I mean as long as they are thicker than a few human hairs you're okay)- it'll sound far, far better.

Or get some half decent headphones.

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

#203

Post by dedward »

cmer wrote: post #12
Joeboy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Digitally recording a triangle is the best example of why 48kHz is very limiting The article's about distribution, not recording. I don't think anybody disputes the usefulness of higher sampling rates when recording. > In theory, it's true that the human hear can't hear above ~18kHz, but it can hear the influence of the very high pitch harmonics on a lower frequency. ...and 48kHz audio contains those lower frequenc…

Stripping frequencies above 20kHz negates the effect on the lower frequencies since those lower frequencies are not "modified" by the higher ones. The human hear can actually hear the very high harmonics when they're combined with a lower fundamental frequency. For example, the human hear will hear a 30kHz frequency if it's fundamental is 10kHz. If it's played at 44.1kHz, the 30kHz frequency is gone and all you'll he…

I know where you're going with this I think, and I'm not disagreeing outright, but wouldn't this be captured during the high-bitrate (or good analog?) recording and mixing phase if the recording/mixing/mastering engineer were doing things right? At least, as well as possible?

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

#204

Post by dedward »

eatmyshorts wrote: post #136
Anechoic wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not going to hear the frequency, then there's no reason to record it, so I don't see what you're objection is.

Yes, but if you sample the frequency to create a step wave, then neglect to filter the results, you will end up reproducing tons of high frequencies. That is why we need to filter the output for signals >20KHz...to remove these harmonics that result from reproducing the square wave. Of course, filters aren't perfect, and result in phase shift and roll-off. So we over-sample the signal to create a signal with a much h…

Yup... people need to get very clear in their heads the difference between the recording/sampling/mixing/mastering stages, where high bitrate/width/gear/knowledge is helpful, and playback, which is a completely different thing.

(not for eatmyshorts -you get this I gather) - everyone gets that "upsampling" can't add detail to a recording right? You can't get more than you've got.... no matter what you do. There is no magic. You upsample so you drive harmonics generated in the digital-to-analog process during playback further up in the spectrum so when you get to the analog stage you can use a nice gentle analog filter to filter them out. Without the upsampling, you need a nasty steep analog filter to filter them out, and that can have audible side-effects (or at least measurable) in the audible spectrum. eatmyshorts - correct me if I mis-stated any of that please....

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

#205

Post by qq66 »

DanBC wrote: post #142
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.

Are they talking about "beat frequency" type effects?

Yes. A 40KHz tone and a 41KHz tone will interfere with each other and can create 1KHz tones that are audible. Edited to correct error, thanks anechoic.

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

#206

Post by leephillips »

leif wrote: post #24
leephillips wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked article was accurate. You are confused. "I'm an ex-audio engineer" Hard to believe. "The distinct sound of the triangle constitutes of a high fundamental frequency, ballpark 10kHz" That's a pretty high note - higher than the top key on the piano. But an "audio engineer" would know that. "many very high-pitch harmonics" Since the next harmonic after the fundamental would be at 20khz, which only young people…

You clearly have little to no musical background, and think that your basic math skills are a substitute. The overtones present in a cymbal or triangle are not straight multiples of the fundamental, they are chaotic, and are very important in determining the timbre. Anyone (and I mean that) can easily tell the difference between a cymbal with and without a low-pass filter with the threshold around 22kHz, because thes…

1: He said "harmonics", not overtones. 2: You can not hear inaudible frequencies. Because they are inaudible.

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

#207

Post by Anechoic »

qq66 wrote: post #205
DanBC wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they talking about "beat frequency" type effects?

Yes. A 40KHz tone and a 41KHz tone will interfere with each other and can create 1KHz tones that are audible. Edited to correct error, thanks anechoic.

No, Holosonics is not creating sound from beating, they are using heterodyning, which takes advantage of how high-amplitude ultrasonic sound waves interact with the atmosphere, that's different from beating.

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

#208

Post by wickedchicken »

Joeboy wrote: post #26
wickedchicken wrote: post #14

For an article containing a lot of "well, if you knew signal processing..." there are two fairly major oversights: 1) Any well-designed system is going to have headroom. Period. Just because 48kHz can capture the frequencies the human hear theoretically, it's always good to have a little wiggle room. This comes into play even more with interactive situations: humans are particularly sensitive to jitter. Having an "ov…

> I don't know if the human ear can discern the difference between 0.03ms and 0.005ms but it's something I don't see mentioned often That's the time it takes sound to travel 8mm. Do you think you could tell if an instrument was positioned differently by 8mm?

I get 10mm vs 1.7mm but it's roughly the same argument http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+sound+*+0.03ms... http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+sound+*+0.005m...

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

#210

Post by dedward »

citizenspaced wrote: post #199

I don't understand why anyone gets down on 24-bit consumer audio. Specifically because CD-quality 16/44 audio has midrange distortion present during complex passages that is completely eliminated and non-present in 24/96 sources. Listen to "Us and Them" off a 16/44 CD version of the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon. When it kicks into the chorus, it becomes totally distorted and everything in the midrange bleed…

You could argue it's the quality of the master, and the mastering process, and you'd be right. That's a no-brainer.

"but if you take a copy of the original transcoded to 16/44 and compare it again with the 24/96 copy you can hear the same effect." I could believe that, but do you mean to do the transcoding yourself? IN this case you become the engineer, and the tools you use and all that become vital as well.

Having heard stunningly awesome CD's of DSOTM on a homebuild heathkit amp and some old speakers and not believing my ears when I saw what the setup was, I'm skeptical... can't help it.

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