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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.

#311

Post by cop359 »

nullc wrote: post #233
cop359 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really know much about this, but wouldn't the 22kHz sounds potentially create beats in the lower frequencies?

Acoustic "beat tones" aren't "real" tones— you hear them because of non-linearies in the ear-brain system, but you have to hear the initial tones first. (Well, unless you're talking >>130dB SPL levels where the air starts becoming non-linear, but then lower frequency recording would capture it fine) If you could hear subharmonic beats from ultrasonics then it would be _very_ easy to demonstrate, alas.

so without very high power sounds and the nonlinearity business the whole "Sound from Ultrasound" wouldn't work? Huh, I guess all this time I misunderstood it.

for those curious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound

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

#312

Post by jwatte »

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…

The undertones created by the high overtones are realized in the anti-aliasing filter during recording. That's not actually the reason 44 kHz sampling isn't enough.

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

#313

Post by jdietrich »

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…

A thousand times this. I never cease to be amazed at the number of people who will vocally argue the benefits of solid-silver wundercable, but who've never heard of mirror points or bass traps. $20,000 hifi systems in rooms with bare wooden floors and bare concrete walls. Subwoofers in untreated cubic rooms. People praising the transient response of their PMC MB2s in a room with chronic flutter echo. It's utterly dispiriting.

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

#314

Post by scott_s »

alanh wrote: post #224
scott_s wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

I’m going to go ahead and say yes, that seems to be blatant sarcasm, or at least, reference to placebo effect / being a sucker.

The difficulty I had is that the same person claimed they could hear the difference between 44 kHz and 96 kHz, when the article (and all other comments which cited outside sources) claims that is well outside of human capability.

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

#315

Post by pja »

goblin89 wrote: post #288
pja wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a specific "bug" in the mp3 encoding scheme which means that you get a pre-echo effect on fast attack waveforms. It's inherent in the encoding, so it can't be eliminated (although the higher the bitrate, the less obvious it is IIRC). If you how know to listen out for it then you'll spot it immediately. AAC / Ogg don't have that limitation & at high enough bitrate should be indistinguishable from the source in…

Well, actually it was that long cymbal sounds “fade” quicker and just sound different with lossy music. IIRC I distinguished an mp3 encoded by iTunes with bit rate 192 or 256 kbps from its original in Apple Lossless (both played on same cheap acoustic system). I probably should test with AAC or Ogg, too. Although I have a feeling that it's pretty much impossible to keep intact those rich in high frequencies cymbals w…

Might be interesting to try AAC or Ogg Vorbis & see if they're any better. In these days of ever increasing cheap portable storage carrying a bunch of flacs around isn't quite as nuts as it used to be of course.

(Cymbals seem to be a particular bugbear for mp3 encoding; cymbal-heavy tracks tend to suffer the most from obvious encoding artifacts once you know what to listen for.)

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

#316

Post by notahaxor »

mdarens wrote: post #223
notahaxor wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author completely ignores infrasonics and writes under the incorrect assumption that our only perception of wave pressure comes from our eardrums. I've never been able to enjoy listening to my favorite classical music on headphones or even smaller speakers, and it's largely because of the effect you describe. At this point I'm resigned to preserving my treasured (and cumbersome) vinyl collections. Maybe if Apple…

You don't need a higher sample rate to capture or play back infrasonic pressure waves, but most recordings are mastered to remove DC offset and rumble <20Hz, as reproducing those components requires specialized equipment, such as a rotary subwoofer.

Wouldn't the higher bit rate help though? I've long suspected my preference is largely due to the difference in mastering techniques more than any technical limitations.

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

#318

Post by im3w1l »

FrankBooth wrote: post #261
nullc wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, they don't— you can easily demonstrate this for yourself. Startup an audio editor and generate tones at 25k and 28k (make sure you can't hear them— otherwise you have severe distortion screwing up your test) then play both at once. You will not hear a 3kHz tone. The tone you get from an acoustic beat is not a real tone— it's a perceptual quark that requires you to be able to hear the tones in the first place.

I tried this in Audacity, with the project set to 96kHz and two tones at 25kHz and 28kHz. I couldn't hear either of the tones individually, but I could hear a tone when played together. This is on Windows 7 with the sound card configured for 24-bit/48kHz. Am I running into resampling artifacts somewhere in the chain? EDIT: it turns out Audacity won't generate a tone above 20kHz (the UI accepts the value, but when you…

I tried this with 19kHz and 20kHz. Couldn't hear any of them on their own, but very clearly together.

EDIT: You can generate higher than 20kHz by increasing the pitch of a tone lower than 20kHz. Upon doing this, I could hear 24kHz and 26kHz together.

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

#319

Post by DarkShikari »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #36

What I would love to have is: independent instrument/vocals tracks along with a default recommended "mix". The default mix would be used for normal playback and independent tracks would be great for custom mix / karaoke etc. Is this too unrealistic to expect? Has something like this been tried before?

Many of the groups I listen to do do this -- this is certainly not that rare. Sometimes they go for a bit more money by releasing a separate CD with karaoke tracks, for example, but at least if you want it, it's available.

Of course, you can very easily get just the vocal track by subtracting the two. Sometimes the "non-vocal" track will still include backing vocals or the like in appropriate places, and just pull out the main vocal track.

Some musicians have even released every single track of their work separately; see "Desperate Religion" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilogy_(ATB_album) , intentionally inviting remixes.

For music where the vocal tracks aren't released separately, you can often pull them out nevertheless. The best is if you can get the audio in 5.1 -- vocals are almost always center-panned, which makes extracting them quite easy.

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

#320

Post by nitrogen »

gbog wrote: post #296
nitrogen wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 signifi…

Of course EQ can help with room reflection! In a square room you'll have a resonance at a given frequency, and you can mitigate a bit this problem with an EQ. But usually EQs are used too add bass and do more harm than good.

By room reflections I mean higher frequency reflections that result in comb filtering and spatial and temporal smearing of the sound, rather than lower frequency resonances that result in the standing waves you mention. EQ can reduce the effect of room resonances, but it still can't fix the extended decay time at those frequencies[0].

[0] DRC can improve this, but only within a small sweet spot.

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