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A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

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Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#51

Post by TylerE »

doix wrote: post #33
jrajav wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

44100hz sample rate is enough to reproduce well above the highest frequency even young humans can hear, and 16 bits of depth is enough for 96db of dynamic range, enough to make the noise floor of any consumer system totally inaudible. Standard CDs might not be good enough for archival and further production work (where you also need wiggle room for further processing or format changes), but they have plenty of headro…

So it's been many years since I looked at this stuff, but the reason for higher sample rate isn't to do with humans being able to hear over 20khz. If you sample at 44khz you need a high pass filter at 22khz to avoid aliasing. Since that's pretty close to 20khz, it needs a pretty sharp drop off. Having a filter with a sharp drop off can introduce artifacts. With 96khz sampling rate, you don't need as a sharp drop off…

Yes, i hate when people talk about Nyquist as if its some Panacea.

Its vwry “spherical cow”. It assumes all your filters, DACs, are perfect, and that time is infinite.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#52

Post by cratermoon »

kstrauser wrote: post #5
gwern wrote: post #2

"The fallout of the MoFi revelation has thrown the audiophile community into something of an existential crisis. The quality of digitized music has long been criticized because of how much data was stripped out of files so MP3s could fit on mobile devices. But these days, with the right equipment, digital recordings can be so good they can fool even the best ears. Many of MoFi’s now-exposed records were on Fremer and…

That whole line of thinking just blows me away. It's possible to accurately sample and reproduce any vinyl recording in the digital realm. It's absolutely not possible to accurately record every digital recording onto vinyl. For instance, it's not hard at all to make bass so loud that it causes the needle to leap out of the track, or treble so high that the needle can't accurately track the high frequency vibrations.…

> it's not hard at all to make bass so loud that it causes the needle to leap out of the track

Reminds me of the LP my band teacher in high school had. It was the 1812 overture, and the groves for the cannon shots at the end were easily distinguishable with just a casual examination. Based on what you're saying, I suspect that recording was pushing the limits of vinyl.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#53

Post by Maursault »

nerfbatplz wrote: post #28
gwern wrote: post #2

"The fallout of the MoFi revelation has thrown the audiophile community into something of an existential crisis. The quality of digitized music has long been criticized because of how much data was stripped out of files so MP3s could fit on mobile devices. But these days, with the right equipment, digital recordings can be so good they can fool even the best ears. Many of MoFi’s now-exposed records were on Fremer and…

Not only can you not tell the difference between analogue and digital, you also cannot tell the difference between lossless and properly transcoded MP3. Most audiophile mania is poorly informed at best and astrology at worst. http://abx.digitalfeed.net/

> you also cannot tell the difference between lossless and properly transcoded MP3

I'm not sure what you mean by "properly transcoded," as though there's a scourge of bad encoders out there and everyone has nutty encoding practices, but I really, really bet you can. Listen to an mp3 of a rock/pop track. Try to focus on the cymbals. See if you can isolate them aurally from the rest of the music. Can you hear how mp3 encoding completely munges high frequencies to sound like digital glass breaking? Then you shall finally understand why mp3 encoding has always sucked, and Napster really, really should have won.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#54

Post by masklinn »

doix wrote: post #33
jrajav wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

44100hz sample rate is enough to reproduce well above the highest frequency even young humans can hear, and 16 bits of depth is enough for 96db of dynamic range, enough to make the noise floor of any consumer system totally inaudible. Standard CDs might not be good enough for archival and further production work (where you also need wiggle room for further processing or format changes), but they have plenty of headro…

So it's been many years since I looked at this stuff, but the reason for higher sample rate isn't to do with humans being able to hear over 20khz. If you sample at 44khz you need a high pass filter at 22khz to avoid aliasing. Since that's pretty close to 20khz, it needs a pretty sharp drop off. Having a filter with a sharp drop off can introduce artifacts. With 96khz sampling rate, you don't need as a sharp drop off…

Anything above 44 is problematic because lots of systems have non-linear responses and will create audible intermodulations of the ultraharmonics.

Monty (of xiph) has an article on the subject (well on 24/192 but it applies all the same) which goes into the gory details: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#55

Post by ajross »

doix wrote: post #33
jrajav wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

44100hz sample rate is enough to reproduce well above the highest frequency even young humans can hear, and 16 bits of depth is enough for 96db of dynamic range, enough to make the noise floor of any consumer system totally inaudible. Standard CDs might not be good enough for archival and further production work (where you also need wiggle room for further processing or format changes), but they have plenty of headro…

So it's been many years since I looked at this stuff, but the reason for higher sample rate isn't to do with humans being able to hear over 20khz. If you sample at 44khz you need a high pass filter at 22khz to avoid aliasing. Since that's pretty close to 20khz, it needs a pretty sharp drop off. Having a filter with a sharp drop off can introduce artifacts. With 96khz sampling rate, you don't need as a sharp drop off…

That's the "further processing" notion the grandparent comment talked about. A correctly processed signal at 44.1kHz is more than sufficient to reproduce all audio. But if you're going to do something with the sample series (like low-pass it for aliasing protection in your example, or to resample it for conversion, or for any effects or mixing step really) it's good to have extra data in there to prevent headaches. Likewise sampling at 24+ bits prevents accumulated error in repeated processing, etc...

There's a space in the audio world for more bits of data. But the final output format isn't where it belongs.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#56

Post by mturmon »

amelius wrote: post #39
kstrauser wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That whole line of thinking just blows me away. It's possible to accurately sample and reproduce any vinyl recording in the digital realm. It's absolutely not possible to accurately record every digital recording onto vinyl. For instance, it's not hard at all to make bass so loud that it causes the needle to leap out of the track, or treble so high that the needle can't accurately track the high frequency vibrations.…

> On recording, you cut the bass and jack up the treble. On playback, you boost the bass and reduce the treble. Sounds like if you combine the two steps you end up with the identity operator :)

It is the identity for the signal, but RIAA equalization cuts the high-frequency noise that's characteristic of needles in grooves.

  signal -> [HF boost] -> [needle adds HF noise] -> [HF cut] -> same signal, less HF noise
As for the low end, cutting the bass helps to control the size/excursions of the grooves, which are rather close together (https://groverlab.org/hnbfpr/2019-08-06-stereo-records.html).

Dolby B for cassette tapes is the same idea (but only for the highs).

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#57

Post by kstrauser »

kazinator wrote: post #24
kstrauser wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That whole line of thinking just blows me away. It's possible to accurately sample and reproduce any vinyl recording in the digital realm. It's absolutely not possible to accurately record every digital recording onto vinyl. For instance, it's not hard at all to make bass so loud that it causes the needle to leap out of the track, or treble so high that the needle can't accurately track the high frequency vibrations.…

> 100% fine for someone to say that they subjectively prefer the sound quality of a record player to a CD It's not intellectually fine, only fine in the sense that it's well within the bounds of free speech.

I subjectively prefer to add sriracha to my burrito. That's intellectually fine. It doesn't make it an objectively better burrito.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#58

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

doix wrote: post #33
jrajav wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

44100hz sample rate is enough to reproduce well above the highest frequency even young humans can hear, and 16 bits of depth is enough for 96db of dynamic range, enough to make the noise floor of any consumer system totally inaudible. Standard CDs might not be good enough for archival and further production work (where you also need wiggle room for further processing or format changes), but they have plenty of headro…

So it's been many years since I looked at this stuff, but the reason for higher sample rate isn't to do with humans being able to hear over 20khz. If you sample at 44khz you need a high pass filter at 22khz to avoid aliasing. Since that's pretty close to 20khz, it needs a pretty sharp drop off. Having a filter with a sharp drop off can introduce artifacts. With 96khz sampling rate, you don't need as a sharp drop off…

That's fine - but, to the extent that's true, it's true only about the recording and mastering process. CD, as a delivery mechanism, is totally fine and perceptually flawless.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#59

Post by radicaldreamer »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #35

Seems like now that it's out in the open, there'd be a lucrative market in selling the DSDs directly, rather than waiting until it goes to the labels or vendors to re-rip the vinyl remasters into FLAC/MP3?

There is a market for DSD albums: https://www.nativedsd.com/

I can see why people would be angry about the deception, but DSD is probably the highest fidelity audio anyone has ever heard (with the right equipment).

Audiophiles should be celebrating a situation in which we today can listen to albums in higher fidelity than anyone except those who were around when they were being recorded... and that quality is accessible basically anywhere via the internet.

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