24/192 Music ...and why they make no sense
- Thread starter Flash
- Start date
am not really too much into digi audio yet but the last time I heard a 24/192 over a CD the difference to me was very apparent and i dont think i have "golden ears".
For High freq and low freq (above 20 khz and below 20Hz) it is wrong to assume that it is only the ear which hears..something called BOne conduction makes one hear above and its the tactile feeling which get enhanced below 50 Hz.(thats why a tigers roar is scary..it goes down to 18 hz and vibrates your chest)
bone conduction is something interesting and there are devices for the deaf also which do this ie convert aural into bone conduction..but apparently if you are using bone conduction transducers it is considered unsafe at high freq..but natural bone conduction apparently extends to 50khz-60khz, although this is always in mono
i am sure you will not hear anything your computer in the above articles tests since they wont be reproduced at the h/w level itself.
For High freq and low freq (above 20 khz and below 20Hz) it is wrong to assume that it is only the ear which hears..something called BOne conduction makes one hear above and its the tactile feeling which get enhanced below 50 Hz.(thats why a tigers roar is scary..it goes down to 18 hz and vibrates your chest)
bone conduction is something interesting and there are devices for the deaf also which do this ie convert aural into bone conduction..but apparently if you are using bone conduction transducers it is considered unsafe at high freq..but natural bone conduction apparently extends to 50khz-60khz, although this is always in mono
i am sure you will not hear anything your computer in the above articles tests since they wont be reproduced at the h/w level itself.
Last edited:
The article seems not to propound anything revelatory, unfortunately. I too am with the poster above and agree that there seems to be a audible difference between Hi Rez (not necessarily 24/192kHz) downloads and 16/44.1 in general. Sometimes subtle and sometimes distinct.
An interesting comment that he makes is that he finds SACD CAN sound substantially better. This he believes is due to the use of higher-quality masters being used for the Hi Rez version compared with the CD. Hmmm
.....and who IS Monty?
An interesting comment that he makes is that he finds SACD CAN sound substantially better. This he believes is due to the use of higher-quality masters being used for the Hi Rez version compared with the CD. Hmmm
.....and who IS Monty?
ranjeetrain
New Member
If a system sounds the same with 16/44 and 24/192 material (assuming there source is the same) then there are only four possibilities.
(1) The playback system is really basic. Even on mid-fi systems difference is immediately apparent. Difference is in the air, separation, imaging, amount of details, frequency extensions. Too much to not be apparent.
(2) There really isn't much in the recording to demand a high-res. A 1000 Hz tone at -10db will sound the same on 8/22, 16/44, 24/96 and 32/192. But tunes with complex passages tremendously benefit from higher res.
(3) Sometimes the different between the standard redbook and high res is not apparent due to the excellent D-A conversion in a very good quality system. A very high quality system is able to retrieve nearly as much detail from a standard redbook that a basic end system can't even produce from high res. Its primarily about the D-A component. High end DACs are able to create a very realistic wave form even from 16/44 material. So the ability of playback system is very important.
(4) If the above two is not right, then the listener doesn't need higher res due to his/her personal reason. Sounds like his ear isn't letting him hear that much. Of course they will sound the same to him.
In brief, on a *resolving system*, the difference between standard res and high res is apparent on *most recordings* to *most listeners*.
(1) The playback system is really basic. Even on mid-fi systems difference is immediately apparent. Difference is in the air, separation, imaging, amount of details, frequency extensions. Too much to not be apparent.
(2) There really isn't much in the recording to demand a high-res. A 1000 Hz tone at -10db will sound the same on 8/22, 16/44, 24/96 and 32/192. But tunes with complex passages tremendously benefit from higher res.
(3) Sometimes the different between the standard redbook and high res is not apparent due to the excellent D-A conversion in a very good quality system. A very high quality system is able to retrieve nearly as much detail from a standard redbook that a basic end system can't even produce from high res. Its primarily about the D-A component. High end DACs are able to create a very realistic wave form even from 16/44 material. So the ability of playback system is very important.
(4) If the above two is not right, then the listener doesn't need higher res due to his/her personal reason. Sounds like his ear isn't letting him hear that much. Of course they will sound the same to him.
In brief, on a *resolving system*, the difference between standard res and high res is apparent on *most recordings* to *most listeners*.
Consider a speaker system with Super Tweeters. If you have heard them, there can be no denial that the 'air' in such systems or 'detail retrieval' are world's apart from classical tweeters which go up to 20 Khz.
Audio is not all about measurement. Or perhaps we have not reached the stage yet where we can afford to be absolutely and completely objective about it all.
More than anything, music is still more art than science - even the reproduction of it That is why subjectivity abounds. It is up to us as to whether we embrace it or shun it - the subjectivity, I mean...
Audio is not all about measurement. Or perhaps we have not reached the stage yet where we can afford to be absolutely and completely objective about it all.
More than anything, music is still more art than science - even the reproduction of it
That is why subjectivity abounds. It is up to us as to whether we embrace it or shun it - the subjectivity, I mean...I will tell you why most people would indeed hear a difference between 192 kHz recording and a 44.1kHz recording.
Its because the 44.1 kHz is produced for the masses. 192 kHz recording will be produced for discerning people. Music production plays the most important role in how we like what we listen to. This is the same reason why some people actually prefer SACD recordings over CD recording. Simply because of better music production.
Biologically and mathematically there is no real benefit in going for higher sampling rate for music reproduction. However, during music PRODUCTION, there is a benefit for using higher bit rate and sample rate because of mathematical truncation errors while processing.
Of course humans are pretty primitive even today, and the idea of fairy tales and god does appeal to a majority.
Its because the 44.1 kHz is produced for the masses. 192 kHz recording will be produced for discerning people. Music production plays the most important role in how we like what we listen to. This is the same reason why some people actually prefer SACD recordings over CD recording. Simply because of better music production.
Biologically and mathematically there is no real benefit in going for higher sampling rate for music reproduction. However, during music PRODUCTION, there is a benefit for using higher bit rate and sample rate because of mathematical truncation errors while processing.
Of course humans are pretty primitive even today, and the idea of fairy tales and god does appeal to a majority.
Last edited:
Flash
Well-Known Member
I don't condone or promote the view that 24/192 makes no sense .
The read though is pretty interesting
I for one have heard subtle differences between standard res and high res
The read though is pretty interesting
I for one have heard subtle differences between standard res and high res
panditji
Well-Known Member
I agree 100%...
to be honest i dont really understand what being primitive or advanced has to do here . I heard both versions for some old albums by Clapton/miles davis and the difference was pretty palpable. being older recordings the production was the same..the cd was an AAD and the 24/192 remaster (?) is obviously an ADD.
. I heard both versions for some old albums by Clapton/miles davis and the difference was pretty palpable. being older recordings the production was the same..the cd was an AAD and the 24/192 remaster (?) is obviously an ADD.Thad E Ginathom
Well-Known Member
We've discussed this article before.
Yes, there is life above 20khz, and google will lead to an article arising from research showing that the brain responds to higher frequencies, even though the subjects denied being able to hear the difference. Fascinating work: I hope there is more such research. It may lead to better hifi, or it may not. Can my equipment, right now, actually produce anything worth listening to over 20Khz? A question worth asking. Most of us do not have supertweaters. I've only once actually experienced them: they probably didn't make a difference for me, but my audiogram would explain that. Maybe they made a difference to my brain, though, because the mentioned research found that difference even in those with diminished hearing.
Of course, the complete system in which I heard those supertweeters (Dr.Bass) was, in every way, superb.
It's an excellent article, not least because it manages to explain some of this stuff in a way that a maths dunce like me can almost understand. There's lots of stuff there that should really appeal to the audiophile mind: I suspect that he is a lover of good sound himself. Who's Monty? This guy I guess. Worked on Ogg, FLAC, etc etc... I think he knows a liiiitle bit about digital sound, no? Others may be satisfied with bigger numbers must mean better. And sure, they've heard the difference, so it must be real. He covers exceedingly well why this might happen, and he covers why effective and reliable testing is more difficult than I had thought.
Yes, there is life above 20khz, and google will lead to an article arising from research showing that the brain responds to higher frequencies, even though the subjects denied being able to hear the difference. Fascinating work: I hope there is more such research. It may lead to better hifi, or it may not. Can my equipment, right now, actually produce anything worth listening to over 20Khz? A question worth asking. Most of us do not have supertweaters. I've only once actually experienced them: they probably didn't make a difference for me, but my audiogram would explain that. Maybe they made a difference to my brain, though, because the mentioned research found that difference even in those with diminished hearing.
Of course, the complete system in which I heard those supertweeters (Dr.Bass) was, in every way, superb.
It's an excellent article, not least because it manages to explain some of this stuff in a way that a maths dunce like me can almost understand. There's lots of stuff there that should really appeal to the audiophile mind: I suspect that he is a lover of good sound himself. Who's Monty? This guy I guess. Worked on Ogg, FLAC, etc etc... I think he knows a liiiitle bit about digital sound, no? Others may be satisfied with bigger numbers must mean better. And sure, they've heard the difference, so it must be real. He covers exceedingly well why this might happen, and he covers why effective and reliable testing is more difficult than I had thought.
Last edited:
Dear Thad, thanks for the link to Monty! Indeed he seems to know about digital music but that does not in any way make his article revelatory (perhaps we can agree to disagree to keep the peace). Most people confess to hearing a difference (without knowing the science to it) and perhaps it is to do with production values, mastering etc. But most people still do hear a difference for the better and as long as that is the case then perhaps encouraging "big numbers" is not a bad thing as we may end up with better produced and mastered albums.
God forbid, otherwise we may all be living with MP3 !! (Just exaggerating and kidding). Actually, I occasionally I confess that I find some high-rez recordings (not necessarily 192kHz) a little too much to be comfortable, and prefer the standard versions! I have bought plenty of high-rez albums and although I clearly hear a difference in the way the instruments are reproduced and presented (as I do have a couple on CD too and a stereo set up I like to think that is revealing enough), I wish actually that I had just stuck with buying the standard CD resolution version of these. They would have been plenty enough for me and I mean this in the best audiophilic sense .... imaging, soundstage dimensions, timbre and tone of instruments, timing, dynamic range etc. Therefore I can understand the masses who feel MP3s are more than all that is needed to listen to music well, and all else may exist just not in the world that interests them.
God forbid, otherwise we may all be living with MP3 !! (Just exaggerating and kidding). Actually, I occasionally I confess that I find some high-rez recordings (not necessarily 192kHz) a little too much to be comfortable, and prefer the standard versions! I have bought plenty of high-rez albums and although I clearly hear a difference in the way the instruments are reproduced and presented (as I do have a couple on CD too and a stereo set up I like to think that is revealing enough), I wish actually that I had just stuck with buying the standard CD resolution version of these. They would have been plenty enough for me and I mean this in the best audiophilic sense .... imaging, soundstage dimensions, timbre and tone of instruments, timing, dynamic range etc. Therefore I can understand the masses who feel MP3s are more than all that is needed to listen to music well, and all else may exist just not in the world that interests them.
Last edited:
Thad E Ginathom
Well-Known Member
Hello Staxxx, it's ok, we aren't going to break into a fight! ...
There's nothing revelatory in suggesting that there is no advantage in higher-resolution audio, or even (hotly debated though it is) that 16/44.1 actually reproduces the entire recorded waveform, not some sort of stepped-graph version of it that the diagrams we are used to seeing, and even the very word "sampling," suggest. What is revelatory, or, at least new (to me) is the suggestion that 192khz may actually be worse that 44.1 or 48. Even for diehard cynics like me, that flies in the face of all expectancy: I don't expect 192 to have any actual benefits, but I certainly don't expect it to do any harm. So that is the new thing, and I think that we, especially those who have the maths to comprehend it, should take his science on board, and refute it, if need be, with something better than, "Well, I can hear the difference."
No offence to those who can hear the difference. I should like them to be able to add that they can still hear it in double blind testing, but whatever. It is just that they may very well not be hearing the difference they think they are hearing.
I do believe that you and alpha1 have hit the nail on the head when you say that these recordings are made for the audiophile market, and where not a complete scam, the entire production process has been aimed at that. Probably, if end result had been a cassette tape, the difference might still be audible. Wouldn't just leaving out the compression would probably vastly improve much popular music?
I am very much in favour of higher production standards. I am very much not in favour of the music industry selling us yet another (third for some of my music) physical version of the music I paid for decades ago just because they can plaster some new numbers on the cover. Let's go easy on this; let's be sure about how we are spending our cash. It might be better to save it for some of that lovely ...hardware!
Personally...
The equipment I now have only goes to 96khz. I have used it to record when digitizing LPs. I have bored myself silly trying to tell the difference between 44.1 and 96 and I couldn't. Not on extended listening, not on short-sample comparison. Every time I found some detail in one version, I would check the other version to find the same detail lurking there, identical. Music is just too complex: we do not hear the same thing even when we listen to the same thing. Testing is hard. I wasn't doing blind testing: there was no need. All the differences I thought I heard just dissolved when I looked for the same thing in the other sample!
Yes, my hf hearing is not very wonderful: the mileage of others may very well differ. I can (hasn't been blind-tested) hear the difference in compression on HD Youtube recordings; I have also heard CDs that were so different to the LP that it was obvious that they shared little more than the cover design.
...There's nothing revelatory in suggesting that there is no advantage in higher-resolution audio, or even (hotly debated though it is) that 16/44.1 actually reproduces the entire recorded waveform, not some sort of stepped-graph version of it that the diagrams we are used to seeing, and even the very word "sampling," suggest. What is revelatory, or, at least new (to me) is the suggestion that 192khz may actually be worse that 44.1 or 48. Even for diehard cynics like me, that flies in the face of all expectancy: I don't expect 192 to have any actual benefits, but I certainly don't expect it to do any harm. So that is the new thing, and I think that we, especially those who have the maths to comprehend it, should take his science on board, and refute it, if need be, with something better than, "Well, I can hear the difference."
No offence to those who can hear the difference. I should like them to be able to add that they can still hear it in double blind testing, but whatever. It is just that they may very well not be hearing the difference they think they are hearing.
I do believe that you and alpha1 have hit the nail on the head when you say that these recordings are made for the audiophile market, and where not a complete scam, the entire production process has been aimed at that. Probably, if end result had been a cassette tape, the difference might still be audible. Wouldn't just leaving out the compression would probably vastly improve much popular music?
I am very much in favour of higher production standards. I am very much not in favour of the music industry selling us yet another (third for some of my music) physical version of the music I paid for decades ago just because they can plaster some new numbers on the cover. Let's go easy on this; let's be sure about how we are spending our cash. It might be better to save it for some of that lovely ...hardware!
Personally...
The equipment I now have only goes to 96khz. I have used it to record when digitizing LPs. I have bored myself silly trying to tell the difference between 44.1 and 96 and I couldn't. Not on extended listening, not on short-sample comparison. Every time I found some detail in one version, I would check the other version to find the same detail lurking there, identical. Music is just too complex: we do not hear the same thing even when we listen to the same thing. Testing is hard. I wasn't doing blind testing: there was no need. All the differences I thought I heard just dissolved when I looked for the same thing in the other sample!
Yes, my hf hearing is not very wonderful: the mileage of others may very well differ. I can (hasn't been blind-tested) hear the difference in compression on HD Youtube recordings; I have also heard CDs that were so different to the LP that it was obvious that they shared little more than the cover design.
Last edited:
I think its always better to have more of a critical spec and you need the entire chain from recording, production to distribution to be upgraded . You will not see a huge difference in a full hd tv unless the movie is BD and was captured and processed at atleast 4k. If you see a 480p movie on a 720p TV and on a 1080p TV you will hardly see the difference.
I remember discussions about how there is no audible difference between 96kbps mp3 and 128kbps mp3. These were songs recorded from cassette tapes using soud cards of the time from tape recorders. But now we all want 320kbps mp3 and can tell the difference.
I bet when mastering standardizes at 64bit , 1 Mhz or more (it seems its now at 32 bit 384khz at the high end) and content catches up , we will all be hearing 192khz digital content and wondering how we ever lived without it.
We still have a long way to go before we actually fool the brain into thinking recorded sound is the reality.
I remember discussions about how there is no audible difference between 96kbps mp3 and 128kbps mp3. These were songs recorded from cassette tapes using soud cards of the time from tape recorders. But now we all want 320kbps mp3 and can tell the difference.
I bet when mastering standardizes at 64bit , 1 Mhz or more (it seems its now at 32 bit 384khz at the high end) and content catches up , we will all be hearing 192khz digital content and wondering how we ever lived without it.
We still have a long way to go before we actually fool the brain into thinking recorded sound is the reality.
Last edited:
square_wave
Well-Known Member
I have done numerous comparisons between the ripped versions of 16 / 44 and 24 / 192. A recent check was a Jimmy Cobb album. Not sure what the reasons are but almost always, the 24 / 192 sounds much more real and closer to analogue.
square_wave
Well-Known Member
This is an anomaly caused by production. In an ideal situation higher res make the sound closer to analogue and naturally and logically makes it easier on the ear and brain. This production anomaly is akin to the over saturated images you see in mass market LCD tvs. In this case you are actually getting to deal with less of the production problems with the lower res version.
Yes, I think you're right.
Thad E Ginathom
Well-Known Member
Sounds very reasonable to me. Over-production?
On my headphones and speakers, I hear a clear difference between 16-bit 48khz and 24bit 96khz. Difference is Huge. I've heard improvements on cheaper speakers as well, but you really need to have a golden year to figure out differences.
I'm electronics/software engineer. Luckily enough, these days I'm working on audio sampling that involves detailed modulation/demodulation i.e. sending and receiving same sound very very accurately over a distance.
From what I can clearly observe in my real world tests (using spectrometers, and my ears), a mixed melody of 1-11khz sound freq is better sounding when received at 44khz vs. 22khz sample rate. Similarly a 10-20khz frequencies sounds much more pleasant and well-detailed (each frequency is heard clearly with good separation) with 96khz sampling over 44 or 48khz sampling rate.
In digital, the more the samples, more accurately you're able to replicate the original signal and maintain separation of frequencies especially in the higher range. All DACs smoothen out the digital steps, but they would do it more accurately when it has more bits (24bit) and more samples (96khz+).
p.s. lots of statements in the xiph.org article are simply untrue. He has little knowledge of sound in digital world.
I'm electronics/software engineer. Luckily enough, these days I'm working on audio sampling that involves detailed modulation/demodulation i.e. sending and receiving same sound very very accurately over a distance.
From what I can clearly observe in my real world tests (using spectrometers, and my ears), a mixed melody of 1-11khz sound freq is better sounding when received at 44khz vs. 22khz sample rate. Similarly a 10-20khz frequencies sounds much more pleasant and well-detailed (each frequency is heard clearly with good separation) with 96khz sampling over 44 or 48khz sampling rate.
In digital, the more the samples, more accurately you're able to replicate the original signal and maintain separation of frequencies especially in the higher range. All DACs smoothen out the digital steps, but they would do it more accurately when it has more bits (24bit) and more samples (96khz+).
p.s. lots of statements in the xiph.org article are simply untrue. He has little knowledge of sound in digital world.
Get the Wharfedale EVO 4.2 3-Way Standmount Speakers at a Special Offer Price.
