When is hi-rez overkill?

[daved64]

"Always, since most people can't hear the difference nor do they care. Hi bit rate MP3 is good enough"

l.

I keep seeing this line and just wanted to comment. A lot of audiophiles react to MP3s like Superman did to Kryptonite. I see MP3 as simply a tool to allow me to listen to music conveniently and in places where I would never have the chance before. Blaming the current situation of sonics on MP3s is silly. The so called "loudness wars" started around 1994 or so, 7 years before the launch of the Ipod. Perfect sound and audiophilia has always been an underground movement and not something the average consumer seeks out.

Yes I wish more music sounded better, but a great chord sequence, vocal melody or drum beat will always make me feel better than a "breath of life" mastering job.

Carry on..

 

[ssully]

Ok, but why do they say SACD often sounds better. Are they saying that in the end it's all psychological?

You aren't paying attention. When SACDs really sound different/better than their CD counterparts according to M&M it's because the mastering is audibly different/better.

 

[wanners]

Right, the mastering thing.

Well, I don't buy it. I could buy it that noone could hear a difference b/w sacd and dvda (assuming same mastering)

But not as between SACD and redbook cd.

I was just listening to some regular cds today, and after almost exclusively listening to hi-rez for months, the cds sounded thin with less dynamics.

 

[ssully]

I do know what I hear.

Probably the most widespread fallacy of all in audio.

Any psychoacoustician could show you within minutes how very easy it is to be wrong about what you hear.

 

[ssully]

Right, the mastering thing.

Well, I don't buy it. I could buy it that noone could hear a difference b/w sacd and dvda (assuming same mastering)

But not as between SACD and redbook cd.

M&M eliminated different mastering choices as a cause for different sound in their tests, by taking the DSD layer and simply converting it to 16/44 directly. There were no 'remastering' choices involved...no re-equalization, no use of different sources, no added compression, no noise reduction.

I was just listening to some regular cds today, and after almost exclusively listening to hi-rez for months, the cds sounded thin with less dynamics.

Yes, and the mastering was almost certainly different. So what's your point? How did you rule out that the differences you thought you heard were due to 1) different mastering choices and/or 2) expectation bias?

 

[wanners]

It seems to be a strange accoustical quality thing.

hi-rez usually (not necessarily always) sounds smoother, with a deeper sort of sound almost as if the musician were in the room.

 

[kap'n krunch]

Probably the most widespread fallacy of all in audio. Any psychoacoustician could show you within minutes how very easy it is to be wrong about what you hear.

(Some timber for the fire)

Are you a "psychoacoustician"?

How dare you say this? You obviously think you are above everybody else in this forum(because ALL of us here can't really hear the difference and we're hallucinating collectively).

You may want to go to a "psychoacoustician" yourself.

Do you think you're gonna convince anybody in this forum about your views?

I respect your views and understand you can't hear a difference between a CD and Hi Res Audio.

There's a solution for that.
It's called a hearing aid. (joke)

Honestly, if all of us had the same opinion it would be boring.

But, have you noticed that basically nobody spends nearly as much energy trying to convince you?

Maybe there's a reason for that.

(I left all the spaces in between so you can copy/paste them easier when you respond to them and try to convince us that an mp3 and a DVDA sound exactly the same and that any "psychoacoustician" can claim we're wrong and you're always right)

 

[Almen]

Are you a "psychoacoustician"?

How dare you say this? You obviously think you are above everybody else in this forum(because ALL of us here can't really hear the difference and we're hallucinating collectively).

You may want to go to a "psychoacoustician" yourself.

There is nothing strange with expectations playing a big part in the brain's interpretation of any situation, hearing sensations included. There are droves of research in that field, to the point that it is a truism to mention it. But for some strange reason it seems extremely difficult for many people in The Listening Society to take that information to heart.

For many, a blind test is revealing as to how our expectations can deceive us. For others, it becomes a proof of that listening to music, among all other human activities, somehow escapes that part of science.

The expression "I know what I hear" really should be "I know what I hear as long as I am allowed to know what I am listening to".

But, have you noticed that basically nobody spends nearly as much energy trying to convince you?

Actually, I see a lot of angry energy as soon as anyone points out some physical, acuostical, and psychological facts.

 

[Almen]

It seems to be a strange accoustical quality thing.

hi-rez usually (not necessarily always) sounds smoother, with a deeper sort of sound almost as if the musician were in the room.

OK, third time's a charm: It is the mastering that differs.

 

[kap'n krunch]

There is nothing strange with expectations playing a big part in the brain's interpretation of any situation, hearing sensations included. There are droves of research in that field, to the point that it is a truism to mention it. But for some strange reason it seems extremely difficult for many people in The Listening Society to take that information to heart.

For many, a blind test is revealing as to how our expectations can deceive us. For others, it becomes a proof of that listening to music, among all other human activities, somehow escapes that part of science.

The expression "I know what I hear" really should be "I know what I hear as long as I am allowed to know what I am listening to".

I agree with you 100 percent on this. Listeners should get familiarized with the equipment and the surroundng acoustics, play some stuff you are familiar with and THEN, bring it on, man! -and a few brewkis while you're at it...

Oh , the sense of audition...
It's actually fascinating. My wife sometimes hears (strange) things I can't and vice versa.
I had my hearing checked and I can reach 18K, but my tinnitus perenne is there(!), bugging me.
She had her hearing checked and she can reach 20K (women, gotta love 'em)...What she really can't stand is the Makino Jun "Stillpoint" Japanese MC SACD which is ceramic bowls that are very relaxing-
( http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/product/detail/2548749 and http://www.sa-cd.net/search/makino+Jun )
she begs me not to play it while she's around...poor thing, I Love her so I don't...but certainly later some krimson!!hehehe

As I have pointed out, it was the SQ LP conversions that I've done , what actually made me hear the difference.

I assumed that because of
1- the tinnitus
2-my XY chromosome incarnation
that I would never hear the difference or notice anything above my hearing spectrum.
I think it is fascinating how all of that info up there can affect your hearing range and what you listen to.

Mind you , I understand when others don't hear it because you have to "train" your ears to hear the difference(well, your brain in this case, cause your ears are still getting the same info- reminds me of an excellent book by Aldous Huxley "The art of seeing" about when he lost most of his eyesight and had to learn to see again, according to him, it's all about memory).
But once you hear it , there's no way back...
But it is a very subtle difference at first.
Then, it's worrying.
After the fairly recent revelation, I started buying all kind of LPs of my favorite kind of music. Some of them duplicates from my collection.
Couple of weeks ago I A/B'd Boz Scaggs "Middle man" on LP and on the remastered CD-same EQ same equipent.
My jaw dropped.
Unfortunately stuff like Cocteau Twins "Blue Bell Knoll" LP sounds better than the remastered CD, but the LP suffers from short attack, long release compression, draining all dynamics off of it....oh well....
Here's the spectrograph of the LP ripped a 96/24 of the first 4 songs on side A

And here's the CD counterpart-only first song


But stuff like ELP Trilogy (99pence for a minty Island pressing) is manna from heaven.
LP Side A


CD first song Endless Enigma


My girl was looking forward to one PM Dawn's LP I got that she has had on CD "The Bliss Album". She described the difference from cd to the LP as "the stratosphere that's absent from the CD"

Oh , the thread: I think we have reached Hi resolution Overkill with 192 kHz sampling and 24 bit recording. I can't say I've heard stuff recorded in 192 kHz, so I cant compare. But I know what I hear when I KNOW where(place) and by which equipment music I'm familiar with is being played on.-

 

[simonwagstaff]

Actually, I see a lot of angry energy as soon as anyone points out some physical, acuostical, and psychological facts.

I think you like that.

:banana:


I am not going to get rid of all my hi rez discs, whatever the format, and I am not going to stop seeking them out. I am certainly not going to convince you of anything, nor am I trying. You are not going to convince me that the differences I hear, the improvements I hear, are due to psychoacoustical delusionment. it really is a dead issue for me. I agree with one of the previous posters, 24/96 seems to be pretty transparent, a lot of digital crossovers use that sampling frequency and they don't seem to engender a lot of complaints. 24/192 is perhaps not that useful.

 

[Almen]

I am not going to get rid of all my hi rez discs

Neither will I.

I am not going to stop seeking them out

Neither will I.

I am certainly not going to convince you of anything

If you give me some reason to, I will be convinced. I am not difficult - as I said earlier in this thread: "I am not saying that there isn't an audible difference at normal listening levels, it's just that I haven't yet seen any theoretical or practical evidence that supports that."

You are not going to convince me that the differences I hear, the improvements I hear, are due to psychoacoustical delusionment. it really is a dead issue for me.

I am sorry to hear that. For me it was a reveleation to try some blind testing; first just for fun, because "the differences were obvious, of course we would hear them", then with a growing realization how easy it was to focus on different details for each listen, and to assume that these were real, physical changes that we thought we heard.

 

[ssully]

(Some timber for the fire)

Are you a "psychoacoustician"?

No. So? I know what psychoacoustics is and what psychoacousticians do; I have read research articles by psychoacousticians; I have taken part in demonstrations by psychoacousticians of the fallibility of what we 'know' we hear.

If I'd written 'Any physicist could demonstrate within minutes the second low of motion (F=ma)" would you shoot back "ARE YOU A PHYSICIST?"?

How dare you say this? You obviously think you are above everybody else in this forum(because ALL of us here can't really hear the difference and we're hallucinating collectively).

No, I don't think I'm 'above' everybody else. On the contrary. We're all subject to mistakes about what we 'know' we hear. Me included. I just acknowledge it, while you seem outraged by the very idea.

You may want to go to a "psychoacoustician" yourself.

I have been to lectures and presentations by some. Btw, they aren't medical doctors, you know. They're scientists who study how we perceive audio. Is that news to you?

Do you think you're gonna convince anybody in this forum about your views?

Maybe. You never know who will read this stuff.

I respect your views and understand you can't hear a difference between a CD and Hi Res Audio.

No, you don't seem to understand, otherwise you wouldn't have written that.

There's a solution for that.
It's called a hearing aid. (joke)

ha.

Honestly, if all of us had the same opinion it would be boring.

I'm so glad there are contrary opinions on everything these days. Its really enlivens the discourse. How dull if everyone believed we really landed on the moon back in the late 1960s, for example.

But, have you noticed that basically nobody spends nearly as much energy trying to convince you?

You mean, here? THis isn't the only place I post to.

Maybe there's a reason for that.

Or maybe more than one reason.

(I left all the spaces in between so you can copy/paste them easier when you respond to them and try to convince us that an mp3 and a DVDA sound exactly the same and that any "psychoacoustician" can claim we're wrong and you're always right)

I notice you keep putting the word psychoacoustician in quotes. Maybe there's a reason for that.

 

[ssully]

I agree with you 100 percent on this. Listeners should get familiarized with the equipment and the surroundng acoustics, play some stuff you are familiar with and THEN, bring it on, man! -and a few brewkis while you're at it...

But that's not all that Almen's saying. You're leaving out a crucial step.

My girl was looking forward to one PM Dawn's LP I got that she has had on CD "The Bliss Album". She described the difference from cd to the LP as "the stratosphere that's absent from the CD"

Oh, lovely spectrograms. Coupla questions: 1) how does the color coding relate to level in these views; 2) if you highpassed the neededrops, so that only stuff over , say, 20 kHz is left, what do you hear?

Oh , the thread: I think we have reached Hi resolution Overkill with 192 kHz sampling and 24 bit recording. I can't say I've heard stuff recorded in 192 kHz, so I cant compare. But I know what I hear when I KNOW where(place) and by which equipment music I'm familiar with is being played on.-

Of course you do. You're getting identification 'knowledge' there from senses other than just hearing. But why should that be necessary to KNOW whether there is an audible difference?

In a blind test, I'd tell you, 'You will be comparing these two things (recordings, formats, players, whatever) of your own choosing, using whatever room and gear you're comfortable with. But during the actual listening, there won't be any visual or verbal cues telling you which one of the two is playing." Which only means this: what you 'KNOW' you hear will depend on what you hear...and ONLY on what you hear.

Try that with something you 'know' sounds different, like, say, mp3s vs CDs. You might be surprised at the result.

 

[kap'n krunch]

Oh, lovely spectrograms. Coupla questions: 1) how does the color coding relate to level in these views....

From my point of view, if you really can't understand the graphics(or you are pretending to be ignorant), my conclusion is that:
1- you absolutely don't know what you're talking about
2- you're just a flame baiter

or both.

 

[Almen]

kap'n krunch: I am not sure what you wanted to show with the graphics. That CD is brickwalled (which we all knew anyway)? That vinyl is lo-fi (which I guess we also knew)? That vinyl and CD most often are differently mastered (duh...)?

 

[wanners]

OK, third time's a charm: It is the mastering that differs.

that is an alternative explanation that is hard to accept when you feel the difference.

this isn't about science and knowing, it's about feeling it. I don't feel mastering, I feel quality differences.

 

[simonwagstaff]

This is the crux, and has been an issue for audio since day 1. Can measurements tell us everything we need to know about sound quality? I say no, there are things that exist for which measurements do not, yet perhaps, exist. I can spot hi-rez recordings pretty quickly as I know what to listen for. If it is a 24 bit audio recording of a live concert the low level chatter of the audience in the background becomes much more pronounced and irritating in fact. This is because the noise floor is much lower and the resolution at that low level is higher than red book CD. When listening to a studio recording the vocals are much smoother and creamier sounding, the imaging is broader, more 3-dimensional and better defined. Bass is tighter and faster. Reverb decay on cymbals and dynamic range of percussion is higher, more natural and life-like. I don't think it takes awesome play back equipment to hear this, but it helps. I once sent a 24 bit recording of a Grateful Dead concert to a friend of mine who played it back on his boombox hooked up to his DVD player. He mentioned some of the same things that I did.

Unlike video and our eyesight audio cues are much more sophisticated and subtle. Music is all about feeling.

There are things out there that cannot be measured, forces at work that we do not recognize. I don't believe in pixies and fairies, but I do believe in kharma.

The benefits of hi-rez audio are not something you believe in or don't believe in. They are something that some people recognize and apparently a lot do not. Not enough to sustain an industry on, that is for sure.

 

[Almen]

that is an alternative explanation that is hard to accept when you feel the difference.
---
I don't feel mastering, I feel quality differences.

I didn't say that there were no differences, I pointed out that they most probably were due to differences in the mastering. That is, the differences in mastering are audible (as "quality differences", if you will).

This feels like a strange discussion. Am I unclear? Or am I misunderstanding you?

Compare for instance the sound of Sheryl Crow's voice in the DVD-Audio and CD tracks on her The Globe Sessions. The CD track has approximately 10 dB higher level (that is, more compression) and a sharper, grainer sound (that is, EQ:ed with some extra top). This may be perceived as "quality differences" and is solely the result of the mastering (well, mixing might also creep in there) choices for the different tracks. CD is aimed for radio, and thus needs higher level and more top, whereas DVD-Audio is aimed at nerds like us, and so the sound is warmer and more natural.

 

[ssully]

From my point of view, if you really can't understand the graphics(or you are pretending to be ignorant), my conclusion is that:
1- you absolutely don't know what you're talking about
2- you're just a flame baiter

or both.

That's weak.

If magenta covers a range of -100dBFS to near infinity, for example, what looks 'magenta' is unlikely to actually make an audible contribution-- especially if all the magenta is above 20kHz.

And if one ramps up visual display so that normally invisible or faint spectral trace becomes visually bolder, the signal that was already robust becomes saturated to the point of being 'blown out'. Kind of like what yours look like. (Like turning the volume control high enough so that normally unheard background hiss becomes plainly audible and the 'regular' content becomes deafening.)

I've done 96/24 needledrops and analysed them with Audition. I've also analysed direct rips of 96/24 and 192/24 audio from DVD-A. I've never seen spectra that are as ,er, *intense* as yours.

How about showing a frequency profile view, where there's a scale of amplitude?