Hi-res, studio master quality, SACD, DSD....the emperors new clothes?

[ff1d1l]

....or a huge stride forward in audio reproduction?

I've just started dabbling in large files with ever more preposterous conjunctions of numbers, burning them to DVD and playing on a DVD/Universal disc player. It also plays SACD's.

I'm coming to the conclusion that these are a bit like Blu-ray and DVD comparisons. You can get astonishingly well mastered DVD's and disappointing blu-rays. And occasionally even the reverse is met...

I'd be interested in the experience, views and possible tweaky tips of other OAS members! And members geared towards computer audio, might the experience be different if not playing from a disc player, as I am?

[Welder]

I can’t and nor can anyone I know reliably differentiate between 24/96 and 24/192
I can’t and nor can anyone I know reliably differentiate between 24/96 and 16/44.1
I can’t and nor can anyone I know reliably differentiate between CBR320 and 16/44.1
(Two of my friends did have better than chance results depending on the compressor used. Both are recording engineers.)

My niece (18 year old musician) and one of my friends (recording engineer) did do better than chance differentiating between CBR320 and 24/192
.
The Master recording was made in my friends’ studio and processed through a Metric Halo ULN8.

I can’t hear much beyond 15kHz!

I still prefer to listen to 16/44.1 and above. I may not be able to pick higher sample rates and word lengths in ABX tests but for whatever reason I enjoy listening to these more than I do to CBR320 and below. Make of this what you will.

There are now a decent range of tools to test what you can and can’t hear under various conditions.

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx
http://sound.westhost.com/abx-tester.htm
http://phintsan.kapsi.fi/abx.html
http://www.libinst.com/Audio%20DiffMaker.htm
http://audio.rightmark.org/index_new.shtml

My personal strategy is too try to investigate original recording wherever possible and listen to those.
I have a large collection of MFSL and DCC recordings now, the majority of which are to my ears more enjoyable to listen to and in general of a high standard.
I’m also rather fond of the repertoire re-masters; Witness by Spooky Tooth for example.
Possibly the easiest method to find recordings that haven’t been mastered to shite is this

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/

Most of the entries are dated and enough information is given on the individual album pages to work out which issue is likely to have been messed around with least.

I have a few High Res downloads from various sites, some good, some terrible at various resolutions.

I have eventually concluded that bit depth and sample rate don’t make a good recording; what does make a major difference is the engineer that does it.

[Firebottle]

....what does make a major difference is the engineer that does it.

+1

[mr sneff]

I can’t hear much beyond 15kHz!

I'm sure I'm the same, plus I suffer from tinnitus.

I recently downloaded a free hi-res recording and a 'normal res' (ie CD quality) recording of the same piece and I can't say I heard a difference. That may be down to my equipment or my ears.

One thing is certain with hi-res recordings it's another opportunity for record companies to once again sell us the same recordings that we've possibly already bought on LP, CD and remastered CD.

[synsei]

I'm sure I'm the same, plus I suffer from tinnitus.

I recently downloaded a free hi-res recording and a 'normal res' (ie CD quality) recording of the same piece and I can't say I heard a difference. That may be down to my equipment or my ears.

One thing is certain with hi-res recordings it's another opportunity for record companies to once again sell us the same recordings that we've possibly already bought on LP, CD and remastered CD.

Gotta keep those fires burning...

[Mus]

I can’t hear much beyond 15kHz!

There's not much music up there anyway, so you're not missing much.

Regards,

Mus

[Audioman]

If the recording was low-fi or simply a low res digital recording in the first place no means of upsampling and calling it HD is going to improve it. Hi-res digital should benefit the transfer of a good analogue recording. Difference compared to CD should be night and day in that case. If you have it on LP you probably have it as hi-res as you need.

[ff1d1l]

That's very interesting...I hadn't tried comparisons - difficult because sometimes even if you've got the same piece of music in both formats, its odds on that one will have been messed with, er, remastered. But doing it with a self generated and encoded recording as Mr Welder has, seems very fair, and using young or acute ears to assess results seems optimum.

Re having the vinyl = hi res....at the risk of being controversial, some vinyl is more equal than others, all has been mastered in a way favorable to the cutting lathe prior to cutting, and I don't have to get up in the middle of Hi Res files and remove a ball of fluff from the stylus and maybe clear adhering debris too, before playing the remainder of the side. Particularly with classical I find I'm willing to put up with a small amount of extra convenience, lowered noise floor and absence of cereal noise over the ritual of cuing up a 12" slab...

Don't get me wrong, I play lots of vinyl and hold the sound in unique esteem. Just as my systems resolving power gets better I find I have more respect for digital - and as my turntable (pretty good and recently tweaked to what is now a really excellent standard) improves it seems to take on the better characteristics, the aspects I like of digital...I'm listening to and enjoying both about equally at the moment.

I know some upsampling of 16/44 files takes place by the unscrupulous. But give access to a good mastertape and a conscientious and identical transfer to 16/44 and say, 24/192 is there going to be an audible difference? And if not, why not? Waveform reconstruction is accurate enough in 16/44? Our ears aren't good enough? Our equipment isn't good enough?

Just to put the cat among the pigeons, I'd say that there might be a small advantage, to my ears and in my system, to be heard with SACD. Some SACD's, anyway.

[Alan Sircom]

I can’t and nor can anyone I know reliably differentiate between 24/96 and 24/192
I can’t and nor can anyone I know reliably differentiate between 24/96 and 16/44.1
I can’t and nor can anyone I know reliably differentiate between CBR320 and 16/44.1
(Two of my friends did have better than chance results depending on the compressor used. Both are recording engineers.)

My niece (18 year old musician) and one of my friends (recording engineer) did do better than chance differentiating between CBR320 and 24/192
.
The Master recording was made in my friends’ studio and processed through a Metric Halo ULN8.

I can’t hear much beyond 15kHz!

I still prefer to listen to 16/44.1 and above. I may not be able to pick higher sample rates and word lengths in ABX tests but for whatever reason I enjoy listening to these more than I do to CBR320 and below. Make of this what you will.

There are now a decent range of tools to test what you can and can’t hear under various conditions.

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx
http://sound.westhost.com/abx-tester.htm
http://phintsan.kapsi.fi/abx.html
http://www.libinst.com/Audio%20DiffMaker.htm
http://audio.rightmark.org/index_new.shtml

My personal strategy is too try to investigate original recording wherever possible and listen to those.
I have a large collection of MFSL and DCC recordings now, the majority of which are to my ears more enjoyable to listen to and in general of a high standard.
I’m also rather fond of the repertoire re-masters; Witness by Spooky Tooth for example.
Possibly the easiest method to find recordings that haven’t been mastered to shite is this

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/

Most of the entries are dated and enough information is given on the individual album pages to work out which issue is likely to have been messed around with least.

I have a few High Res downloads from various sites, some good, some terrible at various resolutions.

I have eventually concluded that bit depth and sample rate don’t make a good recording; what does make a major difference is the engineer that does it.

I have a pragmatic take on the whole hi-res thing. Generally, if you spend a premium amount of money on a hi-res file, you should get something that has been mastered with the audio enthusiast in mind. Disregarding the whole question of whether you can actually hear the difference between high-rate lossy data reduced files, lossless 16/44, uncompressed 16/44, 24/192 or DSD, the chances are if you buy a high-resolution file of a piece of music, you may get a better sounding file than the knocked out for almost nothing part of a six pack of CDs for £10 drive-by mastering set. And you'll very likely get a better sounding file than the 'remastered' hot cut performed to the demands of the record label to get the maximum number of buyers.

If nothing else, there's enlightened self-interest going on at the mastering stage - "these audiophile guys spend good money on music. That means I am more likely to get paid. If I do a good job, they'll invite me back, and I'll make more money." Result - everyone wins. We get better sounding files, the music business does what it likes to do best - make money, and we don't have to have our music defined by the demands of a hyperactive 12 year old with the attention span of a meth-addicted goldfish. OK, we get stiffed by paying ££s for music you can get for basically free on Spotify, but if that's the price we have to pay for quality, so be it. People used to have to save up to buy their next Decca recording in the 1950s and 1960s, but they were handed the best performance and production possible at the time. Why can't we do the same again?

The problem is no-one's being selective about this, or rather if they are, they risk being accused of being a 'hater' by the hi-res community and their argument defused and dismantled by those who would do best by it. There are good hi-res recordings and bad ones. There are some that are merely up-sampled 16/44 (which may nonetheless sound good), and these do nothing apart from undermine any legitimacy hi-res might have. However, if you make this public, the audiophile community reacts by shunning the whistle-blower and accusing them of being a fifth columnist.

Hi-res is establishing itself as the premium/audiophile format for the download age. If we as audiophiles dismiss it completely because the numbers don't relate to what we can or can't here in terms of high-frequencies, we stand to lose good quality recordings in the process. It's impossible to term this 'high quality' because it will be cheapened and used everywhere, just like 'high-fidelity' got used in the 1960s to advertise refrigerators and lipsticks.

[Welder]

I have a pragmatic take on the whole hi-res thing. Generally, if you spend a premium amount of money on a hi-res file, you should get something that has been mastered with the audio enthusiast in mind. Disregarding the whole question of whether you can actually hear the difference between high-rate lossy data reduced files, lossless 16/44, uncompressed 16/44, 24/192 or DSD, the chances are if you buy a high-resolution file of a piece of music, you may get a better sounding file than the knocked out for almost nothing part of a six pack of CDs for £10 drive-by mastering set. And you'll very likely get a better sounding file than the 'remastered' hot cut performed to the demands of the record label to get the maximum number of buyers.

If nothing else, there's enlightened self-interest going on at the mastering stage - "these audiophile guys spend good money on music. That means I am more likely to get paid. If I do a good job, they'll invite me back, and I'll make more money." Result - everyone wins. We get better sounding files, the music business does what it likes to do best - make money, and we don't have to have our music defined by the demands of a hyperactive 12 year old with the attention span of a meth-addicted goldfish. OK, we get stiffed by paying ££s for music you can get for basically free on Spotify, but if that's the price we have to pay for quality, so be it. People used to have to save up to buy their next Decca recording in the 1950s and 1960s, but they were handed the best performance and production possible at the time. Why can't we do the same again?

The problem is no-one's being selective about this, or rather if they are, they risk being accused of being a 'hater' by the hi-res community and their argument defused and dismantled by those who would do best by it. There are good hi-res recordings and bad ones. There are some that are merely up-sampled 16/44 (which may nonetheless sound good), and these do nothing apart from undermine any legitimacy hi-res might have. However, if you make this public, the audiophile community reacts by shunning the whistle-blower and accusing them of being a fifth columnist.

Hi-res is establishing itself as the premium/audiophile format for the download age. If we as audiophiles dismiss it completely because the numbers don't relate to what we can or can't here in terms of high-frequencies, we stand to lose good quality recordings in the process. It's impossible to term this 'high quality' because it will be cheapened and used everywhere, just like 'high-fidelity' got used in the 1960s to advertise refrigerators and lipsticks.

Yes, I would agree.

Most of the 24/96 “audiophile” downloads I have, have, as you point out, received more attentive mastering. It would be interesting to know which are in fact, up-sampled redbook; and which are from an analogue or, at least a 24/96 master in the case of all digital.

What puts a wry smile on my face is despite the ABXing and knowing full well I’ve failed miserably to pick one from another, I have still bought “audiophile” higher sampling rate and bit depth downloads.
I suppose anything that encourages a better standard of recording must be a good thing.

I can’t help thinking that wouldn’t it have been nice if they could had higher standards to start with. If the market demands more highly compressed sound then it doesn’t take a moment with today’s mixers to achieve this. I’m not even sure the market cares much what it gets.

I can’t help wishing there was a little less hostility towards ABXing audio related stuff in general. I don’t in principle object to paying a premium for my music or my kit if I am indeed getting what I paid for and if more audiophiles made proper comparisons (imo) then we may just get sold less rubbish.