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

[Rothchild]

It's simple enough to test ('mechanically') if your files / sources have been up-sampled from Redbook at least.

Rip disk at native resolution / take file, drop it in to a VST compatible audio host

Download this: http://www.voxengo.com/product/span/

Run Span in your VST host and set it to 96kHz mode, then play the file back through it. If there's no content above (and a sharp cut-off at) ~20kHz odds on it's up-sampled from 44.1.

I would really be interested to know how many 'so called' hi-rez files actually are, I certainly think that 'remastered for hi-rez' is likely to be an exception rather than a norm.

[Alan Sircom]

It's simple enough to test ('mechanically') if your files / sources have been up-sampled from Redbook at least.

Rip disk at native resolution / take file, drop it in to a VST compatible audio host

Download this: http://www.voxengo.com/product/span/

Run Span in your VST host and set it to 96kHz mode, then play the file back through it. If there's no content above (and a sharp cut-off at) ~20kHz odds on it's up-sampled from 44.1.

I would really be interested to know how many 'so called' hi-rez files actually are, I certainly think that 'remastered for hi-rez' is likely to be an exception rather than a norm.

The difficulty there is you have to buy the track in hi-res to see if it's legitimately high-resolution.

We don't get a free ride here - traditionally, music reviews (in both hi-fi and music titles) are the worst paid part of the magazine. Generally, the time taken in due diligence to listen to the recording a couple of times, do some background research, write the review and source the rights-free cover art/additional photographs etc, all works out slightly lower than minimum wage. So, it has traditionally been a sop to the music reviewer that they receive free promo copies of the music.

That doesn't happen too often with hi-res. With a few notable exceptions, we don't get promo copies, freebies or voucher copies of hi-res files. I can't find a reviewer who will review hi-res, because they usually get paid less for the review in total than they have to spend on buying the full-fat hi-res file. In addition, if they do review hi-res and are too frequently critical of upsamples being passed off as hi-res, the febrile supporters of hi-res (who have taken to calling CD 'compressed audio' now) walk away from the magazine in droves because it isn't 'hi-res friendly'.

[Clive197]

I think we are all getting a little bogged down with Hi-res.

Some years ago I bought a JVC XRCD, that sounded so much better than the standard cd. It is not a SACD, DVD-A or a BluRay but IMO sounds better than any Hi-res. disc that I have heard so far (I own over 50 so called Hi-res. discs). It has just been manufactured to a very high standard and sounds awesome. The title.... Tina Turner.....Private Dancer.

Clive

[Richard Kimber]

I only buy hi-res files where the original sample rate is quoted, and where it is quoted as 88200 or more (of course they may be lying, but one has to take some risks in life).

I don't see the point of 24 bit 44100.

As far as people who say they can't hear any differences at all are concerned, I wonder what kind of music they are listening to. I doubt that pop music, or solo instrumental music, would benefit much from hi-res recording, while complex orchestral music might well do.

- Richard.

[Alan Sircom]

I only buy hi-res files where the original sample rate is quoted, and where it is quoted as 88200 or more (of course they may be lying, but one has to take some risks in life).

I don't see the point of 24 bit 44100.

As far as people who say they can't hear any differences at all are concerned, I wonder what kind of music they are listening to. I doubt that pop music, or solo instrumental music, would benefit much from hi-res recording, while complex orchestral music might well do.

- Richard.

I agree, especially with the last part. One of the great dissatisfactions many of us in audio face at this time is how sidelined 'classical' music has become. When we used to run a chill out room in the Manchester show, if we needed a time out, we'd put on a piece of orchestral music and the room would clear in seconds. We started with some fairly dense orchestral pieces, on the grounds that not many people will be interested in listening to Shostakovich or Bartok on a wet Saturday afternoon, but quickly realised we could empty a room just as quickly playing Beethoven's 'Appassionata'. Or anything that wasn't jazz, blues or rock.

This wasn't unique to Manchester, and isn't even unique to the UK. It's worth remembering the original testing for what would become MP3 was run with a very narrow musical repertoire - none of which was remotely orchestral.

My difficulty here though is once again a pragmatic one - the current plethora of outstanding classical box sets on CD means you can get 50 or 60 generally excellent and often historically important recordings for the price of three outstanding ones.

[NRG]

I strongly disagree, a few of us went to MR C's place (Coherent Systems) last year and one of the revelations was his 16/44.1 remastering of a number of track like Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'. We could compare before and after (on CD) and the differences where huge, proving its all in the mastering. Don't pigeon hole Rock or Pop music as being 'inferior' in some way to classical or acoustic Jazz (as an example) when it come to the importance of good mastering. IMHO Hi-Res and DSD especially are really marketing exercises in selling you the same material over and over again.

[Macca]

and the differences where huge, proving its all in the mastering. Don't pigeon hole Rock or Pop music as being 'inferior' in some way to classical or acoustic Jazz (as an example) when it come to the importance of good mastering. IMHO Hi-Res and DSD especially are really marketing exercises in selling you the same material over and over again.

I agree. I bought I hybrid SACD of Beggars Banquet (quite by accident) which sounded tremendous on the CD layer, bought a few more so I have a number of Stones albums on both original CD release and SACD hybrid - they went to an awful lot of trouble with the re-mastering for SACD and it shows when comparing the two. The whole hi-res thing is a red herring, and the situation is further confused by the fact that a lot of red book re-masters are worse than the originals as they have more compression. In addition, a good digital recording, properly mastered, is clearly superior to a good analogue recording properly mastered, doesn't matter what type of music it is. If Miles Davis et al could go back to the studio and re-record Kind Of Blue digitally it would massacre the original - I suspect.

[Alan Sircom]

I strongly disagree, a few of us went to MR C's place (Coherent Systems) last year and one of the revelations was his 16/44.1 remastering of a number of track like Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'. We could compare before and after (on CD) and the differences where huge, proving its all in the mastering. Don't pigeon hole Rock or Pop music as being 'inferior' in some way to classical or acoustic Jazz (as an example) when it come to the importance of good mastering. IMHO Hi-Res and DSD especially are really marketing exercises in selling you the same material over and over again.

I'm not claiming rock or pop 'inferior' at all, but the wholesale sidelining of classical music is a source of great upset, hi-res or not. It's not just an audio thing, though. Our education system is gently throttling music teaching provision in the young. In all its guises.

[Macca]

I'm not claiming rock or pop 'inferior' at all, but the wholesale sidelining of classical music is a source of great upset, hi-res or not. It's not just an audio thing, though. Our education system is gently throttling music teaching provision in the young. In all its guises.

I don't know. I was exposed to a lot of classical music at school ('73 to '85) but I hardly own any classical and what I do have I never play. if the I=pod generation can't even sit down and listen to a 40 minute rock album in its entirety they are never going to listen to a whole symphony. Culture changes, that's just the way it is.

[Welder]

As far as people who say they can't hear any differences at all are concerned, I wonder what kind of music they are listening to. I doubt that pop music, or solo instrumental music, would benefit much from hi-res recording, while complex orchestral music might well do.

- Richard.

How does that work then?

The bit depth either is, or isn’t, 16 or 24 etc, and similar applies to the sample rate. The type of music, or it’s complexity, doesn’t as far as I can see have anything at all to do with whether or not you can pick redbook from “Hi Res”.

By this kind of logic classical would fare worse coz those bits and samples have more instruments to cover…….