How can I tell what resolution a computer audio file is.

[brian2957]

I'm new to all this computer audio malarky . Been thinking of getting a USB to SPDIF converter ( possibly a Musical Fidelity V-Link )to connect between my Dell laptop and my Caiman SEG but I don't know if it will be worthwhile . I have ripped most of my CDs to computer using WAV . I don't know if these files are are 24/96 and don't know how to tell. I would be grateful for any advice.
Thanks in advance.
Brian.

[Welder]

If you’ve ripped from CD to Wav the probability is (unless you’ve done some extraordinary conversion in the ripping process) you have redbook/ 16/44.

[dave2010]

If you’ve ripped from CD to Wav the probability is (unless you’ve done some extraordinary conversion in the ripping process) you have redbook/ 16/44.Indeed.

At first I thought that WAV could only do 16 bit 44.1kHz, but when I looked, I discovered there are standards (by Microsoft) for multi-channel and higher resolution - http://www-mmsp.ece.mcgill.ca/documents/audioformats/wave/Docs/RIFFNEW.pdf

http://www-mmsp.ece.mcgill.ca/documents/audioformats/wave/Docs/multichaudP.pdf

As suggested though, it's unlikely that Brian will have generated anything other than 16 bit 44.1 kHz files.

Conversion to WAV, unless done using one of the newer specced systems, will reduce the resolution of any hi-def files.

[brian2957]

Thanks guys . Can I take it that at the present moment buying a V-Link would be a waste of time as I can continue to use USB to my Caiman. Any simple. suggestions for increasing the resolution of CDs ripped to my computer ? Sorry Dave but the infomation in the links you sent just went right over the top of my head.
Thanks for taking the time to reply .
Brian.

[Welder]

Regarding this USB to SPDIF convertor business Brian.

I realise there is a place for such devices but I’m not convinced they offer the ideal route for best quality audio via USB.
I think if you’re about to embark on file based audio you need to carefully research the data transfer options and decide on the method before you start buying bits of kit.

I think there is a lot to be said for keeping things simple with regard to how many processes the data gets subjected to before conversion to analogue.

USB data transfer has imo some advantages over SPDIF, if your system is correctly set up to make use of them. Unfortunately USB data transfer is also the most complicated to get right.

Sure, the whole idea of higher bit depths and sample rates seems like a great idea, but this too has some considerable problems not least being finding decent quality downloads.
Then of course, you need a system capable of handling the extra data volume and required bandwidth.

It is all very far from plug, play and smile in my experience.

[Alex_UK]

Thanks guys . Can I can it that at the present moment buying a V-Link would be a waste of time as I can continue to USB to my Caiman.

I get great results USB to Caiman on CD rips - not sure it would be better to add a V-Link...


Any simple. suggestions for increasing the resolution of CDs ripped to my computer ?

Not sure if you can, but why would you - if it isn't there in the first place, trying to add the extra information artificially won't be a benefit, I wouldn't have thought?

[brian2957]

Thanks Alex , I'm a typical audiophile , I'm also getting decent results from rips, but always looking to squeeze that last bit of information out of my system . Been caught out by this a few times though. Thanks for your input.
Thank you too John . I don't know if I have the time or the inclination to delve into computer audio to the extent that you obviously have . I am enjoying the music at the minute ,although the upgrade bug will eventually bite again , so we shall see. A little off topic , can I ask if my money would be better spent upgrading my DAC power supply to a linear one on the Caiman .
Thanks
Brian.

[Welder]

I don’t use a Caiman but lots here do and write good things about improving the power supply so I would say yes, spend your money there rather than a USB to SPDIF converter.

[brian2957]

Many thanks John , and to everyone else for the advice.
Brian.

[Ali Tait]

You could also try the passive mod on the Caiman, only cost is two caps and a bit of your time.

[purite audio]

Brian Hi, if you like I can send you an M2Tech Hiface to try, it is a true Async USB converter, it will reclock ,isolate and allow you to play 24/192 if your dacs is capable.
I am almost certain it will sound better than the USB on your DAC.
Keith.

[brian2957]

Hi Ali I've read about the passive mod , wasn't sure if I could do it on the Gatorized Caiman . Output of the Caiman seems a bit high for my NVA AP20 as I can only get to 10 o'clock on the volume control then it becomes too loud. I believe that this mod would rectify this situation.
Thanks
Brian.

[brian2957]

Hi Keith , thank you for your very generous offer . I've decided to go down the linear power supply route for the moment, so have blown my budget for a while .
Would you mind if I put this on hold for a little while and get back to you on that one.
Thanks again Brian.

[Vincent Kars]

A CD contains 16 bit / 44.1 kHz PCM audio.
You can convert to 24 bits but this will only pad 8 zero’s to the data.
This won’t add any information below -96 dBFS

You can up-sample to e.g. 88 kHz.
The Nyquist of a CD is 22, the Nyquist of 88 kHz is 44 but as there is no information on the CD above 22, this won’t help you either.

The only think that can happen is that some DACs do change their sonic signature with the sample rate. Also sample rate conversion software can add artifacts.
So it might sound different.
Personally I prefer to play everything at its native sample rate.

Most ripping software today have a secure mode. Most of the time this means reading everything twice and check if the results are the same.
Set you’re ripper to secure mode might help.
Advanced ripping software like dbPoweramp or EAC will do up to 64 reads in case of errors.
They also support AccurateRip, a database allowing you to compare you’re rip with re rips of others. Gives you a confidence report.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/ripping.html


You rip to WAV.
Observe that tagging support in WAV is haphazard due to a lack of standards.
The moment you move the files to another computer or use another media player you will probably lose all the information.
Try this by moving a file to another computer.
Personally I prefer FLAC, lossless and excellent tagging support.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WAV_KB.htm

[brian2957]

Thanks Vincent, I will have to look further into this.
Brian.

[michaelhigh]

MediaMonkey has a feature that allows the user to select a column header for many aspects of the recording, such as bitrate, type of file and file size. It's helpful to know what your file originated as, and all my CD rips were native 16/44.1 as expected. Good tool, MediaMonkey, for free.

[brian2957]

Thanks I will have a look at this.
Brian.

[YNWaN]

I don't know if these files are are 24/96 and don't know how to tell. I would be grateful for any advice.
Thanks in advance.
Brian.

Just open them in Audacity and it tells you straight away.

[brian2957]

Thanks for that . Plenty of suggestions and options coming my way .I will have a look at them all and decide what is most useful to me .
Many thanks again.
Brian.

[dave2010]

A CD contains 16 bit / 44.1 kHz PCM audio.
You can convert to 24 bits but this will only pad 8 zero’s to the data.
This won’t add any information below -96 dBFS

You can up-sample to e.g. 88 kHz.
The Nyquist of a CD is 22, the Nyquist of 88 kHz is 44 but as there is no information on the CD above 22, this won’t help you either.

The only think that can happen is that some DACs do change their sonic signature with the sample rate. Also sample rate conversion software can add artifacts.
So it might sound different.
Personally I prefer to play everything at its native sample rate.

Most ripping software today have a secure mode. Most of the time this means reading everything twice and check if the results are the same.
Set you’re ripper to secure mode might help.
Advanced ripping software like dbPoweramp or EAC will do up to 64 reads in case of errors.
They also support AccurateRip, a database allowing you to compare you’re rip with re rips of others. Gives you a confidence report.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/ripping.html


You rip to WAV.
Observe that tagging support in WAV is haphazard due to a lack of standards.
The moment you move the files to another computer or use another media player you will probably lose all the information.
Try this by moving a file to another computer.
Personally I prefer FLAC, lossless and excellent tagging support.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WAV_KB.htm
This made me think slightly more than usual! Go the other way, and reduce the sample rate and perhaps also the resolution to something quite low. The differences will be very audible. Now use an interpolation filter to "put back" the missing detail. Obviously it won't work, but what it may well do is to reduce some of the noise present in the low sample rate signal. Techniques such as SBR (Spectral Band Replication) attempt also to fake some of the missing high frequencies removed by the data reduction, and seem to be acceptable to many people. SBR works by using a small additional "channel" to direct the high frequency faking. Whether there could be an interpolation process which could do this directly from the compressed/band limited data I'm not sure. It might be possible with some form of "intelligent" processing system, though it would need to have additional knowledge which in some way would correspond to the extra "channel" information. For example, if I hear a sound of a flute, but band limited, it will sound dull. If I know it's a flute, I can't make it sound better, or imagine it to sound better, but if a computer program could discover this, then it could supply additional "fake" high frequencies - maybe even in real time, in order to improve the perceptual effect. This would require active interpretation by audio systems.

You are right that raising the sampling frequency will not introduce new information, and may also cause more problems if the sampling frequency change is not done well.

If we now assume that most people are in fact themselves band and quantisation level limited in their hearing, then raising the sampling frequency for material which was not recorded at higher frequencies should not lead to any perceptual improvement.

In image processing there are similar arguments, but there there can be advantages in upsampling an image even if it has low resolution as this can smooth out unwanted jaggies. This is because there is a perceptual improvement as the human visual system may, for some people, exceed the specification of the distribution system. Images may be different in this respect than audio, as it may be that most audio systems have higher specifications than the humans who listen to them can discern - though some would disagree with this, and there are clear differences between different audio systems.

There are other tricks which can be done in image processing, which definitely improve the images when interpolation is attempted. See articles by Li and Orchard on New Edge Directed interpolation - IEEE Trans. on Image Processing, 10:1521-1527 (now infuriatingly put behind a Walled Garden by the IEEE, so you can't see how it works - such is the progress of the web that we now have "learned" societies whose role should be the dissemination of scientific information and discussion actually making information less accessible than it was a few years ago ...... grrrrrr... and that includes some of my articles.)

This article by Asuni and Giachetti is still accessible though and may give some clues - http://www.tecnick.com/pagefiles/papers/85_Asuni_Giachetti_iNEDI_VISAPP2008.pdf

These pages do give some idea of what was in Li and Orchard's paper, with some examples - http://chiranjivi.tripod.com/EDITut.html

One other area where upsampling could perhaps help is in video processing, by interpolating frames. Most of us are not particularly aware of this, most of the time. If you look around you, and turn your head rapidly you don't usually notice any problems. If, on the other hand, a film director asks a camera man to rotate a camera rapidly, and then we look at the resulting image sequence, it could very well make us feel sick. I suspect the reason we don't think of this as a limitation most of the time is that many good film makers are aware of this kind of problem, and don't inflict it on us, though you can quite often seem small examples of this in films. For watching video we might actually find watching a rapid sequence of blurred images at high frame rates preferable to watching the same sequence of sharp images at lower frame rates. This is because of the way the eye-brain behaves as a tempero-spatial filtering system on images. Of course, for forensic work, where some people want to look at detail on every frame that won't work, but my point is that in an information limited transmission system, it may be better compromise on image sharpness and have a higher frame rate for action sequences.

[bobbasrah]

......such is the progress of the web that we now have "learned" societies whose role should be the dissemination of scientific information and discussion actually making information less accessible than it was a few years ago ...... .

Succinctly put indeed, in this the digital information age...:rolleyes: