24/192 Music Downloads ...and why they make no sense

[morris_minor]

Apologies if folk have seen this already:

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

The guy writing is behind the Vorbis format, apparently, so should know a thing or two . .

My technical ability to pick this apart is totally lacking, but on the surface it exposes quite a few myths . . . .

[Bonky]

Apologies if folk have seen this already:

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

The guy writing is behind the Vorbis format, apparently, so should know a thing or two . .

My technical ability to pick this apart is totally lacking, but on the surface it exposes quite a few myths . . . .

Hi Bob,

No, I can't follow most of it either!

However, you must be a brave chap posting this link in AoS as there is a large following of pure subjectionalists who hate objective testing. Their argument (and I appreciate and even follow their point of view) is that, first and foremost 'trust your ears'. (If you think you can hear a difference then you can).
I once wrote about the importance of the placebo effect and, to a few, this was like a red rag to a bull; they believe that they have the mental apparatus that can overcome this. (Fore-warned is fore-armed I suppose). I have no wish to resurrect the old subjective v objective discussions that were held at great length a short time ago. (This was very good-natured on the whole and generated lots of interesting view-points). However, it has always surprised me how few double-blind A-B trials there are in this field.
Me? I'll trust my ears first, but will, I hope, always be mindful of the importance of theory and objective testing as well.

Let's hope that some of our more technical minded boffins on AoS will be able to help us criticise this link/document.

Thank you for such an interesting link..

Yours,

Bonky

[ursus262]

I read this article with some interest, because I can't, for example, tell the difference between CD and SACD, and I have the ability to play both.

[zygote23]

Excellent article though some of it is tough going (ie over my head).

I've a few hi res downloads and really can't hear a difference. I do treat with the highest suspicion the 'amazing next greatest way of playing your music' as proffered by the odd dealer.

I did go to hear a prototype player that would hold a few thousand tracks, rip your cd's and play hi res tracks as well. It was crap, expensive and the player itself couldn't tell us which tracks were mp3 and which were hi res. It was to cost thousands and when I suggested that a squeezebox would be all you need I was practically laughed at.

Fools and their money will always be easily parted in the hi fi world.

Anyone got a Lexicon.....oops I mean Oppo disc spinner I can have

[morris_minor]

However, you must be a brave chap posting this link in AoS as there is a large following of pure subjectionalists who hate objective testing. Their argument (and I appreciate and even follow their point of view) is that, first and foremost 'trust your ears'. (If you think you can hear a difference then you can).

Well, it wasn't my intention to re-ignite any wars! I just thought it an interesting read, worth commenting on.

Yes - listening yourself (rather than reading about the listening of others!) is the proper way to go whatever the measurement says, because hi-fi exists to play music, not to just be measured on test equipment.

I've a few Classic Records HDAD discs - 96/24 on one side 192/24 on the other. I'll be blowed if I can really hear a difference between the two, but my "feeling" is the 192 sounds better because it "should" . Or maybe it shouldn't if you believe the article . .

I think a lot of audio manufacturers trade on the insecurity of "audiophiles" who by nature are always trying to "improve" their systems. With the law of diminishing returns, such improvements get smaller and smaller, and may be different but not necessarily better. If you've just shelled out £x on the latest greatest piece of kit everyone else is raving about, the temptation to like it whatever it actually sounds like - and whether or not you can perceive any difference from your old kit - is actually quite strong. And even if you do acknowledge dissatisfaction, another temptation - changing other bits of kit (cables for instance), also rears its head.

Hi-fi is fraught with gotchas at every stage, and maybe, just maybe, the high resolution playback scenario is another one.

[morris_minor]

Anyone got a Lexicon.....oops I mean Oppo disc spinner I can have

[Macca]

I've heard SACD on several sytems including my own and it was better than the standard CD on most of them but not all - including mine, but that was with different SACD players in each case (Pioneer, Sony, Oppo). One argument is that the mastering for the SACD release is better than the original hence the pervceived SQ improvement - which sounds plausible. However the Rolling Stones SACD releases are on dual layer discs witrh a re-mastered CD version as well. These should be indistinguishable if hi-rez makes no difference and IMO they are different and SACD layer sounds better on some SACD players/systems.

[bobbasrah]

Read much of this before, and it all makes sense from a technical perspective.
Whatever the arguments are for some as yet unmeasurable effect making a difference, those I have noted throw more questions on what the software/OS/DAC kits is doing differently than the sample as such. How the digital version is mastered is more critical I suspect.
The recent thread on DSOM v Adele threw up one such example where the LP of Adele's 21 is a better playback than the CD. It should not happen, but unfortunately it does, but it will be interesting to compare the CD I have to the rip of the LP when it lands up.

I suspect the key to Apple's success in the 24bit expansion of their iTunes business will depend more on remastering rather than the format. However, when you have successfully built a massive download empire off the back of "CD quality downloads" they could hardly advertise the new downloads as Less Screwed up CD quality..... 24/48 sounds new, and an opportunity to re-sell the old product yet again....

[Macca]

Copmparing a vinyl copy to a digital copy is always going to be an apples and oranges thing for me, even if they are taken form the same digital master. Still it will be interesting to hear what you think of the comparison, Bob.

[sq225917]

He doesn't actually say 'dick' in that article other than reiterate the old 'you can't hear above 20khz' line. He makes no comment about the out of band response of dac chips and their digital filters where accepted increases in quality and a reduction in audible fold-back have been shown to occur many times.

If all he wants to say is that Apple will be pointlessly ripping people off for new material that will sound just as good as standard bitrate when using a quality up-sampler and dac, then he should have said just that. But he shouldn't discount the accepted and proven benefits of performing your filtering on higher bit rate source material.