Conclusive "Proof" that higher resolution audio sounds different

[Al M.]

More on topic and may have consideration towards fatigue; just bear in mind your DAC (with its filters) may also be helping with regards to some of the variables I touched upon or may exacerbate certain digital albums-recordings-"genre" such as rock/pop/average jazz recordings.

That is very well possible, yes. By the way, I do have rock/pop recordings that sound gorgeous on my system (among the unlikely winners, the 2002 CD of "Elvis #1 Hits" (!), clearly a work of love in terms of mastering). Yet the miss/hit ratio is much higher than with classical. As you say, some of this may be related to my system characteristics, but most of it is probably related to the fact that classical recordings tend to go through, comparatively, much less processing. I guess this conforms with a pretty general consensus in audio.

Regardless of sound issues with rock, my current DAC is the first DAC that I have owned with impeccable rhythm & timing -- it is my first DAC that really rocks and swings like a great turntable can. This is quite remarkable, since early digital has been known to be severely lacking in the rhythm & timing department (an issue at the time more emphasized in Europe than in the US).

 

[Orb]

Although you would be surprised how many classical albums are poorly released as hirez, check out sometime Hifi News magazine and skip to the music review section-high resolution downloads; only a few of those labels I would say provide consistent high quality/done correctly hirez.

Cheers
Orb

 

[TBone]

I have found that every time my system improved the number of recordings with high quality increased.

Yeah, but as the sonic window widens, and bandwidth increases, the valley between the really good recordings and the crap stuff widens also ...

We have many local talents in my urban area who's music is produced by "underground" labels on CD. I've met a few, heard quite a few, live and on CD, and I always reserve comment when ever I'm asked to comment on the quality of the CD, because most of these pro-tools digital CD's sound similarly compromised in my system, they all share the same negative characteristics ... and the better my system resolves, the more these CDs sound "digital" in the worst traditional sense ...

 

[Al M.]

Yeah, but as the sonic window widens, and bandwidth increases, the valley between the really good recordings and the crap stuff widens also ...

Yes, that's true too.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

And then carry on listening to the music due to dreaming of it

Just to add the emotional-connection aspect I am touching upon is what I mentioned a bit earlier; music and indeed sounds combine both linquistic and mathematical aspects within the brain, we can have a connection to these in terms of beauty/emotion/satisfaction (satisfaction can be both from tolerances and also emotional-beauty connection to the music and sound reproduced by the system).
And yes I appreciate CDs/FM radio/etc all can provide great levels of this.

Regarding fatigue; try playing Bat Out of Hell (or other music with similar challenges and issues) loud and for many hours straight without suffering fatigue
Cheers
Orb

I can't play Bat Out of Hell once without suffering Meatloaf fatigue. Or is it songwriting cliche fatigue? I think I might need some training to differentiate between the two.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

What's the point about high-rez when the benefit is mostly not immediately obvious? I have had upgrades where differences were glaringly obvious with most CDs that I put on, such as the implementation of acoustic room treatment, as well as upgrades of my DAC and the power supplies for the amps (the latter removing electronic noise, among others). All those upgrades showed me that plain ole' Redbook CD was capable of much better resolution than I had thought possible.

There are much bigger fish to fry in audio than fretting about hi-rez vs. CD, fueled by the futile and rationally unjustifiable hope that someday high-res will be a mainstream, i.e. actually relevant format.

Sony announced almost a year ago they would open their faults of high-res tapes. Still waiting, thumbs twiddling. No wonder, there's no real money to be made; the audiophile community is vanishingly small in the big picture.

I don't have an answer to that one.

Tim

 

[TBone]

I can't play Bat Out of Hell once without suffering Meatloaf fatigue

I witnessed the BOOH tour, it was actually quite entertaining.

Beside, Meatloaf will always be Eddie to me ...

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,
I think you are getting a bit hung up on artifacts.
Some tests would be listening for artifacts-glitches-distortion-etc, however and very importantly it is also traits-characteristic cues of the sound given by the recording for instruments/how played/etc-mix-mastering and this can relate to the specific instrument or instruments/choir/symphony and its attack-decay-leading edge or even timber-tone (however I stress this needs to be focused on in a dissected-isolated fashion rather than a "whole" to identify possible cues for accurate chance to usually pass subtle ABX).

Sorry for all the "/" but there are a lot of variables and ifs or depends involved.
Cheers
Orb

Change "artifacts" to "differences," then. Has anyone besides Amir passed this test yet?

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I witnessed the BOOH tour, it was actually quite entertaining.

Beside, Meatloaf will always be Eddie to me ...

I'm sure it was highly entertaining, as the act was basically Broadway show pros doing rock n roll. Not my cup of tea, but that's certainly subjective. If Born To Run is a rock n roll Westside Story, BOOH is a show tunes Born To Run. The whole thing - the writing, the production, the singing, the image...it always struck me as very contrived. YMMV.

Tim

 

[Orb]

I can't play Bat Out of Hell once without suffering Meatloaf fatigue. Or is it songwriting cliche fatigue? I think I might need some training to differentiate between the two.

Tim

LOL, yeah I think you may be spot on with cliche fatigue
But I am a sucker for it once in awhile
Did love seeing him live many years ago, and he will always be Eddie to me as well.
Cheers
Orb

 

[TBone]

I'm sure it was highly entertaining, as the act was basically Broadway show pros doing rock n roll. Not my cup of tea, but that's certainly subjective. If Born To Run is a rock n roll Westside Story, BOOH is a show tunes Born To Run. The whole thing - the writing, the production, the singing, the image...it always struck me as very contrived. YMMV.

Not really my cup-of-tea either, I can only take so much pop. He was so popular at that time, it kinda was the show to see, and indeed it was very much a Broadway type production.

I witnessed Bruce last year ... and I'm not really a Spring fan. That said, his concerts are legendary. Musically, I've never much cared for "Born in the USA" ... in fact ... the only LP of his in which I can listen completely front to back without inducing too much "Brucy-fatigue", is Darkness ...

 

[amirm]

Not quite the topic of the thread but nevertheless part of similar arguments, here is a comparison of Arny's 24/96 file downsampled to 16/44.1 compared to 320 kbps MP3 of the same:

=================

foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.2
2014/07/19 19:45:33

File A: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Arnys Filter Test\keys jangling 16 44.wav
File B: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Arnys Filter Test\keys jangling 16 44_01.mp3

19:45:33 : Test started.
19:46:21 : 01/01 50.0%
19:46:35 : 02/02 25.0%
19:46:49 : 02/03 50.0% << dog barked in my ear wanting to go out
19:47:03 : 03/04 31.3%
19:47:13 : 04/05 18.8%
19:47:27 : 05/06 10.9%
19:47:38 : 06/07 6.3%
19:47:46 : 07/08 3.5%
19:48:01 : 08/09 2.0%
19:48:19 : 09/10 1.1%
19:48:31 : 10/11 0.6%
19:48:45 : 11/12 0.3%
19:48:58 : 12/13 0.2%
19:49:11 : 13/14 0.1%
19:49:28 : 14/15 0.0%
19:49:52 : 15/16 0.0%
19:49:56 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 15/16 (0.0%)

I just selected the beginning of the file and the difference was very clear to my ears.

 

[jkeny]

I just came across another ABX test from 2010 which shows positive results for 24/96 Vs 16/44 files. This time two posters report ABX results - one using Linux & one Windows both using an original music file as the test file. And guess what Arny is on the thread

http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/in...7&pid=713014&mode=threaded&start=#entry713014

foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.0.3
2010/06/07 18:25:51

File A: C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Christian\Desktop\16-441to24-96.wav
File B: C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Christian\Desktop\24-96.wav

18:25:51 : Test started.
18:26:44 : 01/01 50.0%
18:27:09 : 02/02 25.0%
18:27:26 : 03/03 12.5%
18:27:44 : 04/04 6.3%
18:28:00 : 05/05 3.1%
18:28:21 : 06/06 1.6%
18:28:38 : 07/07 0.8%
18:28:52 : 08/08 0.4%
18:29:06 : 09/09 0.2%
18:29:17 : 10/10 0.1%
18:29:33 : 11/11 0.0%
18:29:46 : 12/12 0.0%
18:30:03 : 13/13 0.0%
18:30:26 : 14/14 0.0%
18:30:42 : 15/15 0.0%
18:31:04 : 16/16 0.0%
18:31:08 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 16/16 (0.0%)

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Not really my cup-of-tea either, I can only take so much pop. He was so popular at that time, it kinda was the show to see, and indeed it was very much a Broadway type production.

I witnessed Bruce last year ... and I'm not really a Spring fan. That said, his concerts are legendary. Musically, I've never much cared for "Born in the USA" ... in fact ... the only LP of his in which I can listen completely front to back without inducing too much "Brucy-fatigue", is Darkness ...

I've seen him 3 times, supporting Darkness on the Edge of Town, Tunnel of Love and The Ghost of Tom Joad.

I am a Bruce fan, own most of his recordings. Darkness is among my favorites. While I'm a fan, I understand people who can only handle him in limited quantities. Everything he does is...intense...even the really mellow albums - Nebraska, Ghost of Tom Joad - are smolderingly dark. And at times his style is...bombastic seems like a good word. Last but not least, the Boss' voice is an acquired taste. So I get it.

But I'm a fanboy of nothing if not song writers. Top of my list are relatively obscure artists like John Hiatt, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and Bruce, has managed to pull off something not often accomplished -- he became massively popular while at once becoming one of the best American roots music songwriters of his generation. In that arena, only Dylan beats him. Guys like Bruce, Bob, Steve...gals like Lucinda...I could listen to them play anything from their incredibly deep and varied catalogs, on a stool, with nothing but a guitar. In fact, when I get one of those rare, stripped-down albums, it's a huge thrill. I'll take it over the most meticulously arranged and recorded pop/rock, etc. recordings all day.

YMMV, of course, but that fundamental American music that boils up from a potful of country, rock, blues, even a little jazz? That's the heart of it all for me, and Bruce is one of the few at the epicenter of all that. He's the one that paints with the loudest colors, the biggest brush, no doubt, and I can see how that could get tiring. Whenever he starts to wear me out I go to Darkness, The River, Nebraska. And I remember what's at the heart of all the other stuff.

Tim

 

[TBone]

But I'm a fanboy of nothing if not song writers.

I guess that makes me a "fanboy" too.

My Springsteen CDs/LPs all tend to sound compromised, in the hi-end traditional sense ... is this par for the coarse with Springsteen? Does he have albums / pressings out there that are sonically better represented?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I guess that makes me a "fanboy" too.

My Springsteen CDs/LPs all tend to sound compromised, in the hi-end traditional sense ... is this par for the coarse with Springsteen? Does he have albums / pressings out there that are sonically better represented?

Some are better than others, but you're right, he's not known for audiophile-quality recordings. A couple -- The River and Nebraska come to mind -- are just kind of lo-fi, and easier to deal with than some recent ones that are painfully digitally compressed -- Magic is probably the worst example. I have an iTunes EQ preset labeled "Euphonic." I created it to make Magic listenable.

Tunnel of Love is probably the closest thing in Bruce's catalog to audiophile, but even then in a slick, 80s Dire Straits sort of way. I'd love to see big chunks of his catalog re-mastered the way The Beatles catalog was re-mastered -- for nuance, dynamics, clarity. Not loudness. Bruce certainly has the leverage to take control of his own career all the way down to production choices. I can only assume that's not stuff he pays much attention to. Still, I'll take the worst record full of Springsteen songs and performances over any audiophile masterpiece by all the little Mellencamps that stand in his shadow. Just gotta remember what you're there for.

Sorry for the thread drift. Back to your normally scheduled programming....



Tim

 

[Whatmore]

does anyone know of ABX software that I could try this out with on a mac?

 

[TBone]

Sorry for the thread drift. Back to your normally scheduled programming....

Amir, JKeny, I apologize for the tangents ...

 

[jkeny]

Amir, JKeny, I apologize for the tangents ...

I agree about Bruce - when he plays in Ireland (fairly regularly) the stadium is close by - within listening distance & he packs in a big show, from what I hear. Saw him a number of times. Was at his 1985 Irish debut concert in the grounds of Slane Castle to a crowd of 100,000 - great 3 hour concert. Interestingly he had the sound well sorted in that amphitheater of a venue but I can't understand how he produces such appallingly low-fi sounding releases??

 

[Robh3606]

Hello Amir

I listened to the files, original and lowest resolution and I agree the difference is immediately obvious. I was curious what was going on and ran them in Cool Edit to see. There is a lot more frequency attenuation than a wall at 16K I guess he forgot about the Nyquist number, no wonder why it's so obvious. Take a look

Rob