Hi res again?

[Phelonious Ponk]

I posted some files that were hi-rez and also at different sampling rates explaining what to listen for.

The Art of Listening - Hi-rez music.

Thanks Bruce. I remember these from when you first posted them. Unlike Frank, I don't wonder if the differences would diminish in a better-resolving system (only Frank...). I wonder if they would vanish altogether if we didn't know which file we were listening to, if you hadn't told us exactly what to listen for and if, most tellingly, you hadn't specifically instructed us NOT to listen to the music.

Those are perfect conditions for expectation bias, but let's assume the quote that started this thread is wrong and there are audible differences. If that's what it takes to hear them, in a passage chosen to showcase them, does it really matter?

Tim

 

[Alan Sircom]

From an end-user perspective, I think there's an important issue about hi-res that doesn't get waved around too much.

In TV, the arguments for HD are supported by a picture that is is demonstrably better, and appears so to people who are not 'engaged' with home theater. In fact, the picture is so demonstrably better that it motivates people to replace their existing equipment with components that support HD picture quality. When was the last time you walked into a bar and were met by a rear projector TV, playing ESPN in standard definition?

High-resolution audio seldom has the same 'demonstrably better' properties.

It's rare to encounter a high-res recording in the wild that doesn't come with someone explaining what high-res is, justifying why you need it and citing a list of qualifications about what equipment you need in order to hear the wonders of high-resolution. Which is why you don't walk into a bar and hear a good sound and think 'is this high-resolution audio? I must get me some of this action!'

The thing is, we have a demonstrably better version of audio, but it has largely failed to thrive. Multichannel music (on DVD-Audio and SACD) finally ironed out the bugs that plagued quadrophonic sound in the 1970s, and provided an experience every bit as 'wow' as HDTV. Sadly it proved deeply unpopular with audio enthusiasts and the mainstream market alike, albeit for entirely different reasons. The former felt all those loudspeakers were a crime against audiophile minimalism, the latter felt all those loudspeakers were a crime against interior design. I ran a couple of multichannel audio demonstrations a decade or so ago and we couldn't have had a room more free of people if we held the demonstrations in a minefield.

My take on this is audio needs to largely forget about 'high-res' (there will always be a market for specialist music at a premium price, but to back this as the audio industry's survival strategy is to back the wrong horse, IMO). Instead, it needs to leverage the ways people today listen to music and show precisely what those ways can do when played through 'a bloody good system', whether that system is loudspeaker, headphone or IEM based. There is still a 'wow' factor to be found when hearing what your computer or a smartphone audio files can do when handled accordingly and this is not a message that's reaching all those it should be reaching. It's also a message that should be allowed to be transmitted without risk of being drummed out of the Audiophile Corps.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Alan, thanks for the great response. I can relate. I hold several opinions that threaten my audiophile membership card. I think you may have missed a big thing standing in the way of surround sound music, though: Quality.

Here in the US, LOTS of surround sound systems are sold, big and small. It has all but taken over the high end. And having worked in sales in that business for a couple of years, I can assure you that "wow" moments in SS audio can be found, and it can, in fact, be the thing that pushes a buyer from basic surround for TV to a much better system. The trick is finding surround music worth listening to. Cheap tricks, like five different Eagles singing from five different speakers, or the guitar solo suddenly screaming in over your left shoulder are impressive for a few minutes. A deeply immersive audio experience that puts you "there," classic live albums re-mastered in surround to create hall ambience so graphic you can almost picture the distance to the walls....that would be worthy of a format of it's own.

And there's hardly any of that out there.

Tim

 

[Alan Sircom]

Alan, thanks for the great response. I can relate. I hold several opinions that threaten my audiophile membership card. I think you may have missed a big thing standing in the way of surround sound music, though: Quality.

Here in the US, LOTS of surround sound systems are sold, big and small. It has all but taken over the high end. And having worked in sales in that business for a couple of years, I can assure you that "wow" moments in SS audio can be found, and it can, in fact, be the thing that pushes a buyer from basic surround for TV to a much better system. The trick is finding surround music worth listening to. Cheap tricks, like five different Eagles singing from five different speakers, or the guitar solo suddenly screaming in over your left shoulder are impressive for a few minutes. A deeply immersive audio experience that puts you "there," classic live albums re-mastered in surround to create hall ambience so graphic you can almost picture the distance to the walls....that would be worthy of a format of it's own.

And there's hardly any of that out there.

Tim

Up to a point, I agree. There are a lot of ping-pong surround music recordings, just as there were a lot of ping-pong stereo recordings in the early days of stereo. But a lot of the classical SACD work does just what you say - attempting to place the listener in a simulacra of the concert hall, with you in the stalls, not the second violins.

The big problem with DVD-Audio and SACD roll-outs was not the quality, IMO... it was that they were preaching to the choir, and in the process forgot that people under 40 buy music too. With the best will in the world, even the most monumental version of Rumours, LA Woman, Blood on the Tracks or Let It Bleed isn't really going to do much to grab the attention of those who want to hear what The Killers sound like through a 5.1 system. While there were a handful of newer artists signed (especially on DVD-Audio) there was little or no real support. Making a 'wow' disc of Lady Gaga or Adele or Beyoncé in surround today would attract a lot of attention even if the sound was set to 'impress'. Subsequent recordings could go for quality. But such a scheme wouldn't work if it only delivered three discs a year that were relevant to a new audience.

 

[rblnr]

Up to a point, I agree. There are a lot of ping-pong surround music recordings, just as there were a lot of ping-pong stereo recordings in the early days of stereo. But a lot of the classical SACD work does just what you say - attempting to place the listener in a simulacra of the concert hall, with you in the stalls, not the second violins.

The big problem with DVD-Audio and SACD roll-outs was not the quality, IMO... it was that they were preaching to the choir, and in the process forgot that people under 40 buy music too. With the best will in the world, even the most monumental version of Rumours, LA Woman, Blood on the Tracks or Let It Bleed isn't really going to do much to grab the attention of those who want to hear what The Killers sound like through a 5.1 system. While there were a handful of newer artists signed (especially on DVD-Audio) there was little or no real support. Making a 'wow' disc of Lady Gaga or Adele or Beyoncé in surround today would attract a lot of attention even if the sound was set to 'impress'. Subsequent recordings could go for quality. But such a scheme wouldn't work if it only delivered three discs a year that were relevant to a new audience.

As you say, for DVD-A there were a few, one was a Missy Elliott disc that was #1 or close for awhile -- they hyped the announcement of it coming to DVD-A more than the actual release. With any promo for it or the format, it died.

My take on this is audio needs to largely forget about 'high-res' (there will always be a market for specialist music at a premium price, but to back this as the audio industry's survival strategy is to back the wrong horse, IMO). Instead, it needs to leverage the ways people today listen to music and show precisely what those ways can do when played through 'a bloody good system', whether that system is loudspeaker, headphone or IEM based. There is still a 'wow' factor to be found when hearing what your computer or a smartphone audio files can do when handled accordingly and this is not a message that's reaching all those it should be reaching. It's also a message that should be allowed to be transmitted without risk of being drummed out of the Audiophile Corps.

Yes, yes, yes, you have to meet the market where it's at -- demo what they're missing thru their listening methods.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I do believe that mastering differences account for a large proportion to the perceived qualities of many releases. Differences would be truly meaningful if mastering was kept across all different formats.
Audiophiles are trained or have trained themselves on hearing small differences. if these differences , once learned are perceived repeatably then they should add to the audiophile experience IMO. We care about differences which leave most people unmoved, dynamics and pin-point imaging for example. If the differences are truly obvious, repeatable and add to the realism of the reproduction, this time it may work.
On Surround. Surround sound logistics are not trivial. Placement of two speakers is not a n easy task... Now think about properly positioning Five, yes, 5 speakers in a room. The cost is much larger especially in the audiophile context. Yet most audio systems sold today are surround systems.

There is also the fact that people no longer actively listen to music. Few people sit down and listen to music. Music is the backdrop to another activity, driving , working-out, dancing or atmosphere. The activity of intently listening to reproduced music has become very rare in our society. In that sense Surround or better quality scarcely register.
With the cost of bandwidth and storage dropping continuously, I believe Hi-Rez will remain an audiophile niche for the foreseeable future. Since most music is mastered at rates superior to Redbook anyway. Those who invest in Hi-Rez are potentially closer to the original recordings.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Up to a point, I agree. There are a lot of ping-pong surround music recordings, just as there were a lot of ping-pong stereo recordings in the early days of stereo. But a lot of the classical SACD work does just what you say - attempting to place the listener in a simulacra of the concert hall, with you in the stalls, not the second violins.

The big problem with DVD-Audio and SACD roll-outs was not the quality, IMO... it was that they were preaching to the choir, and in the process forgot that people under 40 buy music too. With the best will in the world, even the most monumental version of Rumours, LA Woman, Blood on the Tracks or Let It Bleed isn't really going to do much to grab the attention of those who want to hear what The Killers sound like through a 5.1 system. While there were a handful of newer artists signed (especially on DVD-Audio) there was little or no real support. Making a 'wow' disc of Lady Gaga or Adele or Beyoncé in surround today would attract a lot of attention even if the sound was set to 'impress'. Subsequent recordings could go for quality. But such a scheme wouldn't work if it only delivered three discs a year that were relevant to a new audience.

i see 2 issues related to the multi-channel hi-rez movement that crippled it.

i have a dedicated purpose built 2-channel room i did set up in anticipation of hirez multichannel. i owned maybe 1000 multichannel SACD's. i then equiped my room for multi-channel with the EMM Labs DAC6 and the the EMM Labs multi-channel preamp and added rear speakers and amps.

for 18 months i had this setup and did enjoy multichannel SACD. but; i found that my vinyl out-multichanneled the hirez SACD. it filled the room better with sound than the SACD multichannel. i found i rarely choose to listen to the multichannel. maybe part of the issue was the inconsistency of the mastering choices of what parts of the music was where. so bottom line for me was that i was not 'taken' sufficiently with the hirez multichannel to justify it's effort. (i have a separate Home Theatre room). eventually i removed my multi-channel components and re-allocated the funds to additional turntables and RTR decks.

the second thing that de-railed multi-channel just as it started to get a little traction was the Apple i-Pod. all of a sudden stereo downloads was were music was going. and it happened fast. one day mainstream artists were considering doing multichannel recordings, the next day it was follow the herd to downloads. any possibility of multi-channel for music as an everyman consideration went down the tubes. the silver lining in this issue is that 2-channel high fi got an eventual surge from the move away from multi-channel......whereas the trend was toward Home Theatre/multi-channel music prior to that.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Up to a point, I agree. There are a lot of ping-pong surround music recordings, just as there were a lot of ping-pong stereo recordings in the early days of stereo. But a lot of the classical SACD work does just what you say - attempting to place the listener in a simulacra of the concert hall, with you in the stalls, not the second violins.

The big problem with DVD-Audio and SACD roll-outs was not the quality, IMO... it was that they were preaching to the choir, and in the process forgot that people under 40 buy music too. With the best will in the world, even the most monumental version of Rumours, LA Woman, Blood on the Tracks or Let It Bleed isn't really going to do much to grab the attention of those who want to hear what The Killers sound like through a 5.1 system. While there were a handful of newer artists signed (especially on DVD-Audio) there was little or no real support. Making a 'wow' disc of Lady Gaga or Adele or Beyoncé in surround today would attract a lot of attention even if the sound was set to 'impress'. Subsequent recordings could go for quality. But such a scheme wouldn't work if it only delivered three discs a year that were relevant to a new audience.

Excellent point. And while surround may be the glitzy draw, you may even win a few young converts over to high-quality audio by offering them versions of The Killers records that actually have some dynamic range in them. I think one of the things you said in your first post is very important to the younger audience: Headphones. This is how many of them were introduced to high-quality sound; they do not have the animosity toward it that many audiophiles do. Moving them from earbuds to IEMs to amps and reference headphones would be a great way to bring them into good audio. From there? Really good near field monitors on their desks. Then it's just a short step to a room-filling system.

Audiophiles are trained or have trained themselves on hearing small differences. if these differences , once learned are perceived repeatably then they should add to the audiophile experience IMO. We care about differences which leave most people unmoved, dynamics and pin-point imaging for example.

I don't question that a bit, Frantz, I just question what is significant enough to be learned, to be perceived repeatedly, and to add to the audiophile experience. Given the same master, hi-res vs. redbook seems to be one of those things that always requires an explanation of what to listen for in a sighted comparison, and disappears in an unsighted one. Pinpoint imaging and dynamics? No one has to instruct me not to listen to the music to pick up on that.

Tim

 

[RBFC]

Humans typically process over 95% of environmental stimuli as visual information. Our eyes have become very discerning in terms of video presentation, since that is the sense upon which we rely most. Thus, even the casual HDTV demonstration is impressive compared to standard definition.

Hearing takes a back seat as a result of visual dominance. It would be interesting to see some well-run studies that presented blind individuals with redbook vs. high-resolution files. For those who rely more upon their hearing as a primary source of "survival", there may be some evolutionary reasons that high-res is struggling.

Lee

 

[Vincent Kars]

Almost all recordings are done in 24 today.
When truncated to 16 bit, dither is added to mask the quantization error.
Why? The answer is that without it we would hear the quantization error.
What if we would play the original 24 bits?
According to a lot of people we won’t hear the difference.
So dither is added to mask a difference we won’t hear?
Nice paradox.

 

[Lee]

I record classical in 24/176 and often 16/44 using a splitter cable. Even before any editing the benefits from hirez are clear. Better timbre of the violins and piano, deeper/wider soundstage, detail.

 

[RBFC]

I record classical in 24/176 and often 16/44 using a splitter cable. Even before any editing the benefits from hirez are clear. Better timbre of the violins and piano, deeper/wider soundstage, detail.

It is probably that most listeners just don't know what they're missing.

Lee

 

[mep]

It is probably that most listeners just don't know what they're missing.

Lee

Remember, you can't argue with the guy that wrote the article that Tim posted to start this thread off. He said so.

 

[Bruce B]

It is probably that most listeners just don't know what they're missing.

Lee

No, it's more like they don't know what to listen for!

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Almost all recordings are done in 24 today.
When truncated to 16 bit, dither is added to mask the quantization error.
Why? The answer is that without it we would hear the quantization error.
What if we would play the original 24 bits?
According to a lot of people we won’t hear the difference.
So dither is added to mask a difference we won’t hear?
Nice paradox.

Well, I guess the real question is how effective is the masking? The guy who wrote the article seems to think it is completely effective. I guess I must have figured it was open to discussion or I wouldn't have opened it to discussion.

Tim

 

[Whatmore]

I might be completely wrong but doesn't the extra 'redundancy' offered by 24bit allow greater flexibility for the end user. For example volume control and other processing (room correction?) in the digital domain with no loss in sound quality.

 

[fas42]

No, it's more like they don't know what to listen for!

Okay, I'm going to take this a little bit further ...

Bruce, in an earlier post I commented that on a minimal PC system there were clear, obvious, differences between the samples. And I am quite certain this is due to the quality of the electronics involved attempting to reproduce the subtleties. My following thought was that higher quality DACs would or should completely eliminate those variations in playback quality. Tim (we haven't lost old Tim, folks!) made a typical aside, but I'm curious as to your experiences in this regard ...

You see, the qualities of sound you ascribe to Hi-rez versus Redbook are exactly the elements that I use to determine whether there is low level distortion in CD playback. That is, loss of cymbal decay sound quality = distortion in playback. Correctly working Redbook easily reproduces that quality of sound ...

Frank

 

[Bruce B]

Okay, I'm going to take this a little bit further ...

Bruce, in an earlier post I commented that on a minimal PC system there were clear, obvious, differences between the samples. And I am quite certain this is due to the quality of the electronics involved attempting to reproduce the subtleties. My following thought was that higher quality DACs would or should completely eliminate those variations in playback quality. Tim (we haven't lost old Tim, folks!) made a typical aside, but I'm curious as to your experiences in this regard ...

You see, the qualities of sound you ascribe to Hi-rez versus Redbook are exactly the elements that I use to determine whether there is low level distortion in CD playback. That is, loss of cymbal decay sound quality = distortion in playback. Correctly working Redbook easily reproduces that quality of sound ...

Frank

Frank, I would say the differences would be MORE pronounced. The higher the quality of electronics and room, the better you can define subtlies in different sample rates and different masterings.

I can't hear the differences in the files on my laptop speakers or on our more modest system in our living room.

 

[JackD201]

I'm with Mr. Brown on this one.

 

[fas42]

Now... as you go down to 176.4, then 88.2 and finally 16/44.1, listen to these elements that I talked about above. Listen how the transient attack becomes more dull. Notice how the tone of the cymbal changes from crisp/pristine to dull and flat. Next, notice how the decay becomes shorter and shorter and the "room" becomes smaller and more dry with less reverb.

Bruce, I took the liberty of quoting from that original post on the other thread. To use your words, "dull and flat", is Redbook malfunctioning, crap sound in other words: "crisp/pristine" and long decay is what everyone wants the system to always reproduce, and what I've been working on over the years to sort out. Normal CD playback usually mucks it up, which is why one has to go the extra distance to get past those problems.

My point, again, is that the problem is not in the format, but in the quality and level of optimisation of the setup used for playback ...

Frank