Hi Esldude,
So I guess then, to your ears the BADA won out against other, similarly measuring DACs?
Is the dynamic range of CD sufficient?
- Thread starter Al M.
- Start date
Hi Esldude,
So I guess then, to your ears the BADA won out against other, similarly measuring DACs?
For any music, yes, 16 bits is plenty. For the fireworks recording which I produced in 2010, no. Issues with grain in the softer background sounds, which are 86dB below the explosions, exist, as well as an increase in noise when converting from 24-bit to 16-bit. Granted, this is an unusual situation, but there are such where SACD can really shine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5BdsoyhA7A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5BdsoyhA7A
Well, have only heard the BADA in one system. It was certainly excellent so it must have been doing its job. Some aspects vs the same music with a previous DAC make me think the BADA is better. And it would measure better than the previous DAC. But with the time between the two etc. perhaps I shouldn't make too much of it. I didn't have both DACs side by side to compare.
Really would like to see some difference testing of some top DACs. But alas, that doesn't seem to convince people of much.
I just came back from Goodwin's High End, after having purchased a CD transport that I had auditioned (Simaudio Moon Neo 260 CD), as a replacement for my old Wadia 8 transport that is dying. In the large room they had Magico Q7 speakers playing, driven by Spectral DMA-400 Reference monoblocks and as source the dCS Vivaldi DAC fed from server. Solo acoustic guitar was heard which sounded very good and enormously refined in resolution (only the image was too large, but that could be the recording). I asked the person from Goodwin's if that was a hi-res file and he said "it sounds like it". I asked him to look it up on the server because I was curious, and he did, saying "no, it's ordinary Red Book CD".
Why was I not surprised?
Why was I not surprised?
Hi Al, have you posted any comments about Q7 elsewhere on WBF? Was curious to get further opinions on it before I can hear it for myself. Don't wish to derail this thread so just asking, and I will go over to that thread. thanks!
Hm, there should be no "grain", only an increased stationary noise floor there. Something is wrong, probably in your software. This is more common than it should be.
I have no idea if I've already replied. Let us remember a few things.
1) The actual noise level at your eardrum due to the molecular nature of air is between 6dB SPL and 8dB SPL white noise. The only way (which is obviously unadvisable to say the least) to be rid of this is to put the listener in a vaccum so that there is no air on either side of his or her eardrum. Don't do that.
2) Going up 96dB from that puts one at 102dB SPL as a peak level. This is below what most speakers can reproduce, so it is possible that in a perfectly quiet listening room this could create a problem
BUT
3) Most listening rooms are in the 20-30dBa SPL range, or even worse in DBc. projecting up from even the 20dB level puts us at 116dB SPL peak. This is now reaching the range of most common, good, hifi speakers.
Now, room noise does not have flat frequency content. A reasonable estimate for a really good listening room under perfect conditions with very clean, very powerful speakers, suggests that 18 bits is enough.
For most rooms in a home, 16 bits is probably more than enough.
This, of course (note: BIG (*&(*&*( IF HERE), IF the CD is well-recorded.
Now, for extraordinary signals (fireworks, space shuttle takeoffs) reproduced at moderately close to realistic levels, using sound reinforcement systems in order to achieve the necessary levels, 16 bits is not enough.
For recording, 16 bits is not enough. End of discussion. It lacks overhead, noise floor, and ability to EQ, mix, and process. At least 20 bits is the minimum for a recording, and there's nothing wrong with as close to 24 bits as you can manage.
1) The actual noise level at your eardrum due to the molecular nature of air is between 6dB SPL and 8dB SPL white noise. The only way (which is obviously unadvisable to say the least) to be rid of this is to put the listener in a vaccum so that there is no air on either side of his or her eardrum. Don't do that.
2) Going up 96dB from that puts one at 102dB SPL as a peak level. This is below what most speakers can reproduce, so it is possible that in a perfectly quiet listening room this could create a problem
BUT
3) Most listening rooms are in the 20-30dBa SPL range, or even worse in DBc. projecting up from even the 20dB level puts us at 116dB SPL peak. This is now reaching the range of most common, good, hifi speakers.
Now, room noise does not have flat frequency content. A reasonable estimate for a really good listening room under perfect conditions with very clean, very powerful speakers, suggests that 18 bits is enough.
For most rooms in a home, 16 bits is probably more than enough.
This, of course (note: BIG (*&(*&*( IF HERE), IF the CD is well-recorded.
Now, for extraordinary signals (fireworks, space shuttle takeoffs) reproduced at moderately close to realistic levels, using sound reinforcement systems in order to achieve the necessary levels, 16 bits is not enough.
For recording, 16 bits is not enough. End of discussion. It lacks overhead, noise floor, and ability to EQ, mix, and process. At least 20 bits is the minimum for a recording, and there's nothing wrong with as close to 24 bits as you can manage.
Hi Lloyd, sorry I can't help you there. I was in that room for only a few minutes and heard a bit of just that one piece (and talked with that tech person from Goodwin's a little). The high resolution was immediately evident, but I can't tell you more.
I don't agree with the statement that 16 bits is not sufficient to record with is an uncontroversial statement. I think there are plenty of people on this forum that don't believe that and think that Nyquist tells them that using 16/44.1 allows you to record anything with absolute fidelity.
That depends on the method of dithering. Analyzing the waveform down near the floor, there are only 5-6 digital steps left to convey that background sound. And yes, there is a huge increase in noise floor. The master recording has none of the grain and no audible hiss. The 16-bit downsampled version introduces some hiss and the grain becomes apparent. No surprise, since there are only a handful of voltage levels left to convey the signal and the waveform looks like a staircase down there below -86dB. Not so on the 24-bit master.
I believe there is a misunderstanding here. I specifically said 'final release format for recordings'. But there usually is some processing going on in between the recording and the CD. From the article quoted in the OP:
While professional editing, mixing, processing, equalizing and level shifting usually use more data bits for computation (24 bits linear, 32-bit floating point or now 48-bit linear), 16 bits is more than enough for unlimited fidelity as a release format.
The reason we use more bits in production is so we can create and preserve a true 16 bits through the whole process after all the truncation and rounding and nastier stuff that goes on between the microphone and your CD.
By the way, Nyquist has little to do with 16 bit, 44.1 kHz does.
Properly dithered at A/D and after any intermediate processing, and then properly reconstructed at D/A, there will be no "stair steps". The analogue result will be identical to the original analogue signal(*) plus the noise added by the dither. In other words, what you hear after competent A/D - D/A will be identical to what you hear if you listen to the original analogue signal with the dither noise added to it. No added "grain" or other anomalies, which would indicate a less than competent A/D - D/A process. That's what I understood JJ to say, and I sure as heck aren't going to argue with him.
(*)Properly band limited to below the Nyquist frequency, of course.
No, that's wrong. If there is any granularity when you are down to even 2 levels, then the dithering is broken. Broken. Wrong. Incorrect. Faulty.
Granularity proves nothing more or less than that the dither used is bad. Your bit about "handful of voltage levels" is utterly irrelevant and has nothing to do with the problem whatsoever. You can get it right with only 2 levels.
I agree that dither (and smoothing) can make a huge difference (and I can hear a huge difference between the way a Sony BD player and an Oppo BD player reproduce the 16-bit version of this recording. However, my observations are based upon observing the digital waveform from the 16-bit digital file in SoundForge, with the vertical axis magnified to allow inspection down to the LSB. Now, if you have only two levels left, that's on and off, so your granularity is 100%. Granularity is inversely proportional to the number of steps. The more you have, the more voltage levels can be conveyed. If there aren't enough bits/steps, the small changes in level are going to sound switched and abrupt, an effect we perceive as 'grain'. No matter how good of a D/A converter being used, it can't create information that isn't there.
That is not how it works. A properly functioning DAC does not produce "steps" in the output. It will produce a continuous wave that can represent any arbitrary voltage level in the output range. That is why a DAC includes a reconstruction filter.
Let's test your assertion which says that something with only 2 steps must be bad. Ok.
For instance, SACD home systems use a 1-bit playback DAC. Yes, they oversample, but in that revelation lies your failure to understand how it all works. SACD uses oversampled, noise-shaped PCM. Yes, boys and women, that's all SACD is, an inefficient form of PCM.
When you have no oversampling, it is still entirely possible to switch that 1 bit (2 level) system so that the resulting sound is pure white noise. That's what dither is supposed to do, and what it does perfectly well when it's done properly.
As to your illusion of steps, don't forget that there is a reconstruction filter in any DAC, so you don't actually see the steps in any case.
You are operating from a point of view that has been intentionally propagated by some completely irresponsible authors and bloggers, which I am not blaming you for, HOWEVER, I must advise you that you are flat-out wrong in your assertion that you MUST have granularity at low levels in PCM.
SACD is a perfect example of how that has to be wrong, since it's a 1-bit system that is oversampled, yet lacks granularity. And, yes, it's oversampled PCM with quantization noise shaping, nothing whatsoever more or less, despite all of the hype and claims about it.
Similar threads
