tima said:
ack said:
With video, the you-are-there feeling can be there with higher refresh rates; some TVs do that really, really well.
Yes. Analogies may help with the notion of resolution in audio. And further helpful in our attempts to communicate with one another in describing sound.
Similar to what you're pointing out, is visual resolution based on the number of pixels available. Think about viewing a photo on a computer monitor and those monitors evolving from say 640x480 to 1280x1024 pixels. With more information can come increased image clarity. While obscured detail may be there to emerge or not, where, imo, the real improvement comes is in what I might call improvement in the density or depth of what is perceived. We might think of this in audio as relates to tonal density or depth, (not image depth) or perhaps harmonic saturation - more information about something already present (a tone), not something new or additionallly present (a previously unheard tone, though that could also happen.) To go back to video, it is something like more of the same information. Take the analogy of a tone to a color - a higher pixel density may cause the color to appear richer, more 'solid'. This is something of a thought experiment so bear with me. I don't know if analog sound can be perceived 'more analog' or 'less analog'; a notion worth exploring. (Trying to keep the combustion level low by not using the 'D' word.)
Or consider 'continuousness' - a term HP liked to use, and one I struggled with - I'm still not certain I grasp what he meant by it. Holt never takes it up. One possible meaning is 'flow.' And here the video analogy in terms of number of pixels and refresh rate may help. Lower pixel-count motion is 'less even', less continous, even with a higher refresh rate(?). More information of the same type in audio (higher resolution) - think for example of note decay, its length and tonal completeness - yields more continuous continuousness. (My pardon to the nominalists.) Could this be a form of 'resolution'? - but not in terms of detail, which seems the more commonly cited use of the term.
I must say that I consider that analogies in high-end stereo are usually misleading and limit the debate to the superficial aspects.
IMHO resolution in audio is not correlated with signal to noise ratio or number of bits, except for a limited range of values that are outside what we are debating. Curious that you pick the 'continuousness', something that I also find is very interconnected with resolution.
HP had a interesting essay on it in the review of the conrad johnson ART preamplifier, highlighting this characteristic of the ART. And yes, I owned it and it had plenty of 'continuousness' - this magic attribute that makes you follow the music and apprehend the small details without effort. If someone valuates a lot this 'continuousness' he will find that later preamplfiers , such as the ACT's were a back step - they sounded more detailed but had less 'continuousness'. But the market was asking for more detail and slam and cj followed that line.
Hello ack, tima and micro,
A higher refresh rate/film rate does not, in-and-of-itself, lead to higher resolution. A higher refresh rate/film rate can lead only to higher perceived resolution (1).
Why do I say perceived resolution? Because we are perceivers. And we have been perceiving since the day we were born. Our brain has been hardwired via information taken from the eyes and processed in the brain.
When we watch a tennis ball fly through the air, our brain is processing a continuous stream of information in time. If we were to film that same tennis ball using the same lense on 35mm film at 24fps (an inherent pixel count of approx. 6K) and via 8K HD at say, 60fps (2), we would be subjugating that continuous event to a series on individual images captured contiguously in time. When we watch those images back, we are attempting to portray a contiguous process (over time) as a continuous one (in time) (3).
If we were then to take that 24fps film and look at each independent frame via a 6K digital intermediate (its “native” resolution), we would see individual images that lack specificity of image definition. Essentially, the ball will look blurred in every frame. Once projected digitally from the 6K intermediate, however, we would likely perceive a tennis ball flying through the air in a way some would agree is “true to life” (4).
However, if we were to view the 60fps HD footage as an 8K digital intermediate, we would see individual frames of greater image definition that are less blurred than the 24fps film footage, but curiously, once played back, some would potentially perceive the tennis ball’s movement to be less true to life -
despite the higher pixel count and the higher frame rate.
Why? Because we cannot but perceive reality. And although the 8K 60fps digitally-captured footage is technically superior in both pixel count and frame rate to the 35mm film, it’s our brain that defines whether or not something is “true to (our experience of) life”. The medium via the mechanism can only present a form of reality for our brains to evaluate via our perception - they themselves do not define reality.
When we talk about resolution then, what we are really talking about is information that most aligns with our brain’s perception of reality. Perhaps we can all point to very high resolution systems (audio and visual) that nevertheless were perceived to be less true to (our perception) of reality, or to use a problematic term, were perceived to be “unnatural” (5).
So it seems to me it’s impossible to talk about resolution in video and audio unless resolution is understood as a container for several variables (it is always color and contrast over time/pitch and amplitude over time) relative to our perception via the eye/brain and ear/brain mechanism. To define resolution solely in terms of frame and sampling rate relative to pixel count and bit depth is insufficient, I would posit.
My best to you, gentlemen,
853guy
(1) For the purposes of this discussion, I am limiting the notion of refresh rate to capture in fps since it can be quantified, rather than the variables of HD screens and their “claimed” refresh rates which are often marketing jargon disguised as legitimate specs.
(2) The Red Monstro is capable of 60fps at 8K Full Format (8192 × 4320).
(3) Analogue (tape/vinyl) is a process of continuous capture/playback. Digital is a process of contiguous capture/playback.
(4) Please note the qualifiers “likely” and “some”.
(5) I could point to some very high resolution cable lines as cases in point, but to do so would only tell you about my perception relative to my preferences and biases.
