Colorfly C4 or HM-801? - Page 7

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee730 

Strange. I think you'll have more of a difference with 24 bit opposed to 16 bit in comparison to upping the 44 to 96 or 192. At least that is what I noticed.

Difference in what respect?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbradley02 

Difference in what respect?

With 24 bit in comparison to 16 bit I notice more air within the sound staging, more realism from the treble to bass (more detail) and placement within that sound staging is better (imaging). Not saying this is on all tracks but on well recorded ones very much noticeable to my ears. Treble and bass are the easiest things for me to pick out of them all but listening further I also hear the other subtleties which really make for an enjoyable music experience. Listening to Madonna in 24/192 and  Even Baltimora (Tarzan Boy Extended) really blew me away at how well recorded and dynamic they truly are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee730 

With 24 bit in comparison to 16 bit I notice more air within the sound staging, more realism from the treble to bass (more detail) and placement within that sound staging is better (imaging). Not saying this is on all tracks but on well recorded ones very much noticeable to my ears. Treble and bass are the easiest things for me to pick out of them all but listening further I also hear the other subtleties which really make for an enjoyable music experience. Listening to Madonna in 24/192 and  Even Baltimora (Tarzan Boy Extended) really blew me away at how well recorded and dynamic they truly are.

Are you comparing apples to apples? This would involve taking a 24 bit recording and transcoding it (with dither) to 16 bit. If you are comparing two differently mastered versions then it is not the same recording. Most often when a high resolution version is released it is also remastered.

I am skeptical that comparing a properly transcoded version would yield any difference.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded

You have a point. Although when I compared Audio Slaves 24 bit version to 16 bit its the same song. So I'm not really sure what you are trying to get at here? The same with madonnas albums from vinyl. There are some that are LP or extended versions which clearly are different. But there are also albums that are clearly the same, just of higher quality. Even on some of these albums there is stuff in the recordings that was taken out of the CD version. One example is Micheal Jacksons "Gonna Be Starting Something" or Ozzy Osbournes "Bark At the Moon" in 24/192.

I do have a downsampled version of Ozzy Diary of a Madman in 16/44. It still sounds rather good but still not quite on par with the 24 bit version.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee730 

You have a point. Although when I compared Audio Slaves 24 bit version to 16 bit its the same song. So I'm not really sure what you are trying to get at here? I do have a downsampled version of Ozzy Diary of a Madman in 16/44. It still sounds rather good but still not quite on par with the 24 bit version.
 

The original master recording is multi-track on either analog tape (Ozzy for sure) or digital. In digital this is mixed down to stereo and either downconverted or not. In the case of an analog master it is run through an ADC first.

This process is critical and can make a substantial difference in sound quality. Newer mastering is generally (not always) better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbradley02 

The original master recording is multi-track on either analog tape (Ozzy for sure) or digital. In digital this is mixed down to stereo and either downconverted or not. In the case of an analog master it is run through an ADC first.

This process is critical and can make a substantial difference in sound quality. Newer mastering is generally (not always) better.

Newer masterings are generally crappy a lot of the time because the lack of dynamics and the volume war. Although I bet with great mastering 24/96 could possibly be even better. But that's not so much the case these days. Although on my Korn albums and Disturbed Albums in 24/192 they are clearly an upgrade over 16/44 although I find their 16/44 material to be pretty well recorded. Just those added subtleties make for a more realistic sound presentation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee730 

Newer masterings are generally crappy a lot of the time because the lack of dynamics and the volume war. Although I bet with great mastering 24/96 could possibly be even better. But that's not so much the case these days. Although on my Korn albums and Disturbed Albums in 24/192 they are clearly an upgrade over 16/44 although I find their 16/44 material to be pretty well recorded. Just those added subtleties make for a more realistic sound presentation.

Strange - I have generally preferred new masterings, but then that is for old pieces that were mastered quite some time ago. Some examples that comes to mind are Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here and Jethro Tull Aqualung. I am definitely buying the new remaster of Thick As a Brick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbradley02 

Strange - I have generally preferred new masterings, but then that is for old pieces that were mastered quite some time ago. Some examples that comes to mind are Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here and Jethro Tull Aqualung. I am definitely buying the new remaster of Thick As a Brick.

Yeah I'm more so talking about newer music produced today. Older tracks do have benefits to being remastered if it is done properly. I really like how they redid Ozzy's Diary of a Madman. In Believer the Bass line is phenomenal and it's a night and day difference between the older recording.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbradley02 

That is correct.

Colorfly only supports maximum bit rates in WAV.

 

this for me is a really big negative, why did they chose this?

have they not realised that most hi-res downloads eg HD tracks are FLAC?

or are there more comprehensive hi-res WAV shops I am missing?

Quote:

Originally Posted by KT66 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbradley02 

That is correct.

Colorfly only supports maximum bit rates in WAV.

 

this for me is a really big negative, why did they chose this?

 

have they not realised that most hi-res downloads eg HD tracks are FLAC?

 

or are there more comprehensive hi-res WAV shops I am missing?

Never bothered me because I don't listen to lossless on portable, takes up too much space (now if it had over 100GB capacity that would be another story).

As far as FLAC vs WAV, it is trivial to transcode FLAC to WAV, but then you burn up even more storage.

I will try it as an experiment. Fleetwood Mac's Tusk in 24/192 is almost 5GB in WAV. I will see what the Colorfly thinks of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbradley02 

Never bothered me because I don't listen to lossless on portable, takes up too much space (now if it had over 100GB capacity that would be another story).

As far as FLAC vs WAV, it is trivial to transcode FLAC to WAV, but then you burn up even more storage.

I will try it as an experiment. Fleetwood Mac's Tusk in 24/192 is almost 5GB in WAV. I will see what the Colorfly thinks of it.

I see it as a none issue with micro SD cards available (120 GBs on the DX100). With the capacities going up it's only a matter of time. I still tend to use FLAC due to the tag support, album art and due to saving some space. But eventually when the SD capacities go up even further and prices come down I'll go to WAV. I also feel WAV sounds better. Enough so to warrant that extra space in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee730 

I see it as a none issue with micro SD cards available (120 GBs on the DX100). With the capacities going up it's only a matter of time. I still tend to use FLAC due to the tag support, album art and due to saving some space. But eventually when the SD capacities go up even further and prices come down I'll go to WAV. I also feel WAV sounds better. Enough so to warrant that extra space in the future.

That's interesting. I would think that they should sound identical, unless there is a flaw somewhere in the process of decoding and playback. However, you are not alone in feeling that way.....the Audiophiliac agrees with you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Achmedisdead 

 

That's interesting. I would think that they should sound identical, unless there is a flaw somewhere in the process of decoding and playback. However, you are not alone in feeling that way.....the Audiophiliac agrees with you.

I think you may be onto something. Technically you should have the same file once the file is unzipped. But I think something is going wrong during this process and is what is causing the discrepancies. Could be due to these things going on at the same time in the background while music is playing instead of having it done in independent steps (completely unzipping the file into WAV form, then storing it in memory cache, and lastly playing it back). I was surprised to hear those differences myself but it was enough so to really want to exclusively use WAV. Pretty much I try to get the most I can out of the music and if doing a simple thing as using the original file will improve things a bit more then why not? :). But until space is more available and affordable I can happily live with FLAC on my portables and use cPlay on my PC to have the advantage without having to waste space :).

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbradley02 

Never bothered me because I don't listen to lossless on portable, takes up too much space (now if it had over 100GB capacity that would be another story).

As far as FLAC vs WAV, it is trivial to transcode FLAC to WAV, but then you burn up even more storage.

I will try it as an experiment. Fleetwood Mac's Tusk in 24/192 is almost 5GB in WAV. I will see what the Colorfly thinks of it.

I only get into this hobby when hard drives and SD cards became bigger and cheaper, as a hi-end two channel fan I watched in the wings for years

I can see no reason at all to listen to anything lossy - I carry around 1 terrabyte of SD cards that take up the space of a cigarette packet

For me this hobby is all about quality not convenience