[lamode]

  Time for some dusting of (long) obsolete charts ? 
 
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm

 
Thanks. Nice to see articles like this, though anything beyond 20kHz is only of academic interest, and even in this article the author admits that the ultrasonic frequency is mostly very low energy with the exception of the cymbals:
 

 "At least one member of each instrument family (strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion) produces energy to 40 kHz or above, and the spectra of some instruments reach this work's measurement limit of 102.4 kHz. Harmonics of muted trumpet extend to 80 kHz; violin and oboe, to above 40 kHz; and a cymbal crash was still strong at 100 kHz. In these particular examples, the proportion of energy above 20 kHz is, for the muted trumpet, 2 percent; violin, 0.04 percent; oboe, 0.01 percent; and cymbals, 40 percent."

 
Should a chart show a range up to 40kHz even if the output is 30dB down from the fundamentals? Or 60dB? There has to be a line drawn.
 
If humans could hear 50kHz, and most recording studios used microphones capable of recording this, I might sit up and take notice

 

[castleofargh]

I hate cymbals. I pretty much abandoned some of my favorite music genres just to get rid of it, or at least have it used in moderation. maybe that's it, I hate it because I'm able to perceive ultrasounds?

 

[StanD]

  I hate cymbals. I pretty much abandoned some of my favorite music genres just to get rid of it, or at least have it used in moderation. maybe that's it, I hate it because I'm able to perceive ultrasounds?

All of this talk of ultrasonic hearing abilities is driving me bats. I feel sorry for sonar operators on submarines. 

I have no idea where people come up with this stuff???

 

[spook76]

An very interesting interview with Steven Wilson arguably one of the best artist/recording engineers (Porcupine Tree and solo artist as well as the engineer behind Opeth to name one) today discussing high resolution music. http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/interview-steven-wilson-on-high-res-hand-cannot-erase/

If you have not heard 'The Raven That Refused To Sing' from Steven Wilson with Alan Parsons (after an almost 30 year away from the engineering, he was the man behind Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon) you need to listen. Whether you like the music the recording is impeccable.

Edit: I own the 24/96 of both of Steven Wilson's last two albums bought off his website as well as a 16/44 Redbook. In all candor, I cannot hear a difference between the high res and redbook with my rig.

 

[kraken2109]

An very interesting interview with Steven Wilson arguably one of the best artist/recording engineers (Porcupine Tree and solo artist as well as the engineer behind Opeth to name one) today discussing high resolution music. http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/interview-steven-wilson-on-high-res-hand-cannot-erase/

If you have not heard 'The Raven That Refused To Sing' from Steven Wilson with Alan Parsons (after an almost 30 year away from the engineering, he was the man behind Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon) you need to listen. Whether you like the music the recording is impeccable.

Edit: I own the 24/96 of both of Steven Wilson's last two albums bought off his website as well as a 16/44 Redbook. In all candor, I cannot hear a difference between the high res and redbook with my rig.

While i disagree with him here, his engineering always sounds very good. I am a big fan of his 5.1 mixes too.

 

[spook76]

While i disagree with him here, his engineering always sounds very good. I am a big fan of his 5.1 mixes too.

I do know if I disagree with him as he guesses that high res improvement is maybe a 0.1% difference. I also think he he hits the nail on the head with his comment about the confort knowing it is 24/96 which to me is the expectation bias (placebo effect) driving high resolution music.

 

[analogsurviver]

   
Thanks. Nice to see articles like this, though anything beyond 20kHz is only of academic interest, and even in this article the author admits that the ultrasonic frequency is mostly very low energy with the exception of the cymbals:
 
 
Should a chart show a range up to 40kHz even if the output is 30dB down from the fundamentals? Or 60dB? There has to be a line drawn.
 
If humans could hear 50kHz, and most recording studios used microphones capable of recording this, I might sit up and take notice

There is more to this HF business that should be "inaudible" - it is NOT. It is my experience for more than 30 years by now - audibly, musically.
 
It takes YEARS - if not decades - to develop/train this capability - preferably listening to live music (while recording it - helps a lot ). Great Musicians are, technically speaking, nothing but incredibly precise time modulated noise makers - and their time domain "performance" lies well above average person in general - or people on this thread, me included. 
 
http://m.phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html
 
What has all ABX boiled down for me?  Useful for gross large difference comparisons only - in an ABX, the difference between redbook and something serious can easily not be heard at all - or deemed too little to bother.
But - that is a BIG BUT - in the long run, like listening to an entire work ( listening to my recording of rehearsal of Bach's Johannes Passion in 192/24 vs DSD128 from two days ago while typing this ) in full resolution and its "equivalent" in redbook on high quality equipment leaves absolutely no doubt which IS better. 
 
It is in those 0.XYZ %,  below -60 dB, less than 14 microsecond rise times, etc. It is NOT a big difference, it can be glossed over easily - as it HAS BEEN since the "advent" of CD - yet it makes all the difference.
 
But - and this is an even, in real world, bigger BUT than the one above - 50 kHz and beyond capable microphones and EVERYTHING ELSE IN STUDIO CAPABLE OF SUPPORTING THIS BANDWIDTH means, for all practical purposes - upgrade - or probably more cost effective REPLACEMENT - of all the gear.  And has to go hand in hand with MUCH better recording practice than "20 kHz is enough" that established itself after CD. And THAT is bound to be fiercely opposed - with untold loads of CD evangelists helping along the way.
 
Hearing recordings of the same acoustic bass ( THE instument for testing audio gizmos - par excellence ) recorded with microphones from Earthworks that are essentially the "same" design - but mikes limited to 20, 30,40 and 50 kHz respectively - SOUND appreciably different ( within "house" sound - VERY neutral ) from each other - or other makes/models. Earthworks USED TO distribute these recordings on redbook CDs - which still trounce the mp3s (or whatever) they have satisfied themselves with on internet in the recent years.
 
DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with Earthworks nor am I using any of their equipment (yet). I cite it because, IMO, they have done the most regarding opening the mind regarding life beyond 20 khz - in microphones, at least.
 
There is at least one microphone capable of 100 kHz bandwidth - Sanken CO100K. To record this "flat", PCM of greater than 192 kHz sampling is required - and for DSD, it means at least DSD256. Such recorder(s) exist already - and is likely to expand in availability in near future.
 
Even if humans can not hear PURE SINE WAVE tones above 20 kHz - according to the above link, CAN - and - DO - discern extremely small time shifts (or whatever one might want to call it ). And is a reason why an elderly person, who is working with music/sound for all practical purposes whole life, despite the fact that his/hers hearing of pure tones is limited to 10 or even below kHz, CAN reliably describe the performance of the supertweeter better than a teenager with "perfect" hearing to 20 kHz - but without the training/experience required.
 
Bottom line - it is NOT that easy to break the sound by science in bits and pieces and then on the ground of a SINGLE parameter  claim anything - for certain. Just because (your) present equipment does not support it does not necessary mean that under proper conditions it will not be audible. There is a cost vs performance limitation, of course - but what once was unobtainable for most people, can be today had in midrange equipment. Today's TOTL gear with prohibitive prices will eventually trickle down to something still good enough and affordable to the dedicated enthusiast.

 

[analogsurviver]

  All of this talk of ultrasonic hearing abilities is driving me bats. I feel sorry for sonar operators on submarines. 

I have no idea where people come up with this stuff???

Submarines are THE place for the best electroacoustics gear - anywhere, anytime. PERIOD. Because their very survival depends on it - nothing less, nothing more.
 
In one nice review of recent DECCA boxes of CDs ( like 50 CD box ), it was clearly written that this breaktrough in what was later coined DECCA Full Frequency Sound *** was a direct consequence from the war effort by British engineers in order to produce equipment with which German subs could be detected before it was too late. Today, it is how sensitive/quiet the listening gear can be - once located, a sub today is barely beyond being a sitting duck. And it is acoustic detection that still reigns supreme underwater - why on earth any reasonably powerful navy on earth is supporting biologists researching "whales" 

 ?

 

[analogsurviver]

  I hate cymbals. I pretty much abandoned some of my favorite music genres just to get rid of it, or at least have it used in moderation. maybe that's it, I hate it because I'm able to perceive ultrasounds?

Watch and listen at you own peril...:
 

 

[StanD]

  Submarines are THE place for the best electroacoustics gear - anywhere, anytime. PERIOD. Because their very survival depends on it - nothing less, nothing more.
 
In one nice review of recent DECCA boxes of CDs ( like 50 CD box ), it was clearly written that this breaktrough in what was later coined DECCA Full Frequency Sound *** was a direct consequence from the war effort by British engineers in order to produce equipment with which German subs could be detected before it was too late. Today, it is how sensitive/quiet the listening gear can be - once located, a sub today is barely beyond being a sitting duck. And it is acoustic detection that still reigns supreme underwater - why on earth any reasonably powerful navy on earth is supporting biologists researching "whales" 

 ?

Electronic detection gear has nothing to do with what humans can hear. That or using whales or bats or whatever, makes for a ridiculous analogy in the context of this thread. I think much of your claims of super hearing capabilities are also absurd, even with 30 years of intensive training. As I've said before, Harry Callahan knew the truth when he said (in character), "A man's got to know his limitations."
Your other bits about above 20 kHz are also meaningless as we do not have the ability to hear this. Timeshifts with sine waves above 20 kHz, where do you come up with this stuff? Does that mean if I employ microwaves I can travel back to the age of dinosaurs?
If you believe this stuff and can enjoy it, that's fine with me, only I will NOT buy into it, not a single penny.

 

[RRod]

  Time for some dusting of (long) obsolete charts ? 
 
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm

 
So the article boils down to this: Oohashi. I'd love to know why this EEG stuff hasn't been followed up by a rigorous blind test where people are asked to identify when HF content is turned on or off, on equipment that handles the HF without audible IMD. Seriously, that's all you'd have to do to convince me that we should stick to higher bit rates (though 24 bits is pretty much dead in the water in terms of end-user delivery for me). If there's a well-done study with adequate sample size, I'd love to see it.

 

[jcx]

even Earthworks only include 50 kHz mic in their drum mic kit
 
fast mics have to have small diameter diaphragms and because of the small size they are too noisy for anything but close mic application - capturing sound that never reaches the audience
 
large diaphragm legendary vocal mics may roll off as low as ~14 kHz
 
useful studio practice and reproducing a "realistic" musical recording in the home are different

 

[bigshot]

Theory is great, but numbers can be deceiving. When the average person looks at frequency numbers, they don't take into account the fact that every octave doubles the number. Humans can hear something like ten octaves. But 20,000Hz to 40,000Hz is the exact same size range as 80Hz to 160Hz. When you talk about ultrasonic frequencies, 50kHz is just a hair over one octave above the top end of human hearing. Barely enough to spit at... Plus there isn't much to hear up there except for cymbal crashes even if you could hear it... Plus even if you could hear it, it would probably be masked by lower level harmonics in the cymbal crashes. Plus it's the an octave beyond the least important octave when it comes to sound quality.
 
It really doesn't make sense why audiophiles spend so much time worrying about things they can't hear and not about the stuff they can.

 

[analogsurviver]

  even Earthworks only include 50 kHz mic in their drum mic kit
 
fast mics have to have small diameter diaphragms and because of the small size they are too noisy for anything but close mic application - capturing sound that never reaches the audience
 
large diaphragm legendary vocal mics may roll off as low as ~14 kHz
 
useful studio practice and reproducing a "realistic" musical recording in the home are different

It is true that fast mics have small diameter and are more noisy - but that they are too noisy for anything but close mic application is NOT entirely true .  
 
I consider large diaphragm mics detrimental for the true fidelity. OK if one wants a particular flavour of the sound - beyond that - no.
 
It does take MUCH MORE than common knowledge - but listen how "noisy" is this recording done with matched pair 1/4 inch omnis ( there is air conditioning coming off the right side - NOT mic noise ...) - far away enough that even camera could not catch them, way beyond what audience in the parter could get to hear :
 

 
Original recording is DSD128 - and it sounds incomparably better than above YT.

 

[Don Hills]

  Watch and listen at you own peril...:

 
... to absolutely nothing above 18 KHz.