[headwhacker]

  Thanks, that's helpful.  This thread has been eye-opening.  As someone who doesn't particularly believe in the power of $300 cables and pointy things on the feet of my equipment, I'm happy to read scientific proof that some of the questionable stuff is effectively bunk.

 
And for peace of mind you should do your own blind ABX test when you get the time. It will take some effort but it's worth it.

 

[Greenears]

@Stillhart
 
Please note I did not test the HDtracks 16 bit versions, although I have them.  I downsampled the 24 bit versions.  That's because I was not trying to answer the question you are asking.  I was asking whether the 16 bit format itself was a limitation.  If they only make a certain master available in 24 bit that's a different issue but I don't know if that is the case.

 

[kraken2109]

Be careful what you say about HDTracks. They're a forum sponsor and defended by the mods. Last time I called them a scam I got moderated, deleted posts, warnings etc

 

[Stillhart]

  Be careful what you say about HDTracks. They're a forum sponsor and defended by the mods. Last time I called them a scam I got moderated, deleted posts, warnings etc

 
Nobody called them a scam.  I asked if they were a scam and I got a reasonable response.  I wish they'd make it more clear that you're basically paying for a remastering job, not any HD benefits, but caveat emptor.  *shrug*
 
To be fair, I compared some of the stuff I've purchased from them to the CD version and the remastering on some tracks sounds pretty good.  I'm just not thrilled that I feel slightly misled as to the source of the sonic improvements.

 

[analogsurviver]

 
you should think you're paying for the remastering. and in some cases it's well worth paying as they can sound much better than the CD version. but it's a case by case situation. some remarstering are absolute crap. also some hires albums are just the CD version upsampled so nothing gained there.
that's why it's hard to give a straight definitive answer.
 
DSD is worst, as almost all DSD albums come from PCM masters. so if they touched nothing, you're actually losing "quality" in the conversion(not to mention that a lot of DSD players will convert the DSD back to PCM, so useless double conversion). but just like HDtracks and 24bit albums, some masters will only be available in DSD. so if you want that particular master, you need to get the DSD and a DSD player.
 
but yeah for us, the audio consumer, I would avoid thinking that high res equals to better sound.

I agree it is hard to give a definitive answer - due to the things mentioned.
 
But I could not disagree more about DSD being the worst. NOT if it started life as DSD and was edited with tools that go to LOW digit PCM only around the intended edit and do not touch the original DSD otherwise - and if played on DAC capable of native DSD playback. That is >>90% pure DSD - available from the consortium 
https://www.nativedsd.com/
 
I agree ALL downloads should be documented as well as recent remasters of Jazz at the Pawnshop - ADC this and this for PCM, ADC this and this for DXD, ADC this and this for DSD.   I agree that merely "upsampling" CD content available to everyone to whatever "hirez" format and charging for it is a fraud. Given the progress in computer audio, today's SOTA pro converters might well get eclipsed by better consumer converters in few years - and the same can be said about the software.
So, unless the download provider is willing to disclose the method by which the digital download has been created, I suggest caution with parting from your $. 
 
If applied/executed correctly/honestly, hirez DOES equate better sound. But there is much fishing in murky waters going on at the moment. And no, one can not expect The Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd to remain the test disc forever - there IS such a thing beyond which ever better digital formats can no longer bring out of (ageing...) analog master tape anything "better" ( provided that the downloader did obtain the access to the original masters in the first place ) - so ALWAYS approach the remasters of remasters of remasters ........-......of remasters with a grain of salt.
The last totally wrong one was (stereo) Beatles box of vinyl made from - DIGITAL remasters. Oh dear ... - paying that much for the WORST of both worlds...
 
This is an appropriate tale of the wisdom of Nasrudin 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin
: (from memory, read some 30 years ago...)
 
There was a custom that upon a visit by a friend, the host was required to order his wife to kill a chicken and prepare a nice chicken soup for the guest. So, a good friend comes to see Nassredin > wife>chicken>soup>happy friend. But - the same custom applied in case somebody comes to visit you and presents him/herself as a friend of that Original #1 friend. So....>wife>chicken>soup>happy friend #2 of a friend #1. AND... it applied to whatever friend # XY who presented him/herself as friend of the friend # (XY-1). Upon an umpteenth visit, the wife of Nasreddin went quietly, without even having been told to do so, with head down, to the ever more depleted chickenhouse, thinking of yet another chicken going down the drain - but this time Nasreddin caught up with her, pulled her to side and said :
 
"Now listen: go to the kitchen, chop some vegetables in the pot, WASH SOME FEET OF OUR CHICKEN in that pot, DO NOT kill any chicken - and boil/simmer  the soup as usual..." 
" ?????"
"JUST DO AS TOLD..."
 
So, this friend of a friend of a.......- friend waits patiently for the renowned superb chicken soup of Nasreddin's wife - and is in the end of course surprised by the few vegatables floating in that boiled water. 
 
Well - since you are a friend

of a friend of a...............  -  .................- friend,
 
THIS is
 
a soup from the soup from the ......... - of the soup of .............   ..the soup 

.

 

[cjl]

Analogsurvivor: I've kind of given up a point by point rebuttal of your posts, since it doesn't seem to matter. You don't have any evidence for any of your claims though, and they're completely unsubstantiated. 16/44 PCM is audibly perfect, and if you want to claim otherwise, you should really show some actual evidence (double blind listening tests or measurements of some kind of distortion which is actually known to be audible).

 

[analogsurviver]

  Analogsurvivor: I've kind of given up a point by point rebuttal of your posts, since it doesn't seem to matter. You don't have any evidence for any of your claims though, and they're completely unsubstantiated. 16/44 PCM is audibly perfect, and if you want to claim otherwise, you should really show some actual evidence (double blind listening tests or measurements of some kind of distortion which is actually known to be audible).

Cjl: I have only stated in my post that  it does matter whether any hirez is actual hirez or it is upsampled CD PCM redbook 44.1/16.
 
From your position, ANYTHING above the CD is an overkill, not required and in the end regarded as ripoff.
 
In one of the links "a couple of posts back" (in this or Testing Myths thread) , there was a reference to the list of papers presented at the AES convention in October 2014.
By Meridian, possibly most likely by
 http://www.aes.org/events/137/presenters/?ID=2425
- and one of the papers CLEARLY stated that for certain AUDIBLE signals CD is NOT transparent. Those who are members of the AES should be able to source this paper - there is any number of  discussions about it in the forums and my search for it is as good or flawed as any.  My pick is this: 
 
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?15255-Conclusive-quot-Proof-quot-that-higher-resolution-audio-sounds-different
 
It is a 155 page long thread - and I only went trough page one.  And no, although I will eventually go trough it all, I do NOT want to spend the time and resources merely to prove that 44.16 redbook CD is not enough. I know it - since I heard the Philips then prototype CD player in 1979 at our electronics show. Or was it 1980? - but that year it was alone. Next year, I remember besides production Philips model at least Hitachi - or maybe one or two more. The third year came the flood...
Of course, CD DID improve over decades - but basic limitations that put me off initially ( when I was in my late teens/early 20s with undoubtedly better hearing than today ) remain - they are inherent.
 
It boils down to this: if and when somebody or some organization has interest (or lack thereof ) in something, that person/organization will promote what is in his/its best (usually commercial) interest. Meridian used to be (mostly) CD oriented - but most probably they have been developing "beyond CD" behind the scenes for ages.
Once there are tangible results (backed with some proof), they decided to go public.
 
Another example is Chesky Records. I remember Chesky being one of the most outspoken opponents to binaural recording, less than 10 years ago. They did list a myriad of real, certainly plausible reservations against binaural. Look at their catalog
http://www.chesky.com/ 
now - AFTER they must have clearly "clandestinely" developed a successful binaural recording rig that sounds acceptable also on speakers - that is commercially far more viable than ordinary stereo recording. A decent pair of headphones and a decent DAP/DAC combo at say $500 and up level fed with a decent binaural recording will run rings around same music recorded in stereo and played on same value stereo speakers - and has incomparably more potential customers...- and no, they do not record redbook either. DSD - for a reason.
 
But to put it bluntly; whoever had ever had the chance to listen to (in order of falling preference) live music/live mike feed/ analog reel to reel tape / analog CASSETTE tape / analog record / vs CD will know what I am talking about. Except for live music, everything else omits "something" in ever greater measure - and although on paper CD may well "look" the best of them all, it never did sound as real as other on paper far more flawed above mentioned sources. Hirez, regardless if PCM or DSD based, is simply trying to allow for the sound quality of analog (with(out) all of its shortcomings like channel separation etc - I AM familiar with them and no, I am not going to present them as virtues, because they are not ) with the convenience of redbook - so what are you so much against ?
 
During the WW II, British had problem(s) with high flying German reconnaisance planes. While the progress on the official high altitude Spitfire version back in England was progressing at snail pace, real world pressing needs of warfare in Africa required action - immediately. So the 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Aboukir 
produced in practically field conditions a few Spitfire MK Vs that were stripped of EVERYTHING except one single gun in order to reach the altitude at which the Junkers JU 86 P/R were flying - with impunity so far. No radio /mast/antenna, no rear mirror, no paint (polished to the max to reduce weight/drag - I have read about it, although known photos show camouflage painted planes ), no rear seat armor - no NOTHING that was not absolutely required for the plane to still be able to fly. No pressurized cabin - with pilots willingly exposing themselves to the known and unknown dangers of flying at that high altitude. Such high flying Spit was meant to be used in pairs in order to bring the intruder low enough where more normally armed Spit could finish the job.
 
It is not entirely clear whether or not these Spits have actually achieved any recorded air kills (but they did at least inflict damage )  - but their mere presence stopped the Germans from  flying. Which is de facto as good as shooting them down - without this additional air reconaissance, the Desert Fox no longer could place his numerically inferiour forces so effectively as before. It is a small, but important part of the mosaic in the African campaign.
 
Official high altitude Spit MK VI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire
did not become available for another year or so after these Aboukir field conversions/strip-downs proved successful - and you can  count on the fact that NOBODY on the British ( or Geman...) side gave a damn whether these planes were "officially approved" or "botched in the field" - they fulfilled the NEED - and that was all that mattered.
 
Similarly to the number of high flying planes ( <<<<< 1 % of total sorties by Luftwaffe ), what can not be captured by CD redbook 44.1kHz/16bit may be rare - but, like those few spy planes, can not be neglected/ignored. Were it not for that handful of ( less than five )  field modified Spits, the war would at the very least be prolonged - if not worse.

 

[RRod]

   
Nobody called them a scam.  I asked if they were a scam and I got a reasonable response.  I wish they'd make it more clear that you're basically paying for a remastering job, not any HD benefits, but caveat emptor.  *shrug*
 
To be fair, I compared some of the stuff I've purchased from them to the CD version and the remastering on some tracks sounds pretty good.  I'm just not thrilled that I feel slightly misled as to the source of the sonic improvements.

 
I find lack of details… disturbing. It would seem easy enough for companies to put all kinds of information on hi-res masters on their websites. And not just "hey, this is 24/192", but actual differences to listen for in masters that go beyond "we made it louder so it will sound better." And of course they are usually low on comparison tracks, because if there aren't any mastering changes, then there really isn't anything to offer audibly from the higher rates/bit depth.
 
Take the Pono store right now. Admittedly it's still a work in progress, but there's no information for a prospective buyer. OK, $25 for a new recording of Sounds of Silence… why? Because 24/192? That's it? No blurb about any new mastering or anything comparing it to the 16/44.1 version available for regular CD price? So yeah, I guess it's just the arbitrarily spaced graph of album resolution that supposed to make me want to pay double. L'sigh.

 

[Greenears]

So I'm back into testing again. I bought HD Tracks Daft Punk Random Access Memories Hi rez, 88/24. Instant Crush track 05, I'm about 16 trials in and getting nothing.  My standard system of Sox 24 to 16 conversion, no dither (I know everyone gets on me for that). I thought I might have something to latch onto on a number of marks but none of them have panned I'm I think 7/16 and clearly guessing.   Anyone have any other tracks/marks they can suggest?
 
I have listened to this album a bunch over the holidays but now that I convert to 16 and actually try to ABX features I thought were due to 24 bit are apparently in the 16 bit downconvert.  But ... I've seen this before some tracks I can never get past guessing, then I'll find one and I can do reasonably well.  I really want to get a positive on ABX.  Please help me!

 

[Stillhart]

  So I'm back into testing again. I bought HD Tracks Daft Punk Random Access Memories Hi rez, 88/24. Instant Crush track 05, I'm about 16 trials in and getting nothing.  My standard system of Sox 24 to 16 conversion, no dither (I know everyone gets on me for that). I thought I might have something to latch onto on a number of marks but none of them have panned I'm I think 7/16 and clearly guessing.   Anyone have any other tracks/marks they can suggest?
 
I have listened to this album a bunch over the holidays but now that I convert to 16 and actually try to ABX features I thought were due to 24 bit are apparently in the 16 bit downconvert.  But ... I've seen this before some tracks I can never get past guessing, then I'll find one and I can do reasonably well.  I really want to get a positive on ABX.  Please help me!

 
Can you please clarify?  You're looking to hear a difference between HD and CD?  Isn't this thread about how there's no difference?  Or am I missing something?

 

[RazorJack]

  Be careful what you say about HDTracks. They're a forum sponsor and defended by the mods. Last time I called them a scam I got moderated, deleted posts, warnings etc

 
I know how this feels man, been in a similar situation concerning a cable manufacturer.
 
Don't worry, at least freedom of speech applies to one section of Head-fi: the Science forum!

 

[bigshot]

I'm the king of getting in trouble for that.

 

[Greenears]

   
Can you please clarify?  You're looking to hear a difference between HD and CD?  Isn't this thread about how there's no difference?  Or am I missing something?

To 16 or to 24 that is the Question!  Or what was the question again?
 
You need to scroll back the last 10-20 pages or so for my other posts.  My summary:
 
The OP made a lengthy statement advocating that 16 bit is all that is needed and then invited rebuttals.  I attempted to ABX test 24 bit vs 16 bit tracks to prove it one way or the other.  Unfortunately my tests have not been as conclusive as I thought they would be.  I'm still searching for that one track where I can get 9/10 and really definitely show there is an audible difference in 24.  I took a few week hiatus, RAM is my newest attempt.  I've gone through the HD Tracks sampler, the Linn sampler, and a few other suggestions.  RAM album was suggested by someone way back so I thought I'd have a crack at it.  In short, so far I've got tantalizingly close on a couple of tracks, but on many others it's clearly guessing.

 

[Stillhart]

  To 16 or to 24 that is the Question!  Or what was the question again?
 
You need to scroll back the last 10-20 pages or so for my other posts.  My summary:
 
The OP made a lengthy statement advocating that 16 bit is all that is needed and then invited rebuttals.  I attempted to ABX test 24 bit vs 16 bit tracks to prove it one way or the other.  Unfortunately my tests have not been as conclusive as I thought they would be.  I'm still searching for that one track where I can get 9/10 and really definitely show there is an audible difference in 24.  I took a few week hiatus, RAM is my newest attempt.  I've gone through the HD Tracks sampler, the Linn sampler, and a few other suggestions.  RAM album was suggested by someone way back so I thought I'd have a crack at it.  In short, so far I've got tantalizingly close on a couple of tracks, but on many others it's clearly guessing.

 
Well it would seem that you've failed to prove your hypothesis.  Which was the expected result according to the first post.  Correct?

 

[castleofargh]

  So I'm back into testing again. I bought HD Tracks Daft Punk Random Access Memories Hi rez, 88/24. Instant Crush track 05, I'm about 16 trials in and getting nothing.  My standard system of Sox 24 to 16 conversion, no dither (I know everyone gets on me for that). I thought I might have something to latch onto on a number of marks but none of them have panned I'm I think 7/16 and clearly guessing.   Anyone have any other tracks/marks they can suggest?
 
I have listened to this album a bunch over the holidays but now that I convert to 16 and actually try to ABX features I thought were due to 24 bit are apparently in the 16 bit downconvert.  But ... I've seen this before some tracks I can never get past guessing, then I'll find one and I can do reasonably well.  I really want to get a positive on ABX.  Please help me!

if you want to have fun try to find the CD version ^_^. I also went with that for some tests because I also read somewhere(who the hell wrote that??????) that it was a meaningful album to test high res. well I haven't been disappointed, on the hires version my brains are physically vibrating with the bass and sub bass boost. it sure is a meaningful album to see how they're selling us a mastering under the label "high res". 
 
I wonder if the guys suggesting this album are so bad at noticing differences that they actually mistake a remaster and several db variations for being the result of high res recording?
 
it conforted me into thinking that classical and some well recorded jazz stuff are the way to go when looking for details and dynamic.