[pinnahertz]

Lots of places, even movie sound tracks have better formats now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video

You said "outside of audio". That is all audio.

Yes. 30 years out of date.

You said "obsolete". Last I looked (like a few seconds ago) CDs are still produced by the millions, and as I said, the vast majority of all distributed music is distributed at 16/44.1. That makes it not "obsolete" or "out of date" by any definition.

Sad isn't it.

I'm not clear on what you mean. What about it is sad?

No, not nonsense or being ridiculous, my opinions and view are mine and you are free to disagree, but please don't belittle people you disagree with.

You were making statements as fact. They didn't sound like opinions, and were not based in reality. You can desire a (theoretically) higher resolution format, that doesn't mean because you do, and because a tiny bit of the total produced music is available that way, doesn't mean 16/44.1 is obsolete, outdated, or inadequate.

You also appear to contradict yourself here - saying there is no demand for a decent format but then saying people buy what is available.

That is not a contradiction, that is simply stating fact.

Threads like this however make me realise that for every audiophile who would want a better format there is a crowd of people just waiting to rush up to explain why they don't need it, and in this way we stay with these pointless discussions and no progress is made.

Progress is driven by demand for advance, or the solving of a fundamental inhibiting problem. These discussion don't inhibit or promote anything.

Any time a music industry product manager looks at these threads they see the vocal defence of 16/44.1 which is frankly rather sad.

They're not even looking at this at all, and even if they did, a half-dozen bickering old guys does not constitute responsible market research.

It doesn't matter to the industry unless you can actually sell it. To sell it, the product has to fill a significant (not a tiny splinter) demand. The bulk of the demand for music is today satiated by YouTube...free music, on demand, and you don't even have to buy anything. The rest is 16/44.1 downloads. The quality limiter in those files is all in creative choices and mastering choices driven by the industry's percieved competitive evaluation of the market.

It looks like for the best formats we can only look to the video industry and hope one day that the format of dedicated audio will ever be as good,

You mean the film industry, not the video industry. Film audio in consumer distribution has the capability of 24 bit at various rates, but not all released films are released that way. The reason that any of it is available in 24 bit is because the film industry has a release chain that can handle it without incompatibility, and the production chain is all 24/48. Hence the standard rate for film distribution (and video only productions) is 48kHz, but 24bits is not as standard.

The music industry does not have that cohesive and universal release chain, they must always release in 16/44.1, and can do other formats if the feel there's a financial advantage, which mostly there is not, and so they don't.

but if this thread is any indicator, I think we'll always be using the inferior, obsolete 16/44.1 format

The factual definition of "obsolete" does not apply to 16/44.1, regardless of your opinion. Inferior, well, you can have that opinion if you want, there's no actual proof.

and playing with dithers (not a good idea if you are feeding the output into a digital room EQ or crossovers) and upsampling.

Digital room EQ and crossovers all operate at at least 24 bits, and are downstream of the volume control. The fact that all that horrible and unlistenable 16/44.1 material is dithered has absolutely no impact on what room EQ and crossovers have to do. None at all! Just to be clear, this is NOT an opinion, this is FACT. A volume control in a typical system spends most of its time at -20 or -10, that puts any dither signal at -113 to -103, which is below the residual noise floor of any 24 bit EQ or crossover. With the volume control at "0", the noise floor in the recording will be the limiting factor (or the room), and not dither. Dither signals, the good ones, are shaped to minimize audible noise contribution and maximize their intended purpose.

 

[bigshot]

My sub major in college was English. Maybe that's why line by line commenting makes me just want to skip over the whole post. I blame the internet for chopping up thoughts into tiny bits and forcing the reader to reassemble them like a jigsaw puzzle. I like nice paragraphs that start out with a clear premise, followup proofs and examples, and finish off with a neat summation. Assemble a few of those together with logical flow and you end up with a convincing argument.

 

[pinnahertz]

My sub major in college was English. Maybe that's why line by line commenting makes me just want to skip over the whole post. I blame the internet for chopping up thoughts into tiny bits and forcing the reader to reassemble them like a jigsaw puzzle. I like nice paragraphs that start out with a clear premise, followup proofs and examples, and finish off with a neat summation. Assemble a few of those together with logical flow and you end up with a convincing argument.

Tell me now, honestly, would it work better for you for me to number my responses? I find that just a tad more confusing for me, but if reads better...

I do prefer to respond to individual points, writing a long paragraph makes people have to extract and apply the responses to the original post. I agree, it chops things up, but it kind of dumbs it down to the specific. I'm willing to change, though.

 

[pinnahertz]

I suppose I could wrap my sandwich in a 40 gallon lawn and leaf trash bag and seal my letters with 3 inch fiber reinforced duct tape, but a sandwich bag and licking the envelope work just as well. File size does matter. I have a large music library with over a year and a half worth of music on it. It all fits on a 2TB hard drive with room to spare. That makes it easy for me to back up, stream over my home wifi network, and load onto my mobile devices. I could store everything at 24/192 but it would be much less convenient and wouldn't sound a bit better. Super high bitrates in blu-ray movies are just as much of an advertising gimmick as "HD Audio" in music. There are people willing to pay extra for sound they can't hear. The nice big numbers give them peace of mind, so the format allows for that. Regular plain vanilla CD sound quality is already into the range of overkill. Lossy audio can be audibly transparent and sound just as good to human ears.

The lawn leaf trash bag and reinforced duct tape... funny!

Did you ever calculate how big your storage would have to be if your entire library were 24/96? Or uncompressed 16/44.1?

Just an observation, the Blue-ray disc is not a very successful format. Download/streaming/buying content has won that war, and none of that is uncompressed 24/96, not even close. And sounds just fine.

In the big picture, the quality of the content hasn't been the limiting factor for some time, it's the reproducing system and the environment its in. The 16/44.1 container has exceeded general reproducing capabilities since inception.

 

[WoodyLuvr]

I suppose I could wrap my sandwich in a 40 gallon lawn and leaf trash bag and seal my letters with 3 inch fiber reinforced duct tape, but a sandwich bag and licking the envelope work just as well. File size does matter. I have a large music library with over a year and a half worth of music on it. It all fits on a 2TB hard drive with room to spare. That makes it easy for me to back up, stream over my home wifi network, and load onto my mobile devices. I could store everything at 24/192 but it would be much less convenient and wouldn't sound a bit better. Super high bitrates in blu-ray movies are just as much of an advertising gimmick as "HD Audio" in music. There are people willing to pay extra for sound they can't hear. The nice big numbers give them peace of mind, so the format allows for that. Regular plain vanilla CD sound quality is already into the range of overkill. Lossy audio can be audibly transparent and sound just as good to human ears.

Can't help but remember the days when we are all happy with vinyl at 30-35 kHz if we were extremely lucky... which btw equates to less than 11 bits of resolution!

A long time ago there was an interesting listening test that took a 44 kHz/16-bit clip and converted it to 11 to 15 bits with dither... the test showed that most people could distinguish 11 bits, some 12 bits, but very, very very few could tell 13-14 bits or more.

 

[pinnahertz]

Can't help but remember the days when we are all happy with vinyl at 30-35 kHz if we were extremely lucky... which btw equates to less than 11 bits of resolution!

I don't recall ever being happy with vinyl. I pushed it as far as it could possibly go, it always fell short. Always, and in several aspects. It has several unsolvable problems, and those of us working with it professionally were never unaware of those limitations. They weren't small, and they were audible. And even the earliest digital systems nuked pretty much all of those problems.

30-35kHz isn't a real figure on vinyl apart from distortion products and CD-4 carriers which required a special stylus and cart to recover. Getting good equalized flat response to 20kHz was challenging and limited to fairly low level signals.

And, apart from all that nasty "phase distortion" in digital audio...you should see what a square wave looks like coming off a phono preamp and cart! Blech.

A long time ago there was an interesting listening test that took a 44 kHz/16-bit clip and converted it to 11 to 15 bits with dither... the test showed that most people could distinguish 11 bits, some 12 bits, but very, very very few could tell 13-14 bits or more.

I recall that, can't remember where I saw it. AES paper? I also recall the results being highly condition specific.

 

[WoodyLuvr]

I don't recall ever being happy with vinyl.

Not even a happy memory of Christmas LPs playing in the background as a kid at your grandparent's house?

 

[StanD]

Not even a happy memory of Christmas LPs playing in the background as a kid at your grandparent's house?

Perhaps this is in the context of listening to music in a more pure sense rather than holiday nostalgia. He was probably too busy trying to score some spiked egg nog.

 

[bigshot]

I have great sounding LPs. They're perfectly serviceable. Personally, I think that the last real achievement in sound quality (aside from multichannel sound) was stereo in 1952. Everything since then has been serviceable... even cassette tapes and 8 tracks. CD cleaned up the niggling details and made it a skosh beyond perfect... which is very nice.

But the odd thing is, for some reason it's VERY difficult to transfer an acoustic recording made in the pre-electric era to digital and have it sound remotely like it was intended to sound. The dynamic range and volume of an acoustic phonograph playing a Caruso record is awe inspiring, but on CD it sounds thin and distant. I did some experiments transferring old records and was able to match the sound well, and even get it to sound a little bit better than on a good acoustic phonograph, but it took a lot of work and processing. It also took throwing out any attempt at reducing horn resonances or squeezing a natural response curve out of it. I had to go for recreating the distortions the phonograph was adding in playback. The sound of the phonograph was a big part of the sound of the music.

I do prefer to respond to individual points, writing a long paragraph makes people have to extract and apply the responses to the original post. I agree, it chops things up, but it kind of dumbs it down to the specific. I'm willing to change, though.

I find it is clearer and easier to read if I quote as little as possible and always restate the context in my answer at the beginning and end of each paragraph. That way people's eyes can read the flow of my comments straight ahead without having to apply a numerical key or jump back and forth between two completely different voices. On the internet, people generally blow through writing pretty fast, so it helps get points across if I organize my comments into easy to read chunks. It also makes it easier for people to reply to my comments, because they aren't dependent on a second level quote for context. Brevity is the soul of wit and concise is nice!

 

[pinnahertz]

I have great sounding LPs. They're perfectly serviceable. Personally, I think that the last real achievement in sound quality (aside from multichannel sound) was stereo in 1952. Everything since then has been serviceable... even cassette tapes and 8 tracks. CD cleaned up the niggling details and made it a skosh beyond perfect... which is very nice.

But the odd thing is, for some reason it's VERY difficult to transfer an acoustic recording made in the pre-electric era to digital and have it sound remotely like it was intended to sound. The dynamic range and volume of an acoustic phonograph playing a Caruso record is awe inspiring, but on CD it sounds thin and distant. I did some experiments transferring old records and was able to match the sound well, and even get it to sound a little bit better than on a good acoustic phonograph, but it took a lot of work and processing. It also took throwing out any attempt at reducing horn resonances or squeezing a natural response curve out of it. I had to go for recreating the distortions the phonograph was adding in playback. The sound of the phonograph was a big part of the sound of the music.



I find it is clearer and easier to read if I quote as little as possible and always restate the context in my answer at the beginning and end of each paragraph. That way people's eyes can read the flow of my comments straight ahead without having to apply a numerical key or jump back and forth between two completely different voices. On the internet, people generally blow through writing pretty fast, so it helps get points across if I organize my comments into easy to read chunks. It also makes it easier for people to reply to my comments, because they aren't dependent on a second level quote for context. Brevity is the soul of wit and concise is nice!

Clearly you needed 24 bits.

 

[bigshot]

If I was recording a phonograph in a recording studio, I would definitely want to record in 24 bit. The peaks on Caruso records make your ears ring and can be heard a block away, and the sotto parts are in the same volume range as a natural whisper. It goes beyond just what's cut into the record. Specific brands of acoustic records were designed to be played back on specific brands of phonographs. They tuned the recordings to the acoustics of the machines. It's almost like a Dolby pre-emphasis thing. The mica diaphragm that vibrates to make the sound has its own effect, and it tends to emphasize some frequencies and expand the dynamic range by ringing with loud clear tones in a particular frequency range. (Kind of like a kazoo, except more controlled.) Horn resonances do things to the sound as well, and the placement of the phonograph in the room can make a big difference too. The sweet spot lies smack dab on the male tenor voice. There's more to the sound than just what's in the grooves. I learned a lot about sound reproduction from experimenting with my antique phonographs.

Early on in the days of multichannel there was a company that put out four channel recordings of a really good phonograph with a huge horn playing acoustic recordings in a concert hall. I never heard any of them because it was made in a strange obsolete format, but I regret not being able to hear the sound of those recordings. In 2 channel, they sucked.

 

[pinnahertz]

If I was recording a phonograph in a recording studio, I would definitely want to record in 24 bit. The peaks on Caruso records make your ears ring and can be heard a block away, and the sotto parts are in the same volume range as a natural whisper. It goes beyond just what's cut into the record. Specific brands of acoustic records were designed to be played back on specific brands of phonographs. They tuned the recordings to the acoustics of the machines. It's almost like a Dolby pre-emphasis thing. The mica diaphragm that vibrates to make the sound has its own effect, and it tends to emphasize some frequencies and expand the dynamic range by ringing with loud clear tones in a particular frequency range. (Kind of like a kazoo, except more controlled.) Horn resonances do things to the sound as well, and the placement of the phonograph in the room can make a big difference too. The sweet spot lies smack dab on the male tenor voice. There's more to the sound than just what's in the grooves. I learned a lot about sound reproduction from experimenting with my antique phonographs.

Early on in the days of multichannel there was a company that put out four channel recordings of a really good phonograph with a huge horn playing acoustic recordings in a concert hall. I never heard any of them because it was made in a strange obsolete format, but I regret not being able to hear the sound of those recordings. In 2 channel, they sucked.

I understand all of that, and have experience with acoustic recordings and acoustic phonographs.

But, even though you would probably use it, 24bits would be a complete waste to record acoustic records and machines. The total dynamic range is very small, strongly limited by a high noise floor..

 

[old tech]

If I was recording a phonograph in a recording studio, I would definitely want to record in 24 bit. The peaks on Caruso records make your ears ring and can be heard a block away, and the sotto parts are in the same volume range as a natural whisper. It goes beyond just what's cut into the record. Specific brands of acoustic records were designed to be played back on specific brands of phonographs. They tuned the recordings to the acoustics of the machines. It's almost like a Dolby pre-emphasis thing. The mica diaphragm that vibrates to make the sound has its own effect, and it tends to emphasize some frequencies and expand the dynamic range by ringing with loud clear tones in a particular frequency range. (Kind of like a kazoo, except more controlled.) Horn resonances do things to the sound as well, and the placement of the phonograph in the room can make a big difference too. The sweet spot lies smack dab on the male tenor voice. There's more to the sound than just what's in the grooves. I learned a lot about sound reproduction from experimenting with my antique phonographs.

Early on in the days of multichannel there was a company that put out four channel recordings of a really good phonograph with a huge horn playing acoustic recordings in a concert hall. I never heard any of them because it was made in a strange obsolete format, but I regret not being able to hear the sound of those recordings. In 2 channel, they sucked.

Is that the different pre-emphasis applied to early records before the RIAA standard was adopted?

I remember some of those early 50s/60s record players which had a knob to select various labels, eg RCA, Columbia etc.

Does that mean that to get the optimal sound from those early (pre RIAA) records today, one would need to know the de-emphasis curve and somehow implement it in the pre-amp chain?

 

[gregorio]

[1] No, not nonsense or being ridiculous, my opinions and view are mine and you are free to disagree, but please don't belittle people you disagree with.
[2] Threads like this however make me realise that for every audiophile who would want a better format there is a crowd of people just waiting to rush up to explain why they don't need it, and in this way we stay with these pointless discussions and no progress is made.

1. You are free to have any opinion that you want. However, if you want the opinion that 1 + 1 = 3, then yes, you are going to get somewhat belittled in a science forum because your opinion goes against basic fact. So, either you should make an effort to understand the basic facts or if you want to stick with your 1 + 1 = 3 opinion, then maybe a science forum isn't the right place to post it.
2. The discussion is only pointless when an audiophile insists on arguing that 1 + 1 = 3. You can argue for a better format all you want but within the audible range there is no better format than 16bit, 1 + 1 = 2!

[1] I'm not sure why you are saying I'm not looking at the waveform ...
[2] For instance a brief level of 0.5 bit is transformed from a truncated 0 with dither to a random 50/50 split between 0 and 1 which one hears as noise. Not a nice noise as in analog, but a rather coarse noise: try it on an 8 bit waveform and listen.
[2a] I don't think you realise what dither actually is, it's just noise added before quantisation to even out the quantisation errors, it doesn't actually make each little wavelet have the right shape, each point will still be quantized to the wrong value.
[3] Why exactly are you against 24bit, do you need a bigger disk or is it metering charges on the internet?
[4] But even disregarding that, I'm puzzled by the fight for 'good enough' .... [4a] Why are we demanding mediocrity in audio? [4b] Do we turn down 100W amps because we may only want 2W to use? ... [4c] Format wars appear to be the only branch of HiFi where people demand less, rather than more.

1. Because you are NOT looking at a waveform, you are looking at a graphical representation of the digital data. Zoom in to that representation and you'll see the discrete quantisation values, the "stair step" image BUT that's just the encoded digital data not the decoded data that come out of the DAC. Once decoded, there is no "stair step", a continuous analogue waveform!
2. It's not a nice or nasty noise, it's white noise and, it's way below the noise floor of the recording/reproduction with 16bit.
2a. I don't think you know what dither is, you need to learn that 1 + 1 = 2, not 1.5 or 3! The result of dithering is a perfect, error free signal plus some benign white noise!
3. And why are you just making up nonsense to defend your ridiculous "opinion"? I'm not in the least bit against 24bit, I've been using it every day since long before you even knew it existed! 24bit is very useful, just not for a consumer music distribution format.
4. And I'm puzzled as to why you keep repeating that nonsense when NO ONE is arguing for "good enough". We want many times better than good enough, which is why we have 16bit.
4a. I don't know, why are you demanding mediocrity in music? Why are you demanding higher data rate formats which make no audible difference whatsoever, instead of demanding better quality (not mediocre) music?
4b. OK, you want to avoid the question asked, so let's use your analogy. Let's say the vast majority of the time you only use about 2W but sometimes you use as much as 25W, although never more than 25W: Why would a 1000W amp not be enough? What benefit would you get from a 100,000W amp that you wouldn't already get from using a 1000W amp?
4c. Who's demanding less? I'm demanding perfect fidelity from digital audio, what more is there and what are you arguing for? If you're going to attempt a response to this question, just a reminder; this is the science forum and your opinion that 1 + 1 = 3 is not valid here!

G

 

[pinnahertz]

Is that the different pre-emphasis applied to early records before the RIAA standard was adopted?

No, he's referring to acoustic recordings where the actual characteristics were unknown, but different as a result of the materials and design of the recording device.

I remember some of those early 50s/60s record players which had a knob to select various labels, eg RCA, Columbia etc.

Those were all 78rpm "electrical" recordings where the actual recording curve was known, the switch matched that curve.

Does that mean that to get the optimal sound from those early (pre RIAA) records today, one would need to know the de-emphasis curve and somehow implement it in the pre-amp chain?

Yes. There have been many preamps with the ability to match the various recording characteristics. Here's a current one.