TheSonicTruth
1000+ Head-Fier
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1. To be pedantically accurate, noticing any difference may not ONLY be due placebo effect. The reason for this is that your second sentence is true, recording, mixing and mastering are far more important and there are quite a few cases where the CD version of a recording has different mastering than the hi-res version and therefore it can be relatively easy to tell the difference in some cases. As there is no intrinsic audible difference between CD and hi-res, there is the temptation to reduce the quality of the CD version and justify the higher price of the hi-res version. In some cases where audiophiles believe they're noticing a difference, it is as you say placebo effect but in other cases they maybe noticing a real, actual difference but it's between different masters, not the audio file format.
2. We have to be a bit wary of analogies with video and audio. HD in video (even 720p) is technically AND VISUALLY higher definition than standard definition. When greater than 16/44.1 audio became available, the audiophile marketing world jumped on the "HD" video bandwagon, but in order for the term "HD" (or "Hi-res") to have any meaning they had to call CD (16/44.1) "standard definition". This was effectively a lie/false marketing because CD is NOT anywhere near equivalent to standard definition video. Relative to the capabilities of human vision and human rearing, CD is in fact higher resolution/definition than even the latest 4K HDR video specification! Once we have a video specification that exceeds ALL the capabilities of human vision, then higher definition than that would be pointless and that's the situation we have with CD audio.
1. That's not always the case, some of the best studios can manage a dynamic range of over 90dB. It's VERY expensive though, you're looking at double-shell construction and other expensive isolation strategies/treatments to get the noise floor of the studio very low and then a particularly good sound system capable of high output levels (and low noise/distortion).
2. We have to be careful here and make the distinction between the "mix environment" and the "audio file format" absolutely CLEAR. Modern professional mix environments are typically 64bit (float), all processing ("levels, EQ and other effects") occurs at this bit depth and therefore even cumulative quantisation errors are way below our ability to even reproduce, let alone hear. However, this mix environment is completely INDEPENDENT of the bit depth of the audio file format we load into it. Whether we load a 16bit file or 24bit file into the mix environment is completely irrelevant as the processing (and quantisation errors) will all be at the 64bit level. So as far as headroom for processing during mixing and mastering is concerned, it's EXACTLY THE SAME with 16bit and 24bit audio files. The ONLY place where a 24bit file format can make any difference is for additional headroom during recording.
G
"1. To be pedantically accurate, noticing any difference may not ONLY
be due placebo effect. The reason for this is that your second sentence
is true, recording, mixing and mastering are far more important and there
are quite a few cases where the CD version of a recording has different
mastering than the hi-res version and therefore it can be relatively easy to
tell the difference in some cases. As there is no intrinsic audible difference
between CD and hi-res, there is the temptation to reduce the quality of the
CD version and justify the higher price of the hi-res version..."
I'm genuinely surprised that, as a widely regarded mastering engineer, you would admit that, Mr. C! I've been saying that for years, about composition, performance, recording, and mastering all being more critical than specific format.
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