24bit vs 16bit, the myth exploded!

[kraken2109]

   
ok but can 24 bits sound WORSE that 16 bits? because dolby/dts HD are recorded in 48khz/24 bits.

Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio are both lossless formats.
24 bit cannot sound worse than 16 bit.

 

[stv014]

  24 bit cannot sound worse than 16 bit.

 
That is, unless it is a worse master than the (older and in some cases dynamically less compressed) 16 bit version.

 

[Danz03]

Whichever version sounds best is very subjective in a way. Someone like Brian Eno, who is a very experimental producer, did a lot of unconventional things for the production of U2's LPs, like fading in the intro of a song in mono and using a lot of lo fi techniques. The remasters could be technically better but not necessarily better artistically. An example would be the 25th anniversary surround mix of Queen's 'A Night At the Opera', of course technically, it's superior to the original mix from the 70s, but it doesn't mean everyone would prefer it to the original.

I'm not looking to find out which U2 releases sound best. I pretty much own them all, so I can figure it out myself (and have!). I just used it as an example. I'm trying to understand the correlation between the science of 24bit vs 16bit and the real life use of it. I appreciate everyone joining in the discussion with me. But while I understand more of the science now, I don't feel like I've come to a satisfying conclusion. But that's ok, it's just all the more reason to read and learn new things. I'm probably not asking the right questions to find what I'm looking for, because I most likely don't know what the right questions are. But I'm trying.

 

[Greenears]

@U2Bono269  >I don't feel like I've come to a satisfying conclusion
 
Don' be unsatisfied.  I wrote a whole three page thing about 20 pages back on this thread, you can read it if you want.  But the essence is don't be unsatisfied.  We're in the golden age of audio.  The problem is that some minor aspects of the science are murky so it may be hard to reach a definitive conclusion unless someone spends the money to do a test of about 300 listeners on modern (2015) equipment. 
 
However, it is very safe to say, that the absolute limits of human hearing are somewhere between 16-20 bits.  And 20 bits would be very loud, like front row of rock concert loud.  There is a reason to record things with more than 20 bits, which are technical problems of recording hardware and environment.   But once it is mixed and leveled you can drop the extra bits with absolutely no audible difference.
 
The most important thing I wrote is that although some disagree there is anything audible beyond 16 bits, even if it turns out there is something it is very very subtle.  20 vs 16 is not 25% better, it is 0.0001% better, if at all.  My testing in fact showed that even 12 bits sounds really amazing with a good quality master and nearly transparent.  Bits are exponential not linear. 
 
The problem I see now is that people are figuring on that 24 bit sounds the same as 16 bit, so the vendors are changing the master so that it sounds different to justify higher prices.  Whether better or worse sounding I don't know but it's got nothing to do with number of bits but of course everyone will get confused.  That is life.

 

[bigshot]

amen

 

[U2Bono269]

In terms of the audio itself, I feel very satisfied. In the past month or so since I've become more invested in increasing the quality of my audio equipment, my satisfaction has gone up siginificantly. Sometimes I feel like I'm listening to old albums for the first time, which is wonderful.
 
I did a lot of reading, and it seemed to me that maybe high resolution audio might allow for different mastering than was previously possible. I know now that this is not the case. My frustration was that I asked about that, and the majority of answers simply told me that 16 bits and 24 bits were indistinguishable and if I heard a difference it was because the master was different and I should do testing etc etc. But that wasn't what I was asking about. It took a while for someone to actually answer my question, and now I know that a CD can convey the same thing an HD track can. That wasn't clear to me at the time. So yes, the answers I received here were and are somewhat unsatisfying. It's one thing to compare 24bit to 16bit in a perfect vacuum, but I'm not yet convinced there are no other factors. Maybe our listening technology just isn't there yet? Who knows.
 
Maybe there are intangible differences or benefits that can't be quantified by our ears. There's a convenience store near me that uses one of the annoying high-frequency sounds at night to warn off teenage loiterers. I could hear it myself until I was about 27 or 28 years old (I'm 32 now). Now, when I go to the store, I don't hear the sound anymore, but if I stay there for longer than a few minutes, my ears start to feel full. I have sensitive ears, so if I'm sick or congested, my ears will actually hurt. So maybe having those extra bits and frequencies might be worth it at some point, particularly if technology is advanced to a point we can't really comprehend right now. Or maybe there are some people who are able to sense the vibrations of higher and lower frequencies and it contributes to their enjoyment of the music. Can that be proven? Probably not. Just something I think about during my long commute.
 
There are benefits  to HD music for me, however. I collect and trade concert recordings, and in that community lossless is king. Lossy files, no matter how transparent, are strictly forbidden. So I have a desire to go for whatever is closest to the original studio recording. If there are studio-quality versions of my favorite albums, that's what I want for my collection. If it's a different master, then I definitely want it. Luckily for me, my FLAC collection is strictly curated, so it kind of limits how much of a money pit this hobby becomes. For many albums, Spotify's high quality 320 stream is the best for me. For that reason, places like Pono and HDTracks will have a share of my business in the future.

 

[StanD]

@UBono269 CD's are 16 bit so perhaps some of those replies are relevant. If 16 and 24 bit make no difference at the distributed product, then I would think your question was answered.

 

[U2Bono269]

  @UBono269 CD's are 16 bit so perhaps some of those replies are relevant. If 16 and 24 bit make no difference at the distributed product, then I would think your question was answered.

 
But that was my point at the time: there could be a difference between commercial products and tracks we downsample ourselves in the comforts of our own home. You or I can take a 24/192 file, downsample it to 16/44.1, and it'll sound the same. I wondered if the same thing was done at the commercial level. Do professionals downsample like we do, and then do something else to the sound to make it more CD-palatable? Do engineers do things with the extra bits that we don't? Do all 24bit albums I can buy on HDTracks have identical-sounding CDs I can buy in the wild? Those questions are much more specific than "is there a noticeable difference?"
 
What I learned (I hope) was that without transparency in regards to mastering, we may never know that. I also learned that that's not related to the bits themselves, which I didn't know at the time, and has nothing to do with ABX testing.
 
So yes, those questions were eventually answered, but not in a manner than satiated my curiosity. If anything they just gave me more questions. That's all I meant by that.

 

[RRod]

   
But that was my point at the time: there could be a difference between commercial products and tracks we downsample ourselves in the comforts of our own home. You or I can take a 24/192 file, downsample it to 16/44.1, and it'll sound the same. I wondered if the same thing was done at the commercial level. Do professionals downsample like we do, and then do something else to the sound to make it more CD-palatable? Do engineers do things with the extra bits that we don't? Do all 24bit albums I can buy on HDTracks have identical-sounding CDs I can buy in the wild? Those questions are much more specific than "is there a noticeable difference?"
 
What I learned (I hope) was that without transparency in regards to mastering, we may never know that. I also learned that that's not related to the bits themselves, which I didn't know at the time, and has nothing to do with ABX testing.
 
So yes, those questions were eventually answered, but not in a manner than satiated my curiosity. If anything they just gave me more questions. That's all I meant by that.

 
Engineers CAN do extra things to any release that they didn't do to the initial CD release, but they don't HAVE to. I think that's a point people are trying to make. An engineer is more than welcome to make a great mix/master for the HDTracks download and make a trash, compressed, clipped, mono sounding master for the CD. That has nothing to do with 16 vs. 24 bits, but more about making $$ by leading people to believe that it does.

 

[U2Bono269]

   
Engineers CAN do extra things to any release that they didn't do to the initial CD release, but they don't HAVE to. I think that's a point people are trying to make. An engineer is more than welcome to make a great mix/master for the HDTracks download and make a trash, compressed, clipped, mono sounding master for the CD. That has nothing to do with 16 vs. 24 bits, but more about making $$ by leading people to believe that it does.

And I just said that I understand that now. I did not at the time that I came to this thread.

 

[RRod]

 
And I just said that I understand that now. I did not at the time that I came to this thread.

 
So then what extra questions did coming to this understanding bring up?

 

[U2Bono269]

Well I have questions about the mastering process and such, but it was made clear to me that this is not the place for that. I was just explaining myself based on bigshot's post.

 

[StanD]

  Well I have questions about the mastering process and such, but it was made clear to me that this is not the place for that. I was just explaining myself based on bigshot's post.

There you go, ready to rock.

 

[U2Bono269]

  There you go, ready to rock.

Yeah, I found some really great articles.

 

[reginalb]

 
And I just said that I understand that now. I did not at the time that I came to this thread.

 
I think that there is just a lot of frustration with people that have answered the same questions over and over again. Provided piles of links, there are several threads in this forum where the OP has a pile of lins, there are some right at the top when you arrive at the forum as well, answering all of the questions that get asked repeatedly. And many people from other parts of the forum come in to this section and get hostile about it. People, as a result, put their guard up. Glad you eventually found the information that you were looking for.