71 dB
Headphoneus Supremus
In everyday life the difference of loud and quiet is 30 dB, 5 bits.
And this brings up a point: This whole thread ignores the elephant-in-the-room: The CONTENT. 16bit VS 24bit is a moot point if the master is hyper-compressed and has had the top 4-8 dB brick-wall-limited off of it!
Now I do realize that that has to be done mainly at the behest of the clients(the artist, the band, or the producer or label) that want volume level 10 loudness at a volume knob setting of 2, but it belays digital audio's ability to actually sound great.
Most of us on here have probably read that on-line article about the Nirvana 'Nevermind' 24bit high-rez downloads, and what was lost. But that example proves that there is no point in a high-res deliverable if the content itself is, under the marketing guise of 'remastering', treated to a steam roller and a lawn mower set too low!
That said, 24-32bit/96-192khz sampling will continue to be the obvious choice for tracking, mixing, and post, while 16/44.1 will still be more than adequate for deliverable(CD, download, etc) for the forseeable future.
Once both artists and engineers get past this addiction to everything in a song - from the lead vocals to the rhythm section to the melody and backing vocals - being dialed up to eleven, and digital's true dynamic range is seriously exploited, then we can start talking about 'higher res' deliverable formats.
on a practical level with my favorite songs at my desired listening levels, I have the hardest of times noticing anything at -80dB. I need instead to listen loud over a very quiet passage for such a stuff to start making a difference in my musical experience. what he says and what I say aren't contradicting each others, they simply relate to clearly different listening conditions and so we reach different results. not that controversial.
on a practical level with my favorite songs at my desired listening levels, I have the hardest of times noticing anything at -80dB.
And this brings up a point: This whole thread ignores the elephant-in-the-room: The CONTENT.
[1] The clipping and compression reduce the peaks by around 6dB, which can be seen with a small amount of research easily enough. Madonna's original 'True Blue' vs the remashed 'True Blue' is a case in point, compare them and you can see about 6db (the MSB) has been lost and the result is about 1/2 the peak level that was there in the first place for the same RMS level.
[2] The difference between 16 and 24 bit is an extra 256 levels below the LSB (-96dB) in 16 bit which is useful, but we have a +6dB problem with todays digital music releases.
[3] Additionally the argument about 120dB total range is rather pointless, if you have even a simple digital level control 24 bit is the way to go even if you start by feeding 16bit in at the start. Most DACs will be what - 18 to 20bit so any replay-gain style levelling will do best output as a 24bit source. I.e. 1/16th of a 16bit signal is 12bits, from 24bits you still have 20bits. So due to further audio processing after the CD the 16bits is rather a moot point because clearly 24bit allows digital EQ (including digital speaker crossovers) and attenuation so the aim is to escape from 16bit ASAP.
And this brings up a point: This whole thread ignores the elephant-in-the-room: The CONTENT. 16bit VS 24bit is a moot point if the master is hyper-compressed and has had the top 4-8 dB brick-wall-limited off of it!
to put a perspective, not on hearing, but on point of views, @amirm is clearly considering all the extremes in isolated conditions. it makes the practical results somehow ludicrous for music listening
So when you said "people" can't hear this, you were merely reflecting yourself. In that case, it would be best to say it that way.I have been listening to CDs for 3 decades and never have I heard the noise floor of 16 bit audio. All the noise I have heard is part of the recording and would be there no matter how many bits were used. I have also never heard anyone complain about hearing 16 bit noise floor.
Great. Please provide an example of these where you couldn't hear the difference and let us do a listen.As an acoustic engineer I have some understanding of the practical demands of dynamic range in audio and anyone who has played with 16 bit audio in a wave editor, downsampled 24 bit to 16 bit using dither understands that 16 bit is enough.
So when you said "people" can't hear this, you were merely reflecting yourself. In that case, it would be best to say it that way.
Now as to yourself, you are not explaining any experiment that would back what you said: "People don't hear the noise floor of 16 bit audio when they listen to music, not even when the track fades away. " Have you done any conversions of 24-bit content to 16 bits while the content fades away as to know there is no difference there?
Also, how do you know what was in the recording vs what was in the channel?
Where is the research and data to back this?It isn't even an issue with dynamic recorded music. The most dynamic recorded music doesn't exceed a dynamic range of 50dB or so, and music is usually normalized to a few dB of the zero line.
As I just explained, I ask for 24 bits because that is what is used to create the music in the first place. I have no use for someone doing the conversion to 16 bits for me with who knows what scheme. Or for what reason.Yeah, but you are also hinting you can hear it. Why else would you speak for 24 bit audio if 16 bit was enough to you?
Finally, all of this talk is immaterial anyway. CD as a format has had its useful life and there is no reason for us to continue to melt plastic to make it. We can deliver content online without such a constraint and vast majority of our devices already knows how to play high-res. To that end, I like to get my hands to stereo mixes prior to CD mastering. Whatever that sample rate is, I want it!If I want it at 16/44.1, I can convert it myself or download that version which usually is available anyway. I don't want my content to have been subjected to loudness compression which sadly comes with mastering the CD. By constantly defending the CD as a format, we work against this ideal. That is not right in my book.
It is important in the context of audio "science" that we are true and correct to what that is. Paper after paper from luminaries in audio show that 16 bits is insufficient dynamic range (without noise shaping) to be transparent to listeners.
Where is the research and data to back this?bigshot said: ↑ It isn't even an issue with dynamic recorded music. The most dynamic recorded music doesn't exceed a dynamic range of 50dB or so, and music is usually normalized to a few dB of the zero line.
Where is the research and data to back this?