[bigshot]

Stock stereos are mediocre. You can do better custom, but not anywhere in the league of a halfway decent home speaker system. There is no reason to argue about car stereos because we are all well aware of the limitations.

 

[TheSonicTruth]

Stock stereos are mediocre. You can do better custom, but not anywhere
in the league of a halfway decent home speaker system. There is no
reason to argue about car stereos because we are all well aware of the
limitations.

Still, upgrading the speakers can help, a little. But I feel that keeping the EQ/tone controls flat, and any 'enhancers', if present, disabled, keeps the signal path more transparent, even if the hypothetical measured result might be anything but 'flat'.

Sometimes, if I have a full round of passengers, I'll drop the mid control a little so the music doesn't compete with the conversation, but that's it.

 

[castleofargh]

Discussion

Respect the OP's (original poster's) intentions and try and keep comments on topic. If you feel a strong need to (continue to) discuss a particular, but off-topic subject in a thread, start your own thread and direct post a link in the thread rather than derail that thread. If it's not a discussion worthy for a thread, consider taking it to private messages.

If it is a one-off reply, you can also put the reply in a spoiler tag and rename it "Off-topic".

 

[Harold999]

Had my first real experience today with 24bits/96khz music. Subscrided to Tidal Masters.
I can't hear any difference between 320kbps vs Tidal Hifi vs Tidal Masters, so i can safe me the 10 extra bucks each month.

 

[ChrisIsAwesome]

Okay, so despite any kind of technical knowledge i agreed with what is written on the first page and decided i would standardize my music library to 16/44.1. But before doing that i decided to run a quick test, first I've ever done.
Using Coldplay- Parachutes album and Asura - 360. Using AK SP2000, Andromeda. I tied variations of 16/44.1, 16/96, 24/16, 24/96 WAV all from the same original recording downloaded from HD music.

To my shock and annoyance.
I can pick it up pretty consistently, 24bit had more dimension to the sound stage while 16 bit was thinner.
44.1 vs 96khz, now this i'm not so sure about. I couldn't confidently pick a difference.

But to me 24/96 sound fuller and smoother than 16/44.1 definitely. more analog vs digital kind of impression.
So now i'm annoyed and confused.

Edit: im hearing more depth, definitely

 

[chef8489]

Okay, so despite any kind of technical knowledge i agreed with what is written on the first page and decided i would standardize my music library to 16/44.1. But before doing that i decided to run a quick test, first I've ever done.
Using Coldplay- Parachutes album and Asura - 360. Using AK SP2000, Andromeda. I tied variations of 16/44.1, 16/96, 24/16, 24/96 WAV all from the same original recording downloaded from HD music.

To my shock and annoyance.
I can pick it up pretty consistently, 24bit had more dimension to the sound stage while 16 bit was thinner.
44.1 vs 96khz, now this i'm not so sure about. I couldn't confidently pick a difference.

But to me 24/96 sound fuller and smoother than 16/44.1 definitely. more analog vs digital kind of impression.
So now i'm annoyed and confused.

Edit: im hearing more depth, definitely

Problem is it's not a valid test. You are not doing a controlled double blind test.

 

[bigshot]

Level matched, blind, direct A/B switched.

 

[old tech]

But to me 24/96 sound fuller and smoother than 16/44.1 definitely. more analog vs digital kind of impression.

How can it be an improvement if it sounds more "analog"? Do you prefer a more noisy, less clear, less bass/treble, less accurate timbre and a narrowed instrument separation presentation to your music?

Would you prefer an analog looking TV picture over a digital broadcast?

Seriously though, even if you prefer a more muffled dull analog sound, how can you be sure that this is the difference you heard and that the difference is attributed to the formats? Did you control for different masters, sound levels, expectation biases and so on (eg double blind testing using foobar for example)?

 

[ChrisIsAwesome]

I didn't say improvement anywhere, just the difference that i believe i hear. Although what others have said is true, not valid unless i do it blind test i suppose.
I'm just shocked and annoyed that i believe i can hear a difference, since its against my best interest. Who wants excessive file size.

I like things to be neat and orderly and having everything standardizes to 16/44.1 would be nice i think. A neat music library.

 

[old tech]

I didn't say improvement anywhere, just the difference that i believe i hear. Although what others have said is true, not valid unless i do it blind test i suppose.
I'm just shocked and annoyed that i believe i can hear a difference, since its against my best interest. Who wants excessive file size.

I like things to be neat and orderly and having everything standardizes to 16/44.1 would be nice i think. A neat music library.

I have several hi res files that sound different to 16/44 files of the same song, but I know that this is because of different masters. I was able to confirm this through testing with Foobar as it uses the same hi res file and converts it to 16/44 for the comparison and I can't then hear a difference. Try it for yourself using the DBX plug in and your 24/96 file.

Just out of interest, why do you want to standardise your files to 16/44? Do you intend making CDs or just short of storage space? I have around 20,000 files in my collection and they vary from various lossy formats of different bit rates, 16/44, 24/44, 24/48, 24/96, 24/192 and DSD. It doesn't matter to me as storage is not an issue, they all are indexed without any hassles and I stream them from a server.

 

[ChrisIsAwesome]

I use a DAP so limited space

 

[TheSonicTruth]

Would you prefer an analog looking TV picture over a digital broadcast?

I personally prefer an accurate(IE calibrated) TV picture, regardless of broadcast format or resolution.

I've seen people spend money on a big 4K QLED, only to leave it in factory out-of-box settings, typically 'Vivid' or Dynamic, and it's unwatchable for anything save five minutes of news highlights.

 

[bigshot]

If the movie I'm watching has a lousy color timing, I'll adjust beyond calibration. I just keep the calibration as a saved setting to use as a starting place. Most of the time it works fine at calibration, but sometimes certain transfers need some help. I also adjust a bit depending on whether the ambient light in the room is bright or dark.

I'm just shocked and annoyed that i believe i can hear a difference, since its against my best interest. Who wants excessive file size.

Welcome to the wonderful, unpredictable world of expectation bias! If you could control it, you could be happy with anything, regardless of what it sounds like!

 

[castleofargh]

Okay, so despite any kind of technical knowledge i agreed with what is written on the first page and decided i would standardize my music library to 16/44.1. But before doing that i decided to run a quick test, first I've ever done.
Using Coldplay- Parachutes album and Asura - 360. Using AK SP2000, Andromeda. I tied variations of 16/44.1, 16/96, 24/16, 24/96 WAV all from the same original recording downloaded from HD music.

To my shock and annoyance.
I can pick it up pretty consistently, 24bit had more dimension to the sound stage while 16 bit was thinner.
44.1 vs 96khz, now this i'm not so sure about. I couldn't confidently pick a difference.

But to me 24/96 sound fuller and smoother than 16/44.1 definitely. more analog vs digital kind of impression.
So now i'm annoyed and confused.

Edit: im hearing more depth, definitely

Based on many trials done by many people, it is really, really, really unlikely that you would notice the difference caused by the loss of resolution itself(at or above 16/44) with music and normal listening conditions. It could happen if you tried to find a difference and created the nominal conditions for those differences to be noticed. Then of course the likelihood to perceive a change increases proportionally. But with typical music and typical listening levels, audible transparency is the expected result between 16/44 and 24/44 or higher. And even if you were to still perceive a difference on occasion, I have never seen any proper experiment suggesting that it would result in a subjective impressions as consistent as the one you describe.

So it seems more likely to me that you're fooling yourself(like we sadly all do too many times everyday), because you didn't perform a proper a conclusive listening test. Or the second possibility, although less likely, could be that the device doesn't handle 16/44 the way it handles higher resolution and somehow ends up causing an audible difference. Some measurements would obviously help settling the second possibility, while blind testing would help dealing with the first.
The desire to know the truth, would require more serious experiments than what you did. That much is a fact. But as far as personal enjoyment is concerned, if for whatever reason(audio or not), you do feel a consistent improvement with hires, then IMO you should stick to that. Pleasure isn't always explained in a rational way.

 

[ChrisIsAwesome]

Based on many trials done by many people, it is really, really, really unlikely that you would notice the difference caused by the loss of resolution itself(at or above 16/44) with music and normal listening conditions. It could happen if you tried to find a difference and created the nominal conditions for those differences to be noticed. Then of course the likelihood to perceive a change increases proportionally. But with typical music and typical listening levels, audible transparency is the expected result between 16/44 and 24/44 or higher. And even if you were to still perceive a difference on occasion, I have never seen any proper experiment suggesting that it would result in a subjective impressions as consistent as the one you describe.

So it seems more likely to me that you're fooling yourself(like we sadly all do too many times everyday), because you didn't perform a proper a conclusive listening test. Or the second possibility, although less likely, could be that the device doesn't handle 16/44 the way it handles higher resolution and somehow ends up causing an audible difference. Some measurements would obviously help settling the second possibility, while blind testing would help dealing with the first.
The desire to know the truth, would require more serious experiments than what you did. That much is a fact. But as far as personal enjoyment is concerned, if for whatever reason(audio or not), you do feel a consistent improvement with hires, then IMO you should stick to that. Pleasure isn't always explained in a rational way.

Thanks, i was curious to see if that consensus had changed at all since the original post in 2009. Not in regards to the science of file format as its well established, but more so with the hardware which has evolved. Unsure if hardware responded differently to different file resolution.
You've put my mind at ease, i'll go back to not worrying about these things.