In visual technology, the 8K UHD (Ultra-High Definition) standard utilizes 16× more pixels than the general standard to deliver 16× more information and allow smoother color gradient between pixels, resulting in crisper imaging, more natural color toning and smoother motion presentation.
Meanwhile, in audio technology, delivering all the information residing inside a musical piece with utmost accuracy has always been a great challenge. Due to the physical limitations of the equipment used, a lot of this information was left out. Methods used to address this problem vary from employing hardware of different shape, size and material to performing sound tuning focused to a particular frequency range, with all of these methods aiming to improve the overall clarity.
The 8K SOUND technology that has newly been developed by final offers an innovative breakthrough. Instead of focusing only on fine-tuning of particular frequencies, the time element of every single bit of sound is also carefully calibrated with digital signal processing. In doing so, all information residing inside a musical piece is distinctly revealed in its best quality and aesthetics. Overall, 8K SOUND delivers an exquisite sound experience at a level of distinction, detail, separation and speed that has never been accomplished before.
@vergesslich22, I wish they would go into depth on time digital signal processing element. It really just sounds like an entire gimick from that blurb. Lol.
Thank you very much though. That's extremely insightful.
All I could find is marketing vagueness. That alone is a strong case for assuming a nothing burger.
Google didn’t even seem willing to give me a related patent(but that could very much be me and my low+ Googling skill).
@castleofargh, I wouldn't be so quick to point fingers. I looked myself rather robustly, and found virtually nothing, which is why I am now here. I am curious whether or not others have more contacts into the capability.
44.1 kHz 16 bit PCM is audibly transparent. (And even lossy at sufficient bitrate is audibly transparent.) Better than audibly transparent is not possible. Hence, whatever 8K audio is, it is useless, bogus, nonsense.
[Edit: or maybe I was too quick, I assumed it was some new storage/playback format but maybe it is about some DSP for that specific headphone speaker/room correction?]
They mention frequencies and "every time element". One would assume the second part to frequencies is more like phases and not so much the "sound bits" and their "time element". Maybe they have chosen certain DAC or EQ filters of which they liked the sound, and their phase response has to do with it. But calling it 8K and talking about video for me somehow means they made great efforts, but not they have given a name to something that's worth patenting. I would name it by the thing it does, but on the other hand, maybe it's just better not to walk into other peoples IP by saying what you do.
for me the 8k audio description sounds a bit like linear phase (phase linearzation) dsp (+ some equalization probably), but im wondering why the stupid name and no clear description
Nope, it’s extremely vague. There’s not even an adequate basic description, let alone any sort of technical description or objective measurements indicating performance improvement. This alone is a huge red flag, as castleofargh stated. In addition though, there are other huge red flags, for example:
1. “In visual technology, the 8K UHD (Ultra-High Definition) standard utilizes 16× more pixels than the general standard to deliver 16× more information …” - Sure, 8K UHD is a digital format which captures and delivers 16x more information. However these are IEMs, they are not capturing anything. They have not invented some new audio format. The information being delivered must obviously be at most, the information in the audio file being played, say 44/16 (1.4Mb/s), there is no 16x more information being delivered. The only possibility of delivering 16x more information is if they’re referring to over-sampling but if that’s the case then their claim that it’s: “newly discovered by final” is a lie, as not only is oversampling amongst the oldest discoveries but it wasn’t discovered by Final. Over-sampling was first implemented in consumer products in 1984 by Philips, when CDs/CD players were first widely released to the public and by the late 1980’s almost all DACs over-sampled.
2. “Meanwhile, in audio technology, delivering all the information residing inside a musical piece with utmost accuracy has always been a great challenge. Due to the physical limitations of the equipment used, a lot of this information was left out.” - What musical information was “left out”, let alone a “lot” of it? Certainly some sound is left out, microphones have a limited dynamic range but what they leave out is entirely or almost entirely the lowest level extraneous sounds, such as the sound made by musician movements or the more subtle parts of the noise floor. However this is noise, not musical information. Everything captured by a studio/music mic can be subsequently captured/recorded by digital audio “with utmost accuracy” - Digital audio far exceeds the capabilities of mics. Therefore, the bottleneck or “physical limitations of the equipment used” is defined by the mics and their placement/usage. But they haven’t
discovered some new mic type or even some new way to place/use them, they’re talking about some new “higher-res” digital format (or equivalent) which cannot have any effect on the “physical limitations of the equipment used”.
There are other big red flags but we’ve already got enough for a conclusion of “utter marketing BS” to be a safe bet. It’s entirely possible, despite the marketing BS, that these are very good IEMs (though that isn’t a given), it’s even possible, though less so, that they’re exceptionally good. It’s incredibly unlikely that they really are “ground-breaking” good. If they really had discovered some driver or other design technology that so significantly improved performance, then why aren’t they marketing that instead of the nonsense 8K digital audio BS?
Yeah. That one gets used a lot. Another one like that is to use words like "Diamond Collection" or "Platinum Series". It's just a glittering generality like putting "New And Improved!" on a box of laundry detergent.
@gregorio , yes, I'll be testing them out next month either way, so I suppose we'll see and I'll follow up on them. I anticipate them sounds in that good to excellent range you described, but very unlikely exceptional. Final makes good products, but the marketing bumble makes me lose faith lol.
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