Read this and you will know you don't need anything better than 16/44.1 for music playback, but better mastering practice from the recording studio instead.
Just remember, the mastering engineers know and can do better - but their hands are tied by clients(artists, producers, record labels) who want a certain sound, typically louder than their last album, or louder than the competition's. The engineer is forced to louden it and at the same time try to make it sound ok. Not an easy order to fill!
Same goes at a restaurant: Can't argue with table #17 - if they want their fillet mignon crisped to the consistency of charcoal, that's what they'll get! Same with the music business.
Also, most listeners, particularly those less than thirty years of age, listen on crap instead of full-size actual stereo systems. Unfortunately, that also influences how music is mastered to sound. The tiny speaker on a smartphone might as well be a pocket mono AM transistor radio!
What I'm referring to is how the cd master for a specific album is handled differently from the sacd master. Meaning the cd master might not be as well put together with the same attention to detail and quality as the sacd version. Same album, same recording, but different takes when undergoing the mastering process.
Sacd seems to use the premise of 24/176.4 as the greatest thing, a necessary step for increasing the qualities of a recording beyond the redbook standard. The average person can't hear over 20Khz, so what good does hearing up to 88.2Khz do for us? I've heard some say the higher frequencies can positively interact with those that are audible, emphasising little things that can add up to increase perception of realism. Ignoring that, what about bit depth? Bit depth has some actual usage, but not for a large majority of music. It increases the number of audible steps or levels of volume in a recording, meaning more shades of softness or increased degrees of loudness. Yet much modern music is so horribly handled that an increased bit depth would be impossible to distinguish.
That pretty much leaves the mastering process as the culprit for increased quality, if it can be found. In my opinion.
(I'm strictly speaking from a stereo only implementation of sacd. I've yet to desire more then that.)
24 = bit depth, or the number of bits per sample.
176.4 = sampling rate, or the rate at which samples of an analog signal are taken in order to be converted into digital form (expressed in Hz).
The 176.4 Hz has nothing to do with the frequency of sound and everything to do with the frequency of sampling.
24 = bit depth, or the number of bits per sample.
176.4 = sampling rate, or the rate at which samples of an analog signal are taken in order to be converted into digital form (expressed in Hz).
The 176.4 Hz has nothing to do with the frequency of sound and everything to do with the frequency of sampling.
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