[gregorio]

However it is usefull in the studio for the purpose I mentioned as everyone knows mistakes do happen & the ability to recover from them is priceless & floating point does offer that to a degree that 24 bit integer doesn't.

I'm not really sure how saving a 32bit float float file allows the ability to recover from a mistake more than with a fixed point system does? The only potential benefit of a 32bit system is that it is more forgiving when it comes to gain staging a large number of tracks. Don't forget, most commercial studios use fixed point recording systems.

Agreed that most of it is noise but there is musical cues that can be recovered out of the noise as humans can hear into the noise by as much as 20db which is why dither was developed. It was developed in order to encode sound below the theretical noise floor of CD but does add noise to make this possible.

Not really, TDPF dither was developed to randomise quantisation error which could otherwise be correlated to the program material potentially creating unwanted tones.

Without dither Digital goes deaf below -90db

Which is true for a 16bit master but still of no consequence when the noise floor of a master is going to be at least 30dB above the digital noise floor. Word length reduction to 16bit from 24bit using a noise-shaped dither would provide a dynamic range of roughly 120dB in the critical hearing band (at least 60dB below the master's noise floor).

By the way some mixer programs offer 64 bit floating point even at the semi pro level.
 
Agreed that all this really means nothing to a song that is compressed & limited to the hilt with some Ive seen with seemingle less than 10db dynamic range. I was outragiously appalled at the DVD audio release of Rush's Snakes & Arrows DVD-A disk as it was squashed all to hell in a hand basket so to speak It seemed like less than 10db dynamics though I may be exagerating to a very very slight degree. much to thier credit though it seems they did it without creating massive clipping type distortion unlike many such releases. Even so to me it is worthless to release such music on a high resolution format then not make use of any of it. Rush has a past of releasing very high grade music with resonably high dynamics for the genre music the play so this was a huge huge disapointment

64bit float (or 48bit fixed) does potentially provide some benefits in a mixing environment. It provides a windowed system allowing for gain reduction of tracks of up to -90dBFS without loosing any resolution and also does away with any possibility of the summing of multiple processing rounding or truncation errors causing audible artefacts.

I agree though, the ridiculous loudness wars seems completely at odds with the consumer demand for greater bit depths. It's like wanting cars with 10,000 horse power while at the same time reducing the speed limit to 5mph.

G

 

[germanium]

Quote:

I agree though, the ridiculous loudness wars seems completely at odds with the consumer demand for greater bit depths. It's like wanting cars with 10,000 horse power while at the same time reducing the speed limit to 5mph.

G

Oh so true indeed. Even 10,000HP for 65MPH speed limit is way way overkill. Heck so is 500HP unless your hauling 80,000 plus pounds like I do on a daily basis. My truck has 475HP& on most hills that I face in the lowlands I can do speedlimit. When I get up around 90K-95K pounds I could use a little more but I get allong well with what I have. Note I have the axles to support that weight. I typically am running 7 or 8 axles.
 

 

[germanium]

Quote:

Not really, TDPF dither was developed to randomise quantisation error which could otherwise be correlated to the program material potentially creating unwanted tones.


G

 I do admit I made a mistake here though it is still true that it still does provide the ability to encode into the noise floor that would not be possible without dither or in the case of older analog master tape,tape noise can provide the nessessary noise which seems likely why only the ones made from relatively noisy master tapes sounded any good on the older CD players. On 24 bit systems adding dither nise is unnecessary due to there being enough random noise in the analog sections previous to the24 bit ADC's to to sufficiently dither them without added artificial noise.All the 24 bit DAC's & ADC's I have seen have never exceeded the equivolent of 22bit dynamics as a result. We are down to thermal noise of resistors at this level!!
 

 

[gregorio]

I do admit I made a mistake here though it is still true that it still does provide the ability to encode into the noise floor that would not be possible without dither or in the case of older analog master tape,tape noise can provide the nessessary noise which seems likely why only the ones made from relatively noisy master tapes sounded any good on the older CD players. On 24 bit systems adding dither nise is unnecessary due to there being enough random noise in the analog sections previous to the24 bit ADC's to to sufficiently dither them without added artificial noise.All the 24 bit DAC's & ADC's I have seen have never exceeded the equivolent of 22bit dynamics as a result. We are down to thermal noise of resistors at this level!!

The ability to encode into the noise floor isn't the purpose of dither. There are no musical products ever released which required a dynamic range large enough to need to get anywhere near the digital noise floor of even 16bit.

In modern ADCs dither (TDPF) is in fact added to 24bit recordings. The reason is that noise from internal components cannot be guaranteed to be statistically random and therefore could only act to mask quantization error rather than randomise it (into noise). Self dither of professional 24bit ADCs was a popular concept for a relatively short time quite a few years ago. Also, when mixing (in a fixed point environment) most processing is carried out at double precision (IE. 48bit) this 48bit result has to get back to a 24bit environment. Even though we are way below the noise floor dither is often applied at these points simply because there may be many processing events per track and there maybe many tracks and we avoid any possibility of cumulative errors.

You are correct, there are no converters able to resolve 24 bits of resolution. Also, many consumer manufacturers provide S/N Ratio specifications in A weighted dBs. Effectively cheating by using the A weighted curve to eliminate noise from the measurement. This means that in reality the actual SNR would be quite a few dB less than the published specifications appear to indicate. I also find it very odd that on specifications you often see something like Dynamic Range = 135dB and S/N Ratio = 122dB. So that means that 13dB of dynamic range cannot be heard. Why not say it has a dynamic range of 500dB? Doesn't matter what you state the dynamic range is, if it can't be resolved! And none of this matters anyway if all you are putting through the DAC is music which only has a dynamic range of 10dB. To update my car analogy it's like making a car which outputs 2,500hp, marketing it as developing 10,000hp and then never driving it faster than 5mph!

G

 

[librarian]

Quote:

Sorry to interrupt guys but I just wanted to add that the music I am hearing from my computer based audio system shares more in common with my turntable than CD player, which has come as a pleasant surprise. 

 
For many people it's very hard to find cd-players or dac's with a analogue-like sound signature. What dac are you using?
 

 

[gregorio]

For many people it's very hard to find cd-players or dac's with a analogue-like sound signature. 

Yes, it's a very complex task trying to model all the non-linearities, distortions and various artefacts created in an analogue chain (both recording and playback chains). Many attempts have been made, especially in the recording side of the chain but they are generally unsatisfactory. Most CD player and DAC manufacturers tend towards the philosophy of accuracy and linearity rather than trying to recreate all the (sometimes euphonic) deficiencies of an analogue system.

G

 

[Chris J]

 
For many people it's very hard to find cd-players or dac's with a analogue-like sound signature. What dac are you using?
 

Deleted.

 

[Chris J]

Vinyl <3

Please pardon my ignorance, what does your post mean?

thanks

 

[bjrnrb]

It means that Vinyl is the best ;D

 

[gregorio]

Or maybe some people don't like the low level distortion and bad phase response of digital?

What bad phase response of digital?

Presumably those people would prefer the high level distortion and far worse phase response of analogue?

G

 

[Chris J]

It means that Vinyl is the best ;D

Analog is for people who enjoy listening to music!
Where's the exit?

 

[gregorio]

Analog is for people who enjoy listening to music!
Digital is for people who enjoy listening to equipment!

Very good ... apart from one little mistake, you got it the wrong way around!

 

[Willakan]

Ah, this thread originally concluded that digital formats were technically superior on every level and was just getting into the other advantages of vinyl (availability of older music, different masters, potentially cheaper)...and then the "Vinyl is technically superior" brigade turned up...

 

[librarian]

Quote:

Ah, this thread originally concluded that digital formats were technically superior on every level and was just getting into the other advantages of vinyl (availability of older music, different masters, potentially cheaper)...and then the "Vinyl is technically superior" brigade turned up...

I guess you got that right. And I agree. It's the interpretations of "superior" that get things mixed up. Technical superior means more detail, better resolution. Not neccesarily better musicality. I do not allways find more detail and better resolution desireable. Most of my listening needs are better suitet with a sound that is not too detailed. Most of my music sounds better on HD650 than on HD800. So I sold my HD800.
 
In the end it all comes down to synergy and personal preferences. Music listening does not revolve around just one component.
 

 

[gregorio]

I guess you got that right. And I agree. It's the interpretations of "superior" that get things mixed up. Technical superior means more detail, better resolution. Not neccesarily better musicality. I do not allways find more detail and better resolution desireable. Most of my listening needs are better suitet with a sound that is not too detailed. Most of my music sounds better on HD650 than on HD800. So I sold my HD800.
 
In the end it all comes down to synergy and personal preferences. Music listening does not revolve around just one component.

Your last sentence proves the difficulty and the misunderstanding here. I would say exactly the opposite, music listening does "revolve around just one component":- Listening to the music! I want to hear, as accurately as possible, the music created by the musician/producer team. I don't want to hear distortion, musicality, warmth or anything else created by my playback equipment. I want to listen to the music, not my equipment.

Removing detail, adding warmth or deliberately changing anything on the recording to me is like going to view a Picasso or a Turner at an art gallery wearing pink tinted sunglasses.

G