[Dalmonegrig]

Are they served through the Roon app?

Yes exactly.

Either way, this doesn't change my point that the point of transparency can be different with a given codec (each has its own efficiency) and that it's well below the 990kbps LDAC lossless.

Once again I tested three codecs SBC, AAC and LDAC (lossless). Source was Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (Settings). RSSI of -50dBm. Listened to it on the TIDAL app. Track on TIDAL here. I listened to it on a Sony wf-1000xm5 (noise reduction and equalizer disabled).

LDAC (16 bits / 44,1 kHz / 990kbps), the sound quality is very good. Excellent detail, overtones (aftertones, reverberation) are clearly audible. All backing vocalists and their timbres can be heard (you can follow each part of the performer from the beginning of the track to its end). It’s especially interesting to hear from 1.08 minutes of the track (what kind of backing vocals are there?).
What is typical is that if you set the LDAC settings (32 bits / 96 kHz) according to the system selection, the sound quality deteriorates (detail), the reasons are not clear to me.

AAC, sound quality is average. Overall impression of AAC sound quality, this recording has low dynamic range. For example, the backing vocalists are heavily recessed in the recording (in general, only one backing vocalist can be heard) and appears at the peaks of the recording. This sound quality is not acceptable to me for critical listening (you really can’t hear much in the recording here). My recommendations are only for sports, noisy environments or background listening.

SBC, it's just bad. I won't even comment on this.

Of course, I do not rule out that this sound quality will be different on other headphones, devices, operating systems.

 

[angelom]

LDAC, the sound quality is very good. Excellent detail, overtones (aftertones, reverberation) are clearly audible. All backing vocalists and their timbres can be heard (you can follow each part of the performer from the beginning of the track to its end). It’s especially interesting to hear from 1.08 minutes of the track (what kind of backing vocals are there?).
AAC, sound quality is average. Overall impression of AAC sound quality, this recording has low dynamic range. For example, the backing vocalists are heavily recessed in the recording (in general, only one backing vocalist can be heard) and appears at the peaks of the recording. This sound quality is not acceptable to me for critical listening (you really can’t hear much in the recording here). My recommendations are only for sports, noisy environments or background listening.
SBC, it's just bad. I won't even comment on this.
Of course, I do not rule out that this sound quality will be different on other headphones.

The implementation of AAC in Android devices is NOT so good like is in Apple devices.

For Android devices the recommendation is using the different types of aptX codecs and not AAC.

And again, LDAC is NOT a lossless codec, is still lossy at 990kbps.

 

[Dalmonegrig]

LDAC lossless.

And the most important thing.
I want to thank you personally for this discovery for me. Despite many facts I already know, for me LDAC lossless produces the best sound quality. This is a mature sound, when you hear it you get a lot of pleasure.
Thank you very much!

 

[Davesrose]

Anything that can play a frequency above 48kHz is allowed to call itself hi-res. Fidelity or bit depth aren't involved. At least that's what Sony's golden logo means.

Some people have better standards, but it's up to them. There is no obligation to do better. In the music industry, some got really mad at songs that used any sampled track at 44 or 48kHz, even if the guy used more than a hundred tracks recorded at 24/192 to mix that song, just one little funny short sample picked from an old CD or mp3 and some libraries would not accept that song in their hi-res library. And to show how arbitrary this is, as Gregorio mentioned, you can take some old recording from the 60's, record that out of your turntable because no better source can be found of that record, set your ADC at 32/384 for no reason, and it is an acceptable hires album for most of those same hires libraries.


The concept of fidelity connoted by the words "high resolution" is very strong subjectively, but actual fidelity is irrelevant to the definition of that logo, so why should it matter to them if it's lossy or not? It only matters to some because "lossy" gives a terrible mental image as a word, even if lossy can and usually is audibly clean. It's more a battle of words than any active effort toward better fidelity. Not that any of it is going to change how transducers suck more than almost anything else.

Yes, seeing as most music is remastered from analog tapes or 44.1/48 digital..."hi-res" is more a marketing gimmick for music. I think for consumers, it's better realized with video. People grew to understand how they needed larger resolution images as their TVs increased in size (and movies could be remastered as such since 35mm cinema film gets to be around 4K resolving power). Then also the big advancement with 4K was higher dynamic range (HDR): that can also be realized with modern TVs that can deliver peak brightnesses fitting 10bit color space (where DVD and BD were 8bit). That as well is a spec that can be captured from 35mm film negative (that could get 10 or even 12 stops of light). There has been some limitation with digitally produced movies, where they were edited in 2K (due to the amount of computing power you'd need for 4K). They would be upscaled to 4K...but they would also be HDR (so they can still benefit from the 4K format).

Also as far as the ultimate sound quality lying with the transducer (and EQ settings), TVs are similar in that they can have differences based on display type. And if your TV has been calibrated, you'll get optimal image quality and detail.

 

[bigshot]

Bigshot and gregorio seem to also concur that 192k AAC is the threshold for transparency in AAC.

I suppose I should clarify... The majority of commercially recorded music is transparent at AAC 192, but certain tracks contain sounds that are harder to compress without artifacting. My tests showed that almost all music was transparent at 192, but I found a "killer track" that still barely had artifacts at 192, so I say between 192 and 256 for full transparency. You'd do fine encoding AAC 192 VBR. I do AAC 256 VBR, but that is just to be a little bit over the line.

 

[bigshot]

Overall impression of AAC sound quality, this recording has low dynamic range. For example, the backing vocalists are heavily recessed in the recording (in general, only one backing vocalist can be heard) and appears at the peaks of the recording.

That sounds like either expectation bias, no level matching, or different mastering. You'll want to rethink the way you're analyzing the differences. A difference in codec wouldn't change balances in the mix, and AAC has very little impact on dynamic range. In fact it shouldn't have any affect at all. File compression isn't the same as dynamic compression.

I'm betting you didn't do a level matched, A/B switched blind comparison of the codecs and your conclusions are colored by bias and perceptual error, not based on any actual difference in the codec itself.

 

[gregorio]

Processing (2), Bitrate (3) - this is possible, the rest is unlikely.

Where did you get that from, do you have any reliable evidence to support it or is it just a guess based on marketing and/or audiophile myths? They are all possible and demonstrated in practice. It’s not uncommon that audiophiles inadvertently compare different masters and it’s also sometimes the case that it’s the same master but has been supplied to the service in an already compressed format (and then transcoded). And #4, without proper listening test controls then perceptual/cognitive error is certainly NOT “unlikely”. Indeed if you know they’re from different services or different codecs then the probability is high, pretty much the opposite of what you claim.

AAC, sound quality is average. Overall impression of AAC sound quality, this recording has low dynamic range. For example, the backing vocalists are heavily recessed in the recording (in general, only one backing vocalist can be heard) and appears at the peaks of the recording.

This is so often the case with audiophile impressions and claims, the reported symptoms do not match the claimed problem. For example, a low dynamic range would manifest pretty much anywhere except “at the peaks of the recording” and the most likely place would be the exact opposite of where you claim, at the quietest places of the recording. Extreme audio compression/limiting (rather than data compression) would manifest “at the peaks of the recording” but lossy codecs do not apply audio compression or limiting and would most probably make the backing vocals more prominent anyway. Lastly, as already mentioned, some Android devices in the past have been known to have highly deficient implementations of AAC but of course, that is a problem of a defective device, not of the AAC codec.

And the most important thing.

Again, pretty much the exact opposite of the actual facts. Assuming the tested device isn’t defective, then lossy or lossless is the LEAST “important thing” because they are audibly indistinguishable, unlike pretty much EVERTHING else, such as different masters, different electro-acoustic properties of the HP, different software/processing, etc.

G

 

[Dalmonegrig]

Your conclusions are colored by bias and perceptual error, not based on any actual difference in the codec itself.

This is so often the case with audiophile impressions and claims.

It is possible that the results of my audition do not correlate with your research (expectations) and it may even cause cognitive dissonance, but with all due respect to you and scientific research, I trust my ears more. Nothing personal, just an audition and a comparison.
I assume that in this particular case there is a well-done work on the optimization by SONY (Sony wf-1000xm5 + LDAC), which in practice ensures such good quality of sound perception.
It is quite possible that using a different codec, but with efficient software-hardware optimization, we can get similar results. For example, the work of Samsung (Galaxy Buds2 Pro + SSC) or Apple (AirPods Pro 2 + AAC).

 

[gregorio]

It is possible that the results of my audition do not correlate with your research (expectations) and it may even cause cognitive dissonance, but with all due respect to you and scientific research, I trust my ears more. Nothing personal, just an audition and a comparison.

And there we have it! The results of your “audition” indeed do not correlate with my results from controlled ABX testing or indeed the results of any ABX testing by other consumers, nor does it correlate with the extensive research carried out by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) or that done by the European Broadcast Union (EBU) or the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) or independent scientific researchers over a period of several decades. But your claim is typical of many audiophiles, you “trust your ears more” during an “audition” than the wealth of confirmed scientific research carried out by countless thousands of scientists and engineers with tens of thousands of test subjects all over the world for decades. I have no cognitive dissonance and I presume you don’t either but that’s because you are seemingly not “cognitive” (don’t know) of the process and amount of reliable research/evidence required for ratified international standards (such as AAC). Nothing personal but the supposed superiority of your personal biased hearing under “audition” conditions over such well researched and established science is delusional!

I assume that in this particular case there is a well-done work on the optimization by SONY (Sony wf-1000xm5 + LDAC), which in practice ensures such good quality of sound perception.

Why do you assume that? Again, what reliable evidence do you have? There has been orders of magnitude more “well-done work” on AAC because it’s a ratified international standard and therefore extensively tested by numerous national and international bodies/organisations, unlike LDAC which is proprietary to Sony. And even if Sony has done some work, why does that necessarily mean LDAC is somehow better sound quality wise? Sony did a lot of work on SACD too, their own controlled listening test studies demonstrated no audible difference with standard CD but they still marketed SACD as hi-res and a significant audible improvement over CD!

G

 

[Dalmonegrig]

Nothing personal but the supposed superiority of your personal biased hearing under “audition” conditions over such well researched and established science is delusional!

I do not see in the answers useful for me information. The contradictions that have arisen are not resolved. There are no reasonable recommendations for their improvement. Instead of constructive discussion, accusations of bias and audio-philia. And as a cover, the authority of the Telecommunications Union (ITU) or that done by the European Broadcast Union (EBU) or the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) or independent scientific researchers over a period of several decades.

 

[angelom]

@gregorio
Is very apparent to me that some snake oils are better than others snake oils. I see for several years in head-fi (and others forums, publications and in YouTube) that the LDAC snake oil is very effective.

 

[gregorio]

Instead of constructive discussion, accusations of bias and audio-philia.

What constructive discussion, how do you think that putting your “audition” and biased hearing over the well researched/established science can lead to any sort of constructive discussion, especially in a science discussion forum? In addition, as all humans suffer from bias and resultant perceptual errors then “yes” I’m accusing you of being a human, is that accusation wrong?

And as a cover, the authority of the Telecommunications Union (ITU) or that done by the European Broadcast Union (EBU) or the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) or independent scientific researchers over a period of several decades.

Sure, the demonstrated facts/science by various different international bodies is just “as a cover”, which is why international communications, European broadcasts, the internet and various other things never work and your “cover” (which is nothing but your audition and ears) is better. lol.

G

 

[Dalmonegrig]

In addition, as all humans suffer from bias and resultant perceptual errors then “yes” I’m accusing you of being a human, is that accusation wrong?

Is this the only hypothesis or are there other options?

The internet and various other things never work and your “cover” (which is nothing but your audition and ears) is better.

To do this, it is necessary to create a number of favorable conditions. Things also break.
Everything is relative!

 

[bigshot]

It is possible that the results of my audition do not correlate with your research (expectations) and it may even cause cognitive dissonance, but with all due respect to you and scientific research, I trust my ears more.

Your conclusions don’t correlate with how compressed digital audio works. There is no dynamic compression involved in processing by the AAC codec. If the codec isn’t causing what you hear with your trusted ears, then there is another reason you are hearing dynamic compression. The most likely reasons for that are different mastering, and expectation bias. You know AAC is used a lot for portable audio and you hear the word compression, so your brain tells you it is compressed for portable use. The truth is that at a sufficient data rate, it sounds exactly like lossless or HD audio.

 

[bigshot]

Is this the only hypothesis or are there other options?

Did you do a level matched blind test? If you did a blind test to eliminate bias and applied controls to prevent perceptual error, then the other option is that the mastering is different. Did you encode the test music yourself from the same source file? If not, this could be where your mistake lies.

But from the way you talk, I suspect you did absolutely nothing to make sure your impression wasn’t just an uninformed guess.