[dmyster]

Let me begin by saying that I am confused. I am new to the audiophile world with only a macbook pro and an ipod as my only sources and have recently become aware of the 24/96 and 24/192 formats and have a few questions.
 
1) I've heard that you can only rip cd's up to 16/44.1, is this true?
 
2) If that is true, how does everyone acquire music above cet format? I've found hdtracks.com, but what other ways are there?
 
3) How do you play formats above 16/44.1? Can itunes/ipods play 24/96 or 24/192? I've read a little about J Rivers Media Center, is that my only hope? I read that my macbook pro can only source 16/48 out of usb and 24/96 via optical (I think), so I would need a usb dac for 24/96 or 24/192 anyways.
 
4) Do other portable media players play these formats?
 
5) How would you describe the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96 or 24/192, is it significant?
 
 
Thanks in advance for any help Those are the only questions I can think of as of now.
 
Dmyster

 

[anadin]

Vinyl my friend.

 

[anetode]

http://www.head-fi.org/t/571259/hi-rez-another-myth-exploded :biggrin:

 

[Roseval]

1 – Technically you can but as the content of a CD is 16/44.1 you probably won’t gain anything except a bigger file.
 
2- a couple of web shops offer Hires, Google is your friend
Some free downloads: http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html
 
3 – You must have the hardware able to do so.
Look for USB class audio 2 DACs for > 96 kHz
 
4- Some do
 
5- There are technical reasons why Hires might sound better (bigger dynamic range, higher frequencies)
A common explanation  is that as it is a niche market, it is not forced by management to compete in the loudness war. So simple good quality recordings not polluted by dynamic range compression.

 

[NA Blur]

Bit Depth:
This is a measurement of how many bits per unit signal.  Think of it as the ability for a device or process to take a digital signal and make an analog output.  It takes the sign waves and approximates them into bits of data.  All CD's have a 16 bit Bit Depth.  Some audio DVD's have a higher bit depth and many devices have higher bit depths still.  The reason this governs the signal to noise ratio is because the more frequency components you can acquire, thus the larger bit depth, the higher the peak can be when it is transformed into a pulse.  An infinite bit depth would results in a very narrow and high amplitude pulse.
 
Bit Rate:
This is the rate at which the bits travel.  The higher the bit rate the more bits are available for a device to be captured and translated via the ADC and DAC processes.  The lower the rate the fewer bits are sent per second and the more compressed or lossy the data becomes.  The higher the bit rate the more bits are available and with a higher bit rate system the more bits are captured.  This represents a less compressed and thus less lossy bit transfer process.  CD's have a 44.1kHz bit rate.  Keep in mind that this is a frequency not in kbps like other measurements.  We take 44.1bits/second x 16bits/sample x 2 ( channels for stereo ) and we end up with approximately 1.4Mbits/s.  This is the bit rate of a CD.
 
For audio storage devices the bit rate will simply determine not only lossy vs lossless, but how much space the file takes up.  Most mp3 players are simple storage devices and do not differentiate between which type of bit rate is used.  They typically use whatever you store on them be it 128kbps or higher.  The higher the bit rate the more bits are going to captured and the more space the file will take up.  It should be mentioned that audio devices do differentiate between types of audio encoding depending on the audio codec and hardware used, but they typically can handle uncompressed audio formats.
 
For me I can hear the difference in signal to noise going from 16 bit to 24 bit Bit Depth on my m903.  As far as I know you can still stuff 16 bits into a 24 bit device, but not generally the other way around.  Remember that a CD is "16/44.1" the 44.1 is in kHz and thus much less lossy than say 16/192.  The CD is really 16/1.4Mbps vs 16/192kbps.  Always remember to use the same units in any comparison.  Similar problems arise when devices list Total Harmonic Distortion(THD) in dB vs a percentage.  For example, if the THD is listed on one device as -100dB and on another device .001% which do you think has a better THD?  If you guess/knew that the -100dB device has the better THD then you would be correct.  The lack of standardization among vendors creates a bit of chaos in the consumer world.
 
You will not gain anything by ripping a CD which as we now know is a 16/44.1kHz device at a 24/44.1kHz rate.  You are always limited by what the recorded is on be it CD,DVD, or another device.  You will, however, have a less lossy file ripping a CD ( 16/44.1kHz ) at 16/256kbps in comparison to a more lossy 16/128kbps.  You can hear the differnce if your gear is of high enough quality and not coloring the sound.  try these links below for a bit of comparison fun.
http://www.mp3ornot.com/
 
I guess a note should be made about that link.  With my m903 driving my DT990's I can hear the difference, but with my AH-D2000's I was unable.
 
I give my most sincere apologies to anyone who finds a mistake/typo or other fictitious piece of information.

 

[dmyster]

Thanks a lot for all the responses, no longer confused
 
Dmyster

 

[Roseval]

Hi NA Blur
 
As we talk PCM:
 
Bit depth is the dynamic range one can cover.
SNR=6N+1.8
16 bits = 96 (1.8) and 24=144 dB or as the pro formulates it -96 dBFS / - 144 dBFS
To phrase it slightly different: at recording time you capture the signal with  16 bits precision=65536 steps or 24 bits= 16777216 steps.
As both are integers, in case of 24 bits the round off error (quantization error) is lower.
 
In principle 24 bits allows for better reproduction of micro details, in practice -96 dBFS is already very soft. You need pretty resolving gear with a very low noise floor to hear below -96dBFS.
 
Sample rate.
According to Shannon/Nyquist one should sample with a rate twice the highest frequency in the recorded signal.  44.1 allows for frequencies up to 22 kHz.  In practice lower as to avoid signals above Nyquist to enter the ADC you need a brick wall filter.
Sampling at a higher rate allows for higher frequencies. Again one needs to filter but a common rate of 88 has a Nyquist of 44 and there isn’t too much energy in normal music at this point.
 
Bit rate.
This is tied to the audio format.
The bit rate of a WAV containing 16/44 is about the double of a FLAC because FLAC is compressed but in both cases the content is the same, 16/44 lossless audio.
Only if one applies lossy compression the bit rate will drop substantial.
Again this won’t affect the frequency range. Playing an 128 kbs MP3 is expanding it first to 16/44.