interpolate
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2015
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High-fidelity audio seems to be the latest "fad" by the powers at be and whilst the advantages of 24/96 hi-fi sound is not obvious to the casual listener playing back on typical equipment, what about us lot with higher end equipment or studio quality reference gear?
I downloaded the FLAC 24/96 version of Pink Floyd's last two albums although I already have them. The only way to tell a difference is by using a spectrogram image which represents different frequencies by colour mapping the sound. This technique gets used to edit unwanted sound like hiss, coughs, vinyl clicks etcetera. However back in the world of audiophile listener this information should be neither here or there.
Although in retrospect, there does seem to be a little je ne sais quoi of difference when listening to the Pink Floyd albums. There seems to be a subtle difference in the way instruments sound. Possibly the direct high-resolution transfer without any dither or minimal dither allows for more sonic detail or this is a placebo effect.
As an experiment I created DSF files from certain tracks on the Pink Floyd albums and played it back on my FiiO X3 ii and AKG K702 using a High Gain Output. Personally I would say there is something there although sometimes I don't think it's enough to justify paying another 50% on the price of music.
Muse, Mumford & Sons and Florence & Machine have recently released high-definition 24/96 versions of their albums which is a turn up for the books.
Now when you bring science into this and the benefits of anything over 44.1Khz being useful it becomes a large multi-page debate. Nyquist/Shannon listening curves aside I think if you enjoy it you should listen to whatever format you wish. If there is no real benefit to all of this, I can't help thinking we might be getting conned by clever marketing Like when all these teenagers suddenly discovered MP3 and were convinced Apple created it.
Are we kidding ourselves or should we embrace the high-resolution revolution?
I am thinking of repurchasing some The Doors albums in high-resolution FLAC although just wanted to see other people's viewpoint on this before committing to a buying decision.
I downloaded the FLAC 24/96 version of Pink Floyd's last two albums although I already have them. The only way to tell a difference is by using a spectrogram image which represents different frequencies by colour mapping the sound. This technique gets used to edit unwanted sound like hiss, coughs, vinyl clicks etcetera. However back in the world of audiophile listener this information should be neither here or there.
Although in retrospect, there does seem to be a little je ne sais quoi of difference when listening to the Pink Floyd albums. There seems to be a subtle difference in the way instruments sound. Possibly the direct high-resolution transfer without any dither or minimal dither allows for more sonic detail or this is a placebo effect.
As an experiment I created DSF files from certain tracks on the Pink Floyd albums and played it back on my FiiO X3 ii and AKG K702 using a High Gain Output. Personally I would say there is something there although sometimes I don't think it's enough to justify paying another 50% on the price of music.
Muse, Mumford & Sons and Florence & Machine have recently released high-definition 24/96 versions of their albums which is a turn up for the books.
Now when you bring science into this and the benefits of anything over 44.1Khz being useful it becomes a large multi-page debate. Nyquist/Shannon listening curves aside I think if you enjoy it you should listen to whatever format you wish. If there is no real benefit to all of this, I can't help thinking we might be getting conned by clever marketing Like when all these teenagers suddenly discovered MP3 and were convinced Apple created it.
Are we kidding ourselves or should we embrace the high-resolution revolution?
I am thinking of repurchasing some The Doors albums in high-resolution FLAC although just wanted to see other people's viewpoint on this before committing to a buying decision.