[bigshot]

They are referring to the mastering quality, not the format itself. Highlight the last line.

 

[amirm]

To me it's an alarming sign of corruption within AES, that a "high-res marketing paper" by Meridian is chosen as "the best peer reviewed paper."

Maybe because they judge the papers by content? And that the authors are luminaries in field of signal processing/audio?

 

[amirm]

They are referring to the mastering quality, not the format itself. Highlight the last line.

Of course that is what they are saying that. Are you not following the discussion???

 

[bigshot]

Not all of it no. What does mastering quality have to do with dithering or noise floors?

 

[amirm]

I'm going to quote myself because it's important to look at the purposes we use digital audio for... listening to recorded music in the home. There may be some obscure situation or some specific sort of signal that a study can try to create to "break" the perfection of good old redbook. But that doesn't change the fact that for the purposes of listening to recorded music in the home, redbook is already overkill.

It takes some convoluted logic to claim that because a format is capable of reproducing super audible sound, that super audible content is important to listeners. That is a self contradiction. Instead of looking to the AES, we should be looking to audiologists and medical researchers to prove where the limits of human hearing lie.

No, no, no! That last thing you want to do is play doctor online. Instead, I suggest looking in your own signature, find JJ's presentation on this topic and try to learn that. If you did, you would see slides like this:

 

[bigshot]

He's using the figure of 120dB because that's the threshold of pain. That figure has nothing to do with whether recorded music requires a noise floor that low. "More than sufficient" is an understatement here! In practice 11 bits is plenty. That is about the best that an LP can achieve, and LPs are certainly capable of sounding great. 16 bit is far beyond that. More than sufficient.

When the standards for CDs were established, they designed the format to cover "worst case" specs. It's overkill. Music doesn't require 20-20 and it doesn't require a 16 bit noise floor. The reason they did that was to silence people from saying "perfect" wasn't "perfect enough". The problem is, people like that are never silenced. They revise the specs they consider to be "perfect" upwards further into the range of lunacy and continue complaining.

 

[Don Hills]

We appear to be talking past each other somewhat. I agree with Amir, 19 bits (Bob Stuart says 20) will suffice to capture the full audible range. But I agree with Bigshot too. Can anyone name any genre of music which requires anything close to that range?

 

[71 dB]

When the standards for CDs were established, they designed the format to cover "worst case" specs. It's overkill. Music doesn't require 20-20 and it doesn't require a 16 bit noise floor. The reason they did that was to silence people from saying "perfect" wasn't "perfect enough". The problem is, people like that are never silenced. They revise the specs they consider to be "perfect" upwards further into the range of lunacy and continue complaining.

The first CD-players had "only" 14 bit DACs. Did people complain about noise floor?

Maybe because they judge the papers by content? And that the authors are luminaries in field of signal processing/audio?

I don't care who they are. I judge people based on what the do and say. I am a person capable of critical thinking and things surrounding Meridian's MQA are most suspicious to anyone understanding digital audio. Money corrupts people everyday.

 

[71 dB]

I like to get the original stereo master as created. I have no need for anyone in the middle to convert it to 44.1 Kh, 16 bits or whatever including their theory of whether dither is or is not needed.

How much of real "extra resolution" do these original masters have? Are you sure it's not just noise to give dynamic range margins? What were the noise floor values of the ADC they used? 90 dB? 100 dB? 110 dB? Yeah, 24 bits sound great, except it's probably much less real resolution and even if the extra resolution was there, how to hear it? The difference of 16 bit and 24 bit is noise at -96 dBFS or so. You really care that? Wow!

 

[71 dB]

We appear to be talking past each other somewhat. I agree with Amir, 19 bits (Bob Stuart says 20) will suffice to capture the full audible range. But I agree with Bigshot too. Can anyone name any genre of music which requires anything close to that range?

Full dynamic range of human hearing is even more than "20 bits", but we don't need it, because music uses much less. That's why 16 bits is overkill and we don't need more.

 

[amirm]

How much of real "extra resolution" do these original masters have? Are you sure it's not just noise to give dynamic range margins? What were the noise floor values of the ADC they used? 90 dB? 100 dB? 110 dB? Yeah, 24 bits sound great, except it's probably much less real resolution and even if the extra resolution was there, how to hear it? The difference of 16 bit and 24 bit is noise at -96 dBFS or so. You really care that? Wow!

Did you read what I wrote? It had nothing to do with the points you are making. Regardless, how do you know how much resolution those masters have? Do you even know how to compute that? If not, then I don't want you or anyone else in charge of truncating it to that amount. I can play the mastered format on my system thank you very much. Keep your hands away from my bits!

 

[amirm]

Full dynamic range of human hearing is even more than "20 bits", but we don't need it, because music uses much less.

Which music? Let's see the clip names and how you determined their bit depths.

 

[amirm]

I don't care who they are. I judge people based on what the do and say. I am a person capable of critical thinking and things surrounding Meridian's MQA are most suspicious to anyone understanding digital audio. Money corrupts people everyday.

I am not seeing critical thinking when a paper that has absolutely nothing to do with MQA, is criticized on basis of its principals also inventing MQA. It is just an emotional rant that has no place in a professional discussion about the topic at hand.

 

[amirm]

We appear to be talking past each other somewhat. I agree with Amir, 19 bits (Bob Stuart says 20) will suffice to capture the full audible range. But I agree with Bigshot too. Can anyone name any genre of music which requires anything close to that range?

Sure. Fielder et al. measured the required dynamic range of different, live unamplified music and found peak range in excess of 120 dB with multiple genre including country, jazz, etc. Computation of the floor requires signal processing and psychoacoustics. I wrote a paper on this that is on ASR forum titled, "Dynamic Range: How Quiet is Quiet?"

 

[bigshot]

RECORDED music. You can stick *your ear* in the bell of a trumpet and record huge peaks, but show me a recording that has much over 60dB over the noise floor. It just wouldn't be comfortable to listen to otherwise, because the human ears can only handle about 45dB at a time. They require adjustment time to be able to acclimate to quiet sounds after hearing a few minutes of loud sounds.

You're talking in theory- test tones and charts. Go listen to your music collection and you'll find out what is really necessary and what is overkill. Ask a sound engineer who records music for a living. It won't be hard for you to find one.

You can have all the superaudible frequencies and dynamic range you want, but it won't make music sound better. Music doesn't need that. The necessary range of frequencies and dynamics in music is narrower than the range of redbook. Redbook is all you need. CD is perfect sound for recorded music.

*Corrected by request of Amirm