[RRod]

White noise is pretty much as complex as you can get from a time perspective: no correlation between time intervals, unexpectedly large swings in signal value, etc. I doubt musical signals, inherently a bit more "sine-y" than noise, get more complicated. Yet I don't see people complaining about how 44.1ksps noise sounds different than 192ksps noise. Could it be because a) a periodic reconstruction makes perfect sense for a set of samples, b) a periodic reconstruction can be made in terms of cosine/sine sums, and c) most people can't hear sine waves above 20kHz? Yet instead of admitting any limits on human perception, people chose to make vague assaults against well-established and rigorous theory. Sigh.

 

[speedracer1]

  Brad Meyer and David Moran from the Audio Engineering Society did such a study. Subjects sat at a chair and listened to a SACD/DVD-A sound source directly vs piping through a 16bit/44.1kHz A/D/A device. Subject were asked which source was superior.

Out of 554 trials, 276 picked the pure SACD/DVD-A source. That is 49.82%, and is pretty much 50/50 chance.

The study concluded,
 

Our test results indicate that all of these recordings
could be released on conventional CDs with no audible
difference.

 
Source: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14195
http://drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf
 
When you're looking at sample rates above 44.1kHz, there won't be any audible difference. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying, or deluded.
HOWEVER, it's worth noting that sample rates above 44.1kHz are still important when it comes to recording/production/engineering, simply due to potential aliasing issues when editing/bouncing/rendering. But this is the only reason that they are important, and they hold no value in the consumer market.
 
Another test: http://archimago.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/24-bit-vs-16-bit-audio-test-part-ii.html?m=1
 
 
So, it's all placebo effect. Stuff like AK380 is marketing bs. I mean you could spend all that money on a high end headphone/amp etc. 16 bit/44.1 is all you need unless you want your dogs/cat or bats to listen. It's funny because I was going to buy Ak380. Not anymore.

Hello blade007,
 
I'm not questioning the results of the study with respect to the 50/50 split  But I would  like to know a bit about the subjects and their background?
 
Listening to music is more about training the mind to listen then the ear to hear sound.  For example were the subjects audiophiles or musicians?  Many people simply don't have a frame of reference to actually know what actual instruments sound like let alone mixing it with the detailed process of sound reproduction.  Therefore it makes it difficult to make an objective decision and good choices.  I'm an avid audiophile for many years and a musician and I've had my fair share of audio systems including the AK 380 and just because you read about a study doesn't make it gospel. A great recording is a great recording regardless of the media (16/44.1, 48, 96 SACD) it is placed on.  
 
Sincerely,
-Speed

 

[JWolf]

   
yeah you told that to us almost word for word last page too. but you don't actually have any evidence of what you're saying. not for your opinion that highres sounds different(let me guess, sighted evaluation?), and not about music being any more difficult for 16/44 than redoing 1 single 20khz sine wave.
it could look counter intuitive to some, but that's how it is. the difficulty is not how many waves are recorded at once, because waves add up at one physical point into 1 single value of pressure in the air, and one single value of voltage in the analog path at a single instant T.  so the hard part is only ever to be able to move from one value to the next fast enough to redo the content before the direction changes(up or down). and what is the fastest changing content of music in the 20hz-20khz audible range? the 20khz sine wave!  all the music below is factually changing slower than one single 20khz sine.
so doing 20khz right is in fact evidence that we can do everything that is slower and your argument is false.
and this could be demonstrated(contrary to your statement).  take super complex music from 20hz to 15khz, you can redo it with let's say 35khz sample rate(some margin for the low pass filter). but you will fail to redo the 20khz sine wave correctly with that sample rate because you won't have 2 points per period and the low pass filter can't save that.
 
no DAC is drawing a signal by adding points one at a time and leave it at that. until you understand the purpose of band limiting, you won't get what the low pass filter really does to the analog signal and you will stay with your false instinctive concept of digital audio. it's ok, I was like you, everybody here was like you and thought like you at some point in life. you can't know what you don't know. but you sure could consider that maybe you don't know as well as you think, after you see so many people and read so many papers contradicting your idea of digital audio.
if you find that boring to read, or didn't do much math or physics at school, it's very ok not to bother. I can drive a car and don't understand 90% of how it works

. there is no need to be a rocket scientist to enjoy music. and there is nobody telling you to stop buying highres tracks if you want to.
but if you come here telling others how things are, you have to know your stuff !

 
I don't need scientific results for YOU or anyone to make you own opinion. It's up to you what you hear/feel/think. It's nobody's job to tell you what you like to listen to be it CD or Hi-Res of some kind. Linking articles/blog posts/etc. is worthless. It's up to each of us to decide what it is we prefer. If we go making up our minds based on what someone else says, then we could lose out because we might not be choosing what we feel is best. This is subjective. You can quote numbers and show sine waves and so forth, but it's what we hear that matters most of all.

 

[castleofargh]

  I don't need scientific results for YOU or anyone to make you own opinion. It's up to you what you hear/feel/think. It's nobody's job to tell you what you like to listen to be it CD or Hi-Res of some kind. Linking articles/blog posts/etc. is worthless. It's up to each of us to decide what it is we prefer. If we go making up our minds based on what someone else says, then we could lose out because we might not be choosing what we feel is best. This is subjective. You can quote numbers and show sine waves and so forth, but it's what we hear that matters most of all.

sure you make your own opinion. and if it's to stay in the subjective realm, then please do that. because it's everybody's problem when you justify your opinion with a false technical statement.

 

[JWolf]

  sure you make your own opinion. and if it's to stay in the subjective realm, then please do that. because it's everybody's problem when you justify your opinion with a false technical statement.

 
I'm not giving any technical information because I have no idea if these technical links are correct or not. If I hear that Hi-Res is better than CD, then to me, those links are all wrong. So I'm not posting a link to something that may not be correct. The only links that I know are correct are the ones showing how 16/44.1 can handle a sine wave.

 

[nick_charles]

   
The only links that I know are correct are the ones showing how 16/44.1 can handle a sine wave.

 
Would you be so kind as to remind me of which (some at least) of these links you are referring to, it will help me understand your position better, thanks. There are many highly misleading "how it works" type links replete with stairstep representations of reconstructed  waves(*) that are willfully used to befuddle , and lets face it , con unwary punters!
 
 
 
* - excluding NOS DACs which can exhibit such stairsteps such as this NOS DAC

 

[JWolf]

   
Would you be so kind as to remind me of which (some at least) of these links you are referring to, it will help me understand your position better, thanks. There are many highly misleading "how it works" type links replete with stairstep representations of reconstructed  waves(*) that are willfully used to befuddle , and lets face it , con unwary punters!
 
 
 
* - excluding NOS DACs which can exhibit such stairsteps such as this NOS DAC

 
The link that comes to mind as rubbish is the link to xiph.org from the first message in this thread.

 

[Cerastes]

   
The link that comes to mind as rubbish is the link to xiph.org from the first message in this thread.

Not sure if joking or... care to elaborate what scientific articles on that site you find rubbish?

 

[JWolf]

  Not sure if joking or... care to elaborate what scientific articles on that site you find rubbish?

 
The one linked in the first post of this thread. It's all about sine waves and has very little to do with music.

 

[castleofargh]

let me see if I get it right, you admit not to understand the technicalities, yet you feel like you're in a good position to make a judgment and call rubbish one of the most accessible article you can hope to find on the web that isn't pure snake oil or trying to sell you something.
nothing making you a little uncomfortable with that? like the talking without knowing part? or maybe the calling rubbish someone's benevolent work that you don't understand?
 
we have in sound science a poor reputation of bashing the innocent guy that doesn't know much. and I hope to get that reputation to go away with time and efforts, but when I read your last few posts, it's really hard not to get angry at you for talking completely out of place.

 

[old tech]

Hello blade007,
 
I'm not questioning the results of the study with respect to the 50/50 split  But I would  like to know a bit about the subjects and their background?
 
Listening to music is more about training the mind to listen then the ear to hear sound.  For example were the subjects audiophiles or musicians?  Many people simply don't have a frame of reference to actually know what actual instruments sound like let alone mixing it with the detailed process of sound reproduction.  Therefore it makes it difficult to make an objective decision and good choices.  I'm an avid audiophile for many years and a musician and I've had my fair share of audio systems including the AK 380 and just because you read about a study doesn't make it gospel. A great recording is a great recording regardless of the media (16/44.1, 48, 96 SACD) it is placed on.  
 
Sincerely,
-Speed

 


Read the link in that post to the drewdaniels site. It provides the test's methodology including information on the test subjects. They included musicians, audiophiles and recording producers - none of whom scored better than the subjects without a "frame of reference". Says it all really.

 

[old tech]

 
The one linked in the first post of this thread. It's all about sine waves and has very little to do with music.

 

Wow, so you dismiss all the science and factual technical details behind digital signals, along with hundreds of years of accumulated human knowledge about sound and human hearing because what you think you hear proves it wrong? Not only is that absurd, it reeks of narcissism - rather than look at why you may be hearing a difference in the face of all the evidence, saying instead I am right, everyone else (even the people who invented it) are is wrong. Do you believe digital audio is some sort of magic bestowed on us from some higher power and therefore beyond the understanding of mere mortals?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

There's two issues here that both sides are conflating:

1. Whether it's possible to make 16/44.1 CD material to sound the same as high-res material

This is a technical question, and the answer is "yes". Human hearing limits in terms of frequency and S/N, etc.

2. Whether it then follows that the CD-quality material you can buy on the market all sound the same as high-res material you can buy on the market.

This is a marketing question, and for a significant part the answer is "no"--different masters.

JWolf takes the fact of (2) and tries to discredit the answer to (1), when there's little to no relationship between the two.

On the other hand, back when JWolf was presenting the fact of (2), the objectivists also tried to discredit it with (1), which was also not right.

 

[spruce music]

   
The one linked in the first post of this thread. It's all about sine waves and has very little to do with music.

What would convince you that you are mistaken about this?

 

[old tech]

There's two issues here that both sides are conflating:



1. Whether it's possible to make 16/44.1 CD material to sound the same as high-res material



This is a technical question, and the answer is "yes". Human hearing limits in terms of frequency and S/N, etc.



2. Whether it then follows that the CD-quality material you can buy on the market all sound the same as high-res material you can buy on the market.



This is a marketing question, and for a significant part the answer is "no"--different masters.



JWolf takes the fact of (2) and tries to discredit the answer to (1), when there's little to no relationship between the two.



On the other hand, back when JWolf was presenting the fact of (2), the objectivists also tried to discredit it with (1), which was also not right.

 

I don't believe anyone was discrediting (2), even within CD's there are different sounding versions of the same album eg remasters.