[Thad-E-Ginathom]

  Bit rate is pretty meaningless for anything other then calculating network bandwidth and storage. 5000kbps could also be 8bit mono 655k sample rate. It could be 10 tracks of 14 bit /36k sample rate.

 
Leave the book man to his books. Don't expect him to understand stuff like this.
 
(yeah... I know, attacking the person is not a good argument either, but when, as has been pointed out, they continuously fail to understand, it's hard to know where to go next. Except perhaps end of conversation. except that there never really was one)

 

[FFBookman]

  Bit rate is pretty meaningless for anything other then calculating network bandwidth and storage. 5000kbps could also be 8bit mono 655k sample rate. It could be 10 tracks of 14 bit /36k sample rate.

It could be but it's not because I STATED exactly what I was talking about.
 
Network bandwidth and storage is EVERYTHING in digital audio.  It's the main count of everything, assuming you are using the same encoding and file containers, and in this case I clearly said STEREO PCM at what resolution and if lossy or not.  I was very clear and guess what - out came the personal attacks again.
 
I didn't say 8-bit mono 655k sample rate. No one cares about that for music production.
I didn't say 10 tracks of 14bit/36k sample rate.  No one care about that for music production.
Stay on topic.  Commercial music production, stereo, PCM. Thats all I'm talking about.
 
 
KeithEmo is right, I'm right, the rest of you are choosing to degrade your audio because you don't think you can hear the degradation.  That's your choice but you should degrade your own files, not continue to claim that I'm imagining things, and not add to the confusion about what people can and should hear.
 
 
I have to ask, is there anything else your body can clearly and repeatedly do that you don't have math or testing to confirm?
 
You "16/44 is the highest" people are the most ridiculous lot of brainiacs I've come across. Continue to deny the sensations of the physical world, it could take another few hundred years to devise the math behind what we all do all the time.  I've done many things in 1 hour this morning that you have no mathematical model for.
 
Sadly you won't be alive to buy the upgraded robot version of yourself.  Until then enjoy listening to your degraded music files. There's other pleasure in the world, hopefully you don't degrade every piece of art given to you.

 

[FFBookman]

   
Leave the book man to his books. Don't expect him to understand stuff like this.
 
(yeah... I know, attacking the person is not a good argument either, but when, as has been pointed out, they continuously fail to understand, it's hard to know where to go next. Except perhaps end of conversation. except that there never really was one)

I understand this stuff on a level you only seem to dream about.  I don't need a formula or a white paper to prove to me what is true and obvious and easily recreated whenever I choose. 
 
Or you think I'm dreaming. Either way don't accuse me of ignorance, I make and mix music and I can prove the differences between resolutions easy. I've been working in production with digital audio since 1994, with analog audio since 1989.
 
This is relatively easy stuff, stuff I figured out 20+ year ago. Yet here I am in 2015 arguing with you folks on Head-Fi.  What does the "Fi" stand for in your world?  
 
Keith Emo seems to be making a stronger case than me, that's cool. I'm fed up because this anti-resolution movement is killing the art of recorded music.
 
This thinking brought about MP3's and their "perceptual coding" and it brought about this plug-in saturated world of fake audio being blasted ever louder and louder though smaller and smaller bandwidth restrictions.

 

[arnyk]

 
I understand this stuff on a level you only seem to dream about.  I don't need a formula or a white paper to prove to me what is true and obvious and easily recreated whenever I choose. 
 
Or you think I'm dreaming. Either way don't accuse me of ignorance, I make and mix music and I can prove the differences between resolutions easy. I've been working in production with digital audio since 1994, with analog audio since 1989.
 
This is relatively easy stuff, stuff I figured out 20+ year ago. Yet here I am in 2015 arguing with you folks on Head-Fi.  What does the "Fi" stand for in your world?  
 
Keith Emo seems to be making a stronger case than me, that's cool. I'm fed up because this anti-resolution movement is killing the art of recorded music.
 
This thinking brought about MP3's and their "perceptual coding" and it brought about this plug-in saturated world of fake audio being blasted ever louder and louder though smaller and smaller bandwidth restrictions.

 
Two words: Sighted evaluations.
 
Until you understand why they are grossly invalid and act on it...

 

[FFBookman]

 
You wanna do a test?  Set up 3-4 mics on a drum set. Botnick style or however you choose.  Or hell, 1 mic hanging over the snare periscope-style will do the trick.
 
Record at the highest resolution your AD converters can do.  Mine do 24/96 reliably (24/192 is still wonky on my rig).
 
Just hit the snare hard 4 times. Then do some rolls on the snare. Then 30 seconds of hi hat work. Open and close the high hat as you roll on it. Now for your big finishing move, smash each cymbal and let it decay all the way out. Get to silence. Then do a few more  with some stick work on the top of the cymbal.  
 
Overall, record about 4 minutes of smashing drums.  No compression, no effects, just raw microphone data with basic stereo pan if using more than 1 mic. If you can play beats with fills go for it, but it's not needed.
 
OK back to the computer -- mix it to 2-track stereo and output it at native resolution. Then dither and downsample it down to 16/44. Make different copies for as many dithering algorithms as you have on your rig (I have 3 installed).
 
Now go back to your full resolution version and study it.  Listen to how long the decays are. Listen to the high hat detail (there's tons of it). Listen to the attack and decay of the snare. Pay attention to how the snare hits you, how much snap it has. Listen for stick noises, breathes, room hum, ambient sound off mic, etc. Determine the virtual placement of the drums in the mix, make notes if you want. How wide is the soundstage? Where is that drum/cymbal located at in the mix? 
 
Once you've made yourself familiar with the drum sound at full resolution, picking out the degradations in the 16/44 files should be easy.
 
You will hear everything get smaller. All decays will get shorter and harsher, with a cut off at the end that wasn't there.  Room noise and breathes will also be less than before. The soundstage will get slightly narrower and the instrument placement will be slightly fuzzy and appear less focused on one particular spot. The detail of the high-hat will start to be compromised.
 
If you continue this test and take a 16/44 file into LAME and make MP3s out of it, you will hear your beautiful acoustic drums turn into samples of cardboard. You will hear your full splashy cymbals turn into 808-sounding digital recreations of a cymbal.
 
This happens for almost every instrument as you degrade the signal. Given that multitrack recording is the art of making between 4 and 200 tracks all work together in a layered and musical way this degradation of every instrument really takes it's toll on the final mix.
 
You are hearing the effects of ultrasonics on music, and what happens when you remove them.  This is why musicians that spend big money learning their craft and recording it are all for high resolution digital. They want what they worked so hard making heard by the world. Why else bother making it?

 

[dazzerfong]

 
 
You wanna do a test?  Set up 3-4 mics on a drum set. Botnick style or however you choose.  Or hell, 1 mic hanging over the snare periscope-style will do the trick.
 
Record at the highest resolution your AD converters can do.  Mine do 24/96 reliably (24/192 is still wonky on my rig).
 
Just hit the snare hard 4 times. Then do some rolls on the snare. Then 30 seconds of hi hat work. Open and close the high hat as you roll on it. Now for your big finishing move, smash each cymbal and let it decay all the way out. Get to silence. Then do a few more  with some stick work on the top of the cymbal.  
 
Overall, record about 4 minutes of smashing drums.  No compression, no effects, just raw microphone data with basic stereo pan if using more than 1 mic. If you can play beats with fills go for it, but it's not needed.
 
OK back the computer -- mix it to 2-track stereo and output it. Then dither and downsample it down to 16/44. Make different copies for as many dithering algorithms as you have on your rig (I have 3 installed).
 
Now go back to your full resolution version and study it.  Listen to how long the decays are. Listen to the high hat detail (there's tons of it). Listen to the attack and decay of the snare. Listen for stick noises, breathes, room hum, ambient sound off mic, etc. Determine the virtual placement of the drums in the mix, make notes if you want. How wide is the soundstage? Where is that drum/cymbal located at in the mix?
 
Once you've made yourself familiar with the drum sound at full resolution, picking out the degradations in the 16/44 files should be easy.
 
You will hear everything get smaller. All decays will get shorter and harsher, with a cut off at the end that wasn't there.  Room noise and breathes will also be less than before. The soundstage will get slightly narrower and the instrument placement will be slightly fuzzy and appear less focused on one particular spot. The detail of the high-hat will start to be compromised.
 
If you continue this test and take a 16/44 file into LAME and make MP3s out of it, you will hear your beautiful acoustic drums turn into samples made out of cardboard. You will hear your full splashy cymbals turn into 808-sounding digital recreations of a cymbal.
 
This happens for almost every instrument. Given that multitrack recording is the art of making between 4 and 200 tracks all work together, layered and musical, this degradation of every instrument really takes it's toll.

One hell of a convenient way to shut out the test to most people. Why don't you record it for us, if you don't mind?

 

[RRod]

And then you do it blind…

 

[FFBookman]

  And then you do it blind…

and it's even easier to hear

 

[RRod]

 
and it's even easier to hear

 
Yeah I'm sure. Here's another even easier test to try. Take any track you think actually makes good use of the capabilities of 24/192, resample it to Redbook, and then do whatever comparison test you want that doesn't involve knowing which file is which. Bet you won't try it.

 

[FFBookman]

  One hell of a convenient way to shut out the test to most people. Why don't you record it for us, if you don't mind?

If you can't and have never taken part in something like this you aren't qualified to tell people what's the highest resolution needed.
 
I've said from day one -- if you don't believe resolution matters, go into a professional recording studio and tell them that.
 
Stop telling the creators to create the lowest common denominator.  There's room for quality.  16/44 is a nice baseline - no one should be fed less quality than that. But it's just the beginning of what recorded sound is capable of.

 

[castleofargh]

Quote:

 

  And then you do it blind…

and it's even easier to hear

 
ahahahahahahahahahahahah. this from the very guy failling to abx a 24/96 vs a 16/44. this is just pure gold in a post.

 

[RRod]

  Quote:
 
ahahahahahahahahahahahah. this from the very guy failling to abx a 24/96 vs a 16/44. this is just pure gold in a post.

 
Yeah I had to put my eyes back in their sockets.

 

[FFBookman]

   
Yeah I'm sure. Here's another even easier test to try. Take any track you think actually makes good use of the capabilities of 24/192, resample it to Redbook, and then do whatever comparison test you want that doesn't involve knowing which file is which. Bet you won't try it.

I can do that all the time, very easily.  Just close my eyes and hit this:
 

 
That's even tougher than a regular ABX because the ponoplayer's signal chain plays all those formats about as good as it can. Some people complain that the Revealer feature is counterproductive because the PP plays MP3's so well. 
 
Fast switching between songs is always a problem. I prefer to let it roll and listen for overall room sound and decays.

 

[FFBookman]

I mix with my eyes close.
 
You guys listen with your eyes.
 
Laugh all you want. I'm going around the world, you are falling off the edge.

 

[RRod]

 
I can do that all the time, very easily.  Just close my eyes and hit this:
 
 
That's even tougher than a regular ABX because the ponoplayer's signal chain plays all those formats about as good as it can. Some people complain that the Revealer feature is counterproductive because the PP plays MP3's so well. 
 
Fast switching between songs is always a problem. I prefer to let it roll and listen for overall room sound and decays.

 
Yeah I'm sure Pono did its best to make a neutral app for blind testing. Never mind that Amazon mp3 wouldn't even be using the same master. Never mind that you can see which one you are selecting (at least from the interface you are showing). What's this supposed to show us exactly?