[castleofargh]

 

   
LOL - Mahler is my go to for dynamic range demonstrations - even Mahler does not go much above 60db DR (10 bits give or take...)

 
Yeah, -65 to -70dbFS is the best RMS I've seen in the stuff I have.

it's easy to create something with more, it's also very easy to notice how annoying it is to listen to it. if it's instantaneous I tend to fail to abx the file compared to only the loudest song most of the time. and if I go for changes of loudness from calm moments to loud moments, then I can't hear half the song or I spend my time adjusting the volume from too loud to too quiet. if that's the ultimate purpose of highres sign me off.
in fact I already don't listen to classical on my portable gears or in a car for that very reason, too much dynamic that would force me to listen too loud for my own good if I wanted to still get the quiet parts. for that job, stupidly compressed pop ironically ideal to me.

 

[Thad-E-Ginathom]

... ... ... I already don't listen to classical on my portable gears or in a car for that very reason, too much dynamic that would force me to listen too loud for my own good if I wanted to still get the quiet parts. for that job, stupidly compressed pop ironically ideal to me.

 
Not only should they give us the tone controls back as standard but...
 
Well, I was going to say that they should give us a compression knob too to cover these situations. But there used to be the "Loudness" button. I suppose that did something entirely different, in boosting the bass and treble, but it had the effect of making more of the music audible at low volumes.
 
Like many of us, I do not want artificially compressed-to-hell music forced upon me, but that does not mean there is anything wrong with the tool. I was messing with this stuff on my PC the other day, and found I could compensate my poor hearing more effectively than I could with an Equaliser.
 
Not sure what I did though. The tool was the Calf Multiband Limiter.  Just messing around. It's fun, and sometimes useful

 

[old tech]

Another thing I find hard to understand is that the best 24track analogue recorders are generally accepted to be equivalent to about13bits. Yet, many analogue recordings are highly regarded and certainly good enough for well implemented CDs. So why so much discussion about possible playback benefits from 24bit compared with 16, when 16 already is higher than most master tapes?

That's got me thinking, and this is genuine question, if as one example the Led Zep original masters were made by a 13bit recorder, how does it become 24bit as a HD Tracks download?

 

[OddE]

That's got me thinking, and this is genuine question, if as one example the Led Zep original masters were made by a 13bit recorder, how does it become 24bit as a HD Tracks download?

 
-It leaves 11 bits to bring out every last nuance of the tape hiss...

 

[arnyk]

Another thing I find hard to understand is that the best 24track analogue recorders are generally accepted to be equivalent to about13bits. Yet, many analogue recordings are highly regarded and certainly good enough for well implemented CDs. So why so much discussion about possible playback benefits from 24bit compared with 16, when 16 already is higher than most master tapes?

That's got me thinking, and this is genuine question, if as one example the Led Zep original masters were made by a 13bit recorder, how does it become 24bit as a HD Tracks download?

 
If you do perceptual testing, you find that 13 bits is a pretty good fit with most real world recordings.  There is some need for careful level setting.
 
16 bits is actually an overkill format and includes a reasonable margin for imprecise level setting.
 
The rest is for people who either don't want to exercise care with level setting,  judge sound quality by means of sighted evaluations and/or like spec sheets with impressive-sounding numbers.
 
Upsampling from 13 to > 13 bits is usually accomplished by  adding trailing zeroes to each sample in order to make the data words as long as is desired.

 

[RRod]

So why so much discussion about possible playback benefits from 24bit compared with 16, when 16 already is higher than most master tapes?
 

 
Because people are convinced of the myth of "microdynamics"; that is, that they are hearing the smaller gradations in quantization levels at 24bits compared to 16bits, regardless of the dynamic range and recording level of the music.

 

[interpolate]

This thread is still going? Oh well, stranger things have happened at sea.

 

[goodyfresh]

  This thread is still going? Oh well, stranger things have happened at sea.

People will never agree.  Some people will never accept the idea that blind-testing is the only true way to figure out the answers to questions like these, while other people (myself being one of them) will never accept the idea of subjective impressions based on non-blind testing being the least bit valid.

 

[KeithEmo]

I'm inclined to agree with you in general - however, I don't think anyone is charging more because they're using 24 bit, or 32 bits, or whatever. The fact is that, if your master is already 24 bits, or 32 bits (which most programs I know use internally anyway), then you have it already. All you have to do is slap it directly into a file for distribution instead of re-saving it at 16 bits. And, while there was a space issue with CDs, that issue doesn't exist with downloads. Back when power steering was new, it cost extra, and, when I was young, you always paid a significant premium for air conditioning on a car - now both are standard. From that perspective "high-res files" are simply the latest "new and improved" version. And, when you think about it, a vinyl album that cost $10 or $15 in 1975 was a lot more expensive in real dollars than a $25 high-res download now. There's always going to be a "new" version, and a "premium" version, and at the moment high-res audio files fill that niche. (And are you really sure that the "premium" dishwasher detergent that costs 50% more is really 50% better? I really doubt it.)
 
And, please, don't be misled by any blather about "bandwidth being expensive", and how high-res music files take up a lot of space to store on the server. The pay-per-view movie that you buy for $3 on cable takes up as much storage space and bandwidth as twenty five or thirty 24/96k albums. Sure, at some level, if the iTunes store was selling all high-res downloads instead of compressed ones, they'd have to buy bigger servers and faster Internet connections, but the percentage of their operating budget that accounts for is minimal. Likewise, as I mentioned, every serious mastering program I know of operates internally at 24 or 32 bits, so nobody needs new equipment to record it. The reality is that the only one who pays more for high-res music is the consumer, and that's mostly simply because they're willing to do so. And, just like DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs, I would expect that, as soon as most downloads are 24/96, the price on those will drop back to "normal". (You may end up paying $10 for them or, more likely, just like restaurant prices, the prices won't actually drop, but they'll remain the same for another ten years as the value of the dollar drops "past" them.) In the end, you're going to end up paying whatever the market will bear for your music... and it has very little to do with cost.
 
There are lots of other audio gadgets where you can pay a lot more for "high end" versions that really aren't, and for VERY expensive tweaks that don't do anything at all, which is why, to me, whether high-res files really sound better doesn't seem like that much of a deal.... in fact, it's about as important as whether my alloy wheels really work any better than the punched steel hub caps available on the "regular" version of my car.
 
Quote:

   
The safety margin has existed on the recording side for many years now (when did the first 20-bit recordings start to happen?) And on the delivery side you have things like dithering and oversampling that have also been around for a while to help make things easier. And all of this was still not using up all that 16-bits could offer on the playback side, because having that much dynamic range in a recording is pretty much super annoying.
 
Here's a screenshot of one of my more dynamic albums, recorded in 1985:

 
I did the following:
.found the softest section
.gained it down 15dB without dither
.gained it back and listened to the difference; nothing there to hear
.put this back-to-back with the loudest section of the piece
 
Here's the result. I literally have to max out my volume to get that quiet section where I want it (in isolation), and there's no way I want the loud section to play at that level. The only option I have to possibly enjoy this would be to move to a quieter room, and I'm already at 37dBA in here. So yes, maybe in a 20dB room I might detect some differences from the gain, but that is not where about 99.999% of people listen to music (my out-of-the-air figure
 
And this is Mahler, fergawdssake. For much more normally dynamicked music, 16bits is already a safety margin. Now if recording engineers want even more safety for tracks like above, great. And if they don't want to bother with making 16-bit masters then fine. But don't charge me any more for it, which is really the brass tacks here.

 

[RRod]

I'm inclined to agree with you in general - however, I don't think anyone is charging more because they're using 24 bit, or 32 bits, or whatever. The fact is that, if your master is already 24 bits, or 32 bits (which most programs I know use internally anyway), then you have it already. All you have to do is slap it directly into a file for distribution instead of re-saving it at 16 bits. And, while there was a space issue with CDs, that issue doesn't exist with downloads. Back when power steering was new, it cost extra, and, when I was young, you always paid a significant premium for air conditioning on a car - now both are standard. From that perspective "high-res files" are simply the latest "new and improved" version. And, when you think about it, a vinyl album that cost $10 or $15 in 1975 was a lot more expensive in real dollars than a $25 high-res download now. There's always going to be a "new" version, and a "premium" version, and at the moment high-res audio files fill that niche. (And are you really sure that the "premium" dishwasher detergent that costs 50% more is really 50% better? I really doubt it.)
 
And, please, don't be misled by any blather about "bandwidth being expensive", and how high-res music files take up a lot of space to store on the server. The pay-per-view movie that you buy for $3 on cable takes up as much storage space and bandwidth as twenty five or thirty 24/96k albums. Sure, at some level, if the iTunes store was selling all high-res downloads instead of compressed ones, they'd have to buy bigger servers and faster Internet connections, but the percentage of their operating budget that accounts for is minimal. Likewise, as I mentioned, every serious mastering program I know of operates internally at 24 or 32 bits, so nobody needs new equipment to record it. The reality is that the only one who pays more for high-res music is the consumer, and that's mostly simply because they're willing to do so. And, just like DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs, I would expect that, as soon as most downloads are 24/96, the price on those will drop back to "normal". (You may end up paying $10 for them or, more likely, just like restaurant prices, the prices won't actually drop, but they'll remain the same for another ten years as the value of the dollar drops "past" them.) In the end, you're going to end up paying whatever the market will bear for your music... and it has very little to do with cost.
the
There are lots of other audio gadgets where you can pay a lot more for "high end" versions that really aren't, and for VERY expensive tweaks that don't do anything at all, which is why, to me, whether high-res files really sound better doesn't seem like that much of a deal.... in fact, it's about as important as whether my alloy wheels really work any better than the punched steel hub caps available on the "regular" version of my car.

 
They're definitely using the higher specs to justify extra cost*. And like you said, now they don't even have to bother with Redbook mastering stuff. Add this to the whole audibility issue, and the only real thing they should charge more money for is a new mix/master with actual work done (a musical nose job, if you will). But there have been remasters released on CD before, and many of them cost just what a CD costs, not $25+ for a single-disc album. Once again, the car analogies don't work. Don't try to tell a Texas boy that hi-res is like getting air conditioning in your car 

 
I agree that bandwidth issues aren't compelling. And I agree that prices are somewhat the fault of consumers, but that's partly because many of the consumers default to just believing that hi-res makes an audible difference, and the companies are happy to "confirm" that however they can. DVD made a visible difference from VHS, and Blu-ray made a visible difference from DVD, and it's easy to tell. That isn't the case with hi-res, so once again such between-senses analogies break down.
 
*as an example, there is a $7 difference between the 24/96 and 24/192 versions of "Kind of Blue" on the HDTracks site.

 

[KeithEmo]

   
They're definitely using the higher specs to justify extra cost*. And like you said, now they don't even have to bother with Redbook mastering stuff. Add this to the whole audibility issue, and the only real thing they should charge more money for is a new mix/master with actual work done (a musical nose job, if you will). But there have been remasters released on CD before, and many of them cost just what a CD costs, not $25+ for a single-disc album. Once again, the car analogies don't work. Don't try to tell a Texas boy that hi-res is like getting air conditioning in your car 

 
I agree that bandwidth issues aren't compelling. And I agree that prices are somewhat the fault of consumers, but that's partly because many of the consumers default to just believing that hi-res makes an audible difference, and the companies are happy to "confirm" that however they can. DVD made a visible difference from VHS, and Blu-ray made a visible difference from DVD, and it's easy to tell. That isn't the case with hi-res, so once again such between-senses analogies break down.
 
*as an example, there is a $7 difference between the 24/96 and 24/192 versions of "Kind of Blue" on the HDTracks site.

 
We seem to be having two entirely different conversations here.
 
First off, I actually do think that the car analogy works quite well. A lot of people spend a lot of money on various car "upgrade options" of dubious value. (Do you really think that half of the people who buy "the performance package" actually know if it in fact does improve performance? Do you think even half that many know which items in the package do what - or if they in fact do anything at all?) My point was that, in 1980, air conditioning was an expensive accessory in a car; today it's standard. Today 24/192k is a premium format; in ten years it will be standard. A while ago, VHS was the standard, and DVD was the premium upgrade; in five years, Blu-Ray will be "the old standard" and 4k will cost $5 more - and, in five more years, 4k will be the standard. (And, while there have in fact been actual improvements at each step along the way, that's almost incidental to the process.)
 
Second, while I suppose you might have some faint claim that someone who spends $25 for their FIRST 24/192k album was misled, the most that's going to cost them is $10 to $15. After that, if they continue to buy high-def music because they really hear a difference, or because they imagine they hear a difference, or even just so they can impress their friends, how can you possibly say that they're doing so because they were misled or cheated? Nobody's holding a gun to their heads. Unless they're incredibly stupid, if they bought that first album and didn't hear any difference, and don't find any other justification, then they aren't going to be buying a second one. You may be able to argue that "they were tricked into buying" the FIRST one but, after that, it's all them. In fact, most of the places that sell high-res albums offer at least one or two free sample downloads... so even the first purchase should have been made AFTER they listened and decided for themselves if they heard a difference or not. What you're doing is a lot like accusing a company of selling overpriced expensive wine - when they offer a free taste to anyone planning to buy it.
 
(Are you suggesting that people shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves?

)

 

[RRod]

   
We seem to be having two entirely different conversations here.
 
First off, I actually do think that the car analogy works quite well. A lot of people spend a lot of money on various car "upgrade options" of dubious value. (Do you really think that half of the people who buy "the performance package" actually know if it in fact does improve performance? Do you think even half that many know which items in the package do what - or if they in fact do anything at all?) My point was that, in 1980, air conditioning was an expensive accessory in a car; today it's standard. Today 24/192k is a premium format; in ten years it will be standard. A while ago, VHS was the standard, and DVD was the premium upgrade; in five years, Blu-Ray will be "the old standard" and 4k will cost $5 more - and, in five more years, 4k will be the standard. (And, while there have in fact been actual improvements at each step along the way, that's almost incidental to the process.)
 
Second, while I suppose you might have some faint claim that someone who spends $25 for their FIRST 24/192k album was misled, the most that's going to cost them is $10 to $15. After that, if they continue to buy high-def music because they really hear a difference, or because they imagine they hear a difference, or even just so they can impress their friends, how can you possibly say that they're doing so because they were misled or cheated? Nobody's holding a gun to their heads. Unless they're incredibly stupid, if they bought that first album and didn't hear any difference, and don't find any other justification, then they aren't going to be buying a second one. You may be able to argue that "they were tricked into buying" the FIRST one but, after that, it's all them. In fact, most of the places that sell high-res albums offer at least one or two free sample downloads... so even the first purchase should have been made AFTER they listened and decided for themselves if they heard a difference or not. What you're doing is a lot like accusing a company of selling overpriced expensive wine - when they offer a free taste to anyone planning to buy it.
 
(Are you suggesting that people shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves?

)
 
 

 
You are leaving out the part where it's trivial to know if your car has AC versus knowing if you're hearing hi-res or not. Just because AC is standard today doesn't mean that back when it first came out people were like "I'm unsure if this vehicle has air conditioning, but here is my money anyway."
 
On the second part, you are ignoring the part where people are being misled by the claims of hi-res. If you tell me my car will be cooler with AC than without in the heat of summer, you are not lying to me or in any way, shape, or form stretching the truth. You're also missing the part where people convince themselves they hear things to make their world-view work, so just saying "well they're stupid if they buy it again" is making things too simple. "Hey, this company that ostensibly knows about audio says this stuff sounds better, so I guess it sounds better. Here's more $$" ← don't tell me this doesn't happen.
 
That companies are typically d***s and that consumers only do so much digging into literature are hardly things to debate, I'll agree.

 

[Roly1650]

We seem to be having two entirely different conversations here.

First off, I actually do think that the car analogy works quite well. A lot of people spend a lot of money on various car "upgrade options" of dubious value. (Do you really think that half of the people who buy "the performance package" actually know if it in fact does improve performance? Do you think even half that many know which items in the package do what - or if they in fact do anything at all?) My point was that, in 1980, air conditioning was an expensive accessory in a car; today it's standard. Today 24/192k is a premium format; in ten years it will be standard. A while ago, VHS was the standard, and DVD was the premium upgrade; in five years, Blu-Ray will be "the old standard" and 4k will cost $5 more - and, in five more years, 4k will be the standard. (And, while there have in fact been actual improvements at each step along the way, that's almost incidental to the process.)

Second, while I suppose you might have some faint claim that someone who spends $25 for their FIRST 24/192k album was misled, the most that's going to cost them is $10 to $15. After that, if they continue to buy high-def music because they really hear a difference, or because they imagine they hear a difference, or even just so they can impress their friends, how can you possibly say that they're doing so because they were misled or cheated? Nobody's holding a gun to their heads. Unless they're incredibly stupid, if they bought that first album and didn't hear any difference, and don't find any other justification, then they aren't going to be buying a second one. You may be able to argue that "they were tricked into buying" the FIRST one but, after that, it's all them. In fact, most of the places that sell high-res albums offer at least one or two free sample downloads... so even the first purchase should have been made AFTER they listened and decided for themselves if they heard a difference or not. What you're doing is a lot like accusing a company of selling overpriced expensive wine - when they offer a free taste to anyone planning to buy it.

(Are you suggesting that people shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves? :veryevil: )

If the download service tells you that the file is 24/192 before you download and after the download you know the content is no better than 16/44, what's that? Fraud would seem to be a word that springs to mind, but the download service is protected, because the file is 24/192 even though the content isn't. You don't think there should be protections for this rip-off?

 

[Ruben123]

   
We seem to be having two entirely different conversations here.
 
First off, I actually do think that the car analogy works quite well. A lot of people spend a lot of money on various car "upgrade options" of dubious value. (Do you really think that half of the people who buy "the performance package" actually know if it in fact does improve performance? Do you think even half that many know which items in the package do what - or if they in fact do anything at all?) My point was that, in 1980, air conditioning was an expensive accessory in a car; today it's standard. Today 24/192k is a premium format; in ten years it will be standard. A while ago, VHS was the standard, and DVD was the premium upgrade; in five years, Blu-Ray will be "the old standard" and 4k will cost $5 more - and, in five more years, 4k will be the standard. (And, while there have in fact been actual improvements at each step along the way, that's almost incidental to the process.)
 
Second, while I suppose you might have some faint claim that someone who spends $25 for their FIRST 24/192k album was misled, the most that's going to cost them is $10 to $15. After that, if they continue to buy high-def music because they really hear a difference, or because they imagine they hear a difference, or even just so they can impress their friends, how can you possibly say that they're doing so because they were misled or cheated? Nobody's holding a gun to their heads. Unless they're incredibly stupid, if they bought that first album and didn't hear any difference, and don't find any other justification, then they aren't going to be buying a second one. You may be able to argue that "they were tricked into buying" the FIRST one but, after that, it's all them. In fact, most of the places that sell high-res albums offer at least one or two free sample downloads... so even the first purchase should have been made AFTER they listened and decided for themselves if they heard a difference or not. What you're doing is a lot like accusing a company of selling overpriced expensive wine - when they offer a free taste to anyone planning to buy it.
 
(Are you suggesting that people shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves?

)

But airco at least offers something one can perceive. Any higher than CD will (almost?????) no one be able to differentiate from hi-res.

 

[KeithEmo]

   
You are leaving out the part where it's trivial to know if your car has AC versus knowing if you're hearing hi-res or not. Just because AC is standard today doesn't mean that back when it first came out people were like "I'm unsure if this vehicle has air conditioning, but here is my money anyway."
 
On the second part, you are ignoring the part where people are being misled by the claims of hi-res. If you tell me my car will be cooler with AC than without in the heat of summer, you are not lying to me or in any way, shape, or form stretching the truth. You're also missing the part where people convince themselves they hear things to make their world-view work, so just saying "well they're stupid if they buy it again" is making things too simple. "Hey, this company that ostensibly knows about audio says this stuff sounds better, so I guess it sounds better. Here's more $$" ← don't tell me this doesn't happen.
 
That companies are typically d***s and that consumers only do so much digging into literature are hardly things to debate, I'll agree.

 
As for the first part - I was just using that as an example of how every "new feature" (whether real or imagined) costs extra when it first appears, but quickly becomes "standard". Today you pay extra for CD quality music as compared to AAC or MP3 compressed content - and there is a "market price" for both "ordinary music" and "audiophile quality music"... and I see no reason to believe that this basic fact will ever change. Therefore, eventually, high-res files will fill the niche of "audiophile music" and be priced accordingly... but the price for that niche will level off at "what the market will bear" as it always does.
 
I'm also simplifying the second point to actual reality. I agree entirely; people are very much influenced by their expectations. However, if you want to go that far, then let's take it all the way. If someone buys a high-res file because he or she thinks it will sound better; and then, when they play it, they actually believe that it sounds better, and so enjoy it more, then haven't they in fact gotten their money's worth? Is an expensive restaurant a "cheat" because, thanks to the wonderful ambiance, you imagine the food tastes better? In fact, if someone paid $5 more for that high-res download, and actually enjoyed it $5 more because they deluded themselves into thinking they heard a difference, then aren't YOU depriving them of that $5 of extra value by pointing out to them that they only imagined the difference? 
 
I say that, if people CHOOSE to base their worldview on what other people tell them, to the total exclusions of including their own personal experience, then they deserve what they get - to live in the world as other people imagine it to be.