I'd like to meet someone that can consistently identifiy an AAC 256kbps from it's uncompressed counterpart...I'd also like to own a $5,000+ audio system which would be required to tell the difference!!
As for what Apple owns, digital masters vs. lossless clones vs. lower bitrate copies of the music it sells, this is a big question. My assumption is that it does not own a lossless master of 2 million songs. What record label in their right mind would sell such a thing?!?!?
If I go to the store the record companies will gladly sell me a "lossless master" - a CD. No DRM at all. Why is it such a problem for them to do the same thing online. I could never figure that out.
I understand the attraction of Apple Lossless ? I'm in the process of re-ripping my entire library at the moment,
But I don't understand the attraction of Apple Lossless on the iTunes Music Store ? it's going to take ten times longer to download, it's going to be DRM'd and Apple won't be able to charge a premium for it.
I can just pick up the CD for the same price as an AAC download the next time I'm in Tescos, use the Lossless codec and I won't have to worry about fannying around with the DRM.
I don't get it..?
I am a big fan of classical music, and the classical music CD market is dwindling. I see online downloading as the only chance for continued success. In other words, there will be no CD available for you to buy at Tescos, it will only be available online. DG is already releasing live concerts by the NY and Los Angeles Philharmonic this year on iTunes only.
There's no need for 24 96. That's far more a marketing move than anything in the real world. Going to 20 48 is all that's needed. Even that isn't sure.
There isn't any equipment on the market now, or will be in the forseeable future that can play 24 96. 24 bits is a dynamic range of 140db. 96 is a freq. range up to 45KHz. No electronics has a noise or dynamic range even close to that, and no speakers can reproduce hi freq close to that, even if we could hear it.
broad strokes indeed.... work in the industry indeed.....
never heard of Tannoy then? 1 mins searching gets this
//MAIN FEATURES
A fully time-aligned, 3-way active system utilising Dual Concentric? plus SuperTweeter? drive units, the Ellipse 10 has a frequency response extending to above 50kHz for monitoring of wideband programme material.//
Also, on the 24/96/192 thing, even though there is currently no good delivery mechanism, having that extra information is a boon to digital effects and mixing. That extra information makes for better summing and dithering.
The sound quality of the higher bit rate and resolution coming though studio monitors is obvious. And the age of digital audio is upon us, where one can download any audio file. There is no reason an digital optical out of a mac mini can't send a 24/96 signal, is there? All that would be needed is a good 24/96 D/A amp on the other end.
broad strokes indeed.... work in the industry indeed.....
never heard of Tannoy then? 1 mins searching gets this
//MAIN FEATURES
A fully time-aligned, 3-way active system utilising Dual Concentric? plus SuperTweeter? drive units, the Ellipse 10 has a frequency response extending to above 50kHz for monitoring of wideband programme material.//
and as for the COUNTLESS reviews of pro audoi gear that boasts a Freq response ABOVE 20khz some exceeding 100Khz...
maybe you havent heard of those either.... indeed.
mind you the thread is full of misinformation so i suppose your no worse than the rest.... at last ive found a place to use the term FUD
Indeed yourself.
Your understanding of this is not as great as you seem to think it is. This was my business for years. You can read my bio.
The Tannoy is a fine speaker, if a bit behind the times. But, I will guarantee you that it has little response above 25KHz that would be of any use. As one who has designed speakers, as well as the drivers that went into them, I can tell you that there are no speakers that can get to even 30KHz without beaming to a very tight cone, with high distortion, and a very downward slope, with extreme swings in response in that region due to resonance.
As far as other equipment goes, the electronics can have a bandwidth to 1MHz for the little it matters. Matching the output of one piece of equipment with the input of another will often end any possibility that any of that gets through, as do the cables themselves, due to capacitance. Impedance mismatches are severe at higher frequencies.
Look up the bandwidth of SACD and DVD A, and see what it is really all about.
The 24 bit dynamic range is, if anything, a more difficult mountain to climb. There is only one piece of equipment that is rated at a 140db dynamic range, and that is weighted, which is not the same thing at all. It likely doesn't meet its specs anyway, as that is higher than most of the sophisticated test instrumentation available, so there is not easy way to check.
140db is the equivalent of standing right under a 747 jet engine. If your system can reproduce that, you must live in a sports stadium.
Even the best equipment has a S/N of no more than about 120db, and that onlt pertains to the electronics. Even the most expensive SACD and DVD A players don't have a S/N of more than 110db. how they would ever reproduce a 140db signal, therefore, is beyond the laws of physics.
Again, go read some of the technical literature, not the ad copy disguising as a "white paper" that so many of these companies come out with.
you made a few VERY broad statments, and insulted musicians... should i take offence?
i called you on one of them.... should you take offence?
i think one thing we seem to agree on though is that 16/44.1 was chosen for a reason... its ENOUGH 24 bits would be a better increase, as its more about resolution.
48 only leaves you more room to squeeze the crap up into on the top end where it can only be heard by cats n dogs (Nyquist) which is a pro... but wasteful
i can pick out 22-24Khz i cant go near a neigbours house as they use an ultrasonic critter scarer... NOT fun! but my 19Khz has gone!
still, i get by
the thing i get titted off about this thread is that one guys an "audiophile" one a consumer one an audio engineer and one a muso.... all comming at the thing from their own bugbears.
audiophiles ... i really dont understand them... you want a REALLY good 'as the artist intended" experiance... get a pair of studio moitors otherwise your just a consumer like everyone else.
I think his point was that hardly anyone could possibly accurately and consistently distinguish 256 Kbit/s AAC from uncompressed audio.
Yes I did. I can consistently distinguish AAC from uncompressed audio when played back in the right equipment (which is what he was talking about).
He said he'd like to meet that person, and I said "Nice to meet you." implying that I'm that person, hence I'm returning the polite acknowledgement of meeting me (which he technically would have said if we ever met).
audiophiles ... i really dont understand them... you want a REALLY good 'as the artist intended" experiance... get a pair of studio moitors otherwise your just a consumer like everyone else.
I haven't been back in many years, but I used to read and post in the newsgroup rec.audio.opinion. You should have seen the amazing flame wars there, every bit if not more contentious than AppleOutsider/PoliticalOutsider threads here.
I'm pretty much always going to be on the "objectivist" side of any of these audio debates. I'm can be open to some interesting claims of what makes one thing sound better or worse than another, and I certainly believe some people do have better hearing and discriminatory power than I do -- but soooo much of what goes on in the audio work is complete BS, snake oil, the Emperor's New Clothes.
Without documented listening tests to the contrary, I sincerely doubt that many people can hear any difference at all between 16/44.1 audio and any of the higher rates. Oh, maybe are rare few actually can, but I doubt they're as common as the claims are, and I'd think it would probably require not only very good equipment, but an usually quiet listening environment to really hear, not merely imagine that you hear, a difference between 16 bits and 20 bits or more.
16 bits doesn't cover the entire dynamic range of human hearing. 20 bits (120 dB) will take you from the very threshold of hearing past the threshold of pain. I suppose under the right circumstances you might even be able to hear an entire 22-bit or more dynamic range, if by "hear" you mean experience with full appreciation everything from the quietest imaginable sound up through several distinct levels of pain. This said, is 16 bits "enough" under most circumstances?
Imagine that your volume is turned up loud enough that the loudest passages on a 16-bit CD are as loud as a chain saw held at arm's length -- about 100 dB (ref. 0 dB = 10^-12W). The quietest possible passage just above complete silence (4 dB) would be quieter than rustling leaves or a typical whisper, even quieter than normal human breathing.
Typical room noise in a "quiet" room is rated at 40 dB -- I don't know what the standard is for a quiet room, but I imagine that the standard accounts for things like refrigerators and ventilation and muffled street noises from a quiet neighborhood. So, if you're sitting in this kind of "quiet" room, and you've got your volume up to chain-saw level, the quietest passages of a CD will have quite of bit of competition from room noise. There's only 60 dB of dynamic range between sounds you can reliably hear over room noise, and that's at playback levels many people would find annoyingly loud. Turn down the volume some, and even more of that 16-bit range is lost to background room noise. 70 dB, still short of the full 96 db of a standard CD, covers the range from quiet room noise to the threshold of pain.
Another way to think about the issue is this: Imagine you're operating a chain saw. Someone standing next to you, but out of sight, whispers, or brushes a hand lightly over their clothing. Do you think you'll hear that? If you aren't actually aware of the particular sound, do you think the chain saw is going to sound subtly different to you because of the contribution of the other sound?
It's hard enough to hear the full dynamic range of a CD in when the loudest parts are put in stark contrast with the quietest possible details. When you think about a person listening to a song or a passage of music, playing along at more or less a constant typical listening level, and this person claiming that with all of this loud sound going on he can tune into and not only hear levels of details measured in the least significant of 16 bits, but describe in florid prose all of the wonderful qualities of music which are missing, which would take far finer levels of detail to satisfy -- well, how can you not be a bit skeptical about that sort of claim?
Of course, for many, skepticism doesn't matter. Technical explanations don't matter. They try X. They try Y. They think X sounds better than Y, and that's settles that because they know they heard the difference -- to suggest that the difference is imagined is absurd at best, and worse, possibly an insult.
Yes I did. I can consistently distinguish AAC from uncompressed audio when played back in the right equipment (which is what he was talking about).
No, I still think you missed the point. You say you can consistently tell AAC from uncompressed, but your correction makes it sound like what you're saying is that you can consistenly distinguish 128 kbps AAC from uncompressed.
Yes, we all know that 128 AAC is the standard compression you get from iTMS. But you can rip your own CDs using AAC at 256 kbps. Now that's the question and the challenge -- can you consistently tell AAC at that higher rate from uncompressed audio?
No, I still think you missed the point. You say you can consistently tell AAC from uncompressed, but your correction makes it sound like what you're saying is that you can consistenly distinguish 128 kbps AAC from uncompressed.
1. Article says Apple offers music (128kbps) that rivals that of uncompressed audio.
2. I say "That's laughable".
3. Guy walks in, quotes me, and says that he wants to meet anyone that can distinguish 256kbps from uncompressed audio
4. I said I can, but the claim was that 128kbps rivals uncompressed audio, not 256, and as he quoted me, he should have stayed with what I commented on, not a different AAC encoding.
I posted this in chronological order because it got very complicated.
Quote:
Yes, we all know that 128 AAC is the standard compression you get from iTMS. But you can rip your own CDs using AAC at 256 kbps. Now that's the question and the challenge -- can you consistently tell AAC at that higher rate from uncompressed audio?
With regular consumer equipment probably not, but given high-level stuff, I reckon I could. It'd be pretty hard though, as the human ear can pick-up only so much detail and after a certain amount of time, there's a point of diminishing returns..
you made a few VERY broad statments, and insulted musicians... should i take offence?
i called you on one of them.... should you take offence?
i think one thing we seem to agree on though is that 16/44.1 was chosen for a reason... its ENOUGH 24 bits would be a better increase, as its more about resolution.
48 only leaves you more room to squeeze the crap up into on the top end where it can only be heard by cats n dogs (Nyquist) which is a pro... but wasteful
i can pick out 22-24Khz i cant go near a neigbours house as they use an ultrasonic critter scarer... NOT fun! but my 19Khz has gone!
still, i get by
the thing i get titted off about this thread is that one guys an "audiophile" one a consumer one an audio engineer and one a muso.... all comming at the thing from their own bugbears.
audiophiles ... i really dont understand them... you want a REALLY good 'as the artist intended" experiance... get a pair of studio moitors otherwise your just a consumer like everyone else.
i thaan'you
I didn't take offence on your thinking that you "called me" on something, but I was amused by your "Indeed" pronouncement.
You also missed the point of my earlier post. I'm not saying that going above 16/44 is of no value.
What I'm saying is that going to 24/96 (or above) is of no value.
Until you've heard demonstrations, properly carried out, of intermediate values, you can't say that making that drastic leap is the cause of any differences that you might hear.
There are many intermediate steps that have been judged. All the way from 18/44, on up. The consensus is that going above 20/48 makes no discernible difference.
So, it is most likely the fact that 24/96 is meeting the 20/48 level that is doing it.
Sony started recording in 24/96 so that editing digital recordings wouldn'y cause the bit cut-offs that were occuring with recording 16/44. Otherwise recordings havd to be converted to analog, edited, and then re-converted to digital. Not satisfactory.
One of the reasons why many of the first digital recordings sounded poor was because when editing with early digital equipment, individual tracks were losing bits as they were pushed in level during the editing process. That's why they would bring it analog.
By going 24/96, that problem didn't occur, as all the editing could be done in the 24 bit realm, and then brought to 16 bits afterwards.
They went to 96 for the same reason. IOt was felt that the noise and distortion from the editing process could be pushed to the inaudible portion of the range, which would then be eliminated when going to 44.1.
Some decided that this would be a great advertising campaign to release 24/96 bit recordings, and so SACD and DVDA were born.
But, as the extra quality proved too elusive, it lost any momentum it might have otherwise had. In fact, several recordings over the years that were dual released in 24/96 and 16/44 have been said to sound better in the 16/44 release.
A number of years ago, Stan Ricker, one of the best known recording engineers said that the difference between high end recordings that used gold vs aluminum, and later 24/96 vs 16/44 was the care that the high end pressings received as opposed to the standard ones, and that it wasn't due to the methods of pressing used. I would agree with that to a very great extend. Certainly towards gold pressings, but to 24/96 as well.
I haven't been back in many years, but I used to read and post in the newsgroup rec.audio.opinion. You should have seen the amazing flame wars there, every bit if not more contentious than AppleOutsider/PoliticalOutsider threads here.
I'm pretty much always going to be on the "objectivist" side of any of these audio debates. I'm can be open to some interesting claims of what makes one thing sound better or worse than another, and I certainly believe some people do have better hearing and discriminatory power than I do -- but soooo much of what goes on in the audio work is complete BS, snake oil, the Emperor's New Clothes.
Without documented listening tests to the contrary, I sincerely doubt that many people can hear any difference at all between 16/44.1 audio and any of the higher rates. Oh, maybe are rare few actually can, but I doubt they're as common as the claims are, and I'd think it would probably require not only very good equipment, but an usually quiet listening environment to really hear, not merely imagine that you hear, a difference between 16 bits and 20 bits or more.
16 bits doesn't cover the entire dynamic range of human hearing. 20 bits (120 dB) will take you from the very threshold of hearing past the threshold of pain. I suppose under the right circumstances you might even be able to hear an entire 22-bit or more dynamic range, if by "hear" you mean experience with full appreciation everything from the quietest imaginable sound up through several distinct levels of pain. This said, is 16 bits "enough" under most circumstances?
Imagine that your volume is turned up loud enough that the loudest passages on a 16-bit CD are as loud as a chain saw held at arm's length -- about 100 dB (ref. 0 dB = 10^-12W). The quietest possible passage just above complete silence (4 dB) would be quieter than rustling leaves or a typical whisper, even quieter than normal human breathing.
Typical room noise in a "quiet" room is rated at 40 dB -- I don't know what the standard is for a quiet room, but I imagine that the standard accounts for things like refrigerators and ventilation and muffled street noises from a quiet neighborhood. So, if you're sitting in this kind of "quiet" room, and you've got your volume up to chain-saw level, the quietest passages of a CD will have quite of bit of competition from room noise. There's only 60 dB of dynamic range between sounds you can reliably hear over room noise, and that's at playback levels many people would find annoyingly loud. Turn down the volume some, and even more of that 16-bit range is lost to background room noise. 70 dB, still short of the full 96 db of a standerd CD, covers the range from quiet room noise to the threshold of pain.
Another way to think about the issue is this: Imagine you're operating a chain saw. Someone standing next to you, but out of sight, whispers, or brushes a hand lightly over their clothing. Do you think you'll hear that? If you aren't actually aware of the particular sound, do you think the chain saw is going to sound subtly different to you because of the contribution of the other sound?
It's hard enough to hear the full dynamic range of a CD in when the loudest parts are put in stark contrast with the quietest possible details. When you think about a person listening to a song or a passage of music, playing along at more or less a constant typical listening level, and this person claiming that with all of this loud sound going on he can tune into and not only hear levels of details measured in the least significant of 16 bits, but describe in florid prose all of the wonderful qualities of music which are missing, which would take far finer levels of detail to satisfy -- well, how can you not be a bit skeptical about that sort of claim?
Of course, for many, skepticism doesn't matter. Technical explanations don't matter. They try X. They try Y. They think X sounds better than Y, and that's settles that because they know they heard the difference -- to suggest that the difference is imagined is absurd at best, and worse, possibly an insult.
One of the things we say in the high end business is that ANY change you make in your system sounds better. Why? Because you want it to. High end audio is as much a sense of belonging to a special group, involving a great deal of physiology, as it is technical specs (actually, a great deal MORE that technical specs).
Some of the claims are absurd. I like to call many of the "white papers" I see, "phantom physics".
1. Article says Apple offers music (128kbps) that rivals that of uncompressed audio.
2. I say "That's laughable".
3. Guy walks in, quotes me, and says that he wants to meet anyone that can distinguish 256kbps from uncompressed audio
4. I said I can, but the claim was that 128kbps rivals uncompressed audio, not 256, and as he quoted me, he should have stayed with what I commented on, not a different AAC encoding.
I posted this in chronological order because it got very complicated.
With regular consumer equipment probably not, but given high-level stuff, I reckon I could. It'd be pretty hard though, as the human ear can pick-up only so much detail and after a certain amount of time, there's a point of diminishing returns..
I can hear a lot of the problems with my equipment. But, with some recordings, there isn't an audible difference. It depends upon the music.
Comments
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Laughable.
I'd like to meet someone that can consistently identifiy an AAC 256kbps from it's uncompressed counterpart...I'd also like to own a $5,000+ audio system which would be required to tell the difference!!
As for what Apple owns, digital masters vs. lossless clones vs. lower bitrate copies of the music it sells, this is a big question. My assumption is that it does not own a lossless master of 2 million songs. What record label in their right mind would sell such a thing?!?!?
If I go to the store the record companies will gladly sell me a "lossless master" - a CD. No DRM at all. Why is it such a problem for them to do the same thing online. I could never figure that out.
Steve
Originally posted by Messiah
I understand the attraction of Apple Lossless ? I'm in the process of re-ripping my entire library at the moment,
But I don't understand the attraction of Apple Lossless on the iTunes Music Store ? it's going to take ten times longer to download, it's going to be DRM'd and Apple won't be able to charge a premium for it.
I can just pick up the CD for the same price as an AAC download the next time I'm in Tescos, use the Lossless codec and I won't have to worry about fannying around with the DRM.
I don't get it..?
I am a big fan of classical music, and the classical music CD market is dwindling. I see online downloading as the only chance for continued success. In other words, there will be no CD available for you to buy at Tescos, it will only be available online. DG is already releasing live concerts by the NY and Los Angeles Philharmonic this year on iTunes only.
Steve
Originally posted by demenas
If I go to the store the record companies will gladly sell me a "lossless master" - a CD. No DRM at all.
But often copy protection.
Originally posted by Chucker
But often copy protection.
Of the one thousand or so CDs I have purchased in the last year maybe one or two had (so-called) copy protection.
Steve
Originally posted by demenas
Of the one thousand or so CDs I have purchased in the last year maybe one or two had (so-called) copy protection.
Steve
Originally posted by melgross
There's no need for 24 96. That's far more a marketing move than anything in the real world. Going to 20 48 is all that's needed. Even that isn't sure.
There isn't any equipment on the market now, or will be in the forseeable future that can play 24 96. 24 bits is a dynamic range of 140db. 96 is a freq. range up to 45KHz. No electronics has a noise or dynamic range even close to that, and no speakers can reproduce hi freq close to that, even if we could hear it.
broad strokes indeed.... work in the industry indeed.....
never heard of Tannoy then? 1 mins searching gets this
//MAIN FEATURES
A fully time-aligned, 3-way active system utilising Dual Concentric? plus SuperTweeter? drive units, the Ellipse 10 has a frequency response extending to above 50kHz for monitoring of wideband programme material.//
from here Ellipse10
and as for the COUNTLESS reviews of pro audoi gear that boasts a Freq response ABOVE 20khz some exceeding 100Khz...
maybe you havent heard of those either.... indeed.
mind you the thread is full of misinformation so i suppose your no worse than the rest.... at last ive found a place to use the term FUD
The sound quality of the higher bit rate and resolution coming though studio monitors is obvious. And the age of digital audio is upon us, where one can download any audio file. There is no reason an digital optical out of a mac mini can't send a 24/96 signal, is there? All that would be needed is a good 24/96 D/A amp on the other end.
Originally posted by Trendannoyer
broad strokes indeed.... work in the industry indeed.....
never heard of Tannoy then? 1 mins searching gets this
//MAIN FEATURES
A fully time-aligned, 3-way active system utilising Dual Concentric? plus SuperTweeter? drive units, the Ellipse 10 has a frequency response extending to above 50kHz for monitoring of wideband programme material.//
from here Ellipse10
and as for the COUNTLESS reviews of pro audoi gear that boasts a Freq response ABOVE 20khz some exceeding 100Khz...
maybe you havent heard of those either.... indeed.
mind you the thread is full of misinformation so i suppose your no worse than the rest.... at last ive found a place to use the term FUD
Indeed yourself.
Your understanding of this is not as great as you seem to think it is. This was my business for years. You can read my bio.
The Tannoy is a fine speaker, if a bit behind the times. But, I will guarantee you that it has little response above 25KHz that would be of any use. As one who has designed speakers, as well as the drivers that went into them, I can tell you that there are no speakers that can get to even 30KHz without beaming to a very tight cone, with high distortion, and a very downward slope, with extreme swings in response in that region due to resonance.
As far as other equipment goes, the electronics can have a bandwidth to 1MHz for the little it matters. Matching the output of one piece of equipment with the input of another will often end any possibility that any of that gets through, as do the cables themselves, due to capacitance. Impedance mismatches are severe at higher frequencies.
Look up the bandwidth of SACD and DVD A, and see what it is really all about.
The 24 bit dynamic range is, if anything, a more difficult mountain to climb. There is only one piece of equipment that is rated at a 140db dynamic range, and that is weighted, which is not the same thing at all. It likely doesn't meet its specs anyway, as that is higher than most of the sophisticated test instrumentation available, so there is not easy way to check.
140db is the equivalent of standing right under a 747 jet engine. If your system can reproduce that, you must live in a sports stadium.
Even the best equipment has a S/N of no more than about 120db, and that onlt pertains to the electronics. Even the most expensive SACD and DVD A players don't have a S/N of more than 110db. how they would ever reproduce a 140db signal, therefore, is beyond the laws of physics.
Again, go read some of the technical literature, not the ad copy disguising as a "white paper" that so many of these companies come out with.
i called you on one of them.... should you take offence?
i think one thing we seem to agree on though is that 16/44.1 was chosen for a reason... its ENOUGH 24 bits would be a better increase, as its more about resolution.
48 only leaves you more room to squeeze the crap up into on the top end where it can only be heard by cats n dogs (Nyquist) which is a pro... but wasteful
i can pick out 22-24Khz i cant go near a neigbours house as they use an ultrasonic critter scarer... NOT fun!
still, i get by
the thing i get titted off about this thread is that one guys an "audiophile" one a consumer one an audio engineer and one a muso.... all comming at the thing from their own bugbears.
audiophiles ... i really dont understand them... you want a REALLY good 'as the artist intended" experiance... get a pair of studio moitors otherwise your just a consumer like everyone else.
i thaan'you
Originally posted by s.metcalf
I'd like to meet someone that can consistently identifiy an AAC 256kbps
Nice to meet you. And it's AAC 128, not 256.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Nice to meet you. And it's AAC 128, not 256.
Are you sure you read his post right?
I think his point was that hardly anyone could possibly accurately and consistently distinguish 256 Kbit/s AAC from uncompressed audio.
Originally posted by Chucker
Are you sure you read his post right?
I think his point was that hardly anyone could possibly accurately and consistently distinguish 256 Kbit/s AAC from uncompressed audio.
Yes I did. I can consistently distinguish AAC from uncompressed audio when played back in the right equipment (which is what he was talking about).
He said he'd like to meet that person, and I said "Nice to meet you." implying that I'm that person, hence I'm returning the polite acknowledgement of meeting me (which he technically would have said if we ever met).
In any case, it was a little play of words.
Originally posted by Trendannoyer
audiophiles ... i really dont understand them... you want a REALLY good 'as the artist intended" experiance... get a pair of studio moitors otherwise your just a consumer like everyone else.
I haven't been back in many years, but I used to read and post in the newsgroup rec.audio.opinion. You should have seen the amazing flame wars there, every bit if not more contentious than AppleOutsider/PoliticalOutsider threads here.
I'm pretty much always going to be on the "objectivist" side of any of these audio debates. I'm can be open to some interesting claims of what makes one thing sound better or worse than another, and I certainly believe some people do have better hearing and discriminatory power than I do -- but soooo much of what goes on in the audio work is complete BS, snake oil, the Emperor's New Clothes.
Without documented listening tests to the contrary, I sincerely doubt that many people can hear any difference at all between 16/44.1 audio and any of the higher rates. Oh, maybe are rare few actually can, but I doubt they're as common as the claims are, and I'd think it would probably require not only very good equipment, but an usually quiet listening environment to really hear, not merely imagine that you hear, a difference between 16 bits and 20 bits or more.
16 bits doesn't cover the entire dynamic range of human hearing. 20 bits (120 dB) will take you from the very threshold of hearing past the threshold of pain. I suppose under the right circumstances you might even be able to hear an entire 22-bit or more dynamic range, if by "hear" you mean experience with full appreciation everything from the quietest imaginable sound up through several distinct levels of pain. This said, is 16 bits "enough" under most circumstances?
Imagine that your volume is turned up loud enough that the loudest passages on a 16-bit CD are as loud as a chain saw held at arm's length -- about 100 dB (ref. 0 dB = 10^-12W). The quietest possible passage just above complete silence (4 dB) would be quieter than rustling leaves or a typical whisper, even quieter than normal human breathing.
Typical room noise in a "quiet" room is rated at 40 dB -- I don't know what the standard is for a quiet room, but I imagine that the standard accounts for things like refrigerators and ventilation and muffled street noises from a quiet neighborhood. So, if you're sitting in this kind of "quiet" room, and you've got your volume up to chain-saw level, the quietest passages of a CD will have quite of bit of competition from room noise. There's only 60 dB of dynamic range between sounds you can reliably hear over room noise, and that's at playback levels many people would find annoyingly loud. Turn down the volume some, and even more of that 16-bit range is lost to background room noise. 70 dB, still short of the full 96 db of a standard CD, covers the range from quiet room noise to the threshold of pain.
Another way to think about the issue is this: Imagine you're operating a chain saw. Someone standing next to you, but out of sight, whispers, or brushes a hand lightly over their clothing. Do you think you'll hear that? If you aren't actually aware of the particular sound, do you think the chain saw is going to sound subtly different to you because of the contribution of the other sound?
It's hard enough to hear the full dynamic range of a CD in when the loudest parts are put in stark contrast with the quietest possible details. When you think about a person listening to a song or a passage of music, playing along at more or less a constant typical listening level, and this person claiming that with all of this loud sound going on he can tune into and not only hear levels of details measured in the least significant of 16 bits, but describe in florid prose all of the wonderful qualities of music which are missing, which would take far finer levels of detail to satisfy -- well, how can you not be a bit skeptical about that sort of claim?
Of course, for many, skepticism doesn't matter. Technical explanations don't matter. They try X. They try Y. They think X sounds better than Y, and that's settles that because they know they heard the difference -- to suggest that the difference is imagined is absurd at best, and worse, possibly an insult.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Yes I did. I can consistently distinguish AAC from uncompressed audio when played back in the right equipment (which is what he was talking about).
No, I still think you missed the point. You say you can consistently tell AAC from uncompressed, but your correction makes it sound like what you're saying is that you can consistenly distinguish 128 kbps AAC from uncompressed.
Yes, we all know that 128 AAC is the standard compression you get from iTMS. But you can rip your own CDs using AAC at 256 kbps. Now that's the question and the challenge -- can you consistently tell AAC at that higher rate from uncompressed audio?
Originally posted by shetline
No, I still think you missed the point. You say you can consistently tell AAC from uncompressed, but your correction makes it sound like what you're saying is that you can consistenly distinguish 128 kbps AAC from uncompressed.
1. Article says Apple offers music (128kbps) that rivals that of uncompressed audio.
2. I say "That's laughable".
3. Guy walks in, quotes me, and says that he wants to meet anyone that can distinguish 256kbps from uncompressed audio
4. I said I can, but the claim was that 128kbps rivals uncompressed audio, not 256, and as he quoted me, he should have stayed with what I commented on, not a different AAC encoding.
I posted this in chronological order because it got very complicated.
Yes, we all know that 128 AAC is the standard compression you get from iTMS. But you can rip your own CDs using AAC at 256 kbps. Now that's the question and the challenge -- can you consistently tell AAC at that higher rate from uncompressed audio?
With regular consumer equipment probably not, but given high-level stuff, I reckon I could. It'd be pretty hard though, as the human ear can pick-up only so much detail and after a certain amount of time, there's a point of diminishing returns..
Originally posted by Trendannoyer
you made a few VERY broad statments, and insulted musicians... should i take offence?
i called you on one of them.... should you take offence?
i think one thing we seem to agree on though is that 16/44.1 was chosen for a reason... its ENOUGH 24 bits would be a better increase, as its more about resolution.
48 only leaves you more room to squeeze the crap up into on the top end where it can only be heard by cats n dogs (Nyquist) which is a pro... but wasteful
i can pick out 22-24Khz i cant go near a neigbours house as they use an ultrasonic critter scarer... NOT fun!
still, i get by
the thing i get titted off about this thread is that one guys an "audiophile" one a consumer one an audio engineer and one a muso.... all comming at the thing from their own bugbears.
audiophiles ... i really dont understand them... you want a REALLY good 'as the artist intended" experiance... get a pair of studio moitors otherwise your just a consumer like everyone else.
i thaan'you
I didn't take offence on your thinking that you "called me" on something, but I was amused by your "Indeed" pronouncement.
You also missed the point of my earlier post. I'm not saying that going above 16/44 is of no value.
What I'm saying is that going to 24/96 (or above) is of no value.
Until you've heard demonstrations, properly carried out, of intermediate values, you can't say that making that drastic leap is the cause of any differences that you might hear.
There are many intermediate steps that have been judged. All the way from 18/44, on up. The consensus is that going above 20/48 makes no discernible difference.
So, it is most likely the fact that 24/96 is meeting the 20/48 level that is doing it.
Sony started recording in 24/96 so that editing digital recordings wouldn'y cause the bit cut-offs that were occuring with recording 16/44. Otherwise recordings havd to be converted to analog, edited, and then re-converted to digital. Not satisfactory.
One of the reasons why many of the first digital recordings sounded poor was because when editing with early digital equipment, individual tracks were losing bits as they were pushed in level during the editing process. That's why they would bring it analog.
By going 24/96, that problem didn't occur, as all the editing could be done in the 24 bit realm, and then brought to 16 bits afterwards.
They went to 96 for the same reason. IOt was felt that the noise and distortion from the editing process could be pushed to the inaudible portion of the range, which would then be eliminated when going to 44.1.
Some decided that this would be a great advertising campaign to release 24/96 bit recordings, and so SACD and DVDA were born.
But, as the extra quality proved too elusive, it lost any momentum it might have otherwise had. In fact, several recordings over the years that were dual released in 24/96 and 16/44 have been said to sound better in the 16/44 release.
A number of years ago, Stan Ricker, one of the best known recording engineers said that the difference between high end recordings that used gold vs aluminum, and later 24/96 vs 16/44 was the care that the high end pressings received as opposed to the standard ones, and that it wasn't due to the methods of pressing used. I would agree with that to a very great extend. Certainly towards gold pressings, but to 24/96 as well.
Originally posted by shetline
I haven't been back in many years, but I used to read and post in the newsgroup rec.audio.opinion. You should have seen the amazing flame wars there, every bit if not more contentious than AppleOutsider/PoliticalOutsider threads here.
I'm pretty much always going to be on the "objectivist" side of any of these audio debates. I'm can be open to some interesting claims of what makes one thing sound better or worse than another, and I certainly believe some people do have better hearing and discriminatory power than I do -- but soooo much of what goes on in the audio work is complete BS, snake oil, the Emperor's New Clothes.
Without documented listening tests to the contrary, I sincerely doubt that many people can hear any difference at all between 16/44.1 audio and any of the higher rates. Oh, maybe are rare few actually can, but I doubt they're as common as the claims are, and I'd think it would probably require not only very good equipment, but an usually quiet listening environment to really hear, not merely imagine that you hear, a difference between 16 bits and 20 bits or more.
16 bits doesn't cover the entire dynamic range of human hearing. 20 bits (120 dB) will take you from the very threshold of hearing past the threshold of pain. I suppose under the right circumstances you might even be able to hear an entire 22-bit or more dynamic range, if by "hear" you mean experience with full appreciation everything from the quietest imaginable sound up through several distinct levels of pain. This said, is 16 bits "enough" under most circumstances?
Imagine that your volume is turned up loud enough that the loudest passages on a 16-bit CD are as loud as a chain saw held at arm's length -- about 100 dB (ref. 0 dB = 10^-12W). The quietest possible passage just above complete silence (4 dB) would be quieter than rustling leaves or a typical whisper, even quieter than normal human breathing.
Typical room noise in a "quiet" room is rated at 40 dB -- I don't know what the standard is for a quiet room, but I imagine that the standard accounts for things like refrigerators and ventilation and muffled street noises from a quiet neighborhood. So, if you're sitting in this kind of "quiet" room, and you've got your volume up to chain-saw level, the quietest passages of a CD will have quite of bit of competition from room noise. There's only 60 dB of dynamic range between sounds you can reliably hear over room noise, and that's at playback levels many people would find annoyingly loud. Turn down the volume some, and even more of that 16-bit range is lost to background room noise. 70 dB, still short of the full 96 db of a standerd CD, covers the range from quiet room noise to the threshold of pain.
Another way to think about the issue is this: Imagine you're operating a chain saw. Someone standing next to you, but out of sight, whispers, or brushes a hand lightly over their clothing. Do you think you'll hear that? If you aren't actually aware of the particular sound, do you think the chain saw is going to sound subtly different to you because of the contribution of the other sound?
It's hard enough to hear the full dynamic range of a CD in when the loudest parts are put in stark contrast with the quietest possible details. When you think about a person listening to a song or a passage of music, playing along at more or less a constant typical listening level, and this person claiming that with all of this loud sound going on he can tune into and not only hear levels of details measured in the least significant of 16 bits, but describe in florid prose all of the wonderful qualities of music which are missing, which would take far finer levels of detail to satisfy -- well, how can you not be a bit skeptical about that sort of claim?
Of course, for many, skepticism doesn't matter. Technical explanations don't matter. They try X. They try Y. They think X sounds better than Y, and that's settles that because they know they heard the difference -- to suggest that the difference is imagined is absurd at best, and worse, possibly an insult.
One of the things we say in the high end business is that ANY change you make in your system sounds better. Why? Because you want it to. High end audio is as much a sense of belonging to a special group, involving a great deal of physiology, as it is technical specs (actually, a great deal MORE that technical specs).
Some of the claims are absurd. I like to call many of the "white papers" I see, "phantom physics".
Originally posted by Gene Clean
1. Article says Apple offers music (128kbps) that rivals that of uncompressed audio.
2. I say "That's laughable".
3. Guy walks in, quotes me, and says that he wants to meet anyone that can distinguish 256kbps from uncompressed audio
4. I said I can, but the claim was that 128kbps rivals uncompressed audio, not 256, and as he quoted me, he should have stayed with what I commented on, not a different AAC encoding.
I posted this in chronological order because it got very complicated.
With regular consumer equipment probably not, but given high-level stuff, I reckon I could. It'd be pretty hard though, as the human ear can pick-up only so much detail and after a certain amount of time, there's a point of diminishing returns..
I can hear a lot of the problems with my equipment. But, with some recordings, there isn't an audible difference. It depends upon the music.