Some DACs however will sound a lot better due to the digital filtering automatically being pushed out beyond audibility with 192. I manually control this on my DAC, so I can do it even with 44.1, and I do. Sounds a lot better than a brick-wall filter at 20kHz.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio This is exactly why 192 makes sense and why it (can) definitely sound better than Redbook...192 is way outside of the audible range of human hearing; what better "place" to apply the filtering... There are some great articles on "pre-ringing" and jitter that address the reasons why HiRes (192 especially) has real benefits... That said; a great Redbook recording does indeed sound...great! |
And what's wrong with mathematically perfect response out to 16kHz? Most people, and certainly most middle age and older audiophiles' hearing doesn't go beyond 16kHz. FM doesn't go beyond 15kHz and at its best it's pretty damn good sounding. 12bit audio has a theoretical dynamic range of 72dB. That exceeds all but the most dedicated of audiophile rooms and systems. And if you increase the sampling rate above 32kHz won't you be introducing ultrasonic IM distortion?
44.1kHz/16bit is not needed. Done! |
Just a little heads up on a well recorded redbook CD. I'm an old Four Seasons fan from the 60s and 70s. Just bought the CD 2005 original soundtrack of Jersey Boys and a CD redo of the original Best of the Four Seasons. The 2005 Jersey Boys CD is very nicely recorded. The original Four Seasons CD sucks. I guess the engineer who mastered the old Four seasons tunes thought everyone played their records with hand cranked turn tables and used a sowing needle for a stylus. UUuugghh. |
I'm sorry Onhwy61 the referenced article is not nonsense. We are dealing with a pure digital signal until the output of the D/A. So, there are plenty of DSP techniques available to make this work without oversampling the heck out of the digital signal. We need to oversample just enough to ease the specifications of the analog reconstruction skirt so that it's not brickwall. That's where 96KHz sampling comes in. I also bet that most people's systems (including yours & mine) do not have 96dB of dynamic range after all the sweat that we have put in to isolate & reduce noise. If you really take the article seriously we should all be using 32kHz/12bit digital because the math works perfectly at that level too no it does not. The Fs/2 freq would be 16KHz which would be less than 20KHz. And, 12-b would be insufficient because one would add too much noise when going thru the mastering process & you'd effectively get 9-10 bits of music. |
Poorly recorded and mastered music doesn't sound good at any sample/bit rate. Is that really surprising?
The referenced article is nonsense. Essentially he's saying the math is perfect and therefore nothing else is needed for better sound quality. Sony/Philips said the same thing back in the mid-1980s. Out of bandwidth induced noise is a problem in both digital and analog. It is something engineers are well aware and there are a multitude of solutions with proven track records. If an audio amplifier manufacturer said his new amp filtered out all audio above 20kHz would you consider it a serious high end oriented design? If you really take the article seriously we should all be using 32kHz/12bit digital because the math works perfectly at that level too. |
Also agree with the above, there is only so much on a recording, mastering is where it's at.
My Dac is a custom built NOS AD1865K 16/44 with short signal paths, silver internal wiring and V-CAP OIMP output caps fed by a modded CEC transport, if there's anything missing it's the recording.
I have some (not all) quality redbooks that equal and beat some of my friend's LP counterparts from his Walker T.T. and we compare all the time.
This is a good thread so far. |
Insert a quantity of "$" in the space between "1" and "0" and adjust until it sounds good to you. |
yes, I seem to concur that 24/192 makes no sense. I never was a believer of the hi-rez scam that pervades the industry. There is also a nice article written by Dan Lavry on Lavry Engineering's website on why sampling upto a max of 24/96 makes sense & anything beyond that is bogus. Dan Lavry wrote this article back in 2004! This article is called "Sampling Theory" when you go to this link: http://www.lavryengineering.com/index_html.html |
I agree with the comments above that embrace the view that the biggest problem is engineering and mastering. I've posted a number of "heads-up" comments in other threads when I came across a particulary good sounding red book CD. Same goes for vinyl. This is an industry problem and my concern is that the music industry will go after market share and demographics. Let's face it folks, the kids love those ear bud thingys and could care less about real music fidelity. Us "gray hairs" are a shrinking market niche. What's an audiophile to do?? |
I read that artical explaining why theroretically we can not hear anything above redbook. I think the key is to keep improving coding and decoding of this standard. It would seam that the team that developed the CD standard where no idiots knew exactly what the standard needed to be for the human ear. I just got a Metrum Octave last night and I must say it takes another (huge) step forward in extracting amazing sound from redbook recordings. Also, recordings have gotten vastly better in the the past 30 years. I now have sound quality that I believe truly rivals analog, and it only took 30 years to get it. he he
Earl |
Based on the article, I'm convinced and satisfied that there is no intrinsic benefit to hi-rez sampling rate. Although the quality of the recording, as always, plays a significant role in the quality of the audio files, its still independnet of the question of the resolution of the file. If/when I upgrade my DAC, I'll be looking for the best redbook dac. Such a shame that all the most 'up-to-date' fare will be contending with upping the sampling rate or other stuff that either has no audio benefit or just adds to or amplifies distortion.
I'm surpsied at some of the comments above suggesting that some of you guys still adhere to some benefit with hi-rez formats. I know the article is just one article, but I found it to be utterly convincing that there is no benefit. |
The benefit over 24/96 is usually subtle, but can be interesting in complex classical or female vocals. I have some 2L classical that is 24/192 and very nice indeed. The 192 titles are so sparse that its not really a requirement, only a nice to have in my book.
Some DACs however will sound a lot better due to the digital filtering automatically being pushed out beyond audibility with 192. I manually control this on my DAC, so I can do it even with 44.1, and I do. Sounds a lot better than a brick-wall filter at 20kHz.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Even better than hirez formats are recordings produced correctly. If you want to hear great stuff listen to movie soundtracks. Somehow they almost always get it right. Even old stuff from the 50s can sound incredible, yet the music business can't seem to do the same with the same music. It seems the movie industry cares enough to get great sound while the music industry (whose job it should be to get music right) just does not care in general about sound quality. Maybe this is why there are so few new audiophiles today, because music is recorded and produced so poorly and sounds so bad that most never hear any need for something better than MP3s? I believe that the music industry is responsible for there own woes. |
I can only comment that I'd much rather listen to good 16/44 vs mediocre or poor hi res regardless of frequency, bit and sample rate... Although really good recordings on high res are wonderful...Recording quality is a higher factor. Than resolution once you get up to 16/44. I've posted a hi res quesion on the computer forum, like any feedback that I can get. |
I don't own any high res files, because none of the music I listen to is available in 24/96, but I am considering the purchase of several classical titles in 24/96 since I bought a DAC that can process the signal. The true answer to something like this is an A/B test between the same track at 16/44.1 and 24/96, and I plan to do this if I can. In the meantime, I can say that the 192kHz setting on my PS Audio DL III helps remove some high frequency noise and reduces listener fatigue. I am currently battling this HF noise in my DAC-direct-to-amp setup. But this has nothing to do with 24/96 files, all my stuff is Redbook...now I'm wondering if the 24/96 USB/SPDIF converter is inserting "audible intermodulation of the ultrasonics!" |
Well written, interesting, provacitive. This coincides with my recent experience with forays into SACD & DVD-A. The overriding contribution to good sound (IMHO)is what I would call the production values( the care and equipment used in recordng & mastering). I have some dual sided DAD(24/96 PCM) and DVD-A (24/192 MLP) discs. I hear no advantage to the 192 sides. I consider the DADs proposed by Halverson & Classic Records to have been an ideal solution to improving the 16/44.1 standard, but of course it was never supported by the big players because it did not afford copy protection. I also find it very difficult to identify before purchasing "true" high def material actually encoded with 24/96 PCM, DSD, or even high speed analog tape with digital remastering. It seems to me these "high def" discs do offer improved sound, but only with the proviso cited in this article that the production values are also high def. |
