It looks good in the marketing BS to people who don't have a clue. And anyone who buys Sonos these days after what they got up to a few years back you REALLY doesn't have a clue.
I worked with an ex BBC sound engineer who swore black and blue he could tell the difference in audio quality between an original CD and a copied CD. I gave up trying to explain how digital works...he already "knew" anyway. He was an otherwise intelligent human being. Some people have very specific delusions.
Depending on the copying process, it's plausible... Like, if there's somehow a lossy encode generation (or an analog generation or five) between the original and copy or if the CD is burned so poorly it's audibly skipping or if it's done in a way that inserts gaps between tracks But if you don't do something wrong, nah.
Its nice and all, that you know how digital works, but sound isn't digital.It is as you might know analog, and it the process of making a digital signal into analog is not trivial, and everything in the process can and usually does influence the result (if you have a system that has the resolution to show it.Things like Jitter, error rate, emi, rfi, powersupply stability has so much influence on the datastream. This is why a powersupply for a high end networking switch is kind of expensive, digital is not j
Most "Audiophiles" it is a status thing vs something that has any additional value.
I Minored in music at a University that had a highly renowned music school, I did well in the classes that a lot of successful musicians took, including courses in ear training.
That said for a lot of this audiophile stuff I really cannot find much of a difference between a Lowly MP3 and a high quality vinyl recording, unless they are played back to back. What helps the sound more than anything is a good pair (Not top of the l
It depends on the type of music, in my experience.
MP3 compression has a tough job with metal for example, probably because distinguishing between noise and signal becomes difficult when noise is a big part of the signal. I've also noticed classical music to suffer in dynamics.
But then pop music and EDM are usually indistinguishable when compressed. Probably because they developed alongside the loudness wars and so the producers have adapted the style to the medium. Metal's big development happened during th
Granted I picked MP3 as the lowest quality. However the difference between 16 bit or even 24 bit sound isn't as huge as people think it is. You can even get OK sound out of 8 bit. as these sound sources will have a smoothing algorithm (or a capacitor) that fills in the gap in the data.
It's not a status thing. That may be a distant secondary concern for some, but you can't drive around in a $10,000 vinyl rig, wear it on your body, etc. so there are much better ways to do conspicuous consumption.
Audiofool extravagances are enjoyed in private. A better way to characterize it is magical or religious thinking. Analog audio is somehow blessed, never mind that after the signal hits the DAC and turns into moving air it's all analog anyway. If any digital equipment touched it, that signal is unde
I'm glad you said it yourself. There is not MUCH of a difference, but there IS a difference. And that's what makes a difference for the audiophiles. Don't get me wrong. I consider myself an audiophile, but I use zip cord for my speaker wire and my network cable is not this [amazon.com], but one that was probably $3. I can tell the difference between 128Kbs MP3 vs. 16 bit/44KHz flac, depending on the recording. But having a good set of speakers and a good source are the two most important things when it comes to au
It looks good in the marketing BS to people who don't have a clue. And anyone who buys Sonos these days after what they got up to a few years back you REALLY doesn't have a clue.
99% of music claiming to be a resolution higher than 48kHz 16bit is FAKE
Sure, we define "high res" as "better than CD quality" for a reason - because it means 48kHz 16bit recordings, or 48kHz 24 bit recordings (both are industry standards for digital recording) are "high res".
I was just going out the door and realized, it's not bit rate but sampling frequency that effects the filtering,
but nonetheless you get one with the other. Have about 250 hi-res albums on my drive from 24-44.1 to
24-192 and some DSD. To say there's no difference is ridiculous. The higher resolution shows up faults in poor recordings but good recordings are beyond comparison to 16 bit 44.1 khz. You just may not hear the difference on this piece of crap Sonos thing.
44.1khz sampling can accurately reproduce all frequencies beneath 22.05khz. PCM is a logarithmic scale that at 16-bit should be able to accurately position electromagnetic cones quite precisely. If we consider basic Newtonian physics, paper cone (or fabric for example) should not provide a stable enough frequency response to profit from higher bit depth. Maybe... just maybe at earphone scale it would.
This leaves piezo electronics that can of course provide clear and consistent frequency response across a wi
No, its the sampling frequency that determines what filtering is required. Going from 44.1kHz to 48kHz sampling only pushes up where you need the output filtering from 22kHz to 24kHz, a trivial difference. It requires going up to a higher sampling rate like 88.2kHz or 96kHz to allow a more gradual output filter
You are correct. I exceeded my multitasking capabilities. There is still a large difference in sound between
CD quality 16/44.1 and 24-96. Anyone who says otherwise is talking out of their ass.
I always considered double blind listening tests to be pseudo-science. You need a scientific process to determine someone's opinion? I just gave you mine. Now you tell me my opinion is wrong. That's why there's 3000 different kinds of speakers out there.
Opinions aren't something I care about. Those are for marketers. The claim was there's a perceptible difference in quality. A scientific process can handily separate that from an "opinion" that may or may not have a basis in reality.
As far as speakers go, there is a perceptible difference between most of them, and that's got absolutely nothing to do with the bit depth or sample rate of the signal on the back end.
We can agree to disagree. Some people prefer vinyl. I can hear a noticeable difference between 16/44.1
and 24/96. By the way, I'm not familiar with any scientific study that concluded there was no difference between the two. I wish you the best of luck and good listening to your mp3s.
If you can discern a difference at all, you'll have no problem doing it in a blind test. Problem is, there's no difference once you exclude the psychological.
As far as my own listening, I have plenty of vinyl and FLACs to listen to (been collecting CD/FLACs 15+ yrs, vinyl 20+) but the other half that's digitally compressed is just as good, excepting a few horrible BLADE-encoded MP3s that I grabbed on IRC, decades ago.
No, its the sampling frequency that determines what filtering is required. Going from 44.1kHz to 48kHz sampling only pushes up where you need the output filtering from 22kHz to 24kHz, a trivial difference. It requires going up to a higher sampling rate like 88.2kHz or 96kHz to allow a more gradual output filter
In practice for more than a decade, that happens in the converter. The 44.1 or 48 kHz input is oversampled in the DAC, typically by 8 times, by zero stuffing and then filtering which considerably relaxes the anti-aliasing requirements. ADCs do the same thing in reverse for the same reasons.
I thought it was shown that most people cannot tell between lossy MP3 and lossless anyway. Lossless, however, has a use case as an archival format. Not sure about playing higher quality lossless.
To answer my own question, namely "Has it been shown in real tests that people can hear the difference ?"
No, it has not.
In fact, "In order to hear the difference in dynamic range between a 16-bit and a 20-bit recording in a normal quiet listening room, you would have to play the music so loud it would cause permanent hearing loss." https://www.mojo-audio.com/blo... [mojo-audio.com]
So cut the bullshit, and stop writing stuff like "to some people who train their ears, there are some benefits". No-one can hear the difference.
Many things have been shown in tests, both ways, mostly showing that the tests don't work. Its been shown that most people who only listen to mp3s like that sound, because thats what the ear is used to. But in my simple test working in a hifi store, most everybody will know the difference after just a few minutes of listening. And again, the technical data of the recording has much less of an impact than the quality of the recording, i would much rather listen to a good recording in 16bit 320kbps mp3 than a
James Randi has a million dollars waiting for such a person.
That hasn't been a thing for 11 years now.
Not that it mattered. It was always just a publicity stunt. Given how little effort they put into "administering" the thing, I'm surprised they stopped.
"Having a good recording rather than a bad recording does way more than using 16 or 24 bits. But a great recording in 24 bits. thats just wonderful to listen to."
A "great recording in 24 bits" that is "wonderful to listen to" will continue to be "wonderful to listen to" after (proper) conversion to 16 bits.
There is no way in fucking shit ANYONE can actually hear the difference between 16 and 24 bit audio. The very idea that anyone can is ludicrous. To plot the 16 bit sound wave on an oscilloscope with one pixel per unit amplitude you'd need eight 4K monitors stacked on top of each other. Eight!!! And you think someone's ears could tell the difference if each value was shifted randomly up or down one pixel?
and most mics and studio gear puts out more noise and distortion and so even standard cd format has more headroom than is needed.
compressors can fully kill all resolution that used to be there from that expensive condensor mic.
plus, everyone runs their levels WAY above -12db and most adc and dacs have severe distortion as you get above -12 or -6. gibbs (look it up) is a real problem today.
running dacs at 96k makes sense for other reasons, but 24but audio is a lie and always has been.
16 bits already gives 96dB signal to noise ratio. More than that is pointless.
For the source material I agree. For transmission, processing and conversion high bit rates become very relevant, especially in these devices which control volume digitally before digital to analogue conversion.
That is the same argument used against 2k monitors, then 4k monitors, and now 8k monitors. I am not saying you are wrong, I am saying that line of reasoning sucks. Sure, you may not be able to consciously recognize the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit, but the brain is a weird thing and is aware of far more than what we are consciously aware of.
16 bits is actually slightly over 98dB SNR. It's true that each added bit it's another 6(.02)dB, but there's another 1.7dB to be added. Sorry, forgot the math behind it...
That said, the reason that that's enough is that the listening environment will have a noise floor of someplace above 20dB (if only for the blood pumping through your ears and such), and the crest factor of most music is around 12dB (classical is sometimes closer to 20dB or even more, house, if anyone cares, is more like 6dB). Hence 98dB
What's the point (Score:4, Insightful)
16 bits already gives 96dB signal to noise ratio. More than that is pointless.
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It looks good in the marketing BS to people who don't have a clue. And anyone who buys Sonos these days after what they got up to a few years back you REALLY doesn't have a clue.
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It looks good in the marketing BS to people who don't have a clue.
For audiophiles, nothing is good enough.
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(puts on flameproof suit)
Like GP said, "people who don't have a clue"
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Depending on the copying process, it's plausible...
Like, if there's somehow a lossy encode generation (or an analog generation or five) between the original and copy or if the CD is burned so poorly it's audibly skipping or if it's done in a way that inserts gaps between tracks
But if you don't do something wrong, nah.
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If the copy is a bit-identical copy, the player could still have difficult reading the ink copy. So the difference is error recovery artifacts.
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Its nice and all, that you know how digital works, but sound isn't digital.It is as you might know analog, and it the process of making a digital signal into analog is not trivial, and everything in the process can and usually does influence the result (if you have a system that has the resolution to show it.Things like Jitter, error rate, emi, rfi, powersupply stability has so much influence on the datastream. This is why a powersupply for a high end networking switch is kind of expensive, digital is not j
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Most "Audiophiles" it is a status thing vs something that has any additional value.
I Minored in music at a University that had a highly renowned music school, I did well in the classes that a lot of successful musicians took, including courses in ear training.
That said for a lot of this audiophile stuff I really cannot find much of a difference between a Lowly MP3 and a high quality vinyl recording, unless they are played back to back. What helps the sound more than anything is a good pair (Not top of the l
Re: What's the point (Score:2)
It depends on the type of music, in my experience.
MP3 compression has a tough job with metal for example, probably because distinguishing between noise and signal becomes difficult when noise is a big part of the signal. I've also noticed classical music to suffer in dynamics.
But then pop music and EDM are usually indistinguishable when compressed. Probably because they developed alongside the loudness wars and so the producers have adapted the style to the medium. Metal's big development happened during th
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Granted I picked MP3 as the lowest quality. However the difference between 16 bit or even 24 bit sound isn't as huge as people think it is. You can even get OK sound out of 8 bit. as these sound sources will have a smoothing algorithm (or a capacitor) that fills in the gap in the data.
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Most people use their system to listen to music. Audiophiles use music to listen to their systems.
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It's not a status thing. That may be a distant secondary concern for some, but you can't drive around in a $10,000 vinyl rig, wear it on your body, etc. so there are much better ways to do conspicuous consumption.
Audiofool extravagances are enjoyed in private. A better way to characterize it is magical or religious thinking. Analog audio is somehow blessed, never mind that after the signal hits the DAC and turns into moving air it's all analog anyway. If any digital equipment touched it, that signal is unde
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I really cannot find much of a difference
I'm glad you said it yourself. There is not MUCH of a difference, but there IS a difference. And that's what makes a difference for the audiophiles. Don't get me wrong. I consider myself an audiophile, but I use zip cord for my speaker wire and my network cable is not this [amazon.com], but one that was probably $3. I can tell the difference between 128Kbs MP3 vs. 16 bit/44KHz flac, depending on the recording. But having a good set of speakers and a good source are the two most important things when it comes to au
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In a wireless world, someone needed to invent a wireless equivalent for Monster Cables.
11G?
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11G is a licensed frequency (at least in the US)
Oops - I was making a joke, as in the Spinal Tap Movie's amplifier "going to 11" instead of just 10.
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99% of music claiming to be a resolution higher than 48kHz 16bit is FAKE
Sure, we define "high res" as "better than CD quality" for a reason - because it means 48kHz 16bit recordings, or 48kHz 24 bit recordings (both are industry standards for digital recording) are "high res".
Anything above that is generally fake.
There are a few stu
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There's more to life than signal to noise ratio.
Maybe, but there is this _not_ more to bit depth than signal to noise ratio.
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More bits has no effect on the "brick wall filtering at 20 khz". None.
(also: There's no such thing as a brick wall filter in real life)
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PCM is a logarithmic scale that at 16-bit should be able to accurately position electromagnetic cones quite precisely. If we consider basic Newtonian physics, paper cone (or fabric for example) should not provide a stable enough frequency response to profit from higher bit depth. Maybe... just maybe at earphone scale it would.
This leaves piezo electronics that can of course provide clear and consistent frequency response across a wi
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Anyone who says otherwise has done a blind listening test.
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Opinions aren't something I care about. Those are for marketers. The claim was there's a perceptible difference in quality. A scientific process can handily separate that from an "opinion" that may or may not have a basis in reality.
As far as speakers go, there is a perceptible difference between most of them, and that's got absolutely nothing to do with the bit depth or sample rate of the signal on the back end.
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If you can discern a difference at all, you'll have no problem doing it in a blind test. Problem is, there's no difference once you exclude the psychological.
As far as my own listening, I have plenty of vinyl and FLACs to listen to (been collecting CD/FLACs 15+ yrs, vinyl 20+) but the other half that's digitally compressed is just as good, excepting a few horrible BLADE-encoded MP3s that I grabbed on IRC, decades ago.
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No, its the sampling frequency that determines what filtering is required. Going from 44.1kHz to 48kHz sampling only pushes up where you need the output filtering from 22kHz to 24kHz, a trivial difference. It requires going up to a higher sampling rate like 88.2kHz or 96kHz to allow a more gradual output filter
In practice for more than a decade, that happens in the converter. The 44.1 or 48 kHz input is oversampled in the DAC, typically by 8 times, by zero stuffing and then filtering which considerably relaxes the anti-aliasing requirements. ADCs do the same thing in reverse for the same reasons.
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Not for the poor bits tho. Their role in life is pretty much to define the SNR of the PCM channel.
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Has it been shown in real tests that people can hear the difference ?
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Has it been shown in real tests that people can hear the difference ?
In many cases people can't even tell the difference between 16-bits and 8-bit dithered.
(8 bits is more than cassette tapes had and the world used those with no problems)
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"(8 bits is more than cassette tapes had and the world used those with no problems)"
This is false. Common consumer cassettes could achieve 10 - 12 bits. Not sure what the point is in making such an absurd claim.
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This is false. Common consumer cassettes could achieve 10 - 12 bits.
Citation needed.
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PS: My citation is Monty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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To answer my own question, namely "Has it been shown in real tests that people can hear the difference ?"
No, it has not.
In fact, "In order to hear the difference in dynamic range between a 16-bit and a 20-bit recording in a normal quiet listening room, you would have to play the music so loud it would cause permanent hearing loss."
https://www.mojo-audio.com/blo... [mojo-audio.com]
So cut the bullshit, and stop writing stuff like "to some people who train their ears, there are some benefits".
No-one can hear the difference.
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Especially over Sonos gear which is neither "HiFi" nor capable of such volumes.
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Many things have been shown in tests, both ways, mostly showing that the tests don't work. Its been shown that most people who only listen to mp3s like that sound, because thats what the ear is used to. But in my simple test working in a hifi store, most everybody will know the difference after just a few minutes of listening.
And again, the technical data of the recording has much less of an impact than the quality of the recording, i would much rather listen to a good recording in 16bit 320kbps mp3 than a
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Again, for people who has the system with the resolution to show the difference and with ears trained to it.
James Randi has a million dollars waiting for such a person.
Down here on Planet Earth people have trouble hearing the difference between 8 and 16 bits.
Here's a test for you: https://www.audiocheck.net/bli... [audiocheck.net]
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James Randi has a million dollars waiting for such a person.
That hasn't been a thing for 11 years now.
Not that it mattered. It was always just a publicity stunt. Given how little effort they put into "administering" the thing, I'm surprised they stopped.
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"Having a good recording rather than a bad recording does way more than using 16 or 24 bits. But a great recording in 24 bits. thats just wonderful to listen to."
A "great recording in 24 bits" that is "wonderful to listen to" will continue to be "wonderful to listen to" after (proper) conversion to 16 bits.
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How often do you listen to the oscilloscope?
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Just to expand on that, noise in the analog signal path and distortion from the speakers limits performance to a point below 16 bits
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Explain the specs for bluray audio then.
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To appeal to people like you.
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and most mics and studio gear puts out more noise and distortion and so even standard cd format has more headroom than is needed.
compressors can fully kill all resolution that used to be there from that expensive condensor mic.
plus, everyone runs their levels WAY above -12db and most adc and dacs have severe distortion as you get above -12 or -6. gibbs (look it up) is a real problem today.
running dacs at 96k makes sense for other reasons, but 24but audio is a lie and always has been.
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16 bits already gives 96dB signal to noise ratio. More than that is pointless.
For the source material I agree. For transmission, processing and conversion high bit rates become very relevant, especially in these devices which control volume digitally before digital to analogue conversion.
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That is the same argument used against 2k monitors, then 4k monitors, and now 8k monitors. I am not saying you are wrong, I am saying that line of reasoning sucks. Sure, you may not be able to consciously recognize the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit, but the brain is a weird thing and is aware of far more than what we are consciously aware of.
Re: What's the point (Score:2)
That said, the reason that that's enough is that the listening environment will have a noise floor of someplace above 20dB (if only for the blood pumping through your ears and such), and the crest factor of most music is around 12dB (classical is sometimes closer to 20dB or even more, house, if anyone cares, is more like 6dB). Hence 98dB
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