24 bit \ 192 khz Audio
Discussion
Hi,
I'm hoping someone can help me regarding a few questions regarding 24\192 downloads and playback.
I'm guessing that these Flac files are uber high quality but hold on, how do I play them back? I've had a quick squint at some DACS and they accept that bit rate via coax but go down to 96Khz over optical same goes for USB.
I figured I could get some 24 bit content, put it on a NAS and pipe it through to my DAC but that doesn't seem to be the way it happens as your NAS doesn't connect via coax.
I'm grabbing the wrong end of the stick?
Look forward to someone hear clearing the fog
Many thanks,
T1b
I'm hoping someone can help me regarding a few questions regarding 24\192 downloads and playback.
I'm guessing that these Flac files are uber high quality but hold on, how do I play them back? I've had a quick squint at some DACS and they accept that bit rate via coax but go down to 96Khz over optical same goes for USB.
I figured I could get some 24 bit content, put it on a NAS and pipe it through to my DAC but that doesn't seem to be the way it happens as your NAS doesn't connect via coax.
I'm grabbing the wrong end of the stick?
Look forward to someone hear clearing the fog
Many thanks,
T1b
You just don't need them....unless you're mastering the audio in the first place.
Obviously audiophiles will tell you you should have 2345435435-bit/12333GHz audio or it sounds like crap but in truth, have you tried an ABX test? Most people can't tell the difference between properly encoded MP3s and CDs.
An amusing article on the subjecthttp://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.h...
Obviously audiophiles will tell you you should have 2345435435-bit/12333GHz audio or it sounds like crap but in truth, have you tried an ABX test? Most people can't tell the difference between properly encoded MP3s and CDs.
An amusing article on the subject
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.h...Some DACS have 24/192 interfaces on SPDIF (co-ax), some will only input 24/96. Many modern DACS have USB inputs which can often handle 24/192.
To get into a DAC, you can use a laptop/PC (over USB) or use something like a Squeezebox Touch (over co-ax, or with mods over USB) into the DAC
I use Windows Home Server (Big NAS) -> Squeezebox Touch -> DAC -> onwards.
I have a couple of 24/192 recordings, but I'm old and to me a good 16/44.1 (CD) recording can sound just as good, and do you really want your musical choices to be limited to only those recording that are good enough, me personally I'd rather have more music at 16/44.1
To get into a DAC, you can use a laptop/PC (over USB) or use something like a Squeezebox Touch (over co-ax, or with mods over USB) into the DAC
I use Windows Home Server (Big NAS) -> Squeezebox Touch -> DAC -> onwards.
I have a couple of 24/192 recordings, but I'm old and to me a good 16/44.1 (CD) recording can sound just as good, and do you really want your musical choices to be limited to only those recording that are good enough, me personally I'd rather have more music at 16/44.1
probedb said:
You just don't need them....unless you're mastering the audio in the first place.
Obviously audiophiles will tell you you should have 2345435435-bit/12333GHz audio or it sounds like crap but in truth, have you tried an ABX test? Most people can't tell the difference between properly encoded MP3s and CDs.
An amusing article on the subjecthttp://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.h...
And goggle 24/192 and you'll find many studies that indicate that it is beneficial as well!! My own experience is that MP3 is easily recognisable as the Bass is rather overblown and one dimensional and the Treble rather artificial.Obviously audiophiles will tell you you should have 2345435435-bit/12333GHz audio or it sounds like crap but in truth, have you tried an ABX test? Most people can't tell the difference between properly encoded MP3s and CDs.
An amusing article on the subject
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.h...Personally I find Computer Audio using files to be a mess with regards to Playback. Hence I "cut" to disc using HD-Audio Solo. This creates a DVD-Audio disc that plays on many Audiophile DVD and Blu-Ray Players. You can also if you have a Blu-ray Re-Writer create a Blu-Ray to Play on any Blu-Ray Player.
However you can "Play" these files on Most PC's, or use an Audio Server or a Network Streamer with NAS. Most have inbuilt 24/192 DAC's and have inbuilt conversion of the FLAC, MP3, AAC file standards to WAV or Digital output.
If you want a DAC most have several inputs these days. SP/DIF using Co-ax/BNC allows up to 24/384 input. The latest Chord IQute and Audiolab MDAC seem to allow this. Toslink or Optical allows up to 24/192 and USB up to 24/192. CHECK when you buy though as some are lower especially amongst the Lower priced DAC's. You do need to "Feed" them the "Unpacked" digital signal so a Device is needed to do that. I haven't come across a convincing "Transport" to do this yet that does not it's own DAC's and Audio out's so it's down to you as to whether you feel the need to use one.
I Have SACD and DVD-Audio's and Find the extra "room" allows for better bass and a smoother sound although SACD can be a bit too "polite".
Edited by telecat on Wednesday 25th July 09:56
telecat said:
And goggle 24/192 and you'll find many studies that indicate that it is beneficial as well!
I did and the first, after 0.125, was 24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed.The results were even more damning when I googled "24/192 blind testing".
Perhaps you can enlighten us to where the positive studies are.
FlossyThePig said:
telecat said:
And goggle 24/192 and you'll find many studies that indicate that it is beneficial as well!
I did and the first, after 0.125, was 24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed.The results were even more damning when I goggled "24/192 blind testing".
Perhaps you can enlighten us to where the positive studies are.
However the main Reason that article is ignored is That the Authors supply "Ogg" files which aren't Hi-Band. Sort of sours the research.
telecat said:
Looks like the "Anti" brigade have gone viral this year which is odd as most previously were for the greater Bandwidth of 24/192. It has to be noted that that Article does not have any references or proof quoted in it either and is the Main "root" of all the other threads quoted. Most of the Anti Brigade talk about the "ultrasonics" causing problems but even those who support this point out that the filtering would not be the same for Hi band as for 16/44.1. Basically there is a limit of Hearing and that limit comes in higher than the CD sampling rate but lower than 24/96. However for whatever reason Double blind tests have "Some" people preferring the 24/192. There is also the rather odd phenomenon of "hearing though your eyes" reported by a Professor Martin Lenhardt. It seems listening to Higher band music is more enjoyable without glasses???
However the main Reason that article is ignored is That the Authors supply "Ogg" files which aren't Hi-Band. Sort of sours the research.
Perhaps you could answer the question? The above isn't science. In fact it doesn't appear to be English either.However the main Reason that article is ignored is That the Authors supply "Ogg" files which aren't Hi-Band. Sort of sours the research.
RedLeicester said:
telecat said:
Looks like the "Anti" brigade have gone viral this year which is odd as most previously were for the greater Bandwidth of 24/192. It has to be noted that that Article does not have any references or proof quoted in it either and is the Main "root" of all the other threads quoted. Most of the Anti Brigade talk about the "ultrasonics" causing problems but even those who support this point out that the filtering would not be the same for Hi band as for 16/44.1. Basically there is a limit of Hearing and that limit comes in higher than the CD sampling rate but lower than 24/96. However for whatever reason Double blind tests have "Some" people preferring the 24/192. There is also the rather odd phenomenon of "hearing though your eyes" reported by a Professor Martin Lenhardt. It seems listening to Higher band music is more enjoyable without glasses???
However the main Reason that article is ignored is That the Authors supply "Ogg" files which aren't Hi-Band. Sort of sours the research.
Perhaps you could answer the question? The above isn't science. In fact it doesn't appear to be English either.However the main Reason that article is ignored is That the Authors supply "Ogg" files which aren't Hi-Band. Sort of sours the research.
Basically the article quoted is reckoned to be biased, based on another paper it misquotes and there are other reasons why 24/192 should not be dismissed in the manner the quoted article does. Which if the poster had actually read the threads he should have picked up. Amongst the other sources the replies refer to is a noted paper stateing that we not only use our ears when Music is replayed. Vibrations thru our eyes and skull also play a part. The Authors name is Professor Martin Lenhardt and to be honest I read the abridged version as all the other papers I saw from the guy are to esoteric for me.
telecat said:
Most of the Anti Brigade talk about the "ultrasonics" causing problems but even those who support this point out that the filtering would not be the same for Hi band as for 16/44.1. Basically there is a limit of Hearing and that limit comes in higher than the CD sampling rate but lower than 24/96. However for whatever reason Double blind tests have "Some" people preferring the 24/192.
I don't care about the article - I care about your statements above - you clearly know far more than the rest of us. So perhaps you could expand on this...Generally they seem to have been lost under this one article. The majority of Positive press for Hi band Audio is now from reviewers of the Kit that can replay it. For example http://www.chordelectronics.co.uk/news-info.asp?id... is the review of the QuteHD but you can goggle the MSB Platinum or DCS reviews.
Given your attitude you probably will feel they have a axe to grind, but so do the authors of the People.xiph "24/192 downloads are very silly indeed" review. Looking around that's it. One Bad review supposedly independent but being authored by a person that promotes his own version of a MP3 format. It's called Ogg and is considered to lack the Audio creditentials the author claims it has. The Article seems to pop up everywhere and is argued about constantly.
I'm not saying everybody will benefit from HiBand. Hearing is different between people and unfortunately some people just don't seem to like the results. That's down to you.
Meanwhile here's some light reading
http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF Where Bob Stuart of Meridian Audio talks about Hiband and where the Xiph article gets it's info from. Bob Basically believes that a maximum of around 20/55 is optimum for Human hearing but that 24 bit allows for better recording as it allows headroom for the engineers.
More on the Nyquist Theorem which is quoted.
"Some people will claim 192 kHz is overkill because of the Nyquist theorem. However, these people have absolutely no clue whatsoever about what exactly the theorem proves."
It is indeed funny how something as simple as the Nyqvist/Shannon theorem seems to be so hard for some people to understand. Pretty much all it says is that even under ideal circumstances, the highest frequency you can feed to a sampling system (such as an A/D converter) and still reconstruct properly is half the sampling frequency.
So an ideal 192 kHz system has an upper frequency limit of 96 kHz, while a 96 kHz system has an upper limit of 48 kHz. Even if your ears might not be able to hear beyond 18 kHz or so, the advantage of a higher sample frequency is that you don't need to use extremely sharp brickwall filters (as those filters tend to give you ringing and other nasty effects). On a 44 kHz (CD) system, the problem is that you want to reproduce frequencies up to 20 kHz, but you can't let anything above 22 kHz get to the ADC, so you have to use a really, really steep filter.
Given your attitude you probably will feel they have a axe to grind, but so do the authors of the People.xiph "24/192 downloads are very silly indeed" review. Looking around that's it. One Bad review supposedly independent but being authored by a person that promotes his own version of a MP3 format. It's called Ogg and is considered to lack the Audio creditentials the author claims it has. The Article seems to pop up everywhere and is argued about constantly.
I'm not saying everybody will benefit from HiBand. Hearing is different between people and unfortunately some people just don't seem to like the results. That's down to you.
Meanwhile here's some light reading
http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF Where Bob Stuart of Meridian Audio talks about Hiband and where the Xiph article gets it's info from. Bob Basically believes that a maximum of around 20/55 is optimum for Human hearing but that 24 bit allows for better recording as it allows headroom for the engineers.
More on the Nyquist Theorem which is quoted.
"Some people will claim 192 kHz is overkill because of the Nyquist theorem. However, these people have absolutely no clue whatsoever about what exactly the theorem proves."
It is indeed funny how something as simple as the Nyqvist/Shannon theorem seems to be so hard for some people to understand. Pretty much all it says is that even under ideal circumstances, the highest frequency you can feed to a sampling system (such as an A/D converter) and still reconstruct properly is half the sampling frequency.
So an ideal 192 kHz system has an upper frequency limit of 96 kHz, while a 96 kHz system has an upper limit of 48 kHz. Even if your ears might not be able to hear beyond 18 kHz or so, the advantage of a higher sample frequency is that you don't need to use extremely sharp brickwall filters (as those filters tend to give you ringing and other nasty effects). On a 44 kHz (CD) system, the problem is that you want to reproduce frequencies up to 20 kHz, but you can't let anything above 22 kHz get to the ADC, so you have to use a really, really steep filter.
I asked a question, that is all.Thanks for the interesting links to the scientific discussion of sampling rates and 24 bit resolution. From my experience I would agree that on replay the quality of the recording and engineering makes the biggest difference. I have no 192/24 bit recordings , a few DVD-A at 96/24 and 48/24 and a DAC64 for replay. Whilst the benefits of the higher spec recordings are hard to justify on their own my DAC upsamples as this makes the processing easier and the end sound "better". From listening in general to high end Hi-Fi over the last 30 years I would say that upsampling DACs are generally better sounding than non upsampling ones. In this case and with most recordings being made in 96/24 surely we should all be going to this as an audio standard ?
I must disagree that DBT is a gold standard for audio testing. DBT will only differentiate gross differences in audio presentation. IMHO it is flawed for the exact reason that ABX is flawed in that you are not testing the ear you are testing the brain's interpretation of the ears hearing. Faced with nothing but audio clues DBT gives great accurate results of gross differences but when you are looking for audio "clues and subtleties it falls down. Take a group of "non" trained ears and run a test where there are no differences in the replayed music and you might get a confirmatory result. Take a group of so called golden ears and run the same test and I bet the result will not be as clear. Just by asking people to take the test and comment of differences skews the test. Audio memory is as flawed as other memory and comparing A with B is very difficult unless there are gross differences. How should you measure ? For straight A B testing for manufacture you have a big problem. Most designers I have met are working to make systems that sound great to them, they easily spot gross differences and sometimes make subtle improvements. When they hit the perception battle multiple tests tend to give different results on different days, at this point there is no difference. On this basis I feel you get the best solution for your personal choice. In evaluating Hi-Fi I always home demo , usually for a few weeks and my system has changed little over the years. Measurement of a subjective quality will never be empirical there should be no need to "save" those convinced on questionable visual clues and peer pressure. It is only an issue if they make purchasing decisions that impact their basic needs. Hi-Fi is a hobby, buying new shiney things brings happiness to some, the industry needs them.
I must disagree that DBT is a gold standard for audio testing. DBT will only differentiate gross differences in audio presentation. IMHO it is flawed for the exact reason that ABX is flawed in that you are not testing the ear you are testing the brain's interpretation of the ears hearing. Faced with nothing but audio clues DBT gives great accurate results of gross differences but when you are looking for audio "clues and subtleties it falls down. Take a group of "non" trained ears and run a test where there are no differences in the replayed music and you might get a confirmatory result. Take a group of so called golden ears and run the same test and I bet the result will not be as clear. Just by asking people to take the test and comment of differences skews the test. Audio memory is as flawed as other memory and comparing A with B is very difficult unless there are gross differences. How should you measure ? For straight A B testing for manufacture you have a big problem. Most designers I have met are working to make systems that sound great to them, they easily spot gross differences and sometimes make subtle improvements. When they hit the perception battle multiple tests tend to give different results on different days, at this point there is no difference. On this basis I feel you get the best solution for your personal choice. In evaluating Hi-Fi I always home demo , usually for a few weeks and my system has changed little over the years. Measurement of a subjective quality will never be empirical there should be no need to "save" those convinced on questionable visual clues and peer pressure. It is only an issue if they make purchasing decisions that impact their basic needs. Hi-Fi is a hobby, buying new shiney things brings happiness to some, the industry needs them.
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