Who would buy a stereo-only 192kHz dvd-audio? (1 Viewer)

[KeithH]

Me! I listen to DVD-Audio (and SACD) in stereo 99.9999999% of the time. In fact, I am currently looking to purchase a DVD-Audio player for my second stereo system (no surround sound in there). I will listen to multi-channel tracks on occasion, but I almost always find them less enjoyable than the discrete stereo tracks. With many 5.1 tracks, it's as though the folks doing the mastering for 5.1 are going out of their way to use the rear channels, as if they are using them simply because they have to. It comes off as though little if any thought went into the use of the rear channels. This violates the music, in my opinion. I often listen to 5.1 tracks and ask myself why the guitar came from the rear right channel when it could just have easily come from the rear left. Leave the guitar up front, please.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Yes!
It's funny how fired up I was over multichannel mixes.
Till I heard them.
Now, a disc w/o the original two channels in HiRez, is a tough sell.

 

[Jared_B]

Jared: why "nope"? (one guess: lack of a high-quality dvd-audio player?)

Nope, have one.

I just don't see the point right now. When I do my critical listening, I want surround. I just enjoy it more.

I absolutely despise the trend of releasing 40 year old music on the absolute latest and greates high-res technology. I want to see NEW albums released in high-res surround right along side the CD counterpart. And when (if) that does happen, why would I buy the limited-playability high-res stereo disc over the play anywhere CD? I need something more to make up for only being able to play the disc in one spot, and surround is it.

 

[KeithH]

Ed said:

Now, a disc w/o the original two channels in HiRez, is a tough sell.

This is why I refuse to buy Silverline DVD-Audio discs.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Yeah, at first I thought it was only worthwhile to do DVD-A/SACD if I upgrade my entire system for it, but the more I read and more I think about it, the less I feel the surround aspect to be all that important. Certainly, when I listen to music, I generally want to listen to the music, not the cool new technology. The technology is only as good as it's able to serve the music and can never replace the music itself, or more accurately, the recorded performances of music. That's why I never really paid too much attention to the quality of the recordings in the past as much as the quality of the music and performances themselves, especially when the great old classics usually cost much less.

Having said all that, I can agree w/ Jared to some extent. I'd like to see BOTH great new recordings of good stuff that use the extra channels appropriately as well as great old classics being remastered as needed (and available at budget prices as has been the case w/ CDs over the past decade plus). The real problem w/ new stuff is actually the "good" part.

_Man_

 

[RobBenton]

See i am just the oppisite. I think stereo mixes are often boring compared to their 5.1 counterparts. It sounds too flat and front heavy. I agree overly gimmicke surround usage is bad but well done it can be very injoyable and I think more interesting then just stereo.

 

[Ken Stuart]

As I've said several times here, I KNOW not all music benefits from the surround format.

Then you've been wrong several times.

If you have a folk singer playing an acoustic guitar, and you record that with a "sound field" (3 capsule) mic and playback the recording in a 4 speaker system, the fidelity will be better than the stereo mic recording played back over a stereo system.

This is because the rear speakers reproduce reflections instead of those reflections being reproduced in the front speakers, which blurs the timbre, and thus lowers the fidelity.

However, you can't accomplish that with an already existing recording - which is probably what you are mostly talking about, so I'm probably not at odds with you anyway.

So, there is some real benefits for future recordings in multichannel sound, but I doubt that many engineers are thinking about this factor (especially since the producers will say "why can't I hear any instruments in the rear speakers?").

Having said that, I'm more dubious about the 192khz aspect to begin with - although that could be because I'm missing some technical point. Human hearing runs to 20k, but we know that reproduction up to 40k can benefit overall fidelity. However, if the system reproduces 96k, then even any filtering should not have an effect below 20k.

This aside from the factor that those most likely to be able to afford 192khz recordings are those least likely to have any hearing over 15khz.

However, I've heard significant fidelity improvements from raising the number of bits per sample, so I am inclined to think that the change to 24bit makes more of a difference than 96khz vs. 192khz.

 

[LanceJ]

Ken: when I wrote "surround" I meant placing separate instruments in the surround channels, not just ambience information.

And 192kHz sampling? It isn't so much about increasing the frequency range but increasing the resolution in the audible range. And you're right about the filtering thing--a filter for 192kHz PCM can be very gentle (good) & far away from the audible frequencies (good also).

Go here, click on "About dvd technology", then click on "dvd-audio benefits". When the Flash window appears, click on "sampling & quantization". An animation will start explaining what I'm talking about.

LJ

 

[LanceJ]

Here's a review of a 192kHz recording system, with opinions of 96kHz sampling vs. 192kHz sampling:

MIX magazine reviews Digidesign's "Pro-Tools|HD"

LJ

 

[Rich Malloy]

I would. In fact, the lack of a 24/192 stereo/mono track on so many DVD-As is one of the factors that makes me sceptical of DVD-A's general commitment to sound quality. I've also wondered if the requirement of a multichannel mix in all circumstances explains why so few titles have been released on DVD-A thusfar.

But, at any rate, of course I would. The vast majority of my collection is stereo or mono music titles (though I love my multichannel SACDs), so why wouldn't I buy a stereo title with greater resolution, truer timbres, and a real sense of physical space in the soundstage? I can think of no reason why I wouldn't.

 

[Javier_Huerta]

Ken,

Having said that, I'm more dubious about the 192khz aspect to begin with - although that could be because I'm missing some technical point. Human hearing runs to 20k, but we know that reproduction up to 40k can benefit overall fidelity. However, if the system reproduces 96k, then even any filtering should not have an effect below 20k.

I recently made a very simple experiment. Using a wave generator, I created square and sinusoidal waves at 10, 12, 15, 17 and 20 KHz, at 44.1, 48 and 96 KHz. I then opened the files on Sound Forge, to see what they looked like.


Much to my surprise (???), Nyquist's Theorem doesn't work all that well in audio. The square waves were particulary affected - at 10 KHz, they looked like triangular signals, and at 20 KHz, they looked like random noise when sampled at 44.1.

At 96 KHz, all signals resembled their original counterparts a lot more. I wish I could cut and paste the graphics I made - I can't find them on my PC. I might repeat the experiment and paste the results, if you are interested.

Bottom line: IMHO, Nyquist wasn't thinking about high-end audio when he developed his theorem.

 

[Ken Stuart]

I just found this article by a High Fidelity Review contributor about his experience comparing various sampling frequencies:

Can 192kHz Make A Difference?

PS The article includes another link to an interesting theoretical comparison of SACD and DVD-A...

 

[Javier_Huerta]

Ken, that's exactly the article that encouraged me to do a test myself! It's quite simple, actually. Get a signal generator, and compare by yourself how the graphs stack up.

I now understand why a higher sampling rate can be beneficial in the midrange - with signals at 10 KHz, there's a tremendous difference between sampling at 44.1 and 96 KHz.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

I also just recently saw, that with 44.1 kHz, and yeah, theoretically, that's good for a freq response out to 22 kHz, one problem is that you have to apply such a steep filter to limit freqs *above* 22 kHz (or whatever you set the upper limit to) that the steepness of the filter can create problems. (If you don't filter, then the presence of info above the freq limit of the DAC can create "ghost" image problem, subharmonics basically, "ringing", etc. So if you use 96 kHz, which limits the response to 48 kHz, *much* above human hearing, you can use a much gentler filter near 20 kHz or whatever you want the limit to be...)

 

[Ken Stuart]

Does a list exist of all DVD-As with 192khz stereo?

 

[KeithH]

Ken, I'm not aware of such a list, but I'm sure we could come up with one. A couple that I know about are Eagles Hotel California and Carly Simon No Secrets. I don't recall if the stereo track on America Homecoming is 24/96 or 24/192. It sounds great whatever it is.

 

[Greg Johnson]

Another one is Neil Young Harvest which sounds excellent.

 

[John Kotches]

Keith,

Homecoming is 24/192K stereo.

Add:
Linda Ronstadt What's New (WB)
The Doobie Bros The Captain and Me (WB)
Stravinsky/Ravel Firebird Suite/Bolero (AIX)
Ray Brown Trio Soular Energy (Hi-Res)

And a bunch of titles from Hodie.

Regards,

 

[Phil A]

This site has some info too: http://www.dvd-a.dk/start.php?Lang=1

I believe Carly Simon's "No Secrets" is as well.