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A few thoughts about my visit to Dolby Laboratories (1 Viewer)

urbo73

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Ryan Campo
Here's an excellent post from someone in the know about high-rez audio. I'm posting this because it's very educational, and goes over a lot of misunderstandings regarding what high-rez audio really is. 192kHz/24bit is of no use really. Extra bits don't mean much, unless you use them in the production phase as overhead, but for playback, you'll never, ever hear a difference. CD quality 16/44 is about all you need or can make out. A/B blind tests have shown this already. SACD has no advantage. The reason SACDs sound better is because greater care is taken in the recording process. The Beatles on iTunes are fine in 16/44, but not fine at 256Kbps compression. The compression is the big deal, not the sampling rate or bit depth. I don't think any of the Beatle recordings had more than 25db of dynamic range....


http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded
 

Jeff Robertson

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Jeff Robertson
While I agree that compression is more important than sampling rate, to state that "you'll never hear a difference" with regard to hi-res audio vs CD seems silly to me. I have done my own comparisons using a good selection of titles and I believe what my ears are telling me. Is the author trying to say that I'm only hearing the differences in mastering?


I do agree also with the importance of a good master, but if given the option to go with CD quality vs hi-res audio (from the same master), I will pick the hi-res audio.



Originally Posted by urbo73

Here's an excellent post from someone in the know about high-rez audio. I'm posting this because it's very educational, and goes over a lot of misunderstandings regarding what high-rez audio really is. 192kHz/24bit is of no use really. Extra bits don't mean much, unless you use them in the production phase as overhead, but for playback, you'll never, ever hear a difference. CD quality 16/44 is about all you need or can make out. A/B blind tests have shown this already. SACD has no advantage. The reason SACDs sound better is because greater care is taken in the recording process. The Beatles on iTunes are fine in 16/44, but not fine at 256Kbps compression. The compression is the big deal, not the sampling rate or bit depth. I don't think any of the Beatle recordings had more than 25db of dynamic range....


http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded
 

urbo73

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Ryan Campo
It's not silly, it's fact. A/B/X blind tests have shown it to be the case. Audiophiles however don't like those tests and dismiss them.. The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem proves that 44.1Hz is enough to produce a perfect representation of an analogue waveform. Can't argue with math. The bits are well described in that post and in other books on digital audio if one is interested. Everything else is simply audiophile imagination. Manufacturers live for this stuff as it helps them sell products. If you are happy, then that's all that matters. But there is a lot of misinformation out there, and I thought that post was quite excellent at describing things in a succinct way.


Originally Posted by Jeff Robertson

Here's an excellent post from someone in the know about high-rez audio. I'm posting this because it's very educational, and goes over a lot of misunderstandings regarding what high-rez audio really is. 192kHz/24bit is of no use really. Extra bits don't mean much, unless you use them in the production phase as overhead, but for playback, you'll never, ever hear a difference. CD quality 16/44 is about all you need or can make out. A/B blind tests have shown this already. SACD has no advantage. The reason SACDs sound better is because greater care is taken in the recording process. The Beatles on iTunes are fine in 16/44, but not fine at 256Kbps compression. The compression is the big deal, not the sampling rate or bit depth. I don't think any of the Beatle recordings had more than 25db of dynamic range....


http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded
[/QUOTE]
 

Jeff Robertson

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I was reading some of the responses in the author's post. It didn't go long without some debate, naturally. I found a statement where the author does lend "some" credibility to the 96KHz sampling rate:


"Theoretically there is good a reason why 96kFs/s could sound better than 44.1kFs/s. The anti-alias filters at 44.1k have to be very steep (to stay out of the hearing range) and it's relatively difficult and expensive to create good steep brick wall filters without noticeable artifacts. The anti-alias filters are much smoother (less steep) with 96kFs/s and so are much easier and cheaper to implement without noticeable artifacts. So in theory it is potentially possible that a difference could be perceived. There is some anecdotal evidence to support this potential difference but so far as I'm aware no one has yet managed to get a significant result in DBT."


Double-blind tests themselves are inherently subjective, though, just like my claim that I can hear the difference. Notice I did not say what I am hearing is scientifically provable, and neither can someone's claim that they "cannot hear any difference".



Originally Posted by urbo73

It's not silly, it's fact. A/B/X blind tests have shown it to be the case. Audiophiles however don't like those tests and dismiss them.. The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem proves that 44.1Hz is enough to produce a perfect representation of an analogue waveform. Can't argue with math. The bits are well described in that post and in other books on digital audio if one is interested. Everything else is simply audiophile imagination. Manufacturers live for this stuff as it helps them sell products. If you are happy, then that's all that matters. But there is a lot of misinformation out there, and I thought that post was quite excellent at describing things in a succinct way.
 

urbo73

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Ryan Campo
How are double blind tests inherently subjective? They are as objective as any test can be - whatever the application! You probably don't like this guy and his articles, though I happen to think he's one of the best:


http://www.theaudiocritic.com/cwo/Our_Philosophy/


Ryan

Originally Posted by Jeff Robertson

It's not silly, it's fact. A/B/X blind tests have shown it to be the case. Audiophiles however don't like those tests and dismiss them.. The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem proves that 44.1Hz is enough to produce a perfect representation of an analogue waveform. Can't argue with math. The bits are well described in that post and in other books on digital audio if one is interested. Everything else is simply audiophile imagination. Manufacturers live for this stuff as it helps them sell products. If you are happy, then that's all that matters. But there is a lot of misinformation out there, and I thought that post was quite excellent at describing things in a succinct way.
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