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How much better is high resolution audio

B00nie

B00nie

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Nov 1, 2012
Messages
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Another very revealing presentation by a professional audio mastering technician / audiophile:



Shines some light to the format discussion we had in a previous thread.
 
And again I share this link because it covers it all:

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

and make sure to watch the "Digital Show & Tell" video if you're not so inclined to read the article above (they share a great deal of info between the article and video, however):

https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

The author of the article and video, Monty, helped create multiple audio compression formats including Ogg Vorbis and my current fave, Opus, and the guy knows his shit like not many others. The video alone is worth the time to watch it if you just don't want to read the article, seriously - he shows people how the higher resolution formats available today for audio playback don't offer any benefits as far as human hearing is concerned. The benefits to high resolution audio recording are relevant to capture as much as possible during the recording process and so less can get lost in the engineering and mastering process when it's brought down and converted to the typical "CD Quality" formats including actual CD audio itself which is still sold to this day and will be for some time to come.

But when it comes to audio playback, high resolution is a waste of bits and time (literally) because our human hearing simply cannot hear things to the extremes above 20 kHz. Sure, every so often some person will come along with better than average hearing and they can actually consciously hear audio into the 22 kHz region but even so, there's nothing really "up there" for us to hear and nobody makes recordings of any form of popular or well known music that reaches to 22 kHz range because musical instruments don't produce frequencies that high - they can produce harmonics that are into the ultrasonic range above 20 kHz.

But again, as far as humans are concerned and as Monty clearly and succinctly demonstrates in that video, audio playback above and beyond 16 bit 44.1/48 kHz is wasteful more than anything else.

I have to disagree with one thing that presenter in the YouTube video said, however: he went on about the most important part of any audio playback system being the software/decoders/processors and I immediately balked at that.

The most important part, in my opinion of having dealt with high end audio hardware and digital audio processing since the early 1980s, in any audio playback system is/are the speakers or headphones or whatever the final last point is where the audio data (whether it's analog or digital) gets converted back into something that moves air molecules so we humans can hear it.

You can have the best audio equipment that mankind is capable of producing, from the original source through all the gadget and gizmos and hardware and "audiophile cables" and mounts and control the volume with a $485 wooden volume knob (Archive.org link because that site is long since history) through all kinds of amps and whatever you want but, in the long run, if you have crappy speakers it's gonna sound like shit, period. :D
 
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A counterpoint to these arguments is actually not a technical one but created by marketing. Although for most people high resolution audio formats shouldn't sound any better, in some cases they actually seem to. The source material was mastered differently for the format, as the studio assumes if you're listening to a DVD-A disc, you're probably not listening to it on a pair of stock ipod earbuds. These alternative masters could have been released on more traditional formats, but often aren't thanks to record labels' desire to optimize their releases for standard consumer grade playback methods.

So in some cases High resolution does sound better, but it's not necessarily because of the resolution. Alternatively, some high resolution releases are simply just format conversions, and are issued to have the album available on a platform, but don't actually offer any benefit otherwise.
 
Tiberian said:
And again I share this link because it covers it all:

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

and make sure to watch the "Digital Show & Tell" video if you're not so inclined to read the article above (they share a great deal of info between the article and video, however):

https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

The author of the article and video, Monty, helped create multiple audio compression formats including Ogg Vorbis and my current fave, Opus, and the guy knows his shit like not many others. The video alone is worth the time to watch it if you just don't want to read the article, seriously - he shows people how the higher resolution formats available today for audio playback don't offer any benefits as far as human hearing is concerned. The benefits to high resolution audio recording are relevant to capture as much as possible during the recording process and so less can get lost in the engineering and mastering process when it's brought down and converted to the typical "CD Quality" formats including actual CD audio itself which is still sold to this day and will be for some time to come.

But when it comes to audio playback, high resolution is a waste of bits and time (literally) because our human hearing simply cannot hear things to the extremes above 20 kHz. Sure, every so often some person will come along with better than average hearing and they can actually consciously hear audio into the 22 kHz region but even so, there's nothing really "up there" for us to hear and nobody makes recordings of any form of popular or well known music that reaches to 22 kHz range because musical instruments don't produce frequencies that high - they can produce harmonics that are into the ultrasonic range above 20 kHz.

But again, as far as humans are concerned and as Monty clearly and succinctly demonstrates in that video, audio playback above and beyond 16 bit 44.1/48 kHz is wasteful more than anything else.

I have to disagree with one thing that presenter in the YouTube video said, however: he went on about the most important part of any audio playback system being the software/decoders/processors and I immediately balked at that.

The most important part, in my opinion of having dealt with high end audio hardware and digital audio processing since the early 1980s, in any audio playback system is/are the speakers or headphones or whatever the final last point is where the audio data (whether it's analog or digital) gets converted back into something that moves air molecules so we humans can hear it.

You can have the best audio equipment that mankind is capable of producing, from the original source through all the gadget and gizmos and hardware and "audiophile cables" and mounts and control the volume with a $485 wooden volume knob (Archive.org link because that site is long since history) through all kinds of amps and whatever you want but, in the long run, if you have crappy speakers it's gonna sound like shit, period. :D
Click to expand...

Unfortunate for you but no need to dump on what other people like.
I can tell the difference between FLAC and WAV, not on everything but there is more detail on WAV.
I most certainly can tell the difference between 48k, 96k and 192k with well mastered audio.
I prefer the sound of similar bitrate SACD to WAV, the sound is more "analogue".
 
Tiberian said:
...the most important part of any audio playback system being the software/decoders/processors and I immediately balked at that.
<snip>
You can have the best audio equipment that mankind is capable of producing, from the original source through all the gadget and gizmos and hardware and "audiophile cables" and mounts and control the volume with a $485 wooden volume knob (Archive.org link because that site is long since history) through all kinds of amps and whatever you want but, in the long run, if you have crappy speakers it's gonna sound like shit, period. :D
Click to expand...
I believe Waldrep's correct: software has the most potential to change the sound. The most important hardware (speakers) & room acoustics don't come close.

When I hear Stairway to Heaven on my 25yo, $15 clock radio, I immediately know it's Stairway. Swap to Mozart, or Coltrane or talk radio, and the change is obvious.

But listen to Stairway on a dream reference setup, then swap to $15 Goodwill speakers. What happens? Stairway's still Stairway! You won't ever mistake it for Mozart.
 
Nenu said:
Unfortunate for you but no need to dump on what other people like.
I can tell the difference between FLAC and WAV, not on everything but there is more detail on WAV.
I most certainly can tell the difference between 48k, 96k and 192k with well mastered audio.
I prefer the sound of similar bitrate SACD to WAV, the sound is more "analogue".
Click to expand...

Thing is a lot of the SACD records are re-mastered and aren't acoustically the same as the Redbook CD releases. The only way you verify the sound difference due to the sound format is to to actually convert SACD to 16/44 PCM and see if you can tell the difference.

SACD has more dynamic range than 16/44 but I don't think there's actual speaker system in the world in a treated room where you can actually hear such a minute difference, because the only way you are going to be able to verify this is by listening to test tones. Actual recordings simply don't have enough dynamic range that when converted properly from DSD to 16/44 PCM, to actually show an audible difference.
 
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Nenu said:
Unfortunate for you but no need to dump on what other people like.
I can tell the difference between FLAC and WAV, not on everything but there is more detail on WAV.
I most certainly can tell the difference between 48k, 96k and 192k with well mastered audio.
I prefer the sound of similar bitrate SACD to WAV, the sound is more "analogue".
Click to expand...
Not sure if serious...
 
CrazyRob said:
A counterpoint to these arguments is actually not a technical one but created by marketing. Although for most people high resolution audio formats shouldn't sound any better, in some cases they actually seem to. The source material was mastered differently for the format, as the studio assumes if you're listening to a DVD-A disc, you're probably not listening to it on a pair of stock ipod earbuds. These alternative masters could have been released on more traditional formats, but often aren't thanks to record labels' desire to optimize their releases for standard consumer grade playback methods.

So in some cases High resolution does sound better, but it's not necessarily because of the resolution. Alternatively, some high resolution releases are simply just format conversions, and are issued to have the album available on a platform, but don't actually offer any benefit otherwise.
Click to expand...

Nope the different master sounded better. not the high resolution.
Because you do 2 things and come out better does not mean both things helped in any technical sense.
 
Nenu said:
I can tell the difference between FLAC and WAV, not on everything but there is more detail on WAV.
Click to expand...

Ok, I have to call bullshit on that. A FLAC file is mathematically lossless, it is exactly - and I do mean exactly the same as the original source material the FLAC file is created from. If you create a WAV file, ripped directly from a CD for example, a pure bit for bit duplicate of the audio from the CD, and then you use FLAC to compress that WAV file down to a smaller size and you played both the WAV file and the FLAC file and did an analysis pass of both audio files as they're being played back what hits the DAC is the same exact bitstream for conversion from digital to analog so you can actually hear it.

As far as "masters" sounding better, it depends entirely on the technology used to create them during the original recording and again, as I pointed out before, high resolution formats don't really offer much over the standard 16 bit 44.1/48 kHz "CD Quality" playback format that's been available basically forever as shown clearly by Monty's video explanation of what's going on with the digital side of things. Once the audio is converted back to analog so you can hear it, with those limited human ears of ours, it's not really an improvement over the original but it's more than enough for our rather bandwidth starved hearing.

But with respect to WAV sounding better than a FLAC file created from that same WAV, well, I CALL SHENANIGANS!!! period, end of story, you can argue till you go deaf from old age, but I'm not gonna let that one pass and I seriously doubt anyone else will either (or they shouldn't if they have the slightest clue about how FLAC works). :D
 
Nenu said:
Unfortunate for you but no need to dump on what other people like.
I can tell the difference between FLAC and WAV, not on everything but there is more detail on WAV.
I most certainly can tell the difference between 48k, 96k and 192k with well mastered audio.
I prefer the sound of similar bitrate SACD to WAV, the sound is more "analogue".
Click to expand...

You may think you can tell the difference but have you tried it in a controlled double blind test?
 
Nenu said:
Unfortunate for you but no need to dump on what other people like.
I can tell the difference between FLAC and WAV, not on everything but there is more detail on WAV.
I most certainly can tell the difference between 48k, 96k and 192k with well mastered audio.
I prefer the sound of similar bitrate SACD to WAV, the sound is more "analogue".
Click to expand...

Ahhh so you are the one on every such topic that claims to have the Golden Ears in the Bat range. :LOL:

I bet you can tell when 1 single bit error occurs in an entire CD rip. I've met those on forums too. ;)

"There it is...just there...can't you hear it?"
 
Nenu said:
Unfortunate for you but no need to dump on what other people like.
I can tell the difference between FLAC and WAV, not on everything but there is more detail on WAV.
I most certainly can tell the difference between 48k, 96k and 192k with well mastered audio.
I prefer the sound of similar bitrate SACD to WAV, the sound is more "analogue".
Click to expand...

FLAC and WAV are identical, you will not hear more detail on WAV. FLAC is essentially a losslessly compressed WAV. You can extract a FLAC back to WAV and it will have the same hashes. There is 0 loss, therefore nothing to hear differently.

You prefer the sound of "similar bitrate SACD to WAV" well this is impossible. SACD is 1 bit 2.8224 Mhz and WAV is 16 bit 44.1 Khz. Not even remotely the same.
 
This topic always causes amusing responses.
Thanks to those who genuinely question rather than preach hate for someone who can hear something they perhaps cant.
Some of you may also be able tell the difference with the right equipment and audio files.
I dont have bat ears btw ;)

FLAC and WAV are identical in content once FLAC is unpacked.
The unpacking process is the cause of the loss in quality.
The tiniest detail in high res music is so low in voltage that system noise can blanket it.
Any electronic process operating inside the DAC casing will cause fluctuations on the power supply and EM Radiation.
These cause jitter and interference that can be heard as a difference in audio playback, with the right equipment.

FLAC is unpacked by a microprocessor located close to the DAC chip and is very likely on the same power supply.
This causes extra EM noise as FLAC is unpacked and conducted noise on the voltage rails. This interference masks some detail or induces jitter which causes numerous other problems.

My Brother and I have performed a lot of double blind testing to see what differences we can make out.


Big[H] said:
You prefer the sound of "similar bitrate SACD to WAV" well this is impossible. SACD is 1 bit 2.8224 Mhz and WAV is 16 bit 44.1 Khz. Not even remotely the same.
Click to expand...
WAV has little restriction on its bitrate, it can play at comparable data rates to SACD.
You are talking about CDs or the CD layer on SACDs. They exist as an upgrade path for those that dont yet have an SACD player but want to play the same disc.
You are right, they are not remotely the same otherwise the disc wouldnt work in a CD player.

Its worth noting the data storage format on SACDs is the same as DSD bitstream files that PCs play.
DSD audio now comes in multiple faster data rates.
SACD is equivalent to DSD64 (named because the sampling rate is 64x that of CD).
DSD 64, 128 and 256 audio files are available. There are probably test files for DSD512 and 1024.

A few DACs on sale today can play up to DSD 1024.
Tools are available to convert PCM/WAV to DSD64 and other tools for on the fly encoding up to the max DSD rate the DAC will accept - if your PC is fast enough.
Those using PCM/WAV to DSD swear by it.
I tried to upsample to DSD256 with a new DAC (bought for this purpose) but it died before I got chance to hear it and is being shipped back atm.
I cant give my take on this yet. I'm going to get something more reliable.
 
Nenu said:
FLAC is unpacked by a microprocessor located close to the DAC chip and is very likely on the same power supply. This causes extra EM noise as FLAC is unpacked and conducted noise on the voltage rails. This interference masks some detail or induces jitter which causes numerous other problems.
Click to expand...
Have you ever heard a difference between FLAC & WAV on an external DAC with its own PSU? Have you auditioned any soundcards or DACs on which you failed to hear a difference?
 
HammerSandwich said:
Have you ever heard a difference between FLAC & WAV on an external DAC with its own PSU? Have you auditioned any soundcards or DACs on which you failed to hear a difference?
Click to expand...
Yes, we tested on Oppo 105. I confirmed the same on my Oppo 105 later.
I know I wont be able to tell the difference with any PC soundcard I have or my Emotiva UMC-1, they do not produce that level of detail.
I became aware of it when I visited my Brother. He had been converting DSDs to FLAC and WAV and found there was a small difference.
He wanted to be sure of it by giving me a double blind test and I did the same to him.
Since then we have tested a lot more.
 
Tiberian said:
I had to stop reading right there because, well, good lord. :wideyed:

So, exactly how many of those $485 wooden volume knobs do you actually own? :D
Click to expand...
What hardware did you use to test WAV vs FLAC?
 
Nenu can you upload some videos? You're claiming some things that nobody on Earth has ever been able to do. Either way it would be worth a watch!
 
I'm sorry, but I said I had to stop reading right there which means I'm done with this discussion which jumped a whole bunch of sharks as soon as I finished that sentence you posted.
 
Nenu said:
This topic always causes amusing responses.
Thanks to those who genuinely question rather than preach hate for someone who can hear something they perhaps cant.
Some of you may also be able tell the difference with the right equipment and audio files.
I dont have bat ears btw ;)

FLAC and WAV are identical in content once FLAC is unpacked.
The unpacking process is the cause of the loss in quality.
The tiniest detail in high res music is so low in voltage that system noise can blanket it.
Any electronic process operating inside the DAC casing will cause fluctuations on the power supply and EM Radiation.
These cause jitter and interference that can be heard as a difference in audio playback, with the right equipment.

FLAC is unpacked by a microprocessor located close to the DAC chip and is very likely on the same power supply.
This causes extra EM noise as FLAC is unpacked and conducted noise on the voltage rails. This interference masks some detail or induces jitter which causes numerous other problems.

My Brother and I have performed a lot of double blind testing to see what differences we can make out.
Click to expand...
Oh, my...
 
Just out of curiosity Nenu, what is your test rig for these blind tests? Can you provide an equipment list and a photo that you own that gear?
 
I agree with Tiberian that the transducers are the most important part. They are subject to the highest level of distortion in the signal chain and they also have the biggest influence on how the sound is reproduced and propogated. Dipole electrostatics will sound different than a monopole ribbon which will sound different than piezo electric horn. I don't think any one is better then the other, just go with what you enjoy.

And I am totally cool with people buying audio stuff for completely unrelated to audio reasons. You tell me upfront that you bought McIntosh gear and Nordost cables because it all looks cool and I will fully agree with you.

If you tell me you bought pure silver IEC cables because it makes Nora Jones sound like she's in the room, I'll still be happy you enjoy your purchases but I will write off the claim.
 
That being said, I do buy high res audio. I enjoy collecting it. I know it sounds the best, how far over the best, I don't know, but it's at least the best. Plus I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to media.
 
Nenu if the result is bit perfect after unpacking there can be no qualitative difference in the sound either.
 
Nenu said:
Yes, we tested on Oppo 105. I confirmed the same on my Oppo 105 later.
I know I wont be able to tell the difference with any PC soundcard I have or my Emotiva UMC-1, they do not produce that level of detail.
I became aware of it when I visited my Brother. He had been converting DSDs to FLAC and WAV and found there was a small difference.
He wanted to be sure of it by giving me a double blind test and I did the same to him.
Since then we have tested a lot more.
Click to expand...

If there was a difference one logical conclusion is that your conversion process is faulty.
 
B00nie said:
If there was a difference one logical conclusion is that your conversion process is faulty.
Click to expand...
Its not the conversion process itself. I covered this.
Its the processing of FLAC causing EM and electrical interference which interfere with signal and clock timing and the very low level output from the DAC on finest detail.
If this was perfect they wouldnt improve it on new designs.
 
Nenu,

Did you forget to post the YouTube link or are you just not interesting in proving the entire world wrong? You could monetize your YT channel overnight and probably get tons of sponsors from bleeding edge audiophile companies by debunking this myth.
 
Nenu said:
Its not the conversion process itself. I covered this.
Its the processing of FLAC causing EM and electrical interference which interfere with signal and clock timing and the very low level output from the DAC on finest detail.
If this was perfect they wouldnt improve it on new designs.
Click to expand...

Digital signal is digital signal. It can either be bit perfect or not - no middle ground to it. Perhaps your Chinese Oppo player sends interference to the audio signal when it's doing the processing.
 
Nenu said:
Its not the conversion process itself. I covered this.
Its the processing of FLAC causing EM and electrical interference which interfere with signal and clock timing and the very low level output from the DAC on finest detail.
If this was perfect they wouldnt improve it on new designs.
Click to expand...
That's because you didn't use audiophile grade power cable for your PSU.
 
pippenainteasy said:
Just out of curiosity Nenu, what is your test rig for these blind tests? Can you provide an equipment list and a photo that you own that gear?
Click to expand...
Audiophile-Golden-Ears.jpg
 
Meeho said:
That's because you didn't use audiophile grade power cable for your PSU.
Click to expand...

And the $2000 upgrade power supply, own mains spur and 20 levels of Mana Isolation tables.




Funny you mention that, before I got a life and a girlfriend I used to be into all that audiophile bullshit, had a full Meridian/Monitor Audio hi-fi setup and buy Kimber power cables, Furukawa RCA cables etc. etc.

Now I'm just not that into it I actually use those 'audiophile' power cables to run my workstation and monitor.

You know they power it perfectly!;)
 
I read a review of the Oppo earlier to see if they complained about FLAC not sounding right and the reviewer (6moons) was writing how BD is more suspectible to distortion due to having shallower and smaller etchings compared to a CD lol.
Kinda throws away the credibility of everything rest he writes.
 
Also, listening to a Oppo disc player to discern differences in sound quality is a waste of time unless that player is in another room behind a bomb shelter worth of sound proofing. A disc player adds significant ambient noise to a room, and isn't helping the listener discern the dynamic range difference between SACD and rebook when you can make a fanless sound server with no moving parts in 2017.
 
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