Redbook vs High resolution formats

de-bunked

Saw this elsewhere:

http://theaudiocritic.com/blog…logId=1

Cool… thanks for the link.

IMO a lot of this “High Res, High Def” stuff is nothing but a money grabbing play. The big boys MUST figure out a way to constantly and consistently obsolete formats to keep the money rolling in at all levels of the “food” chain right? It has very little to do with “enhancing” the consumer experience but has a LOT to do with enhancing their shareholders “experience”.

My opinion only. I reserve the right to be wrong. I also reserve the right to be right…

D

PS Another thing… there’s this dude on another forum I frequent going on and on about needing surround mixing for his music productions. WHY? I don’t WANT to be sitting in my living room watching a DVD and the dude on screen busts out into this amazing guitar solo BEHIND me!!! What the heck is that? Now foley and dialog for film or television? Sure, surround is must have. For listening to music though… I don’t get it. God didn’t put ears in the BACK of my head.

Oooops. Meant to post this in the “Anything else” forum.

Quote: (Diogenes @ Nov. 02 2007, 8:06 PM)

PS Another thing... there's this dude on another forum I frequent going on and on about needing surround mixing for his music productions. WHY? I don't WANT to be sitting in my living room watching a DVD and the dude on screen busts out into this amazing guitar solo BEHIND me?!?!?! What the heck is that? Now foley and dialog for film or television? Sure, surround is must have. For listening to music though... I don't get it. God didn't put ears in the BACK of my head.

Ha, now my wife has those I'm sure .... to go with the eyes in the back of her head. I'm sure it's a thing that women develop when they have kids....

but yeah, you make a good point. I don't geddit either. Perhaps these guys are exploring "music as an artform" in a way that we don't "get" because we still see it as a representation of a live band. Saying that, so much production on a modern CD is nothing like a live band so perhaps the surround mixing thing is just another step. Dunno.

Hey guys, music in 5.1 absolutly sucks. Reminds me of the ol Quad 8 Track tape machines from the 70’s.

From the article

Quote:

…that the two-channel analog output of a high-end SACD/DVD-A player undergoes no audible change when passed through a 16-bit/44.1-kHz A/D/A processor. That means there's no audible difference between the original CD standard (“Red Book”) and 24-bit/192-kHz PCM or 1-bit/2.8442-MHz DSD.



If you A/D/A a higher sampling rate to a lower sampling rate,
in this case 24-bit/192khz to 16-bit/44.1khz,
then indeed you probably won’t be able to hear any difference.
May have missed something, but the comparison doesn’t make
sense to me.
The authors don’t seem to be comparing the higher digital resolutions
of the SACD to lower res. of Redbook - but rather the re-sampled
analog output.
Useless

If I understand the test procedures, they took the supposedly superior analog output of the SACD/DVD-A player and ran it through an A/D/A conversion at 16/44.1 and no one perceived an audible difference between the superior SACD/DVD-A recording and the 16/44.1 recording.

Seems valid to me. I believe our ol’ buddy Nyquist had it right. At least on playback. There ARE benefits to recording at higher bit depths (more headroom) and higher sampling rates. IMO the higher sampling rates are a bit debatable. It depends on the source material. YMMV… AND I am no expert by any means. But I did drive by a Holiday Inn Express a week ago last Thursday…

D

Point taken. Bit depth
Here’s a test.
Take the output of Redbook. Bit depth of 16
Re-sample it down to 11khz, with a bit depth of 12 and
you probably won’t hear the difference between
program material that was recorded at 11khz and a bit depth of 12.
Seems to me they should have compared

Quote:

the supposedly superior analog output of the SACD/DVD-A player

directly to the output of Redbook on high-end hardware.

Hi 7 o’ 11,

I don’t claim to fully understand all the voo-doo behind all this stuff. I can only use the holes in the sides of my head… and I ain’t too sure about them! :p

My card will do up to 24/192. I have some pretty nice nearfields too, but not exactly a perfect listening environment. Anyway, I always record at 24 bits but I tried 24/96 and 24/192… you know, just to “see”. Like that new car where the speedometer goes to 180 MPH, you gotta try it! :D Anyway, at the end of the day, I determined that really high sample rates in my case were not worth the extra processing overhead. I really could not tell THAT MUCH difference. My stuff is classic rock with distorted guitars, bass, with some keys and drums added via virtual instruments. If I were doing acoustic instruments, orchestral stuff and/or recording real drums with real cymbals, I’d probably feel differently.

D