Carlos Kleiber Beethoven 24/96 Studio Master vs 24/88.2 download

[ted_b]

all sacd's, - even the dsd recordings is mastered as pcm( also some dxd recordings used for few sacd disks is 24/352,8 khz, so is 24 bit not 1 bit )

anyway, the 1bit sound is different from pcm in our gears.

 

First off, not true. Sonoma workstations (Pentatone, Telarc, blueCoast, etc) edit/EQ/master in full DSD. Even Channel Classics only goes to PCM for time edits, not EQ. Second, the point is that analog-to-DSD and DSD-recorded material should be heard in DSD. And in some other cases PCM-to-DSD is all we have, so be it. But if you have access to a 24/96 PCM recording, then lets hear it in unconverted PCM. Stay away from DSD-to-PCM (or vice versa) if you have the ability to! And yes, I never said listen to DXD in DSD. Listen to the native format!

[One and a half]

First off, not true. Sonoma workstations (Pentatone, Telarc, blueCoast, etc) edit/EQ/master in full DSD. Even Channel Classics only goes to PCM for time edits, not EQ. Second, the point is that analog-to-DSD and DSD-recorded material should be heard in DSD. And in some other cases PCM-to-DSD is all we have, so be it. But if you have access to a 24/96 PCM recording, then lets hear it in unconverted PCM. Stay away from DSD-to-PCM (or vice versa) if you have the ability to! And yes, I never said listen to DXD in DSD. Listen to the native format!

 

That's like trying to sip Chardonnay wines all the time, when there's only a mixture of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay on the shelf in the store.

[ted_b]

That's like trying to sip Chardonnay wines all the time, when there's only a mixture of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay on the shelf in the store.

 

? Pinot/Chard blends ain't nearly the mess we're alluding to (PCM to-DSD-to-PCM). And...I never said always, I said when you can. But, back to your analogy, if I can simply go to another store online or down the street and buy 100% Chardonnay, since the blends are being touted as Chardonnay and are just as much money, with the click of a button or wave of a credit card, why not?? BTW, the text you took from my posts is that I'm arguing with someone who was touting false info (he says that there is no such thing as pure DSD recordings or pure DSD mastering of analog..ask Cookie Marenco, Gus Skinas, etc etc).

[Robert Hutton]

? Pinot/Chard blends ain't nearly the mess we're alluding to (PCM to-DSD-to-PCM). And...I never said always, I said when you can. But, back to your analogy, if I can simply go to another store online or down the street and buy 100% Chardonnay, since the blends are being touted as Chardonnay and are just as much money, with the click of a button or wave of a credit card, why not?? BTW, the text you took from my posts is that I'm arguing with someone who was touting false info (he says that there is no such thing as pure DSD recordings or pure DSD mastering of analog..ask Cookie Marenco, Gus Skinas, etc etc).

 

There is a lot of false throughout this thread, Ted, none the least the swipes at the EMI 24/96 Classical conversions to SACD - a wholesale misinformation about the mastering chain.

 

You are right, if it is 24/96, best served in 24/96 - and if recorded/converted in DSD, best consumed in DSD. Why not?

 

But at the same time, there is a whole lot of material recorded in hi-res PCM converted to DSD, and it seems to me that there is no sense denying oneself the quenching of one's thirst from that well - it still tastes pretty damn good.

 

Those EMI Furtwangler remasterings - whether in the original 24/96 or the converted DSD - are a drop-dead revelation, and that is coming from one who is jaded enough to not hear many revelations anymore. I have a number of both. Dogmatism is all good and fine until it bangs up against pragmatic enjoyment of the music at hand.

[ted_b]

Robert,

I totally agree. As I've said many times, although close to 5000 of the 7500+ SACDs out there are PCM-based, they are usually the best we've got (I've ripped my whole 1000+ collection, whether PCM-based or not ). My only argument was for the continued quest to have available the native recordings, if possible.

[One and a half]

Robert,

I totally agree. As I've said many times, although close to 5000 of the 7500+ SACDs out there are PCM-based, they are usually the best we've got (I've ripped my whole 1000+ collection, whether PCM-based or not ). My only argument was for the continued quest to have available the native recordings, if possible.

 

Robert got the idea I was talking about, if a blend or impurity is only available in the store, then what choice do you have, either sip or go without. There's a lot of manipulation inside DACs, the Meitner and PD convert everything to DSD, so in some cases, the chain is PCM-DSD-PCM (distributed product) then DSD in the Dac. Plus of course all the other PCM-DSD in both chains, so it's a real jumble, who's to know, and how can we tell anyway, other than looking at graphs in Audacity, and it sounds like the CD. Sadly, that's always AFTER we buy the material.

 

Another story.

[firedog]

reviving this thread: I have the Kleiber from HDT in 24/88 and was just able to compare it to a rip of the 24/96 DVD. The 24/96 rip sounds MUCH louder; but when I compared them with the Foobar DR tool, the 24/96 only shows as 1 number higher in the DR rating.

 

I'm not even sure that small difference in DR rating is even meaningful. So how to account for the apparent difference in perceived volume?

 

Is the 24/96 download also seemingly much louder?

[acousticsguru]

reviving this thread: I have the Kleiber from HDT in 24/88 and was just able to compare it to a rip of the 24/96 DVD. The 24/96 rip sounds MUCH louder; but when I compared them with the Foobar DR tool, the 24/96 only shows as 1 number higher in the DR rating.

 

I'm not even sure that small difference in DR rating is even meaningful. So how to account for the apparent difference in perceived volume?

 

Is the 24/96 download also seemingly much louder?

 

Nope.

 

(Little difference in volume. More to the point, noticed the difference in sound quality? Doubt the DR is what makes most of the difference - more likely the additional conversions and filtering, which negatively affects impulse and phase response.)

 

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

[Leica]

The rip in question is from a Blu-Ray, not DVD. It is:-

 

[goldsdad]

reviving this thread: I have the Kleiber from HDT in 24/88 and was just able to compare it to a rip of the 24/96 DVD. The 24/96 rip sounds MUCH louder; but when I compared them with the Foobar DR tool, the 24/96 only shows as 1 number higher in the DR rating.

 

I'm not even sure that small difference in DR rating is even meaningful. So how to account for the apparent difference in perceived volume?

I expect the 88.2 kHz files will be a DSD to PCM conversion, whereas the 96 kHz files from the DVD will be straight PCM, and DSD is typically mastered about 6dB lower than PCM. 6dB represents a doubling of a signal's amplitude.

 

The dynamic range of the versions will match despite the significant overall amplitude difference because dynamic range is a ratio of loud to quiet, and the quiet samples are scaled by the same amount as the loud samples when the amplitude is changed, resulting in that ratio remaining constant.

 

Look at the DR reports of the 88.2 and 96 kHz versions. You'll probably find the peak and RMS values of each 88.2 kHz track to be roughly 6 dB lower than the values of the equivalent 96 kHz track.

 

 

[acousticsguru]

I expect the 88.2 kHz files will be a DSD to PCM conversion, whereas the 96 kHz files from the DVD will be straight PCM, and DSD is typically mastered about 6dB lower than PCM. 6dB represents a doubling of a signal's amplitude.

 

Basically, that's the problem we've been discussing all along: according to the SACD's liner notes, it's based on the good old 24/96 master also used for the DVD-A marketed prior (and long out of print), so that HDtracks is offering a PCM-to-DSD-to-PCM conversion (note the DSD-to-PCM conversion per se would be the lesser problem of the two, it's the PCM-to-DSD conversion where noise is being added - which subsequently can't ever be fully filtered out converting back to PCM, and the more aggressive/steeper the filter, the worse for the sound quality). The DG Originals RBCD appears to based on the same master also. I have a hard time believing Universal isn't using the same again for the Blu-ray, but haven't (yet) compared (= may in the near future).

 

A problem I'm seeing in the assumption that the volume difference may be an exact 6 dB is that I've been ripping/extracting/converting a lot of my own lately, and noticed that with softwares like Korg AudioGate, the adjustment in order to avoid clipping differs quite a lot from production to production (and thus far, the majority of SACDs have been too loud, i.e. would clip if converted to PCM without lowering the volume). If HDtracks' DSD conversion to PCM has been done by Bruce Brown at Puget Audio, it may very well have been leveled to no clipping (= any value) in order not to lose headroom. I've read some of his comments, he recommendations including a 3-6 dB level adjustment only if one is/were in doubt (= has no way of telling if the DSD-to-PCM conversion would go into clipping if done at 0 dB), soft roll-off filtering (at preferably 176.4 kS/s - he uses a custom 60 kHz filter) and no dither.

 

I've done extensive comparative listening tests of my own, and have reached the same conclusions.

 

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

[goldsdad]

A problem I'm seeing in the assumption that the volume difference may be an exact 6 dB […]

 

I'm not sure whether you mean an assumption by me, but if so, notice that I deliberately wrote "about" and "roughly", not "exact".

[Leica]

@acousticsguru Great post! Very informative... you know a lot

[goldsdad]

First image is the waveform of track 01 of a 1996 CD and I reckon the DVD rip will be very similar with peak level just below 0 dBFS...

 

 

 

I predict the 24 bit 88.2 kHz to look close to this second image, making it distinctly quieter to the ear…

 

[Boris75]

I have both the SACD and the Blu-Ray 24/96 in my collection which I compared to one another after matching volume levels. In my system, the 24/96 files from the Blu-Ray pure audio sound much better than the SACD. It is not a small difference.

[acousticsguru]

I'm not sure whether you mean an assumption by me, but if so, notice that I deliberately wrote "about" and "roughly", not "exact".

 

Not at all, same 6 dB e.g. Bruce Brown (and everyone else) quotes. There's no way of making an educated guess, is all I meant to say, any more than that the difference is likely to be between 0 and 6 dB.

 

Of course, in order to compare the quality of conversions/filtering, level adjustment should be as precise as possible. I've made comparisons down to 0.2 dB differences in volume (that is, in favour of one or the other) to make sure of the sonic imprint of one filter type over another (that is, in addition to comparing at 0 dB difference). This mainly because I've also come to the conclusion that minuscule adjustments are best avoided except where necessary (clipping!).

 

Looked up the percentage of my own conversions, by the way: 90% of the SACDs we've ripped and converted so far were too loud (= there would have clipping converting to PCM at 0 dB). Necessary level adjustment under 1 dB in over two thirds of the cases, however.

 

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

[goldsdad]

Not at all, same 6 dB e.g. Bruce Brown (and everyone else) quotes. There's no way of making an educated guess, is all I meant to say, any more than that the difference is likely to be between 0 and 6 dB.

 

 

My guess of roughly 6 dB was based on firedog writing that the 24/96 sounds "MUCH [his emphasis] louder" than the 24/88.2. The use of "MUCH" certainly hints at more than 3 dB to me.

 

Anyway, the main point of my first post in the thread was to explain to firedog that amplification/attenuation (with no compression, of course) will not change the DR number for a track despite an obvious change in level.

[acousticsguru]

My guess of roughly 6 dB was based on firedog writing that the 24/96 sounds "MUCH [his emphasis] louder" than the 24/88.2. The use of "MUCH" certainly hints at more than 3 dB to me.

 

Anyway, the main point of my first post in the thread was to explain to firedog that amplification/attenuation (with no compression, of course) will not change the DR number for a track despite an obvious change in level.

 

No disagreement whatsoever! It's just that the sound quality comparison (the to me most interesting aspect of this discussion - did I originally start this thread? I forget…) makes little sense unless the playback volume is identical. In my experience, people are easiest to cheat with very volume differences (in which case they invariably tend to prefer the louder version of which they're unable to tell or at least in doubt it's louder).

 

(One of two favourite tricks I used to play on people when I still built loudspeakers, the other changing absolutely nothing other than the lighting/illumination. For example, I'd readily bet candle light versus fluorescent beats a compression/DR difference of 1 in any setup!).

 

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

[Leica]

I have both the SACD and the Blu-Ray 24/96 in my collection which I compared to one another after matching volume levels. In my system, the 24/96 files from the Blu-Ray pure audio sound much better than the SACD. It is not a small difference.

 

Which software did you use to rip the Blu-Ray? I used AudioMuxer, after AnyDVD HD decrypted it of course.

[Leica]

I got around to comparing the Blu-Ray rip vs the HDTracks 88/24 download and there is a big difference indeed as Boris75 pointed out above. The 96kHz sounds three dimensional and alive. Afterwards listening to the 88kHz it sounded flat and lifeless - unlistenable! The 96kHz has way more resolution and you can hear the musicians and the stage as well.

 

I am surprised that HDTracks are still selling this inferior SACD rip! And I am even more surprised that they are getting away with it, with no one complaining to them and pointing out that there is a proper 96kHz version out there which presumably they can easily obtain, as Qobuz did.

[BobP63]

I am surprised that HDTracks are still selling this inferior SACD rip! And I am even more surprised that they are getting away with it, with no one complaining to them and pointing out that there is a proper 96kHz version out there which presumably they can easily obtain, as Qobuz did.

 

Another option is the 24/192 version available on e-Onyko. I purchased this version and I'm very happy with it, but I don't have the others to compare it with.

[Leica]

Another option is the 24/192 version available on e-Onyko. I purchased this version and I'm very happy with it, but I don't have the others to compare it with.

 

I think the 192kHz may just be upsampled from the 96kHz source...

[BobP63]

I think the 192kHz may just be upsampled from the 96kHz source...

I can't say if that's true or not, e-Oynko only offer this album in 192khz. It seems they only offer one sample rate in each title, but they definitely have titles below 192khz. Has anyone confirmed other titles from e-Oynko as being simple up samples of lower resolution files?

[firedog]

I can't say if that's true or not, e-Oynko only offer this album in 192khz. It seems they only offer one sample rate in each title, but they definitely have titles below 192khz. Has anyone confirmed other titles from e-Oynko as being simple up samples of lower resolution files?

 

In general, it's not clear if e-Onkyo uses the analog master tapes and makes a DSD or 192 master; or if they just take the existing digital master and convert it. For some of their rock collection sold as 192, the material isn't available elsewhere in that format. As an example, for the Who albums, the site says something about the 192 being from a new master derived from the original tapes. But since the same albums were recently remastered in Japan for SHM-SACD, it isn't clear whether these are downsamples from that SACD/DSD master or separate PCM remasters from the original analog.

 

In this case, since DG apparently converted the original tape to 24/96, I'm guessing that the e-Onkyo is derived from either the upsample to SACD or the 96 master itself. The fact that they're selling it as 192 makes me think it is from the SACD. They could have done this without even knowing that the SACD was derived from a 96k master. I hope I'm wrong. If they used the 96k digital master file, it is sort of odd that they wouldn't just sell it as a 24/96 file and leave it at that.

 

BTW, I personally wrote e-Onkyo and asked them why they sell these albums as SACD/SHM-SACD and also as 24/192 downloads, and not as DSD downloads. They replied that they can't get the rights to sell the albums as DSD downloads from the distributors in Japan.

[BobP63]

Thanks for the info firedog, like you said things aren't very clear with respect to providence. At least I can report that the sonic quality of this and all of the other albums I've downloaded from e-Onyko has been very good.