Does High Resolution Audio sound better

[alfe]

What's the real world difference between one and the other?

 

Upsampling vs. Oversampling for Digital Audio | Audioholics

[Jud]

What's the real world difference between one and the other?

 

Some folks try to draw a hard distinction between the two, with "over" sampling using integer multiples of the original sample rate and supposedly being more benign, and "up" sampling not necessarily using integer multiples and supposedly being less benign. The attitude toward "up" sampling is also somewhat bound up in DACs that did asynchronous sample rate conversion (ASRC, *not* the same as async USB input) for jitter reduction, which were at one time the hot new thing, and are now largely thought of as outmoded.

 

I don't think the distinction is truly important these days, and people tend to use the terms interchangeably anyhow.

[sandyk]

When the content of both the Redbook and HiRes version is from the same mastering session, then NO....both sound the same. - mayhem13

 

 

Really ? Then why is it so easy to hear the differences, through better than average equipment, of the comparison tracks on Barry Diament's Format Comparison pages ? Next you will be claiming that all those members who much prefer recordings in double DSD are imagining the marked improvements over RB CD too ?

[bdiament]

I suspect that when comparing Redbook and high res using a DAC that performs on-the-fly SRC (perhaps employing rate and ratio estimation which would result in low-level time and frequency dependent distortion), the differences would be swamped by the colorations the DAC is superimposing. This may be one reason why some folks don't hear the difference.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

[christopher3393]

No.

 

note at end of whitepaper: "Written by the Goldmund Acoustic Laboratory in collaboration with industry expert Mr. Brent Butterworth. So a familiar AV journalist had a hand in it. Subjectively speaking, the broad contours outlined here seem consistent with his positions regarding these issues. Just an impression.

[semente]

Upsampling vs. Oversampling for Digital Audio | Audioholics

 

Some folks try to draw a hard distinction between the two, with "over" sampling using integer multiples of the original sample rate and supposedly being more benign, and "up" sampling not necessarily using integer multiples and supposedly being less benign. The attitude toward "up" sampling is also somewhat bound up in DACs that did asynchronous sample rate conversion (ASRC, *not* the same as async USB input) for jitter reduction, which were at one time the hot new thing, and are now largely thought of as outmoded.

 

I don't think the distinction is truly important these days, and people tend to use the terms interchangeably anyhow.

 

Thanks.

[sdolezalek]

They continue the all too widespread confusion of signal-to-noise ratio with dynamic range. While these are *theroetically* the same -- or should be -- in reality they are two very different things. That is to say that low level signals might be well above CD's noise floor but they get increasingly raggedy as the level goes down and the signals are effectively represented by fewer than 16-bits of resolution. This is why cues in well made recordings, such as the size of the room the players are in, are relatively "out of focus" in Redbook when they are plain as day in a high res version created at the same mastering session. It is why instrumental harmonics don't reveal the same complexity in Redbook as they clearly do in the high res version.

 

Barry: I very much agree with you that room size cues are better in the hi-res versions of otherwise identically recorded 16/44 vs 24/192 recordings. It also seems to me that those cues have nothing to do with ultrasonics and may, in fact, occur more prominently in low rather than high frequencies. I also know that you generally tend to be of the "if I can clearly hear a difference, I don't necessarily need to understand the underlying physics/acoustics/math" crowd (absolutely no offense meant by that). For those here of the "I don't believe my ears until you can show me a mathematical/physical/acoustic reason for the difference," crowd, are there good reasons for this possible distinction other than those that Jud (and others here) have cited with regard to the ability to more cleanly do A/D and D/A filtering at much higher bit and sample rates?

[semente]

Barry: I very much agree with you that room size cues are better in the hi-res versions of otherwise identically recorded 16/44 vs 24/192 recordings. It also seems to me that those cues have nothing to do with ultrasonics and may, in fact, occur more prominently in low rather than high frequencies. I also know that you generally tend to be of the "if I can clearly hear a difference, I don't necessarily need to understand the underlying physics/acoustics/math" crowd (absolutely no offense meant by that). For those here of the "I don't believe my ears until you can show me a mathematical/physical/acoustic reason for the difference," crowd, are there good reasons for this possible distinction other than those that Jud (and others here) have cited with regard to the ability to more cleanly do A/D and D/A filtering at much higher bit and sample rates?

 

It would be interested to verify if those "cues" you mention are indeed occuring in the lower frequencies...have you tried disconecting your tweeters?

 

I have played with crossvers (and driver attenuation) in the past and having compared a few online (Redbook vs. High Res) samples I am led to believe that those "effects" you are hearing (all this "decay", "air", "space around the instruments") are related to exagerated high frequency content, and in most cases the producers have resorted to the use of close-mic'ing.

[sandyk]

have played with crossvers (and driver attenuation) in the past and having compared a few online (Redbook vs. High Res) samples I am led to believe that those "effects" you are hearing (all this "decay", "air", "space around the instruments") are related to exagerated high frequency content, and in most cases the producers have resorted to the use of close-mic'ing.

 

Do you honestly believe that is what Barry D. is doing with his 24/192 Soundkeeper recordings ?

Barry doesn't use close-micíng either . He uses only 2 well placed wideband microphones with a response only 1dB down at 40kHz (IIRC) and a usable response to higher than 57kHz. Neither does he use any compression or limiting.

[petaluma]

Nobody really wants to attack a guy where he lives, but he shouldn't really be shilling his work in this context. It's quite obvious he has a vested interest. He sells hi-res stuff. What's he gonna say? It doesn't sound better? It's an argument that can only get dirty.

 

Is there any possibility we could keep this away from appeals to loyalty, trust in the ears of our friends and all those who work in recording studios and perhaps focus on what there is in the way of evidence that people can even hear the difference?

 

We know who Barry is and what he does for a living. I have used some of Barry's recommendations in the area of room treatment to make my room a better listening experience.

 

He as much a right to post on this forum as you or I. We can take it at face value or ask questions or make comments in a civilized manner. I don't think I remember Barry ever attacking anyone. He makes his comments and states that these are his opinions. Take it or leave it which I respect.

[AudioDoctor]

In my experience, yes. Yes it does.

[sdolezalek]

Wow! I have nothing but respect for Barry and what he is trying to accomplish with his recordings. He has never tried to be anything but open and honest here about his feelings AND his commercial interests. I had no idea that a simple question about why something might sound different would cause so much hostility (and exactly zero attempts at answers).

 

I specifically raised the notion of cleaner/better filtering at higher resolutions inasmuch as I have never heard the "you can't hear a difference " crowd meaningfully dismiss what has been posted to show that such filtering differences do indeed exist. I will also say that when one side of an argument is "you just can't hear it and you will never prove to me that you can;" then I tend to believe even more that I probably am hearing real differences.

[Don Hills]

...

2. They continue the all too widespread confusion of signal-to-noise ratio with dynamic range. While these are *theroetically* the same -- or should be -- in reality they are two very different things. That is to say that low level signals might be well above CD's noise floor but they get increasingly raggedy as the level goes down and the signals are effectively represented by fewer than 16-bits of resolution. This is why cues in well made recordings, such as the size of the room the players are in, are relatively "out of focus" in Redbook when they are plain as day in a high res version created at the same mastering session. It is why instrumental harmonics don't reveal the same complexity in Redbook as they clearly do in the high res version. ...

 

 

Barry,

This is incorrect, at least for the reason you give. Assuming normalisation, any given signal above the 16th bit is quantised to the same accuracy for both 16 and 24 bit depths. They both get "increasingly raggedy as the level goes down." Assuming correct dither, 16 bit simply has a higher noise floor than 24 bit. I'm not questioning that you hear a difference, just saying that the reason you give isn't why.

[wakibaki]

Why ?

 

Because then we could agree.

 

Because I've gone past the point of any technical argument, past the point of any measurement, past the point of what any recording engineer or other expert thinks, and I want to know what people can actually hear, so if you've got any evidence with any provenance, now is the time to get it out.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I just removed a few incendiary comments and their responses. Please stay on topic and stay civil or I'll just close the thread. I hate to let a couple people ruin it for the adults, but it may come to that.

[elcorso]

Dennis, Tony:

 

A little help here. I and I'm sure others are not engineers. You guys pointed out technical inaccuracies/discrepancies in the paper but is the ultimate conclusion of the paper incorrect? I would guess based on your statements you feel it is?

 

Thanks

 

David

 

Edit: And assuming the authors of the paper would have known their technical statements were inaccurate and going to be picked apart by other engineers what do you feel the motivation is for writing the paper? Are they incompetent engineers?

 

Incompetent not think. Merchants, as most of the industry.

 

Goldmund is and was created for the analogue market. Although they have been forced to incur the digital market, I do not think they are very happy. In the market there are products that compete with them at a fraction of the cost.

 

White Papers is what is left in this world (and deaf too). If you do not believe me ask Dennis (elsdude) and followers.

 

Cheers!

 

Roch

[wanta911]

For me it is somewhat of a moot point based on the garbage in = garbage out principle. Unfortunately my music tastes are biased toward the "popular" side, so my focus is primarily on finding enjoyable recordings that are not the victims of insane compression levels rather than just focussing on replacing redbook with high-res. Needless to say that I am fighting a losing battle as newer material is released

 

Thus, my interest in high res material is more about whether or not the remastered version is better to my ears than the one I have, regardless of bitrate. My limited experience so far is probably a 50/50 success rate at best with a few very good finds and others with so much exaggerated high frequency in the mix, that I am struggling to hear any bass.

 

So in my particular situation, does high-res sound better than redbook? I don't know.......and unless by some miracle, the recording industry changes the way popular music is mastered - I am not sure that I care. (I won't be holding my breath)

[mayhem13]

Barry: I very much agree with you that room size cues are better in the hi-res versions of otherwise identically recorded 16/44 vs 24/192 recordings. It also seems to me that those cues have nothing to do with ultrasonics and may, in fact, occur more prominently in low rather than high frequencies. I also know that you generally tend to be of the "if I can clearly hear a difference, I don't necessarily need to understand the underlying physics/acoustics/math" crowd (absolutely no offense meant by that). For those here of the "I don't believe my ears until you can show me a mathematical/physical/acoustic reason for the difference," crowd, are there good reasons for this possible distinction other than those that Jud (and others here) have cited with regard to the ability to more cleanly do A/D and D/A filtering at much higher bit and sample rates?

 

Having had access to an Anechoic chamber for evaluating speaker systems and individual drivers, I feel a need to contradict what some might attribute soundstage and imaging to. Once the reverberant and reflective fields are removed or greatly attenuated, what's left is the spacial seperation of the human head and imaging and soundstage with it. Given the normal listening space's complexities, it would be impossible to attribute soundstage and imaging to anything but the speaker system, room acoustics and channel seperation.

 

The measures I mention are pretty impractical for most, and I apologize for using them as example but in the context of reporting experience and what one actually hears or believes they've heard I find it relevant.

 

The terms of systems not 'capable' or revealing enough have already been thrown around a bit so i thought I'd share some info about the other 'product' in this industry.

[InfernoSTi]

This is an interesting discussion. A little bit familiar but with a certain inquisitive dialog. Thanks for starting it, Chris, and thanks for keeping it civil. But mostly thanks to the posters for the interesting read.

[Jabs1542]

A lot of great points from the objective side, but here's another kink in the armor:

 

"A 2004 paper tilted “DVD-Audio vs. SACD: Perceptual Discrimination of Digital AudioCoding Formats” compared 2.8 MHz DSD with 24/176.4 PCM in a blind listening test. Thistest used musical performance recordings made in both formats using microphones with extended high-frequency response rated to 40 or 50 kHz. Both formats were fed with analogsignals directly from the microphones, with no mixing. The tests were conducted with 110listeners. Of 2,900 comparisons, there were 1,454 correct choices and 1,446 incorrect ones –about the same results as flipping a coin. The authors noted, “These people, for the mostpart, were well accustomed to critical listening on a professional level, but they found thatthey could not even begin to recognize any sonic differences....”

 

Many people have heard the difference between RBCD and DSD, even my 16 year old son and his friends heard the difference between thier Breaking Benjamin in 16:44 versus DSD128 through HQP. It seems that if you want to completely debunk the high res myth you would show that the lowest acceptable res (16:44) is indistinguishable from the highest res available (be it DXD, DSD256, 24:192, or something else). Comparing two of the higher res formats (24:176 vs DSD64) was a complete waste of 2,900 comparisons if your goal was to prove high res is bogus.

 

I wonder if Goldmund is about to release some chic super expensive 16:44 player.

[The Computer Audiophile]

This paper and other sources, I believe Monty as well, suggest high resolution can be deleterious to sound quality. Isn't this contradictory to those who believe there is no sonic difference between standard and high resolution? It seems that the more objective voices see both of these assertions as true (deleterious and no difference).

 

I'm not picking on the objective leaning folks, rather looking for a way to square these two beliefs.

[Jabs1542]

This paper and other sources, I believe Monty as well, suggest high resolution can be deleterious to sound quality. Isn't this contradictory to those who believe there is no sonic difference between standard and high resolution? It seems that the more objective voices see both of these assertions as true (deleterious and no difference).

 

I'm not picking on the objective leaning folks, rather looking for a way to square these two beliefs.

 

I guess I could agree to that; so "yes", it's either better, or worse, or it doesn't make a difference at all

[Tony Lauck]

"A 2004 paper tilted “DVD-Audio vs. SACD: Perceptual Discrimination of Digital AudioCoding Formats” compared 2.8 MHz DSD with 24/176.4 PCM in a blind listening test. Thistest used musical performance recordings made in both formats using microphones with extended high-frequency response rated to 40 or 50 kHz. Both formats were fed with analogsignals directly from the microphones, with no mixing. The tests were conducted with 110listeners. Of 2,900 comparisons, there were 1,454 correct choices and 1,446 incorrect ones –about the same results as flipping a coin. The authors noted, “These people, for the mostpart, were well accustomed to critical listening on a professional level, but they found thatthey could not even begin to recognize any sonic differences....”

 

I read this paper a few years ago. I suggest a careful reading of the entire paper to ferret out some facts that probably invalidate the paper's conclusions. Here's a link:

 

http://old.hfm-detmold.de/eti/projekte/diplomarbeiten/dsdvspcm/aes_paper_6086.pdf

 

One of their listeners had 100% success in identifying the two formats. Not much need for statistical analysis there! However, if that listener had been mixed in with 99 people from a school for the deaf, the overall results would not have been statistically significant.

 

This is one of the papers that convinced me that the standards of peer reviewing in the A.E.S. is not always high. A good review process would have forced the authors to reword their conclusions. And a good research supervision process would have led to follow on research that used trained and/or proven subjects. The work itself appeared to be good, albeit incomplete.

[wakibaki]

This paper and other sources, I believe Monty as well, suggest high resolution can be deleterious to sound quality. Isn't this contradictory to those who believe there is no sonic difference between standard and high resolution? It seems that the more objective voices see both of these assertions as true (deleterious and no difference).

 

I'm not picking on the objective leaning folks, rather looking for a way to square these two beliefs.

 

I think the truth of the matter is that these are real and measurable but inaudible. A lot of technical arguments get thrown up in the to-and-fro but although they may be strictly true the significance (magnitude) is often estimated differently by warring parties.

[elcorso]

For me it is somewhat of a moot point based on the garbage in = garbage out principle. Unfortunately my music tastes are biased toward the "popular" side, so my focus is primarily on finding enjoyable recordings that are not the victims of insane compression levels rather than just focussing on replacing redbook with high-res. Needless to say that I am fighting a losing battle as newer material is released

 

Thus, my interest in high res material is more about whether or not the remastered version is better to my ears than the one I have, regardless of bitrate. My limited experience so far is probably a 50/50 success rate at best with a few very good finds and others with so much exaggerated high frequency in the mix, that I am struggling to hear any bass.

 

So in my particular situation, does high-res sound better than redbook? I don't know.......and unless by some miracle, the recording industry changes the way popular music is mastered - I am not sure that I care. (I won't be holding my breath)

 

Many (but not all) HR recordings are careful to have less garbage in. But if what comes is just garbage not interest me HR, Redbook or MP3.

 

Then I could agree with you, because nobody would like HR garbage.

 

Roch