How many bits, how fast, just how much resolution is enough?

[Miska]

Only working with his example buddy......but even for a millisecond (.001) there's still no relevance unless ones head is clamped in a vise of chair positioned in a measured equilateral triangle in an anechoic room of equandestant dimensions.

 

Only if you think it from positional point of view. But if you think it from settling time point of view, you may understand better. Meaning that step response takes about one millisecond to settle, which is same time as full cycle of 1 kHz sine wave.

 

I like to move around a bit, ya know?

 

My headphones (~90% of my listening) stay pretty much stable on my head, no matter how much I move around.

 

God help us all if the culinary world develops the same audiophobia criteria where everything matters! Who wants a lab technician instead of a Michelin chef?

 

Michelin chef is a lab technician of culinary world... Everything needs to be exactly perfect, and the plate must also look very tidy and beautiful, not just stuff randomly thrown on a plate.

 

Many Michelin chefs think it is very tiresome to maintain Michelin ratings and move away from such to gain more freedom and comfort in working.

[Jud]

God help us all if the culinary world develops the same audiophobia criteria where everything matters! Who wants a lab technician instead of a Michelin chef?

The chef/owner of what was by many accounts the best restaurant in the world for years would likely disagree with you. Ferran AdriÃ*'s ElBulli Lab in Barcelona - Bon Appetit | Bon Appetit

[esldude]

I'm not sure this from Miska -

 

[emphasis added]

 

- really deserved the rather negative responses to it. Seems rather reasonable to me.

 

Well, I wrote that I would like for someone to specify for rational reasons a target beyond which no improvement is possible. Miska responded. Then instead of having a target, he informs us his approach to make it better no matter what without end. That is perfectly okay. Such people generate some of the wonderful things in the world. It instead indicates he doesn't have an answer to my question however.

 

I have used his software on a trial basis and can confirm it gives better measured results than other software for playback. I couldn't hear an improvement. As he says that doesn't mean no one will. Nevertheless, the idea there is no end to improvements in that area which will be audible does not make much sense to me. It markets really well.

[esldude]

Again.......I've figured after a few years of this some of you would have stopped trying to separate time from frequency in an effort to incorrectly attribute suspected audible differences to this mystical place. Can't have one without the other fellas! If timing changes, so does the response at the listening position.

 

Wow, you were very mistaken.

[Miska]

Again.......I've figured after a few years of this some of you would have stopped trying to separate time from frequency in an effort to incorrectly attribute suspected audible differences to this mystical place. Can't have one without the other fellas!

 

No, not at all! That's what I've been saying! More you "improve" frequency domain performance of your "perfect" filter by making it steeper, worse the time domain performance becomes. It is 1/x relationship afterall. What is form of art is to create filters that really push the limits of impossible in that 1/x relationship. Because in filter design you always have the "margin" between the two. It is not hard to design a filter that is bad in both domains simultaneously, but it is hard to design a filter that is as good as possible in both simultaneously.

 

This is the same with Fourier transform, longer the transform is, more frequency resolution it has, but less time resolution it has. However, hearing is known to exceed this Fourier uncertainty principle in it's capability to distinguish both time and frequency simultaneously.

 

You know, your filters have a very good time-frequency response if they are at most 1st order. But you just need to use very high sampling rate in such case...

 

If timing changes, so does the response at the listening position.

 

But you just need to understand that your head doesn't really move within the transient's one millisecond long time window. Your head's Doppler-modulation is pretty low because frequency caused by the movement is much lower than the signal you listen. Even if you move your head, it causes frequency shift, but doesn't really affect the system's step response in a way similar to the filters do. So you at most frequency modulate the source signal with low frequency signal. Which is different thing.

 

And certainly when I use my Sennheiser HD800, or for example Sennheiser IE800's, they are very steady placement in regards to my head as function of time.

[esldude]

But as you point out in a part of your post I snipped, he said the same in 2012, and as far as I know continues to maintain the same position. See, e.g., http://www.lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-white-paper-the_optimal_sample_rate_for_quality_audio.pdf

 

 

Yes, we will always have specsmanship in the marketing of these products. On the other hand, I don't see *current* support for Lavry's position that anything over a 96KHz sample rate leads to worse results.

 

I don't know if that would still be the case with the better devices available. I would think he reached the opinion (which I happen to share) that you get no benefit for more than 96 khz. 96 khz is enough to push every reasonable complaint about filtering and everything else completely out of consideration. And while many would say why not do 192/384 etc, in the pro recording area which is his business, as cheap as storage is those higher rates for recording, mixing and mastering become very burdensome. Not just in cost of using up hard drives, but in terms of how long processing such streams take.

 

BTW, most 96 khz and above devices don't use the opportunity to use a less steep filter. They just extend the bandwidth and keep steep filters. Lavry does use a gentler filter starting to roll off above 30 khz when doing 96 khz sampling in his gear. Maybe filtering that starts at 30 khz on DXD would be great. I take it Lavry thinks you gain nothing.

[esldude]

snip..

 

You know, your filters have a very good time-frequency response if they are at most 1st order. But you just need to use very high sampling rate in such case...

snip

 

Say a sampling rate around 20 ghz.

[Miska]

Nevertheless, the idea there is no end to improvements in that area which will be audible does not make much sense to me.

 

Because this is argument that is never going to end, just like any argument that depends on human senses. Be it whiskey, wines, music whatever.

 

One colleague at Nokia (when I was still working there) once claimed to me that digital filter rejection, or audio electronics distortion doesn't have to be less than -40 dB because nobody is able to hear anything beyond that. And lot of people have claimed that nobody is able to hear difference between 128 kbps MP3 and lossless. Local technical magazine has stopped reviewing audio equipment since 80's when CD was introduced because they claimed that every CD player has sounded the same since and nobody is able to hear any differences.

 

Nothing in world is going to change opinion of these people and trying to argue with them is just like trying to argue which one is better, Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon. Or whether Islay or Speyside is better. It is just futile and waste of time.

[Miska]

Say a sampling rate around 20 ghz.

 

It is easy to calculate, depending on where you want to set the boundaries. Because you know you dynamic range, 6 dB/oct filter response and phase response, so you can calculate where you need to put the sampling rate.

 

If you put for example fc=25 kHz, you immediately know that 96 kHz sampling frequency is not going to make it...

 

If you look at any of the modern delta-sigma converter chips, we could just utilize the modulator outputs from ADC straight, instead of decimating to some low rate PCM just to soon end up interpolating back for DAC output...

[Miska]

96 khz is enough to push every reasonable complaint about filtering and everything else completely out of consideration.

 

Certainly it is not. And for 96 kHz PCM you end up doing over 10x decimation factors from the actual AD conversion stage. And again over 10x interpolation factors for the DA conversion stage. Just wasted effort.

 

And while many would say why not do 192/384 etc, in the pro recording area which is his business, as cheap as storage is those higher rates for recording, mixing and mastering become very burdensome. Not just in cost of using up hard drives, but in terms of how long processing such streams take.

 

Processing 384k, even tens of channels in realtime is completely non-issue these days. Really.

 

Lavry does use a gentler filter starting to roll off above 30 khz when doing 96 khz sampling in his gear.

 

Going down >100 dB in 30 kHz to 48 kHz band is practically brickwall. It is more than 100 dB/oct, that is not "gentle".

[The Computer Audiophile]

I've as of yet to find anything in our industry to impugn this presentation on why 16/44.1 is good as it gets for us.

 

24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed

 

I've read that page a few time over the years and always come to the conclusion that Monty wants to have it both ways.

 

1. High resolution is actually harmful and this can be heard.

 

2. Nobody can hear high resolution and it's proven by tests.

 

 

From the site:

 

1. 192kHz considered harmful192kHz digital music files offer no benefits. They're not quite neutral either; practical fidelity is slightly worse. The ultrasonics are a liability during playback.Neither audio transducers nor power amplifiers are free of distortion, and distortion tends to increase rapidly at the lowest and highest frequencies. If the same transducer reproduces ultrasonics along with audible content, any nonlinearity will shift some of the ultrasonic content down into the audible range as an uncontrolled spray of intermodulation distortion products covering the entire audible spectrum. Nonlinearity in a power amplifier will produce the same effect. The effect is very slight, but listening tests have confirmed that both effects can be audible.

 

 

2. Empirical evidence from listening tests backs up the assertion that 44.1kHz/16 bit provides highest-possible fidelity playback. There are numerous controlled tests confirming this, but I'll plug a recent paper, Audibility of a CD-Standard A/D/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback, done by local folks here at the Boston Audio Society.In 554 trials, listeners chose correctly 49.8% of the time. In other words, they were guessing. Not one listener throughout the entire test was able to identify which was 16/44.1 and which was high rate [15], and the 16-bit signal wasn't even dithered!

[Ralf11]

No doubt about that. But it isn't all about frequency response. There are other criteria that define fidelity.

 

I agree completely (but you cut the important part out of my quote - audible sine waves - I am reserving transients as a possible exception)

[Ralf11]

...

 

I have used his software on a trial basis and can confirm it gives better measured results than other software for playback. I couldn't hear an improvement. ...

 

Just to clarify - is this about HQplayer? And if so, what CPU does your computer use?

[jabbr]

 

God help us all if the culinary world develops the same audiophobia criteria where everything matters! Who wants a lab technician instead of a Michelin chef?

 

Nathan Myhrvold, Férran Adria http://nytimes.com/2015/01/04/business/ferran-adria-the-former-el-bulli-chef-is-now-serving-up-creative-inquiry.html

 

... oh @Jud beat me to that!

[mansr]

I agree completely (but you cut the important part out of my quote - audible sine waves - I am reserving transients as a possible exception)

Transients are just an infinite collection of sine waves.

[Ralf11]

the idea behind worse sound with 96 kHz is that it injects ultrasonics into circuits that are unhappy with it

 

 

and BTW, I know the difficulty of hitting that shift key (just look at what i do), but for SI units, and to honor Heinrich, can we use Hz, not hz?

[esldude]

Because this is argument that is never going to end, just like any argument that depends on human senses. Be it whiskey, wines, music whatever.

 

One colleague at Nokia (when I was still working there) once claimed to me that digital filter rejection, or audio electronics distortion doesn't have to be less than -40 dB because nobody is able to hear anything beyond that. And lot of people have claimed that nobody is able to hear difference between 128 kbps MP3 and lossless. Local technical magazine has stopped reviewing audio equipment since 80's when CD was introduced because they claimed that every CD player has sounded the same since and nobody is able to hear any differences.

 

It is not difficult to demonstrate these are not true.

 

Nothing in world is going to change opinion of these people and trying to argue with them is just like trying to argue which one is better, Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon. Or whether Islay or Speyside is better. It is just futile and waste of time.

 

Well preferences are another matter. Mixing the old apples and oranges there.

[Abtr]

Think about those numbers you picked for a moment please. 10,000 hz tones offset from each other by 100 microseconds.

 

It makes no difference really, but are you talking one tone in each channel or both in the same channel?

 

Hint:___this isn't going to work out the way you think it will.

Ah, yes, wrong example. Make that two 10KHz tones with a 1 (or 99) microsecond relative time delay. Would 48K - and (e.g.) 96K samples/second PCM recordings be indistinguishable in the analog domain?

[mansr]

I've read that page a few time over the years and always come to the conclusion that Monty wants to have it both ways.

 

1. High resolution is actually harmful and this can be heard.

 

2. Nobody can hear high resolution and it's proven by tests.

 

I think you're being disingenuous. He's saying that since we can't hear high frequencies, reproducing them unnecessary. Moreover, attempting to reproduce them anyway can cause distortion in the audible range, something which is readily demonstrated.

[esldude]

Certainly it is not. And for 96 kHz PCM you end up doing over 10x decimation factors from the actual AD conversion stage. And again over 10x interpolation factors for the DA conversion stage. Just wasted effort.

 

 

 

Processing 384k, even tens of channels in realtime is completely non-issue these days. Really.

 

 

 

Going down >100 dB in 30 kHz to 48 kHz band is practically brickwall. It is more than 100 dB/oct, that is not "gentle".

 

 

Gentler doesn't mean gentle. Yes it is practically a brick wall, but most DACs don't take advantage of that.

[esldude]

Just to clarify - is this about HQplayer? And if so, what CPU does your computer use?

 

 

Yes HQplayer. Excellent playback software. Probably the best I know of. I don't use it due to other considerations, but it is excellent.

 

I did the trial on a machine with ample RAM and an I5 processor. A Lenovo home server actually.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I think you're being disingenuous. He's saying that since we can't hear high frequencies, reproducing them unnecessary. Moreover, attempting to reproduce them anyway can cause distortion in the audible range, something which is readily demonstrated.

 

Bummer you feel that way. This is a logical question given what he said.

 

 

 

1. 192kHz considered harmful192kHz ... The effect is very slight, but listening tests have confirmed that both effects can be audible.

 

 

2. Empirical evidence from listening tests backs up the assertion that 44.1kHz/16 bit provides highest-possible fidelity ... Not one listener throughout the entire test was able to identify which was 16/44.1 and which was high rate [15], and the 16-bit signal wasn't even dithered!

[esldude]

Bummer you feel that way. This is a logical question given what he said.

 

 

 

1. 192kHz considered harmful192kHz ... The effect is very slight, but listening tests have confirmed that both effects can be audible.

 

 

2. Empirical evidence from listening tests backs up the assertion that 44.1kHz/16 bit provides highest-possible fidelity ... Not one listener throughout the entire test was able to identify which was 16/44.1 and which was high rate [15], and the 16-bit signal wasn't even dithered!

 

I understand your complaint. However, item 1 is can be. It can be demonstrated. Does not mean it will be or always is. I do think he is over-hyping this problem. I have found it to be a non-issue with any music I ever cared to listen to in fact.

 

Item 2 is no one heard a difference they could demonstrate. And in fact one of the complaints about that test is the hirez samples either weren't sourced from hirez or didn't have enough high frequency content to show differences. So another group of people trying to have it both ways.

[esldude]

Ah, yes, wrong example. Make that two 10KHz tones with a 1 (or 99) microsecond relative time delay. Would 48K - and (e.g.) 96K samples/second PCM recordings be indistinguishable in the analog domain?

 

 

Yes.

[Ralf11]

If anybody has blind listening test info where a lot of transients were used (say snare drums, etc.) for redbook vs. hi-zoot digital, I'd really like to see it.

 

That is the program material where I'd expect a difference (if there is a difference).