16 bit files almost unlistenable now...

[fas42]

13 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

That practice is different.

 

I see it as going through a progression of subjective impacts, depending upon the SQ. At the low end, it won't be particularly noticeable once music starts, because the overall resolution is not adequate; as the setup ascends through the high end range it may become more and more irritating, because it is audible and 'modulates' with the remaining distortion artifacts, making it very conspicuous. At the top of the SQ ladder, the recorded musical event is in ascendancy, and the mind easily discards the presence of the hiss - it becomes like listening to a live acoustic ensemble, and then some gentle rain starts to fall - the noise that is irrelevant to what matters is easily ignored.

 

 

[fas42]

6 hours ago, Jud said:

I'm trying to get an idea of two things, what are the respective contributions of the various sources of noise coming to our ears, and whether it is possible to hear the softest passages of dynamic (though not necessarily demonstration level) 16 bit recordings comfortably at typical listening levels.

 

I have never had an issue with inherent noise from CD recordings - anything that's there sounds 'natural', unless it's been hideously mutilated from incompetence, or the mastering suffered from human error at some point. The example of the latter I always think of is from this album,

 

 

This is not the track at fault; rather it's the very first track on the album - you can clearly hear digital lack of bit depth at the start - a mistake made at some stage of the production.

 

This was, I think, about the second CD we ever purchased, and was used to demo potential components for our first decent rig - even in the showrooms I could hear something a bit funny at the beginning, and later worked out exactly what had gone wrong.

[danadam]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Huh?

In this new flac file it was more difficult for me to notice when the noise is gone, so then I went back and compared it with the mp3 file and the noise in the mp3 file is significantly louder. @esldudemust have done something differently.

]$ sox "06 Heat Wave.mp3" -n trim 0 4 stats 2>&1 | grep "lev d"
Pk lev dB     -32.13    -32.13    -32.90
RMS lev dB    -44.97    -45.01    -44.94

]$ sox "06 Heat Wave 1.flac" -n trim 0 4 stats 2>&1 | grep "lev d"
Pk lev dB     -39.78    -40.57    -39.78
RMS lev dB    -52.35    -52.50    -52.20

 

[Don Hills]

Dan,

I agree, the noise is at different levels in the MP3 versus FLAC versions.

 

Frank,

there is indeed a glitch at the beginning of that track. But it's not due to lack of bit depth, if it were, it would be present before and after the glitch as well.

 

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

Frank,

there is indeed a glitch at the beginning of that track. But it's not due to lack of bit depth, if it were, it would be present before and after the glitch as well.

 

 Not necessarily. It may depend on how many ports on the mixer were open at the different times ?

[esldude]

Yes.  Not sure what I did, but going by peak levels I had noise at -33 dbFS instead of -40 dbFS.  Sorry, a mistake was made somewhere.  It looks like I did a mix and render on the -40 db noise twice.  Which works out to 33 or 34 db on the end result.  Oops!

 

So the FLAC files look as I intended.  So you can say where the noise ends via listening. 

 

HINT: it isn't the same place the noise ended in the mp3.  

[esldude]

Funny how this disclaimer on nearly all early CD's is forgotten.  Nearly all early CD were AAD.  This is a simple statement of fact about the two mediums. 

 

"The Music on this Compact Digital Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment. We have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape."

 

 

[PeterSt]

4 minutes ago, esldude said:

We have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape."

 

Something ain't right there.

Would feel the same as : this hi-res digital recording of the LP can reveal limitations of the source LP.

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Something ain't right there.

Would feel the same as : this hi-res digital recording of the LP can reveal limitations of the source LP.

 

Sure - but if you were getting rid of the old format and wanted to play up how great the new one was...

[fas42]

35 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

Frank,

 

there is indeed a glitch at the beginning of that track. But it's not due to lack of bit depth, if it were, it would be present before and after the glitch as well.

 

 

Okay, I have looked at the waveform at that point on the first track, "Tu che le vanita" from "Don Carlo", and there are step jumps in the signal - I forget what the loss of resolution was, but something around 4 bits worth, undithered, can be clearly seen. This is corrected at a certain time, after something of the order of a minute or two - and occurs nowhere else. At some point in the mastering, someone made a mistake, and it wasn't picked up before production commenced - the recording is perfectly fine otherwise.

[fas42]

30 minutes ago, esldude said:

Funny how this disclaimer on nearly all early CD's is forgotten.  Nearly all early CD were AAD.  This is a simple statement of fact about the two mediums. 

 

"The Music on this Compact Digital Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment. We have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape."

 

 

 

 

Another CD I bought decades ago, a Gene Krupa jazz compilation, had a distinct "Zzzzzzzt" just as the music started - these were early days of CD, I rang up and complained, and the record company sent out a second copy, gratis. Yep, same Zzzzzzt!! It was suggested that the playback tape machine used for transferring had inserted that on start up, and it wasn't picked up, yet again.

[esldude]

18 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

 

Another CD I bought decades ago, a Gene Krupa jazz compilation, had a distinct "Zzzzzzzt" just as the music started - these were early days of CD, I rang up and complained, and the record company sent out a second copy, gratis. Yep, same Zzzzzzt!! It was suggested that the playback tape machine used for transferring had inserted that on start up, and it wasn't picked up, yet again.

That's nothing.  A friend ordered a copy of a French film from the 1960's on DVD.  A small company known for its transfer quality did a nice job transferring to DVD.  Except for this one glitch.  For 24 minutes near the middle of the film the video signal was lost or cut out.  Audio continues all the way thru, but you get a blank screen for 24 minutes.  It wasn't caught by anyone and these DVDs were made and sold.  To my knowledge they never made it good.  

[esldude]

45 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Something ain't right there.

Would feel the same as : this hi-res digital recording of the LP can reveal limitations of the source LP.

And is there anything wrong with that statement if the LP were the source for the digital recording?

[Don Hills]

48 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Okay, I have looked at the waveform at that point on the first track, "Tu che le vanita" from "Don Carlo", and there are step jumps in the signal -

 

Picture, or it didn't happen.

... wait a minute, that's not the track you posted above.

That one does have a short glitch about the 6 second mark. Ludwig's law...

[Don Hills]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

 

Something ain't right there.

Would feel the same as : this hi-res digital recording of the LP can reveal limitations of the source LP.

 

It makes sense if you consider that in many cases the tape hiss was at a lower level than the surface noise of the LP. Take away the vinyl noise, you can hear the tape hiss.

[esldude]

14 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

It makes sense if you consider that in many cases the tape hiss was at a lower level than the surface noise of the LP. Take away the vinyl noise, you can hear the tape hiss.

Now with all the DSP de-noising and such they probably would remove tape hiss.   But in the early days that wasn't available and you certainly could hear tape his in some recordings. 

[Jud]

36 minutes ago, esldude said:

Now with all the DSP de-noising and such they probably would remove tape hiss.   But in the early days that wasn't available and you certainly could hear tape his in some recordings. 

 

And not every remastering for CD was a gem back then either, though it all started looking pretty good since the loudness wars. Whenever you heard something bad, they wanted you to blame the analog source whether it was the problem or not.

[fas42]

58 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

Picture, or it didn't happen.

... wait a minute, that's not the track you posted above.

That one does have a short glitch about the 6 second mark. Ludwig's law...

 

Well, I bolded the point that the track I posted wasn't the one that had the issue ... I wanted to give an idea of the dynamics of the recording overall; and the first track, not posted, starts off very softly, making the loss of resolution even more clear - couldn't find the actual track on YouTube, but I'm sure it exists on one of the online services.

 

If you really keen to see what the track waveform shows, I can rip it again - and post something; I don't see what the fuss is about - someone made a mistake with the mastering, reducing bit depth of a short passage to the point where it was audible - this is in the same category as classical tracks where there is clipping at a number of points, something I've seen a number of times.

[fas42]

Vanguard recordings are an interesting bunch - subjectively, very low level, conservatively mastered; one always wants to up the volume, and you find it's at maximum already!  The Essential Odetta is yet another test CD of mine, and the aim is to recover the quality of there being a live person in front of one,

 

 

 

[PeterSt]

3 hours ago, esldude said:

4 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Something ain't right there.

Would feel the same as : this hi-res digital recording of the LP can reveal limitations of the source LP.

 

And is there anything wrong with that statement if the LP were the source for the digital recording?

 

Yes, same thing. That is, if you look at it in the context of : hey, the CD shows anomalies the LP (or tape for that matter) did not, just because CD is so high resolution.

This is BS.

 

Not that I ever saw through that back in the days ...

 

[esldude]

3 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Yes, same thing. That is, if you look at it in the context of : hey, the CD shows anomalies the LP (or tape for that matter) did not, just because CD is so high resolution.

This is BS.

 

Not that I ever saw through that back in the days ...

 

Sounds like your projecting. 

 

The CD shows noise because tape has a noise floor much higher than CD.  The CD could show odd frequency response because the CD was inherently flat in response.  That is all that little disclaimer was saying. 

[PeterSt]

4 minutes ago, esldude said:

Sounds like your projecting. 

 

No ...

 

4 minutes ago, esldude said:

The CD could show odd frequency response because the CD was inherently flat in response.

 

I rather don't understand;

 

I think it was In this very thread we talked about the recording of LP and playback through the same chain (as far as it goes) being indistinguishable from playing the LP directly through the chain.

 

What changed to that ?

(yes, that the subject became tape )

[esldude]

11 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

No ...

 

 

I rather don't understand;

 

I think it was In this very thread we talked about the recording of LP and playback through the same chain (as far as it goes) being indistinguishable from playing the LP directly through the chain.

 

What changed to that ?

(yes, that the subject became tape )

I don't see a conflict in those ideas. 

[PeterSt]

1 minute ago, esldude said:

I don't see a conflict in those ideas.

 

But listening to the CD version from a source which is tape reveals deficiencies of the tape ?

we must be talking about different matters. As how I read it :

 

Quote

We have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape.

 

... we'd have to compare with the source itself, which is tape. So now, suddenly (what you imply if we compare this head to head) the CD shows deficiencies of the tape itself does not. And that, out of all, because the CD has such a high resolution. So yeah, it can capture tape hiss the tape itself does not show.

Right.

Not.

[esldude]

28 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

But listening to the CD version from a source which is tape reveals deficiencies of the tape ?

we must be talking about different matters. As how I read it :

 

 

... we'd have to compare with the source itself, which is tape. So now, suddenly (what you imply if we compare this head to head) the CD shows deficiencies of the tape itself does not. And that, out of all, because the CD has such a high resolution. So yeah, it can capture tape hiss the tape itself does not show.

Right.

Not.

Okay, you've got a heck of a fantasy going.  

 

I'd expect the CD accurately shows the tape which would include hiss, tape saturation, and perhaps anomalies in the low frequencies.  I don't know, but you seem to have this idea the implication is CD would reveal tape deficiencies that wouldn't be heard listening to tape.   I've no idea where you thought I or anyone else was saying such a thing.