Some commonsense

[Rt66indierock]

10 hours ago, STC said:

 

As far as recording is concerned, go as high as possible. Even though most microphones spec can indicate frequency response up to 20kHz but they do not indicate at what distance they measured them. In most recordings, you see sharp attenuation after 15kHz for mic position at a practical distance. 

 

When you use microphones going almost flat extending up to 30kHz, the HF of audible range at recording position will be higher than a microphone which measures flat up to 20kHz only. And then if you take into consideration of the ADC filter, there will be difference in the recording of the two different formats.  Most of the comments that you hear that they do not make any difference, should ask when was the last time they used a microphone that can capture ultra frequencies.  Opinions based on recordings made with microphones designed to be flat up to 20kHz and justifying the results of double blind tests are not a proper way to judge the SQ of high rez format.

 

A recording made with microphones going up to 50 kHz at 24/96 will sound better at a distance compared to a mic that measures flat up to 20kHz. This is true even if you down sample the 50kHz mic to 24/44.1. Having said that, you would NOT hear the difference between the original 50khz mic at 24/96 format and the same track downsampled to 24/44.1. Not easy anyway nor it matters to me.

 

The last time I used high frequency mics was a couple of weeks ago with my Sony digital recorder. I don’t see much  up there with Americana music.

[STC]

5 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

The last time I used high frequency mics was a couple of weeks ago with my Sony digital recorder. I don’t see much  up there with Americana music.

 

Look for frequencies from 10 to 20 kHz and compare them with a standard mic. 

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, STC said:

 

Look for frequencies from 10 to 20 kHz and compare them with a standard mic. 

 

Don’t get started on matching mics. And at a minimum I carry a frequency analyzer on my phone and use it. I’m constantly looking a 10 to 20 kHz.  And 20 hz which I try very hard to avoid.

[Paul R]

7 hours ago, esldude said:

If 16/44 sound different than mike feeds, do they sound more different than a quality mike vs a cheap USB mike?

I'm going to presume you know the answer is no.  That should illuminate what I'm thinking here.  

 

Talking about non USB mics, the answer is yes, in my experience. 

 

Talking about USB mics, I think the answer is yes, but I have never compared that with any rigor. 

 

[Paul R]

5 hours ago, Rexp said:

That could be the limitation of the ADC though, rather than 16/44.1? 

 

Since upit can d efinitely sound different through different ADCs and interfaces, yep 😉

[jabbr]

I'd like to expand on the idea of overspec'ing

 

@esldude -- yes by all means get the best microphones possible and the microphone should have a range well beyond the highest frequency you need to capture,

 

similarly your interface: it should capture well outside the microphone range (as @Miska says),

 

similarly your power supply: it should handle well out side your maximum draw, same for your amplifier, it should handle way more than the maximum SPL you listen to. same for CPU etc etc etc

 

same for measuring equipment, we typically try to use equipment with 10x the resolution of the signal we are measuring

 

The point is that most every system starts degrading at the limit of its stated performance so you get the best results if the system can handle more than you expect to throw at it.

 

Overengineering is common sense.

 

Of course if you don't have $$$ then you cut corners and live with it.

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

Talking about non USB mics, the answer is yes, in my experience. 

 

Talking about USB mics, I think the answer is yes, but I have never compared that with any rigor. 

 

 

You know, when I just reread that, I am not entirely clear what you asked...

[marce]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

I'd like to expand on the idea of overspec'ing

 

@esldude -- yes by all means get the best microphones possible and the microphone should have a range well beyond the highest frequency you need to capture,

 

similarly your interface: it should capture well outside the microphone range (as @Miska says),

 

similarly your power supply: it should handle well out side your maximum draw, same for your amplifier, it should handle way more than the maximum SPL you listen to. same for CPU etc etc etc

 

same for measuring equipment, we typically try to use equipment with 10x the resolution of the signal we are measuring

 

The point is that most every system starts degrading at the limit of its stated performance so you get the best results if the system can handle more than you expect to throw at it.

 

Overengineering is common sense.

 

Of course if you don't have $$$ then you cut corners and live with it.

I agree with one caveat, capturing well outside the microphone range could add some noise outside the required frequency range  which may or may not cause problems with following circuitry. A fine balance is required. to much bandwidth can be as bad as to little sometimes.😀

[Miska]

17 hours ago, esldude said:

I am saying that it won't make a poor mic sound good and that a good mic still sounds very good without it.

 

I never said it will make poor mic sound good, but it can make good (or even mediocre) mic not perform to it's potential. So you need to make sure that any of the subsequent steps won't impose limitations upon earlier one. And that's not even very easy to achieve.

 

Of course you don't necessarily have a microphone at all though.

 

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, marce said:

I agree with one caveat, capturing well outside the microphone range could add some noise outside the required frequency range  which may or may not cause problems with following circuitry. A fine balance is required. to much bandwidth can be as bad as to little sometimes.😀

 

This is not a trivial topic. My impression after just a little bit of investigation is the contrary — a well implemented, for example, DSD256 capture will have significantly less higher ultrasonic noise than a DSD64 or PCM44 signal which is upsampled to DSD256 (because of noise shaping). The caveat is that various filters might be applied, so hard to compare apples to apples but perhaps @Miska who I believe has one of  those sweet RME  ADI-2 ADCs can chime in with some real data. Since we know that most all DACs internally upconvert incoming PCM44 to hi-bitrate SDM, then I assume all DACs need to properly deal with ultrasonic noise (hence the output filter of course)

[Ralf11]

17 hours ago, esldude said:

I agree, but that is why maybe if it makes them money, they might do this with one song per album released.  Sort of free publicity and extended attention in the marketplace.  

 

not sure, but your mix might escape their copyright - i.e. "a new work"

 

 

[Miska]

11 minutes ago, jabbr said:

The caveat is that various filters might be applied, so hard to compare apples to apples but perhaps @Miska who I believe has one of  those sweet RME  ADI-2 ADCs can chime in with some real data.

 

ADI-2's ADC performs practically the same running either at DSD256 or 705.6k PCM. As an example, for lower PCM output rates the ADC chip has digital anti-alias filter with 85 dB stop-band rejection. So if the input has some high frequencies, using lower sampling rate increases likelihood of aliasing those frequencies down to audio band, instead of preserving them where they are and allowing later clean up at editing stage if necessary...

 

So using lower sampling rate and artificially limiting the bandwidth doesn't necessarily mean you get "cleaner" result.

[Jud]

8 hours ago, mansr said:

I understand you want to compare something between a DSD256 file and a downsampled version of it. You also mentioned spectrograms.

 

Starting with a DSD256 file from a NativeDSD sampler (track 5 from this album) I happened to have handy, here's what I've done:

1. Downsample to 44.1 kHz.
2. Upsample to DSD256 rate, keeping 24-bit sample precision.
3. Subtract the original DSD samples (as ±1 values).
4. Plot spectrogram of difference up to 44.1 kHz.

 

Above 21 kHz, we see a little high-frequency content from the recording that was lost in the 44.1 kHz conversion. Below that, nothing. The level of the difference in the 0-20 kHz range is -170 dB RMS, -155 dB peak. This is too small to be representable in 24-bit precision.

 

Is this anything like what you were looking for?

 

That's fine. Thank you.

[lucretius]

4 hours ago, jabbr said:

Overengineering is common sense.

 

So is value engineering!

[tmtomh]

8 hours ago, mansr said:

I understand you want to compare something between a DSD256 file and a downsampled version of it. You also mentioned spectrograms.

 

Starting with a DSD256 file from a NativeDSD sampler (track 5 from this album) I happened to have handy, here's what I've done:

1. Downsample to 44.1 kHz.
2. Upsample to DSD256 rate, keeping 24-bit sample precision.
3. Subtract the original DSD samples (as ±1 values).
4. Plot spectrogram of difference up to 44.1 kHz.

 

Above 21 kHz, we see a little high-frequency content from the recording that was lost in the 44.1 kHz conversion. Below that, nothing. The level of the difference in the 0-20 kHz range is -170 dB RMS, -155 dB peak. This is too small to be representable in 24-bit precision.

 

Is this anything like what you were looking for?

 

That's quite eye-opening.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, tmtomh said:

 

That's quite eye-opening.

 

The devil is always in the details.

[esldude]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

not sure, but your mix might escape their copyright - i.e. "a new work"

 

 

I think the judicial rulings against DJ rappers just sampling prior songs as input to their new creations would apply. So though new work, the new work is based upon work owned by others, and copyright does apply.  

[esldude]

7 hours ago, jabbr said:

I'd like to expand on the idea of overspec'ing

 

@esldude -- yes by all means get the best microphones possible and the microphone should have a range well beyond the highest frequency you need to capture,

 

similarly your interface: it should capture well outside the microphone range (as @Miska says),

 

similarly your power supply: it should handle well out side your maximum draw, same for your amplifier, it should handle way more than the maximum SPL you listen to. same for CPU etc etc etc

 

same for measuring equipment, we typically try to use equipment with 10x the resolution of the signal we are measuring

 

The point is that most every system starts degrading at the limit of its stated performance so you get the best results if the system can handle more than you expect to throw at it.

 

Overengineering is common sense.

 

Of course if you don't have $$$ then you cut corners and live with it.

You guys keep twisting what my posts on this are about to make it fit your ideas.  I don't disagree with your overspec'ing.  The posts I've had in this thread on the subject aren't about that at all.  Merely that higher rates don't make for big differences.  If the great mike sounds better at higher rates than 44 the difference is small, not a deal breaker, not a night and day difference, not nearly so large as having the great mike instead of an average one.  Mike choice is far more important than choice of sample rate.  Of all your important choices for quality recording results, sample rate is going to be the bottom of that list. 

[esldude]

11 hours ago, mansr said:

I understand you want to compare something between a DSD256 file and a downsampled version of it. You also mentioned spectrograms.

 

Starting with a DSD256 file from a NativeDSD sampler (track 5 from this album) I happened to have handy, here's what I've done:

1. Downsample to 44.1 kHz.
2. Upsample to DSD256 rate, keeping 24-bit sample precision.
3. Subtract the original DSD samples (as ±1 values).
4. Plot spectrogram of difference up to 44.1 kHz.

 

Above 21 kHz, we see a little high-frequency content from the recording that was lost in the 44.1 kHz conversion. Below that, nothing. The level of the difference in the 0-20 kHz range is -170 dB RMS, -155 dB peak. This is too small to be representable in 24-bit precision.

 

Is this anything like what you were looking for?

So peak levels in that are maybe -80 db FS in the 20-25 khz range.  So if your 0 dbFS level plays back at 120 db SPL, these ultrasonics would be 40 dbSPL.  Considering hearing around 20 khz if you have it has a threshold of about 100 dbSPL, I'm going out on a limb here and saying that isn't going to be heard.  This is before we consider masking by louder lower frequencies too.  

[STC]

10 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Don’t get started on matching mics. And at a minimum I carry a frequency analyzer on my phone and use it. I’m constantly looking a 10 to 20 kHz.  And 20 hz which I try very hard to avoid.

 

Here is a sample. MP3 upsampled to 24/44.1. Both Mics were designed for vocal. One spec'ed to 20kHz and another to50kHz. I hear the slight elevated HF even though the whole track did not extend more than 16kHz. Full details later. Maybe DW can come handy here.

 

HiMic vs Standard.wav

 

 

 

 

[Rt66indierock]

26 minutes ago, STC said:

 

Here is a sample. MP3 upsampled to 24/44.1. Both Mics were designed for vocal. One spec'ed to 20kHz and another to50kHz. I hear the slight elevated HF even though the whole track did not extend more than 16kHz. Full details later. Maybe DW can come handy here.

 

HiMic vs Standard.wav 7.01 MB · 1 download

 

 

 

 

 

Are you making the assumption that higher is better? In many.cases lower would be what the artists, engineers and label wants.

[STC]

All I am saying, hirez recordings can capture the frequencies up to 20kHz more accurately. I am only interested in 20 to 20kHz. 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

For me as a customer/end user, In the end, what matters is what I should acquire.

 

Let's take There Comes my Miracle on the latest Springsteen, 16/44 is OK and depending on my mood, SPL, etc, I could happen to prefer it in a blind test for its slight fuzziness (compared to) and things like more sounds of bow on the strings in lieu de more LF extension in the 24/96. But I claim the 24/96 to be better : more presence, better delineation of layers in the mix. It's the one I recommend you to buy (great album). Is it because it was purposely ruined for 16/44, because 24/96 is native ? I don't know, what matters is : get the 24/96.

 

Don't get me wrong, I have (no more, thanks to HQP) no issue with 16/44*. As a matter of fact I'm more relaxed when I face a 16/44 (provided there's no hires equivalent) : I fiddle less with filters, I'm more confident it will sound good. But every time I have compared an original 24/96 recording (in classical it sometimes says, like in the Scarlatti by Sudbin) to its 16/44 down convert I have always been comforted in my policy of acquiring HR.

 

24/192 of analog material is more controversial : I understand that if 88.2 at least is necessary for matching the mic feed it's for better reconstruction of transients, not for hearing 44.1K. But 96 signal in an old tape ??? 24/192 of analog material might be marketing BS and if so, then the remastering might sometimes proves suspicious, true. However, if it's been (well) done 24/192, take the Blue Note, then we are better off buying the 24/192.

 

*I attended 2 rock festivals those last Sundays and measured up to 105 dBA and 109 dBC (iPhone 6 app), last time I measured at home (active speakers claiming 120 dB capacity) with the same app (uncalibrated but I think it's kosher for a comparison) , PF's The Wall MFSL CD peaked 99dB C and I did not heard noise floor and I don't think I could get much higher either. What matters most IMO is the capacity of a system to play realistically loud, at least the 92 dB of a forte in classical music. Above that SPL, most (all?) of us play music @ home below the SPL of live rock anyway : as I once suggested, that justifies some compression. And a good target curve helps loving and be comfortable with high SPLs ; those are my credos rather than sample rates

[tmtomh]

22 hours ago, jabbr said:

I'd like to expand on the idea of overspec'ing

 

@esldude -- yes by all means get the best microphones possible and the microphone should have a range well beyond the highest frequency you need to capture,

 

similarly your interface: it should capture well outside the microphone range (as @Miska says),

 

similarly your power supply: it should handle well out side your maximum draw, same for your amplifier, it should handle way more than the maximum SPL you listen to. same for CPU etc etc etc

 

same for measuring equipment, we typically try to use equipment with 10x the resolution of the signal we are measuring

 

The point is that most every system starts degrading at the limit of its stated performance so you get the best results if the system can handle more than you expect to throw at it.

 

Overengineering is common sense.

 

Of course if you don't have $$$ then you cut corners and live with it.

 

This aspect of your argument I fully agree with: Overspec'ing makes total sense when recording, mixing, and mastering. In particular, I have no problem believing that when it comes to analogue electronics (including transducers like mics and speakers), linearity in the upper audible range might be correlated with ultrasonic frequency capability - in other words, a mic spec'd to 30kHz might be more linear in the highest audible octave (10-20kHz) than a mic spec'd to 20kHz. I don't think it's going to be true 100% of the time with every mic, but I think the chances are good that it will be true often enough to make it worthwhile to use the higher spec'd mike in a professional situation.

 

12 hours ago, STC said:

All I am saying, hirez recordings can capture the frequencies up to 20kHz more accurately. I am only interested in 20 to 20kHz. 

 

Respectfully, I have to partially disagree with the first sentence of your comment here (although I certainly agree with your second sentence). I disagree because I don't think analogue equipment with ultrasonic capability is the same as higher digital sampling rates. Once you have a high enough sample rate to accurately encode 20kHz plus sufficient headroom for digital filtering, I don't see any evidence that higher-res sampling makes any audible difference or any difference in accuracy of capture.

 

I have seen many, many digital filter measurements on well-designed, modern DACs, which show that the filters can effectively suppress aliasing without significant phase effects even with a 44.1kHz sample rate - in other words, the filters are steep enough that they can roll off the response sufficiently between 20kHz and 22.05kHz. But I would agree with you that ideally a 48kHz sample rate is better, because it almost doubles the ultrasonic headroom for sampling, giving from 20kHz o 24kHz to do it.

 

But I've yet to see any compelling argument for end-user music files with sample rates above 48kHz. When recording, mixing, and mastering, sure - do it a 96k or 192km, just like using 32-bit float for the bit depth is advisable during recording, mixing, and mastering. But once the thing is done, I have zero problem with downsampling to 24/48k for the final product and based on the evidence I have seen  (and heard) it does not negatively impact the sound.

[Ralf11]

I regard overspec'ing as akin to safety margins - which are found in engineered structures (e.g. bridges) and in evolved structures (e.g. your bones) - the value cannot be determine w/o knowing the incremental cost.