Some commonsense

[esldude]

7 minutes ago, jabbr said:

With all due respect to those who insist that 16/44.1 captures all that we could possibly hear, none have you have presented to me an audio reproduction system which sounds entirely realistic, to me, and in my eternal hope that future audio reproduction systems will improve on the current state of affairs, common sense tells me to preserve every bit of a recording --  holding out the real probability that we will need new types of recording, yet nonetheless.

 

Said more technically: y'all are entirely forgetting nonlinear mechanisms.

Hint: entirely realistic audio is not going to result from going to higher sample rate.

[Ralf11]

I'm just glad he didn't say "all y'all"

 

 

not sure I agree with that last stmt. esl - I suspect however that going to higher sample rates is not the most cost effective way to improve most home systems in major ways

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

I suspect however that going to higher sample rates is not the most cost effective way to improve most home systems in major ways

No, but it's a cheap way to do something that provides bigger numbers.

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, esldude said:

Hint: entirely realistic audio is not going to result from going to higher sample rate.

 

I’m not saying that higher sample rates lead to more realistic audio by itself.

 

Hint: you don’t know what does, nor does anyone else have a definitive answer. 

 

Im saying that I want the closest thing to a live feed from the mic, just in case. 

[jabbr]

I guess a test might be:

 

A) Use a pair of Neumann U87 with the RME-ADI-2 Pro at DSD256 vs

B) An ADC with max rate 16/44.1 

 

Send the output of both to either iFi iDSD Micro or Pro-ject S2D ...

 

Listen ...

[sandyk]

19 minutes ago, jabbr said:

I guess a test might be:

 

A) Use a pair of Neumann U87 with the RME-ADI-2 Pro at DSD256 vs

B) An ADC with max rate 16/44.1 

 

Send the output of both to either iFi iDSD Micro or Pro-ject S2D …

 

Listen …

 

What a foreign concept to quite a few posters in the General area of this forum !

 Even if they were offered a loan of the equipment they would be highly unlikely to do so, as they have already made their minds up in advance. 

[fas42]

2 hours ago, jabbr said:

With all due respect to those who insist that 16/44.1 captures all that we could possibly hear, none have you have presented to me an audio reproduction system which sounds entirely realistic, to me, and in my eternal hope that future audio reproduction systems will improve on the current state of affairs, common sense tells me to preserve every bit of a recording --  holding out the real probability that we will need new types of recording, yet nonetheless.

 

Said more technically: y'all are entirely forgetting nonlinear mechanisms.

 

The answers for achieving "an audio reproduction system which sounds entirely realistic" have always been available - but they are largely ignored because they're "not sexy enough" . Not reeking of enough bling, and/or not having brilliant technical measurements are the usual suspects trotted out, as "essential requirements" - and are, yes, 100% BS ...

 

Overall system integrity is as dry, as exciting as your local suburban accountant - but unfortunately, , is at the heart - it's just tooo hard tracking down all those "weakest links", so it is almost never carried out to the necessary standard ...far more exciting to get hold of that supa dupa, turbo charged whacka tweeter - which is gonna solve all your problems ... .

 

Yes, it is nonlinear mechanisms - lots of them; tiny, tiny gremlins ...

[Paul R]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

This whatever it is that makes high sample rate better sure is well hidden.

 

Seriously? There is at least 11 years of this argument all over this system. 

 

Notice I did not try to say hi-res was better, merely different. 

 

I certainly am not going to record at 16/44.1 or even at 24/48. I do have to trust what me ears tell me. That’s true even when they scream at me that something us wrong and I can not figure out what, exactly. 

 

You can if you wish, and I am sure your work will be very good indeed. (Said in serious way, not joking, sarcastic, or ironic in tone. )

 

 

 

[Paul R]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

Hint: entirely realistic audio is not going to result from going to higher sample rate.

 

Hint: more realistic audio is not going to happen without recording at a higher sampling rate. 

 

I agree it is not the only thing that needs to happen, and recording and playback are different operations. 

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

...far more exciting to get hold of that supa dupa, turbo charged whacka tweeter - which is gonna solve all your problems ... .

 

 

At a much lower asking price you can get a decent pair of headphones with a genuine frequency response to 40kHZ,

 although most manufacturers of these do not specify the specs after 20kHZ other than claim this.

[sandyk]

4 minutes ago, Paul R said:

Hint: more realistic audio is not going to happen without recording at a higher sampling rate. 

 Paul

 Did you get a chance to listen to that 24/192 track that I gave you the link to ?

 Regards

Alex

[Paul R]

4 hours ago, mansr said:

That doesn't matter if only a finite number of them are non-zero.

 

True - but what makes you assume any of the samples are zero unless the signal has dropped to zero for a number of samples? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sandyk]

11 minutes ago, Paul R said:

You can if you wish, and I am sure your work will be very good indeed.

 But can he record classical material as good as that as George Graves has done commercially ?

[fas42]

14 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

Hint: more realistic audio is not going to happen without recording at a higher sampling rate. 

 

I agree it is not the only thing that needs to happen, and recording and playback are different operations. 

 

Closely guarded secret () : highly realistic playback of the most unlikely material, going back over a hundred years of recording, is possible - if one does all the right things ...

[Paul R]

9 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 But can he record classical material as good as that as George Graves has done commercially ?

 

Probably. 

 

Seriously, nobody knows it all, and talent will trump technology in this field every single time. 

[pkane2001]

41 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

True - but what makes you assume any of the samples are zero unless the signal has dropped to zero for a number of samples? 

 

You're on the right track. If only there was a way to add zero samples to a signal without affecting it. If only it could be done.... 🤔

 

[esldude]

Just now, pkane2001 said:

 

You're on the right track. If only there was a way to add zero samples to a signal without affecting it. If only it could be done.... 🤔

 

https://dspguru.com/dsp/howtos/how-to-interpolate-in-time-domain-by-zero-padding-in-frequency-domain/

[pkane2001]

6 minutes ago, esldude said:

https://dspguru.com/dsp/howtos/how-to-interpolate-in-time-domain-by-zero-padding-in-frequency-domain/

 

Also works by zero-padding in the time domain:

 

https://www.dsprelated.com/freebooks/mdft/Zero_Padding_Applications.html

[esldude]

1 minute ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Also works by zero-padding in the time domain:

 

https://www.dsprelated.com/freebooks/mdft/Zero_Padding_Applications.html

That must be why you see people say the time and frequency domains are opposite sides of the same coin.  Hmmmmm. 

[esldude]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

Seriously? There is at least 11 years of this argument all over this system. 

 

Notice I did not try to say hi-res was better, merely different. 

 

I certainly am not going to record at 16/44.1 or even at 24/48. I do have to trust what me ears tell me. That’s true even when they scream at me that something us wrong and I can not figure out what, exactly. 

 

You can if you wish, and I am sure your work will be very good indeed. (Said in serious way, not joking, sarcastic, or ironic in tone. )

 

 

 

I've done it at 44 and 48 with 24 bits.  And at 88, 96, and 192 rates.  Neither I nor the musicians had a preference.  

 

The two musicians with the best ears, a young girl and a middle age lady who also has a masters in music when asked to compare listened.  Listened some more.  And one said, "so what is supposed to be the difference?"  I'd asked them to listen to some different versions and tell me which was better.  When I told them the sample rates were different, the lady said, "Oh, I thought you changed something else. I've wondered what difference that would make.  I've been told it would sound better the more you sample it." Shrug. 

 

So I've mostly stuck with 48/24.  

 

I'm sure my gear was no good, my mike was wrong,  none of our ears were adequate, the moon was out of phase, it was recorded below ground and played back above ground,  playing by musicians when facing north and listening was facing southwest, a cold front was coming thru, global warming is causing many issues etc. etc. etc. ................

 

 

[esldude]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 But can he record classical material as good as that as George Graves has done commercially ?

So do George and I need to have a high resolution "record off" now?  Hahahahaha.  

 

I haven't claimed to be a great recordist.  In fact what surprised me, is once you learn the basics and do get a little experience, just how easy it is to get nice recordings.  Key being, decent mikes in the right place, a good room or space and good musicians.  You get those and there isn't much to it other than having enough sense to not process it to death.  

 

Now when you get to multi-tracking, difficult rooms, bunches of retakes and processing well I'm able to do okay(maybe), but experienced people do much better than me.  OTOH, experienced people also turn out work much worse than mine much too often.  The how to do it isn't really the main part of what makes commercial recordings sound like they do.  There are all these other reasons.   And many of the things done means you have no chance of getting the recording to reproduce like the real thing.  It isn't on the recording at least 99% of the time. 

[marce]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

 

I'm sure my gear was no good, my mike was wrong,  none of our ears were adequate, the moon was out of phase, it was recorded below ground and played back above ground,  playing by musicians when facing north and listening was facing southwest, a cold front was coming thru, global warming is causing many issues etc. etc. etc. ................

 

 

Used a SMPS in the recording chain!😯

 

P.S. Note the emojii, like my last comment that was jumped on, its said in humour... Some are so serious all the time, audio is entertainment...

[Paul R]

5 hours ago, esldude said:

I've done it at 44 and 48 with 24 bits.  And at 88, 96, and 192 rates.  Neither I nor the musicians had a preference.  

 

The two musicians with the best ears, a young girl and a middle age lady who also has a masters in music when asked to compare listened.  Listened some more.  And one said, "so what is supposed to be the difference?"  I'd asked them to listen to some different versions and tell me which was better.  When I told them the sample rates were different, the lady said, "Oh, I thought you changed something else. I've wondered what difference that would make.  I've been told it would sound better the more you sample it." Shrug. 

 

So I've mostly stuck with 48/24.  

 

I'm sure my gear was no good, my mike was wrong,  none of our ears were adequate, the moon was out of phase, it was recorded below ground and played back above ground,  playing by musicians when facing north and listening was facing southwest, a cold front was coming thru, global warming is causing many issues etc. etc. etc. ................

 

 

 

I think you may be on ta sumthin... you recorded where three ley lines crossed didn’t ya? 🤪

[esldude]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

I think you may be on ta sumthin... you recorded where three ley lines crossed didn’t ya? 🤪

How did you ever know? One of the musicians had written some short stories about let lines.

[mansr]

10 hours ago, Paul R said:

True - but what makes you assume any of the samples are zero unless the signal has dropped to zero for a number of samples?

All the recordings in my collection, even Götterdämmerung, are of finite length.