Hi-Res - Does it matter? Blind Test by Mark Waldrep

[Rt66indierock]

1 minute ago, kumakuma said:

 

What is?

Think more than half a million albums. 

[kumakuma]

Just now, Rt66indierock said:

Think more than half a million albums. 

 

Seems like a pretty arbitrary number. How did you come up with it?

[Rt66indierock]

20 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Seems like a pretty arbitrary number. How did you come up with it?

10% of available tracks on Spotify.

[Jud]

4 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Those are the ones, alright! I was unaware of the Sennheiser, but the DPA and the Sanken mics I was aware of!

2L is a Swedish audiophile label, and I have a couple of their Blu-Ray releases. If you want to capture the 60 KHz on them, you do definitely need at least a 120 KHz sampling rate (likely either 176.4 or 192 KHz), but I seriously question why. BTW, I doubt seriously (in fact , I know) that you won’t find the mikes you just mentioned being used on a regular basis at MCA, Warner, EMI, TelDec, or DGG!

 

Have also heard good things about these guys: http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/Earthworks#:~:targetText=Microphones

[Jud]

2 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

And I listen to AAC every morning on my morning walk/run on my iPod Shuffle. 

 

I put my home music collection on the Web and can run it through my iPhone on several-mile desert walks at full resolution for all Redbook, for most 24/44.1, and for some 24/88.2 and 24/96. (Edit: It comes to the iPhone in full res, but if I use the iPhone's Lightning-to-miniplug adapter it's of course downconverted.) It sounds really nice. For trips I can run it through a CCK with a battery supply attached and into a portable DAC. Nice. I mostly use Subsonic, but jRiver with JRemote offers similar capability.

 

And if I want to hear something else in at least CD res, there's the Qobuz app on the phone.

 

So no particular reason to have to settle for AAC or mp3 except for web radio (though there may well be exceptions there that I haven't explored).

[kumakuma]

32 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

10% of available tracks on Spotify.

 

My definition of a "live" format is a little different:

 

"Is there still music being released in this format that I want to buy?"

 

The answer, for me at least, is "yes".

[Jud]

34 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

10% of available tracks on Spotify.

 

How many and which of Spotify's genres make up less than 10% of their available tracks? (I'm not saying this makes all hi res or CD-and-above streaming more than a nice lagniappe for the music industry, just wondering which genres we might think of as "healthy" that wouldn't meet your criterion.)

[Rt66indierock]

48 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

I put my home music collection on the Web and can run it through my iPhone on several-mile desert walks at full resolution for all Redbook, for most 24/44.1, and for some 24/88.2 and 24/96. (Edit: It comes to the iPhone in full res, but if I use the iPhone's Lightning-to-miniplug adapter it's of course downconverted.) It sounds really nice. For trips I can run it through a CCK with a battery supply attached and into a portable DAC. Nice. I mostly use Subsonic, but jRiver with JRemote offers similar capability.

 

And if I want to hear something else in at least CD res, there's the Qobuz app on the phone.

 

So no particular reason to have to settle for AAC or mp3 except for web radio (though there may well be exceptions there that I haven't explored).

I prefer to run with the shuffle and not my iPhone. 

[Rt66indierock]

45 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

My definition of a "live" format is a little different:

 

"Is there still music being released in this format that I want to buy?"

 

The answer, for me at least, is "yes".

Healthy would be a lot more.

[Rt66indierock]

44 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

How many and which of Spotify's genres make up less than 10% of their available tracks? (I'm not saying this makes all hi res or CD-and-above streaming more than a nice lagniappe for the music industry, just wondering which genres we might think of as "healthy" that wouldn't meet your criterion.)

Formats not genres. A format needs to have music for me, Kal, Andy Q and you. How many formats cover us?

[esldude]

7 hours ago, gmgraves said:

One thing that I don’t see mentioned in this conversation much, are the microphones themselves. While it is possible to buy microphones that have significant frequency response out beyond 30 KHz (Ray Kimber used four Japanese-made omnidirectional microphones for his “IsoMike” recordings that are said to be flat to more than 50 KHz. Wish I could remember the brand and model, but I don’t), but these mikes are eye-wateringly expensive. Such mikes are rarely, if ever, used in most professional, mainstream recording studios. 
The Neumann, AKG, Telefunken, Sennheiser, and Sony condenser mikes as well as the dynamic varieties and contact mikes favored for pop and rock recording, and likely to be found in a professional recording studio’s complement, simply have little response above 20 KHz. I’m looking at the frequency response graph for a Neumann SM-2 condenser microphone. (Second edition, “The Audio Cyclopedia” by Howard M. Tremaine, page 162) right now. After a very wide +5dB peak at 6 KHz, the frequency response falls-off like a rock above 10 KHz, and is down -5dB at 15 KHz and is off the charts at -20dB at about 20 KHz. In my experience, this is pretty typical of most condenser mikes. More modern mikes have lighter Mylar diaphragms, of course, and the peak is at a higher frequency because of it, but response still falls off rapidly above the peak. Also, one would be surprised to see how many microphones used daily in recording studios around the world are really old! Many are tubed models from the 50’s and 60’s. The most ubiquitous models are the Neumann U47 and U87, and the AKG-414. These are very old designs. While the modern iterations of these mikes have sputtered Mylar diaphragms, the older ones have diaphragms made of etched brass or similar materials.

Those microphones you are describing approximate the human hearing curve at those frequencies.  Yes, I know you would want them flat beyond the human limit ideally.  

[Jud]

17 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Formats not genres. A format needs to have music for me, Kal, Andy Q and you. How many formats cover us?

 

I know that's what you were talking about. But I asked a different question. How many of Spotify's genres (and which) would be unhealthy and failing by your definition?

[esldude]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Have also heard good things about these guys: http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/Earthworks#:~:targetText=Microphones

I love my one and only Earthworks microphone.  If I weren't so cheap or they weren't so expensive I'd have more.  And in fact was recently trying to re-orient on microphones.  Sell some, buy some better, thin the herd (or is that heard) and up the quality. 

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Have also heard good things about these guys: http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/Earthworks#:~:targetText=Microphones

Looks good. I am unaccustomed to seeing electret mikes with decent bass response. These, however seem to have it in spades (as well as extended high-frequency response and 140dB+ of headroom. Impressive. As a recording mike, though, it’s limited to spaced array “stereo” which is unfortunate. 

[esldude]

So a few of you are now touting wide bandwidth microphones and the needed system FR to capture them.  Many of the really nice recordings these days use very high quality ribbon microphones.  Ribbons are definitely not wide bandwidth, but they seem to capture something special in the sound.  Maybe it is the whole velocity vs pressure thing. 

[sandyk]

10 minutes ago, esldude said:

Ribbons are definitely not wide bandwidth, but they seem to capture something special in the sound. 

 

Pleasing colouration perhaps ?

[STC]

53 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Pleasing colouration perhaps ?

Thanks to DSP, I think the importance of mics may soon disappear. Not many could distinguish good and poor quality and I am totally useless at that. 
 

 

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, STC said:

Thanks to DSP, I think the importance of mics may soon disappear. Not many could distinguish good and poor quality and I am totally useless at that. 
 

 

 

If it's in typical YouTube low bit rate .aac I wouldn't even bother trying.

[STC]

When it is in 24/192 or 24/96 also the same response. 

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, STC said:

When it is in 24/192 or 24/96 also the same response. 

 

You have never offered files at that resolution, only on YouTube which would be lucky to have as high as 128kbps .aac .  Even 16/44.1 LPCM would be way more suitable, provided that they weren't captured from speakers. In this case, JRiver won't play the file with Audio anyway, as it is not in a typical AV format

[STC]

I have a SACD of different microphones sound of piano made by DPA. IIRC, SOS used to have lossless samples.  Music is not complicated. It is meant to be enjoyed for what it is. Not looking for difference that would be masked when we listen them for pleasure anyway. 
 

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

Go back a little over 15 years ago for SACD. If you think DSD took off please explain it looks like a dead format to me.

 

I cannot tell why it looks dead to you. DSD looks very much alive to me, more than before because it is not tied to SACD anymore.

 

7 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

The math of high resolution is troubling especially if you take out crash cymbals. 

 

No, it is exactly the opposite. Math of RedBook is really troubling in that case. In RedBook you break the harmonic structure one way or the other. And every way sounds different. With RedBook, you need massive amount of complex DSP to make anything nearly good out of it. That is also why DAC chips struggle with it so much.

 

6 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

I told them the only thing preventing from being vaporware is that it is in DAC chips but chip manufactures never could give a good reason why they included DSD.

 

Good that they do, because in most cases it is way to get best technical performance out of the chip.

 

[mansr]

8 hours ago, Allan F said:

Would you care to share what evidence you have to support your contention that "chip manufacturers never could give a good reason why they included DSD"? I strongly suspect that you are presenting your opinion as fact.

Many DAC chips likely support DSD because there's sufficient demand for the feature that the relatively small effort needed is worthwhile. These days, they probably simply paste in their existing DSD handling block with minimal tweaking for each new chip.

[Confused]

11 hours ago, Rexp said:

Ok just got the files, listened in the car on my way to work. First files are BMS A v BMS B (assume BMS is the Bright Morning Star track). There is big difference! Anyone else tried? 

I signed up, but have not received the files.  Is it just me? 😕

[daverich4]

12 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

Think more than half a million albums. 

It was 10,000 for your Vaporware thread. Why the different standards for the two formats?