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

[Jud]

1 minute ago, audiobomber said:

No coincidence. He is the chief designer and says Benchmark does 16/44 right, some others do not.

 

Yes. How surprising.

[sandyk]

4 minutes ago, audiobomber said:

No coincidence. He is the chief designer and says Benchmark does 16/44 right, some others do not.

 

Almost all companies make unverifiable claims about their superiority over the products of competitors

[emcdade]

Man I feel so ripped off when a high res song comes on that even a $100 DAC can play natively.

 

Also feeling super ripped off paying that extra $5/mo. for the high res streams.

 

 

[esldude]

2 hours ago, sandyk said:

 The files are X and Y , not A and B. Are you sure that you listened to the correct files ?.

 No amount of Dither would have fixed FrederickV's  16.44.1 version. The distortion is way too obvious.

Yes, X and Y.  I was working with some other files yesterday that were A and B.  Y or the second one is the better sounding to me. As for dither fixing something or not well yeah, no dither can cause distortion.  Of course I don't know what was done to @FredericV files so maybe he can say. 

[Ralf11]

4 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

Most Audiophiles don't give a damn about Academic reports like this ...

 

 

If true, those people are fools.

 

Try using your OWN ears and report what YOU hear for a change, instead of bragging about idiotic rage fests.  And start your own damn threads.

 

OR try cutting the pills in half.

[Ralf11]

4 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

There is no substitute for actual listening. You should try it for a change and report your results in the forum.

Did you even bother to check out FrederickV's  X and Y files  when they were originally posted ?

 

 

Muffy, this is an analysis of actual listening!! 

Try working on your reading comprehension.

[Rexp]

1 hour ago, esldude said:

Yes, X and Y.  I was working with some other files yesterday that were A and B.  Y or the second one is the better sounding to me. As for dither fixing something or not well yeah, no dither can cause distortion.  Of course I don't know what was done to @FredericV files so maybe he can say. 

Could you not judge by measuring both? 

[esldude]

41 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Could you not judge by measuring both? 

Yes, and I did. 

[Teresa]

8 hours ago, sandyk said:

Most Audiophiles don't give a damn about Academic reports like this .They listen to music for enjoyment...

 

3 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

If true, those people are fools...

 

I guess that makes me a fool. @GUTB says I'm not an audiophile so maybe he is right?

 

I don't read academic reports in any field, especially audio. Boring in the extreme IMHO. I even quit subscribing to Stereophile magazine because I find equipment reports extremely boring and Stereophile has too few music reviews and most are not from the audiophile and the small boutique music companies I prefer. And they almost never review SACDs even though over 10,000 SACDs have been released. Even at less than $1 per issue I found Stereophile a bad deal for me.

 

Oh, also I abhor doing any comparison between music formats, it ruins pleasurable music listening for me for many days. I don't mind reading other people's comparisons though.

 

Even though I'm now able to enjoy CDs and 16/44.1 lossless music files, the music in my collection I enjoy the most are from SACDs and DSD downloads. As long as my audio system keeps working I listen 100% of the time for pleasure. I dread the day when something breaks down that is too expensive to repair and I have to once again listen analytically. I prefer just listening to music for pleasure and if that means I'm a fool I'm OK with that.

[marce]

12 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

Most Audiophiles don't give a damn about Academic reports like this .They listen to music for enjoyment.

Yes, I did find it and have a quick look at it.

 Try using your OWN ears and report what YOU hear for a change, instead of quoting or linking to boring Academic reports and textbooks . 

Science bashing again...

[bobbmd]

@marce @sandyk don't y'all think what i said compared to what  @sandyk said in much gentler tone/kinder tone / can't we be more civil even if we don't agree AND it is still all subjective and we are all entitled to our opinions--tho i was a bit sarcastic!

[Ajax]

11 hours ago, audiobomber said:

Sorry, I can't find the reference. I read it in the HD Audio site somewhere. Paraphrasing, John Siau stated  there's no need for high res if 16/44.1 is done right (as in the Benchmark DAC3)

 

Hi Audiobomber,

 

Here is the reference I believe that you are referring to, which is from Mark Wadrep's Dr AIX site. He is obviously a fan of Benchmark Media's DACs and AMPs's, as am I.

 

Mark starts of by saying:

I'm really fortunate to have friends that are smarter than me. In many aspects of life, it's great to be able to discuss and learn from people with different areas of expertise and life experiences. So when I authored a recent blog on "highly resolving" systems and whether they are necessary (you can read that article by clicking here ), it was a welcome surprise to hear from one of the smartest people I know, John Siau, the principal designer of both analog and digital systems at Benchmark Media. I consider their DACs to be among the finest on the planet — equally at home in my mastering room all these years AND in my home system.

 

Benchmark supplied their DACs and power amplifiers for all of the 5.1 HD-Audio demos that AIX Records assembled at AXPONA shows. Benchmarks' hardware and my recordings delivered a music experience unlike any demo at any trade show in the history of trade shows. Why do I feel confident in making that boast? Because the entire signal path from source recording to speaker output was truly capable of maintaining high-resolution specifications — a truly "highly resolving" system. Read on and see how John's email clarifies the discussion with specifications and insights from a world class designer.

 

Below is John's contribution to this important topic (reprinted here with his permission):

 

Mark,

 

It is not a matter of fancy cables, and esoteric tweaks. It is all about the math (MW bolded). If anyone hears the difference, it probably will not be on the basis of the frequency response.

 

There are exactly three potential advantages provided by high-resolution audio:

 

1: An increased high frequency limit

 

2: An increased immunity to the clipping of intersample peaks

 

3: An increased SNR

 

Items 2 and 3 are audible under the right circumstances. Item 1 may never or almost never be audible. Here is my reasoning:

 

1: High Frequency Limit

 

Very few listeners will have transducers that extend beyond the 22 kHz limit of the CD format. The exception will be listeners with good headphones or very good speakers. But, most listeners can't hear beyond 20 kHz. You will need the rare combination of someone will excellent hearing beyond 22 kHz who is listening through good transducers. You will also need significant musical content above 22 kHz (at sufficient levels). This is going to be too small a group to be statistically significant. The size of this group is likely to be 0. You need to put some young but trained ears into some good headphones and play the right source material.

 

2: Clipping of intersample peaks

 

The worst-case clipping is caused by a tone at 1/4 of the sample rate that is shifted 45 degrees relative to the sampling clock. This tone can reach 3.01 dB over 0 dBFS before the maximum digital codes are reached. This 0 dBFS + condition can happen 1000s  of times on a single CD track. When upsampled in a sigma-delta D/A converter, these intersample peaks can cause clipping in the D/A converter. This often causes a DSP overload that creates a burst of IMD. This artifact is audible, but completely avoidable. The Benchmark DAC2 and DAC3 converters do not have this artifact at any sample rate. Most other D/A converters have this artifact. This will tend to make high sample rates sound better unless you are using Benchmark DAC2 or DAC3 converters.  Here is a case where a better system makes all sample rates sound good. Most systems will make 44.1 sound worse than it should.

 

3: SNR:

 

A few quick calculations will show that the listeners will need playback systems with at least an 87 dB SNR and they will need to play the audio at peak levels exceeding 93 dB SPL. Otherwise, it is mathematically impossible to hear the noise advantage of anything beyond 16 bits.

 

If the listener's system has a playback SNR of 87 dB and it is playing at a peak SPL exceeding 93 dB, they would be listening for a very small 1 dB difference in the noise floor. If the listener's system has a much better SNR, then the task will be much easier (assuming they turn the volume up high enough the hear the 16-bit TPDF noise). If their system is absolute state of the art, it will have a 130 dB SNR. If they set 0 dBFS to 130 dB SPL, the 16-bit dither noise will be reproduced 37 dB above the threshold of hearing and would be very audible. On such a system, you could easily hear the differences in word lengths until you reach 23 bits.  But, you would go deaf listening to the music unless the music had an unusually high crest factor or was recorded at a very low level. You would need to turn the system down to listen to the music. The more you turn it down, the less difference you will hear.

 

Here is the math (nothing here that you do not already know):

 

SNR in dB for a digital channel is (6.02*N)+1.76 measured over the entire Nyquist bandwidth of the channel.

 

If the signal is TPDF dithered, subtract 4.77 dB

 

Therefore, for TPDF channels we have:

 

(6.02*N)+1.76-4.77=(6.02*N)-3.01 dB

 

At 16 bits this gives 93.31 dB. We will round to 93 for the sake of discussion.

 

In order for a listener to detect a difference on the basis of SNR, all three of the following conditions must be met:

 

1. The recorded noise must be lower than the channel noise of the 16-bit system (-93 dBFS).

 

2. The channel noise of the 16-bit system must be played at a level that exceeds 0 dB SPL. Therefore, the SPL at 0 dBFS must exceed 93 dB.

 

3. The noise produced by the playback system must not be more than 6 dB higher than that of the 16-bit system. This noise summation will produce just detectable noise difference of 1 dB. Therefore the SNR of the playback system must exceed 93-6 = 87 dB.

 

Item 1: You are controlling item 1 with your choice of source material.

 

Item 2: The listener may or may not choose to exceed a peak SPL of 93 dB during the test. The peak SPL chosen by listeners will be higher on uncompressed material due to the higher crest factor. You are choosing the source material and can experiment with different crest factors.

 

Item 3: This is a big problem! Many "high-end" systems are not capable of delivering an 87 dB SNR. There are almost no speaker systems that can do better than about a 105 dB SNR because of amplifier limitations (the Benchmark AHB2 is a notable exception).

 

A few state-of-the-art systems can deliver a 130 dB SNR to headphones if all of the components are properly gain staged (Benchmark DAC3 driving a Benchmark HPA4 is one example).

 

A Benchmark AHB2 power amplifier driven by a Benchmark DAC3 can deliver a noise-free 130 dB SPL if it is driving speakers that have a sensitivity of at least 104 dB at 2.83 Vrms. We have a few customers with such systems, but there are less than 10 examples worldwide.

 

Here is a chart that I created. It sums the digital channel with the playback system noise to calculate the SNR that will be delivered to the listener. I included bit depths of 8 through 24 bits. Find your playback SNR or peak playback SPL (whichever is lowest) on the X axis and then find the y value for each bit-depth curve. If the lines are separated at your SNR or SPL, then you will be able to hear a change in the noise floor.

 

 

Example 1: If you have a noise-free playback level of 100 dB SPL (find 100 dB on the X axis), you should be able to hear changes for bit depths up to 19 bits. Beyond 19 bits, there will be no audible (or measurable) improvement.

 

Example 2: If you have a system that can achieve a noise-free playback level  130 dB SPL, and you are playing it that loud, find 130 dB on the X axis. You should be able to hear the noise differences for bit depths up to 23 bits. Beyond 23 bits, there will be no audible (or measurable) improvement.

 

Example 3: You have a system that has a SNR of 87 dB and you are playing it at a peak SPL of 100 dB. Take the lower of the two (87 dB) and find this on the X axis. Any bit depth above 16 bits will produce a 1 dB reduction in the noise relative to the 16-bit system. Longer word lengths may be just noticeable, but 17 bits will give the same performance as 24 bits.

 

Example 4: 100 dB SNR playing at a peak level of only 80 dB. Find 80 dB on the X axis. Changes should be noticeable up to a bit depth of 14 bits.

 

I should also note that a given D/A converter may deliver different performance at different sample rates. They often use entirely different filters and may have entirely different THD performance. The filters may have distinctly different phase response and this can be perceived as a change in frequency response. Early oversampled converters performed poorly at higher sample rates due to poor stop band attenuation. To mitigate this problem, I would suggest separating the word length tests from the sample rate tests.  Change one parameter at time. Test 44.1/16 against 44.1/24. Then test 44.1/24 against 192/24. This will tell you if the audible differences are related to word length, sample rate or both. Once this has been established, you could look at 18, 20, and 22 bit depths to determine the threshold of audibility. You could also run a separate test to determine the audibility of sample rate is linked to intersample clipping or to bandwidth.

 

John Siau

 

 

 

 

[Jud]

Note that John says nothing about hi res making it easier to do better filtering on both the ADC and DAC ends, while he also says (with no math support, as there cannot be) the filtering in his DACs obviates this advantage.

[bobbmd]

13 hours ago, bobbmd said:

@autobomber: how conceited can one get(you deserve BrItex) I for one have a DAC that tells me by the color(or colours) of it's

'FLY' the bit depth(do you mean rate?) and frequency and I know what the colors(oh excuse me colours) actually mean /another DAC shows me white blue and green LEDs and I know WHAT they mean I also have 2 services that tell me rate /frequency of what is being streamed and what is being delivered by the DAC and even how the signal is broken down and I have an AUDIO MIDI that (sometimes) does the same

It's not rocket science and au contraire- most of US in this AUGUST body know how to check for HiRes 'content' if we care to and The Blind Test by Mr Waldrep is simply that--- IMHO it's all subjective if it sounds good/better one way or  another it's HiRes--- let him do/offer his test don't belittle him or us JUST ENJOY THE MUSIC because "those who who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it" ie mp3 cassettes 8 track am radio mono and even scratchy vinyl despite it's 'warmth'( i think santayana said that quote)

sorry i meant @audiobomber

[audiobomber]

13 hours ago, bobbmd said:

@autobomber: how conceited can one get(you deserve BrItex) I for one have a DAC that tells me by the color(or colours) of it's

'FLY' the bit depth(do you mean rate?) and frequency and I know what the colors(oh excuse me colours) actually mean /another DAC shows me white blue and green LEDs and I know WHAT they mean I also have 2 services that tell me rate /frequency of what is being streamed and what is being delivered by the DAC and even how the signal is broken down and I have an AUDIO MIDI that (sometimes) does the same

It's not rocket science and au contraire- most of US in this AUGUST body know how to check for HiRes 'content' if we care to and The Blind Test by Mr Waldrep is simply that--- IMHO it's all subjective if it sounds good/better one way or  another it's HiRes--- let him do/offer his test don't belittle him or us JUST ENJOY THE MUSIC because "those who who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it" ie mp3 cassettes 8 track am radio mono and even scratchy vinyl despite it's 'warmth'( i think santayana said that quote)

It seems you haven't quite understood the discussion. I assume that anyone with a DAC that can show sample rate and bit depth would know what signal the DAC is reading.

 

However, if you upsample 44/16 to 96/24, the DAC will show 96/24, even though there is only actual content within the 16/44 envelope. To see whether you are actually hearing a hi-rez file, you would need to view it using a Spectral Analysis program. 

 

I've read your post several times and still don't understand what some of it means. Try using normal punctuation, it would help. I was not belittling anyone.

[Jud]

So here's the thing: In our modern economy, there is no market so small it cannot be segmented further.

 

Just as what our friend Bill has referred to as the "crunchy granola" set might be susceptible to believing a box of rocks "grounds" noise, what we might refer to as the "skeptical" set are susceptible to believing all this expensive audio stuff is hokum - even when it may not be.

 

John Siau decried the use of async USB input as a jitter remedy while his DACs used ASRC instead, saying his DACs already had essentially perfect jitter measurements, appealing to skeptical audiophiles who think far too much is made of jitter. Then Benchmark DACs quietly added async USB input. He was quite negative about DSD, appealing to those who thought SACD/DSD was overblown, then added DSD capability to his DACs too.

 

Even while Mark Waldrep was pushing hi res, he always said nothing more than 24/96 was necessary. This is despite the fact that virtually all DAC chips from before the time the DAC was a separate audio component upsampled to 24/352.8 or higher. These chips weren't created by "crunchy granola" types, they were made by engineers who had good reasons for doing so. And so Mr. Waldrep managed to appeal to skeptical folks who felt higher res was nonsense while marketing his 24/96 recordings.

 

Mr. Waldrep accused Audioquest of rigging a demo in front of an audio society by increasing loudness by 2-3dB when Audioquest power products were being demoed. I sat in two of these demos at different audio stores, one put on by Bill Low, head of Audioquest, and Garth Powell, head of their power products area. I measured loudness in both demos, and in neither one did Audioquest increase loudness when their products were demoed. I sent in the measurement files for the second of the two demos I attended, showing no increased loudness, and the results were graphed in the thread here about Mr. Waldrep's accusation. Mr. Waldrep then promised, through a friend here at AS, to supply the measurements he said he'd taken at the audio society demo. But no such measurements have ever come. Meanwhile, though, Mr. Waldrep's credibility increased with skeptical folks who feel the industry will stop at nothing to fool gullible audiophiles.

 

As I said in that thread, there's absolutely no need to rig the demos, because simple social cues and crowd psychology will do your work for you. Everyone who does a magic act knows this. At both demos I attended, the AQ rep simply said, smiling, "What did you hear?", and waited expectantly. Sure enough, a couple of people in the audience piped up and said the AQ stuff sounded better, then more people joined in, until there was a general consensus that yes, the AQ stuff was better. No need for any funny business that could be detected by measurement. But that's not nearly as straightforward as saying "They rigged the tests! They increased loudness!" (I believe in fact that in some cable comparisons years ago, AQ *was* stupid enough to increase loudness for their products, which became justifiably notorious, and which is why I was on the alert and measuring at both power equipment demos I attended.)

 

I'm reasonably sure John Siau is aware of the Reiss AES meta-analysis paper. Perhaps Mark Waldrep is too. But we're not seeing a discussion of that paper or the 18 underlying experiments from them, just a return to the same old "Listen to these two files in sequence under non-laboratory conditions and see if you hear a difference." The fact that both sets of files are being upsampled, then modulated to a DSD-like format in all of our DACs or in software while we listen isn't noted. (Interesting that John Siau says his DACs will make any differences between files *less* rather than *more* audible.) Nor is the fact that this is the way we listen to *all* our digital audio, with very few exceptions - upsampled and modulated by DACs or software. So file resolution is only one of myriad factors that may or may not affect the sound of a particular recording, and it is very far from the most important.

 

But people use both sides of this old and rather unimportant argument for marketing purposes, and so it continues.

[botrytis]

43 minutes ago, Jud said:

So here's the thing: In our modern economy, there is no market so small it cannot be segmented further.

 

Just as what our friend Bill has referred to as the "crunchy granola" set might be susceptible to believing a box of rocks "grounds" noise, what we might refer to as the "skeptical" set are susceptible to believing all this expensive audio stuff is hokum - even when it may not be.

 

John Siau decried the use of async USB input as a jitter remedy while his DACs used ASRC instead, saying his DACs already had essentially perfect jitter measurements, appealing to skeptical audiophiles who think far too much is made of jitter. Then Benchmark DACs quietly added async USB input. He was quite negative about DSD, appealing to those who thought SACD/DSD was overblown, then added DSD capability to his DACs too.

 

Even while Mark Waldrep was pushing hi res, he always said nothing more than 24/96 was necessary. This is despite the fact that virtually all DAC chips from before the time the DAC was a separate audio component upsampled to 24/352.8 or higher. These chips weren't created by "crunchy granola" types, they were made by engineers who had good reasons for doing so. And so Mr. Waldrep managed to appeal to skeptical folks who felt higher res was nonsense while marketing his 24/96 recordings.

 

Mr. Waldrep accused Audioquest of rigging a demo in front of an audio society by increasing loudness by 2-3dB when Audioquest power products were being demoed. I sat in two of these demos at different audio stores, one put on by Bill Low, head of Audioquest, and Garth Powell, head of their power products area. I measured loudness in both demos, and in neither one did Audioquest increase loudness when their products were demoed. I sent in the measurement files for the second of the two demos I attended, showing no increased loudness, and the results were graphed in the thread here about Mr. Waldrep's accusation. Mr. Waldrep then promised, through a friend here at AS, to supply the measurements he said he'd taken at the audio society demo. But no such measurements have ever come. Meanwhile, though, Mr. Waldrep's credibility increased with skeptical folks who feel the industry will stop at nothing to fool gullible audiophiles.

 

As I said in that thread, there's absolutely no need to rig the demos, because simple social cues and crowd psychology will do your work for you. Everyone who does a magic act knows this. At both demos I attended, the AQ rep simply said, smiling, "What did you hear?", and waited expectantly. Sure enough, a couple of people in the audience piped up and said the AQ stuff sounded better, then more people joined in, until there was a general consensus that yes, the AQ stuff was better. No need for any funny business that could be detected by measurement. But that's not nearly as straightforward as saying "They rigged the tests! They increased loudness!" (I believe in fact that in some cable comparisons years ago, AQ *was* stupid enough to increase loudness for their products, which became justifiably notorious, and which is why I was on the alert and measuring at both power equipment demos I attended.)

 

I'm reasonably sure John Siau is aware of the Reiss AES meta-analysis paper. Perhaps Mark Waldrep is too. But we're not seeing a discussion of that paper or the 18 underlying experiments from them, just a return to the same old "Listen to these two files in sequence under non-laboratory conditions and see if you hear a difference." The fact that both sets of files are being upsampled, then modulated to a DSD-like format in all of our DACs or in software while we listen isn't noted. (Interesting that John Siau says his DACs will make any differences between files *less* rather than *more* audible.) Nor is the fact that this is the way we listen to *all* our digital audio, with very few exceptions - upsampled and modulated by DACs or software. So file resolution is only one of myriad factors that may or may not affect the sound of a particular recording, and it is very far from the most important.

 

But people use both sides of this old and rather unimportant argument for marketing purposes, and so it continues.

 

Is it any different than discussion over power cables, or digital amps? It really isn't. No one will move anyone's opinion until we all start communicating and stop reacting. This is happening all up and down society. Listen to the news that supports your opinion and the rest is fake news.

 

I come here to be educated since many have more expertise than me in many areas. 

 

My old graduate adviser used to say, "Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk.' Well, we are all getting pretty smelly.

We need to listen, understand, discuss, and then if worse comes to worse, agree to disagree. There is noting wrong with that.

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

Is it any different than discussion over power cables, or digital amps? It really isn't. No one will move anyone's opinion until we all start communicating and stop reacting. This is happening all up and down society. Listen to the news that supports your opinion and the rest is fake news.

 

I come here to be educated since many have more expertise than me in many areas. 

 

My old graduate adviser used to say, "Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk.' Well, we are all getting pretty smelly.

We need to listen, understand, discuss, and then if worse comes to worse, agree to disagree. There is noting wrong with that.

 

Right. We should be as self aware as possible of the degree to which external marketing of products, people and ideas affects and reinforces the attitudes on display in all these discussions.

[marce]

2 hours ago, bobbmd said:

@marce @sandyk don't y'all think what i said compared to what  @sandyk said in much gentler tone/kinder tone / can't we be more civil even if we don't agree AND it is still all subjective and we are all entitled to our opinions--tho i was a bit sarcastic!

Don't get it mate, one sentence regarding the regular science bashing, sorry mate but up to Chris or the OT to chastise me.

 

[PeterSt]

On 10/30/2019 at 4:26 PM, Ajax said:

 

Not sure what is going on but that quote was from Alex (@Sandyk) not from me? 

 

Hi Ajax,

 

I checked, but I don't see anything odd ?

The quotes I made are from your texts.

Maybe I don't understand ...

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, audiobomber said:

No coincidence. He is the chief designer and says Benchmark does 16/44 right, some others do not.

My experience with the Benchmark DAC 3 is that it does NOT do 16/44.1 as well as either the Chord HUGO 2, the Chord Quetest, or the Schiit Yggdrasil.

[bobbmd]

@audiobomber i fully understand the discussion i find the tone to be offensive and i will use any kind of punctuation i want just read it slowly and digest it i was quite clear you and a lot of other people are just smart ass bullies let mr waldrep have his his test be done  with it YOU belittled him(and the rest of us with some of your comments and that is just my opinion and i have every right to feel that way) don't bother to respond i am finished with this idiotic stuff and GET OVER IT

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, Ajax said:

never mind.

 

[audiobomber]

52 minutes ago, bobbmd said:

@audiobomber i fully understand the discussion i find the tone to be offensive and i will use any kind of punctuation i want just read it slowly and digest it i was quite clear you and a lot of other people are just smart ass bullies let mr waldrep have his his test be done  with it YOU belittled him(and the rest of us with some of your comments and that is just my opinion and i have every right to feel that way) don't bother to respond i am finished with this idiotic stuff and GET OVER IT

That is quite a lot to say in one sentence. 😬

 

I have no idea what you are referring to. I most certainly did not belittle Mr. Waldrep, nor have I any reason to do so. I like these kinds of tests and will participate with enthusiasm. In fact I signed up yesterday, just waiting for the files.

[gmgraves]

I wish to continue my discussion of Hi-Res with regard to it’s application in the case of older, analog material, and why often, Redbook remastering of this material beats Hi-Res remastering of the same material. I will outline my thinking on this subject using John Siau’s “three advantages of Hi-Res.”

 

1: An increased high frequency limit

Analog tape has little on it above 15 KHz. This is because the machines are not maintained beyond that frequency. The lack of calibration test-tapes coupled with difficulties in interpreting results at that frequency and higher, and the problem of self-erasure of high frequencies, make it impossible for analog magnetic tape to have any usable response above 20KHz (and response TO 20 KHz is rare), even at 15 ips!

Hi-Res “increased high-frequency limit” is of no use here.

 

2: An increased immunity to the clipping of intersample peaks

Analog tape is “self limiting” in that the masters already have a peak volume “built-in”, as it were. When transferring to high-res digital, all the mastering engineer needs to do is make sure that the tape’s maximum level is a goodly amount below the Hi-Res system’s Zero Vu level and there won’t be any clipping of “intersample peaks” or any other peaks! No advantage of Hi-Res over RedBook there!

 

3: An increased SNR

Even with Dolby ‘A’ or DBX noise reduction, the very best analog tape formulations are only good for a maximum SNR of less than 75 dB! Hi-Res digital can have an SNR of greater than 120 dB. An analog tape transfer poses no challenge to either Hi-Res digital, or even Redbook for that matter! All else being equal, one is unlikely to tell the difference between a Redbook transfer of an analog tape and a Hi-Res transfer of the same analog tape.
 

So, if you hear a Hi-Res re-issue of one of your favorite albums, regardless of genre, and it sounds better than the original issue, or even a previous digital re-issue, it’s simply because the new re-mastering of the original material is better and done with more care in the Hi-Res release, rather than being attributable to any qualities that Hi-Res might bring to the table.

 

And since the Hi-Res process has absolutely no advantage when older master analog tapes are the source (or earlier 16/44.1 digital formats are the source), it is very possible that Redbook reissues of this material can sound superior to Hi-Res reissues if the Redbook re-mastering process was superior to that used on the Hi-Res re-master.