What is the difference between redbook and hi-res, if mastering is the same?

They are both smooth on the output of the DAC after those digital signals are reconstructed and filtered and it would be very hard to tell which is which with commonly used instrumentation such as an oscilloscope. But there may be differences that one could hear due to many factors in the conversion process.

 

This is the complete opposite of what I have discovered. If the added detail I hear was beyond the range of my hearing I'd not be able to hear it, yet I hear it consistently across the boards when listening to the majority of hi-res recordings.

Once again, I'm not postulating, just reporting my experiences gained over 40 years of professional level listening. I have been very successful over that time of changing many serious listener's perception of these things. If you think I used some magic or Kool-Aid to do that you're surely mistaken. I just educated them prior to the demonstrations, and they were quickly able to hear these distinctions for themselves.

I continue to make the offer to any forum member who doesn't believe I can do this for them. C'mon over and I'll almost guarantee that I can change your perceptions and opinions. So far I'm batting 100%, and many of my converts were skilled listeners and professional engineers who were skeptics. All I ask is that you share your impressions after listening here one way or the other.

I'll close by mentioning that there is very little that it more important to me than my credibility, in most all facets of my life. Do you guys really think I'd put that on the line if I wasn't completely sure of my position. My goal isn't to gloat or attack anybody who disagrees with me. My goal is strictly to share what I've learned so others can increase their enjoyment of listening to music on their own playback systems.

I know personal pride and other internal hindrances will prevent some of you from ever realizing this stuff. I have few hopes of converting any members of that group. That said, if I can open any other minds here and expose them to new concepts they didn't know existed, I'll be very happy. That's it.

 

More Jagged would imply more information?

I have seen No one claim to say that someone else can not hear a difference in this thread.

I thought the discussion was more along the lines of "Are there actual real differences, that are audible"

What someone "says they hear something", that could literally mean anything.

I think the distinction that is being lost on some, is there is a difference between what someone "Thinks they hear", or "Say they hear", no matter how sure they are, and what is truly audibly changed and they can reliably prove they hear.

 

There are any number of good explanations online of how digital audio works. Remember that what you see is just some software designer's idea of how to represent audio data. It has nothing directly to do with how the files will sound. Besides, if you zoom in enough the 24/192 will not be smooth.

 

Doug, I do trust you and respect your opinions.

I am more skeptical that the differences are maybe not directly related to simply just "Being Hi-Res" and maybe be due to other things, unrelated.

Not saying for sure even. Really I am not sure. I thought I belived one thing, than had that belief semi-ruined.

As of now. I am not totally sure. I have no dog in the fight.

But something keeps nagging me.

Why did a few blind tests done on other sites, with audiophiles, come back totally inconclusive?

 

Thanks Kevin,

I obviously can't answer your question, other than to say that the test must have either been flawed or not a suitable sample to illustrate the differences. Not all recordings will be suitable.

A few months back I apparently failed a test given by former forum member Jamie Tate. Of course I have no idea if that was true or not, because he and his supporters were predispositioned to the fact that there was no way I'd pass. I had to take their words for the fact that I did indeed fail because I had no way to know if they were being completely honest or not.

In that case, he took a section of something he had recorded and converted one sample to mp3 before converting them both to 24 bits. Perhaps I got that explanation wrong, but I clearly heard a difference between his two samples. There was no doubt about that. Once I recognized the distinctions I could tell them apart each and every time.

The problem is that I seemed to prefer the wrong version. They used that to 'prove' that I failed the test. The premise of the test was that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, not that I'd prefer the right version. I used an easy technique to tell them apart and once I was able to discover the difference, it was as obvious as day or night. Admittedly it took me a few listens to detect the difference. In this case the difference that I noticed was strictly in the shape of the soundstage.

I know that may seem like a strange concept to some but it works well for me. It's almost as if you made of plot of all the places you heard sounds coming from when listening to each sample. The higher res recording will almost always have a larger plot covering more areas. Mostly the CD will have points between the speakers but usually in the speaker plane. With Hi-Res, the points can extend well above and below the speakers and in front and behind the speaker plane. Once you're comfortable with this concept you can easily apply it to your own listening tests.

 

No, jagged as in a less smoothly drawn waveform because of less resolution points to plot the waveform. LESS information so a less accurate waveform is drawn.

 

It seems, that tracks 01 & 02 of Archimago's Challenge were switched around (not sure if this was inadvertent or intentional), i.e. track 01 is a down-rezzed 16-bit version & track 02 is a 24-bit original. The remaining 4 tracks appear to be in order: odd track is a 24-bit excerpt & even track is a down-rezzed 16-bit version. Please note, that all of the 16-bit tracks were most likely truncated/rounded to 16-bits & then were up-rezzed to 24-bit using technique I descibed in my post above (bolded). Bizarre... BTW, if anyone did a null test of a 16-bit file (simply up-rezzed to 24-bit) & its parent 16-bit master, he/she'd get a total 0 (not -124dBS peak noise).

 

Looks like it's time to watch a Digital Audio section of Monty's video...

 

If you zoom in far enough, the 24/192 will be just as jagged. Our good friend Nyquist worked out the math for all this almost a century ago. 16/44.1 is more than adequate for reproducing any sound adult humans can hear. What appears "jagged" on a computer screen will be accurately transformed back into the original analog signal by a digital-to-analog converter.

Nyquist by the way was a freakin' genius. Among other things, he was part of the team that developed the first fax machine, back in the '20s.

If you want to read more about the topic, this is the best article I've seen, and it also has links to lots of supporting documentation.

 

Simple to me. Your all tryin to make more complex.
The h/w one plays it back on that can take advantage of the mastering and h/w it was created on. Nothing more than that.

 

Ya, have not seen Jamie in a while. I saw some of his stuff on youtube.

That was an interesting experiment. Very interesting. That you would prefer the "Wrong one" say a lot about just how much factors into audio, and I respect your braveness and honesty to even convey that experiment.

I have read of experiments with similar outcomes, and wondered just what is happening. A redbook versus "hi-res", where many of the audiophiles, actually chose the redbook as better, even though it was the same mastering and chain, just resolution changed.

Makes ya wonder. We as humans can not be explained. What we prefer, what we think sounds good, what we think sounds more accurate, do not always agree .

Very complicated this stuff.

 

This part tends to stick out during listening tests. There is more space with higher resolution. The soundstage from a venue is represented by the acoustic space embedded onto a medium. For some reason, 24 bits and higher tend to capture more of that than lower resolution playback.

 

Jamie was shown the door because the AF Heartbeat City release. Too bad, I liked having him around.

 

Doesn't make me wonder. At all. A lot of D/A converters no doubt perform better at 16/44.1 or 16/48 than they do at higher bit depths or sampling frequencies. So they're likely throwing off conversion artifacts which are altering the quality of the sound (degrading it really - the 44.1 or 48kHz signal converted to analog waveforms would be more-accurate representations of the original analog source than the 96 or 192kHz digital signal).

Also, assuming the source material had any content beyond around 22kHz, a lot of that content could be noise. In fact, I'd venture to say most content above 22kHz is noise, because many microphones don't record much signal above that, but plenty of electronics in the signal path to the tape deck can generate ultrasonic noise, much of it pretty loud. Some of the high-quality mics used to record vocals and certain instruments like violins can pick up ultrasonics at a usable level, however the human voice (and most of the instruments used with such delicate microphones) doesn't produce much in the way of ultrasonics to begin with. The mics used to record instruments that do generate a lot of ultrasonics (like drums - cymbals are probably the #1 source of ultrasonics in music) often effectively cut out at 25kHz or below.

Loud ultrasonic noise will almost certainly alter the behavior of amplifiers and speakers capable of reproducing it, and that in turn would almost certainly color the sound we can hear.

 

Yes that's was really too bad. I learned a lot from his contributions to this forum.

 

Oops, I , of course, meant to say Staisteps section of the 2nd Monty's Video...

 

All good info. I'm reminded of a member I haven't seen around here for several years. I recall when I was first a member here he and I both owned the same Audigy 2S soundcard, which was said to be capable of 24/96 (which it was if properly set up with the right drivers, etc.). Due to a sort of "loophole" in drivers, it was possible to record from it using 24/192 settings in some software. This guy was sure he heard more detail and was convinced he was actually recording at 24/192, even though the chip specs for the card clearly limited it to 24/96 (and in many cases 16/48). He even saw what he thought was correlated audio info in spectral views, but it was clearly just distortion.

Likewise, we needledroppers often think we see information well above 20k on records when we look at spectral views, but in fact, most cutting engineers will tell you they start rolling off high frequencies around 14k and the best cutting heads are rated up to about 24kHz.

So often folks mistake distortion either audible edginess or visual stuff in a spectral view, as sonic details, when in fact they're something akin to distortion. Mind you, lots of folks like the sound of tubes, which is really a matter of adding distortion in the form of harmonics to existing audio information. Others swear by aural exciter effects, which again just add distortion.

 

No^

 

Apples to apples comparison and given the same source and same mastering, high resolution, e,g., 24-bit/192-kHz normally provides the advantage of having more revealing sound compared to the lower resolution Red Book. It may be a more realistic timbre, better micro-dynamic presentation, smoother sound, better dynamic range, deeper and wider soundtage, more accurate ambience retrieval, etc.

 

So then is there some sort of "magic spot" where this doesn't apply? Down-sampled to 8Hz will obviously not sound as good.

 

You may wanna re-read the thread title...

 

This "range of nothing perceptible" you speak of, is this a frequency range? And that nothing above 15kHz is likely to be heard by you (and I for that matter, me being around your age as well), does not address the benefits (the ones I hear) of high-resolution audio over standard. It's not the high or low frequency content which is the benefit, but smoothness and texture over the entire band. I do hear the richness, or smoothness in the difference. Sometimes it's pretty stark when using my older Denon DVD-A player.

 

Your giving us your opinions from your 'not 100% reliable brain'; so i don't trust you.

Come on, you going too say/post in this instance the brain is not 100% reliable when in fact it's never "100% reliable"...
so we should never listen too what you or any one else ever says/does/hears/sees/thinks/writes?!?!
Your just hiding, if you don't wish too do it, you & your non-100% brain, just say so.
Don't post on a thread that's about human "hearing" & then completely dismiss the validity of every thing everyone, including yourself, has posted.
It's beyond righteousness, it's just wrong.

There is nothing wrong w/stating the known at the time medical conclusions; butt too just dismiss what others are asking of you too justify your statement is sanctimonious at best, IMimperfectbrain'sO.

 

No, an amplitude range. Digital audio is measured downward from the loudest peak at 0dBFS. My understanding is that the quietest sound humans have been measured as hearing is around -120dB, but that's in ideal laboratory conditions. You'd never be able to hear down to that level in even the quietest home listening environment no matter how good your system. 16-bit audio without dither can reach about -96dB and with dither -115 or so. 24-bit audio can in theory reach down to -144dB but in practice, even the best converters are around -120dB. So the range where nothing is perceptible is basically about -115dB to -120dB. As I wrote above, inverting a copy of a 24-bit file after the copy has been dithered and reduced to 16-bit word length results in nothing down to about -115dB, so all that's left is information down below the noise floor. That's not my making some wild assumption, that's an easily reproducible experiment anyoner with the right software can do at home, in the studio, wherever.

24-bit audio has very important benefits for recording/mixing/mastering, etc., in that the rounding errors and the distortion they produce occurs down below the threshold of human hearing whereas with 16-bit audio, the accumulated distortion can easily creep up into the audible range, especially without using dither. However, for playback in normal listening environments, any difference folks hear is not due to the format itself but perhaps converter technology, other equipment, etc. The basic science behind PCM audio is still sound.