Great Explanation of Hi-Res Digital benefits, Brickwalling, Compression, etc.

I'm not sure where I came across this link (one of the forums), but I bookmarked it and finally got a chance to see the full clip a couple of weeks ago. It's an online blog "hometheatergeeks" and they interview the owner of Ocean Way Studios, Allan Sides.

There is some chit-chat in the beginning of the video about the studio itself (pretty interesting history) but the fun begins a few minutes in when they start discussing hi-res digital versus analog, MP3, CD, etc. Allan establishes himself pretty quickly (at least to me he did) as an expert who knows what he is talking about. His explanation othe whole process, including how he moves back and forth from the analog to digital domain during the recording, mixing and mastering processes is well explained. He also really explains "brickwalling" well - and made me realize just how many people really don't understand these terms when discussing them on forums. Personally, I was merging "compression" to some degree with "brickwalling." I had no idea what a brickwall filter was (or why it is used) until this video. The vital parts probably last 20 minutes or so, then he gets into speaker and equipment discussion (they sell those).

Enjoy!

http://twit.tv/show/home-theater-geeks/199

 

Thanks for the link.

 

I thought it was quite interesting to listen to. I have no opinion on what he said though much of it made perfect sense to me.

 

Drew769 wrote: "He also really explains "brickwalling" well - and made me realize just how many people really don't understand these terms when discussing them on forums. Personally, I was merging "compression" to some degree with "brickwalling." I had no idea what a brickwall filter was (or why it is used) until this video."


I had a funny feeling some of you might be confused about the term brickwall - just like compression(dynamic vs data), brickwall describes either an extreme form of dynamic compression or, a harsh type of filter used just above the highest frequency accommodated by a 44.1 or higher sampling rate. This is discussed around 13 minutes into the Twit radio interview link in the orig. post.


Digital audio sucks in that regard: Many terms with multiple meanings(compression, brickwall) and similar terms being used where they shouldn't(bitrate vs bit depth). No *wonder* no one knows what they're talking about [Moderator note: political jab deleted]

The way I(and not just I, mind you) have been using the term brick wall has been in the dynamics sense: Brickwall limiting is the most extreme form of dynamic range compression. It can chop/square off from 2 up to 10dB of the transients in a waveform, which can then be boosted via makeup gain to be almost that much louder, at the expense of musical purity. It is this form of brick walling that I find the most sonically offensive and destructive, and what I have been campaigning against, on here, usenet's rec.audio.pro, and on GearSlutz, alas mostly to deaf ears(pardon that pun!).


So again, two uses for the term brick wall, but both equally valid for what effect they are describing: one, a filter, and the other, dynamic range reduction.

So Drew, you were not wrong in using brick wall in context of dynamic range processing.

 

Here is the Harman take on it

 

A phrase that came up a couple of times in "The Distortion of Sound" that probably sums up the futility of it all is "people don't care".

It will be interesting to see if the little blip in awareness caused by Pono (which 5 out of 6 of my friends at lunch a couple of weeks ago had never heard of) will result in anything but I think we are just in for a long haul of waiting until storage capacity and bandwidth increases to the point that lossy compression is no longer necessary. That day will come, but it won't be driven by people demanding better quality, it will be because there is no longer a reason to do it.

 

LOLs!!11! They tried to demonstrate the sonic difference between lossy and uncompressed audio in a YouTube video that is lossy.

On a serious note. The video is preaching to the choir for those of us hanging out here.
Hopefully the video will inspire those who aren't already in the church to seek out a better listening experience.

As for MP3. It was developed so that audio could be added to compressed video file formats. Video is huge. Needs to be compressed. MP3 on its own for just music playback came later. Lossy audio is still necessary for streaming. Don't quite yet have the bandwidth to do lossless audio streaming to the masses, especially in high res. But the days of lossy as a final delivery format to be stored on a local device or local computer needs to end. Lossy for that use is no longer needed. Download bandwidth and storage space is big enough now. Start with the download codes that come with LPs. Give the option to get a lossless download when you buy the LP. Being forced to get just an MP3 as a bonus after buying an LP is spit in the eye.

 

That was a good Home Theater Geeks podcast. I like Allan Sides' philosophy and the background about Ocean Way.

 

Do you know the bitrate of the files you're hearing that effect on? Fixed or variable?

 

Amazon auto-rips are 256kbps VBR.

 

Might hear some of the artifacts stereoptic mentioned, at variable 256, esp. on more complex passages.

I use CBR(constant bitrate)/full stereo(vs Joint)when ripping or exporting as mp3.

 

"People don't care" to understand anything, but that shouldn't effect audio hobbyists as much as it appears to. I care about real chocolate, for example, and I can get it whenever I want even though everyone else believes that Hersheys sells chocolate. I care about coffee even more. Everyone drinks Starbucks, Dunkin or <gasp> pod coffee. Yikes. None of that represents what real coffee tastes like, but I have plenty of options for craft roasted beans and brewing. On and on......

 

The internet...where you're not only entitled to your own opinion, but also your own facts...

 

Well, that's a new one on me. Can you cite your source?

 

MP3 stands for MPEG (Motion Pictures Expert Group) Audio Layer III and was the audio part of the standard derived from MPEG-2 (H262) used in DVD and some digital TV formats.
That's my understanding.

 

"One of the most ugly and destructive qualities of the worldwide web is that if offers a platform to any idiot who cares to spread incorrect information, meanspirited gossip, pointless blather, humorless and dangerous practical jokes, and all the other sort of garbage that used to be relegated to the schoolyard and back-fence gossip."

- Harlan Ellison


From here: http://harlanellison.com/text/parcon.txt

 

Yeah, I think MP

Can you list at least 3(three) examples of such in this thread?

 

I was just adding some fun embellishment to marcb's post. What Harlan said is certainly generally true about the web (as was markb's post), and maybe even a thread or two in these fora, but this thread isn't a transgressor in my view. People here, you included, are working to clear up some often unfortunate terminology use--and that is a very good thing.

 

The Wikipedia article on MP3 gives a somewhat poorly written and poorly organized account of the history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3#History

NPR has a more concise account of the history
http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/03/23/134622940/the-mp3-a-history-of-innovation-and-betrayal

The loose gist is that they developed a lossy audio compression method. OK, now what do you do with it? They put it in the MPEG video encoding standard. The standard documented how to do it and gave sample code. Geeks took that from the MPEG standard and ran with it. Eventually giving us WinAMP, Napster, portable players; and the genie was out of the bottle.

That part of the MPEG standard didn't deal with rights protection or other aspects for music distribution. And as part of a video codec rather than a music distribution method it didn't consider things like gapless playback and such. Had the group that developed MP3 worked to put their lossy encoding method into a different standard, like maybe a radio standard or a music distribution standard, then it likely would have developed to include some sort of rights protection and other things beneficial to music distribution (like gapless support).

 

Allen Sides is an obvious heretic. It's so obvious he's fabricating furiously. Certainly, he doesn't have the requisite experience to know what he is talking about.

Please read with as much sarcasm as is humanly possible.

 

He did mention working on the American Idol releases for iTunes, with a bit of pride. Obviously a heretic when it comes to sound quality standards.

Please read with the same sense of sarcasm.

 

Yeah, he might want to drop that off the resume. I think I heard a collective groaning when he mentioned that. He probably heard it as well seeing how he quickly moved on to Joni Mitchell.

 

Could you clarify? Is this just a snide comment that's hard to understand? Certainly Allen Sides is a record producer/engineer with a long record (30+ yrs) of best-selling and award-winning albums, who also makes and sells studio monitors (speakers) and has a pretty good repuation in the industry.

 

It seems many of the people who hear an appreciable difference between 16/44 and higher resolutions and who feel hires is preferable are people who have a lot of listening experience in all kinds of media; tape, vinyl and digital.