'HD Download debacle' investigation published on HFN&RR June 2011

Oh, I know nobody's forcing me to buy them. I'd like to save other people some grief. Remember the Dark Side of the Moon UDI/UDII thing? I wish someone had told ME back in the day that they were both exactly the same, so I didn't have to waste my time searching for the rarer of the two. Same here. If 24/176.4 files are never, to anything human, vegetable, or robot, going to sound any better than 24/88.2, due to Science, perhaps that should be mentioned?

 

I've done this and not yet found a reliably discernable difference among my listeners or on my equipment.

I actually tried with some of the samples HD Tracks used to have to show the difference. Which have now disappeared IIRC.

Tim

 

Tim, clearly your system is not resolving enough. (kidding)

Actually, though, we Naim users might be a special case wrt hi-rez digital. Naim preamps filter the signal above 20 kHz so anything going on in 88/96 and up recording will be filtered out by our preamps (though my office system, which logs way more hours than my main system at this point goes through a Densen DM20 which has no filtering and I can't reliably tell hi-rez through my Benchmark).

Then again, most soft dome tweeters "filter" the supersonic frequencies too and most metal domes have nasty resonances up there which dominate their output.

 

Yes, I realise Naim amps are limited in this way. However I've tried tests with lots of other equipment, and on headphones with just DAC into headphone amp. I would like to try some other combinations too but don't have a lot of money to invest in buying new stuff.

I had some speakers with metal dome tweeters once but got rid of them!

Tim

 

At least this is out in the open so maybe we can have honesty as we move on in or disclosure.

 

Yes, that DSOTM thing was silly as well.
But I have experimented with 88-96 vs. 176-192 resolutions and I feel there is a very slight difference between the two groups. Something ever so slight that I'm not sure I would be able to tell them apart every time; and certainly wouldn't be able to tell them apart if I didn't know the particular piece of music played like the back of my hand.
On their own, I feel that 88-96 resolutions can be transparent, but faced with 176-192 they start to lose a slight je-ne-sais-quoi. This is with my equipment. It is perfectly possible that the difference become more apparent with other equipment.
On a project, if the final product is redbook, I try to record, mix and master at 24/88.2. I think it does nicely for small productions, non-purist/audiophile specialty music.
The Stones remasters apparently were transfered in DSD first, then on PCM for the mastering, then back on DSD for the SACDs, then on PCM again for the downloads. I don't think there is any advantage to get them in 24/176 resolution. Would they have been transfered and mastered in 24/176, it might have been interesting.

 

OT - high res vs. not high res

Hi Tim,

When you compare a high res file to a copy that has been dithered to 16-bits (and perhaps also converted from a higher sample rate to 44.1k) in addition to listening to the two formats, on the copy, you are also listening to the dither algorithm -perhaps with noise shaping, perhaps without- (as well as the SRC algorithm, if one was used).

While I find the differences between high res (particularly when 4x rates like 176.4 and 192 are properly done) and Redbook to be remarkable and in the instance of well implemented 4x rates, not at all subtle, the majority (but not all) of the dither (and SRC) algorithms I've heard tend to superimpose easily audible colorations on the resulting files.

Most (but far from all) D-A converters I've heard, regardless of what their specs say, have increasingly worse performance as the sample rate goes up. Only a few seem to have clocking and analog stage performance at wide bandwidth to keep up with the increased demands of the highest rates.

So, unless you were using state of the art dithering (and/or SRC), if no audible difference was heard, I would suspect the playback system. (It is also possible the listeners are just not sensitive to the differences.) With the more commonly available dither (and SRC), the processing algorithm itself leaves signs of its work. In the case of dither, a clouding of the soundstage as well as slight timbral changes. With most SRC, a brightening and hardening of the audio. If these are not heard with most dither and SRC, the first thing I'd look at is the setup of the playback system. (Personally, I'd be wary of electronics that filter at 20 kHz, not for frequency response so much as time response. I can see how such would obscure low level information and defocus the soundstage compared to wideband electronics.)

I have more than a dozen different dither/noise shaping algorithms and a good number of SRC algorithms as well; they all sound quite different from each other.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

Are you referring to CD, DAT, DVD Audio, or SACD?

With CD, the copy protection kept the discs from being on spec CD Audio discs, only worked on Windows with Autorun enabled, and blew back in their faces because they let it get out of control. Plus, anyone who was ripping it to distribute online would know how to get around it (or already have auto run disabled). It was the music industry's own fault. They made a specific exemption for computer CD drives to be able to see the discs as data for software CD player use while not grasping that drive speeds, the affordability of digital storage, efficiency of compression algorithms, etc. would increase.

With DAT, the market was such a niche that most users were buying pro recorders for not much more money because they lacked copy protection.

 

By listening...

Anybody?

 

Listening is Gods way to defeat charletons
The brains DSP is as yet unknown.

 

Barry, the fallacious reasoning to which I referred was the suggestion that the exposure of Nyquist (or Shannon, or Whitaker, or Kotelnikov) to digital audio had any bearing, specifically, on the validity of appealing to the sampling theorem, which is demonstrably true and complete. The misuse of the theorem in debate by cowboys or indeed Indians is of course entirely open to being questioned, but that wasn't the observation you made.

With reference to your factual questions: rustic in the extreme, probably not a lot unless Churchill and FDR took an occasional timeout for a singalong, and I think we can assume a combination of ears and an oscilloscope.

 

Omg! Maybe the first to agree with my experience! I have fought the hi rez battle on many forums and have given up. I know what I hear. there is a lot of talk about how signal to noise with 16/44.1 is more than adequate but I think digital s/n is different than analogue. Analogue fades to black with residual noise perhaps, digital falls off a cliff. To my mind it's not the noise per se but what it fades into. I have a lot of 24/96 audience recordings of various bands (Ratdog, Phil and Friends, Steve Kimock) and I notice that the background audience chatter is much more noticeable. 24 bit makes a big difference. 24/48 sounds very good, much more than red book Cd. 24/96 of course is a bit better still. ( 24/48 and 24/96 sounds more palpable, real imaging, tighter more tuneful bass, and creamy midrange to me, that is what I consider the hallmark of high rez recordings)

the golden age of audio recording was the late 50's to late 70's when analogue reel to reel ruled the roost. Just another example of the music industry $hitting the bed with misinformation.

there is no excuse for upsampling 16/44.1 and passing it off as high rez. the recent rush blu ray is a fine example.

"don't trust anybody under 30" is now "don't trust anybody associated with the music industry"

I guess....

 

I accept your technical points except that the question of audibility is difficult, especially as we listen with ears+brain and no two of either is exactly alike

Of course it could be the playback system and I would love to hear one that brings out clearly audible benefits of high-res. It is something of a quest for me.

Tim

 

On an historical note Decca's FFRR was developed in WWII to accurately record sonar signitures of German submarines and ships.
Much work was also done on the sound of Soviet Subs in the cold war era
(I once met a female scientist from MIT recording shrimp noise in Baja California lagoons and round the world ,for a sonar project that would eliminate shrimp noise from sonar) .
Hydro phones netted the USSR base ports, an amazing world array, those hydro phones have only just be made available (DPA) to the public
No doubt a lot of PCM research was done by Bell for the military during that period
Sound in water is a major communicator, vision being minimal.

Some of those expensive submarine acoustic tiles would be great for pesky room treatment, any on EBay yet ?

 

Looks like the music industry is digging itself an even more deeper hole to fall into with this revelation about some HD downloads being uprezzed from 16-bit.

There needs to be some sort of universally used quality control logo saying something like 'High-Res tested/guaranteed' and perhaps a spectral screen-shot of one of the tracks just to prove it.

HD downloads will NEVER take off with ***** like this happening. Much of the general public cannot hear the difference between 16 and 24-bit releases, and/or their systems can't reveal it as it is. With these underhand uprezzing tactics there's just one more nail in the high-res coffin unless record companies GET OF THEIR CORPORATE BACKSIDES & DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

Arghhhhhhh!

- John

 

Cam,

No Cam, the fallacious "reasoning" (perhaps too generous term in this case, "reasoning" that is) was not seeing a difference in what you inferred and what I intended.

I said nothing to question sampling theory. It was a simple question, to be taken at face value. Instead, the cowboys immediately came galloping to demonstrate their "wisdom". Just where exactly are the words making the suggestion you would like to believe I made? Where exactly am I questioning Mr. Nyquist's qualifications? Here's a hint: The answer is in the minds of certain readers and nowhere else.

In short, you don't know "the observation" I made. You drew conclusions based on no evidence but what you brought to reading my question.

Have a nice day.

Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

Assuming they've been paying attention to the thread, all of them. I trust your curiosity is now gratified.

 

Hi Matthew,

My "curiosity" is neither "gratified" nor satisfied.
It was a rhetorical question, apparently quite misunderstood and to my regret, rather than providing food for thought (the intent), served only to get a few cowboys' knickers all twisted up.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

Soooo, it looks like I'm one of the unknowing victims of deception. I bought two of the Rolling Stones 176/24 downloads from HD Tracks. Should have bought the less expensive ones ;-) At least they mention that the source was original tapes and they go into some detail about the A to D transfer.

For potential future HiRez download purchases, am I to assume that if nothing is said about the source or A to D transfer than the file may not actually be HiRez? Would appreciate it if someone could help me understand...

 

Another follow-up:

http://itrax.com/Pages/ArticleDetails.php?aID=31&x=10&y=12

Now, the reason that this one in particular bugs me is that he's deliberately limiting his discussion to frequency response (which is a valid point) rather than the audible benefits of the additional bit-depth. He's not asking the additional question of, "do the Stones recordings sound better in **/24?" Rather, he just asks, "Does the limited frequency extension of the masters justify the label and pricing of HD?" Again, it's a valid point, but it's also slanted towards concluding that his store is one of the few "true" Hi-Res outlets.

 

Hard to believe. What are you comparing the hi res music to? What albums have you listened to?

Most of the Channel Classics recordings (available from either Linn or HD Tracks) sound unbelievably good (on basic repertoire classical music), as do most 2L recordings (on less "standard" material). David Grisman's home label recordings also sound excellent, as do many ECM albums.

 

I can only hope the scam continues and more people get pissed off so that we can put the whole dowloaded music industry into the grave where it belongs and get back to the physical medium. Downloading music only encourages musicians to put any real effort into one or two songs. What the hell ever happened to the concept of a whole album? I hate downloads and wish nothing but the worst for this abomination.

 

That ain't gonna happen. Kind of like trying to put the genie back in the bottle...

 

Well then I'll hope that it stays a niche market. I hate the whole aspect and the main thing I really detest is the difficulty in downloading material in the first place. If its harder or takes more time then it takes me to take out a SACD or DVD-A and plop it into my player, then thats too long!