Stereophile says 24/96 is the Future of Audio - Agree?

In the August issue of Stereophile, under the article "As We See It," they state that 24/96 digital downloads are the way of the future. Personally, I will miss artwork and the tangibility of physical media. I am in my early 30s and have never downloaded music. Perhaps I am/will be a luddite.

What do you all think? Will audiophiles become downloaders exclusively in the near future? Will high-rez downloading encourage more young people to become audiophiles and purchase expensive speakers? Or, will the impending high-rez downloading era encourage older audiophiles drop out of the hobby?

 

Exclusively,. no. Predominantly, yes. I wish there was some resolution for storing and displaying not only artwork (which I do on my HDTV) but also liner notes and booklets. I can see a device like the iPad become the control center for a server based library where you can view the information you want (or more online) via that device or on your HDTV should you choose to have it on.

 

I like Blu-Ray and HD DVD, lossless! There is no reason to compress anymore.

 

24/96 is pretty nice if the mastering is good. I listen to a lot of music at 24/96 and I love the sound. If that's the future, I'll be pretty happy.

 

I could happily live with 24/96 if done right.

 

Part of the future for sure, but I will be one of those oldtimers that has his whole room stuffed with ancient physical media (vynil, CD etc) ... to the bemusement of the kids.

 

MilesSmiles: Yeah...and we will have the great sounds cause I'm right there with ya!

I think that in the future people will still be into LPs and CDs, maybe even more so. eBay will be the place to buy music used and new. It is already.

New music will be downloaded by the new generation. So be it. But the older stuff, which means yesterday's and today's music, will still be desired on LPs and CDs.

Some of us music lovers, Audiophiles if you want to call it that, will always desire and want 'real quality music' that you can hold in your hands. An object. In your collection. It's yours. You own it. It's on your shelf. So you can take care of it and keep it perfect. It's an investment in money and satisfaction! Not in some computer or Ipod that will eventually crash and everything is lost or screwed up somehow, or you just lose the entire Ipod. I just don't think that's gonna happen where music lovers and Audiophiles will go computer. It just ain't gonna happen for a long long time anyway.

And the 'hobby' of audiophile, the love of 'collecting' music, and the love of stereophonic equipment is not putting individual songs in a computer hard drive. To me, anyway...That's called ' n o t h i n g '.

But honestly: I Could Care Less!! I will always have and use TTs and CD 'only' players. Maybe 'we' will be in the 'small miniority', but we will insist on LPs and CDs, for me anyway, exactly in that order.

Anyway...I'm glad people are downloading music. I wish everyone would. That just leaves great LPs (and CDs) for sale for 'us' at a very reasonable price!

 

Downloads are not tangible and essentially fugative by nature.
So easy to loose at the click of a mouse.
My confidence would not be high without hardware backup.

 

Let me be the one to say it: Backup.

It's already happened. What do you think is the clientele for products like the Linn Klimax or the Naim DAC?

You can also put whole albums on a hard drive.

If you prefer the physical media that's cool. But I don't know why you would think that people who prefer the advantages of a hard-drive-based system can't be audiophiles, or even less music lovers. They might not be collectors in the traditional sense, that's true. But especially audiophiles might be tempted by higher resolutions than the CD has to offer (unless you have a CD-player like MilesSmiles ).


Edit: ROLO46 beat me to mentioning backup.

 

If done right.... yes!

 

Actually, most serious $100K+ systems owners I know.. that's maybe three or four. .. are going DIY and Mix and match. One has a fully loaded macbook pro with giga solid state everything and .. tadaaa... designer rare metal USB and other digital cables.

These guys also needledrop, and rip CDs into their systems. They appreciate the full remote controls, selection, and sound quality. They tweak it a lot too.

Wish I had more money, still stuck in 16/44.1 here.

 

24/96 the 'future'? it's already the 'present'

 

I guess we will see a lot of these in the future.

I too use my computer for listening to music. Foobar and bit-perfect output to the (quite decent) DAC of my CD-Player that can handle everything up to 24/96. I even re-configured an old remote control that came with my PC to control Foobar.

I'm all for 24/96 downloads, but I'm afraid it will stay as limited as SACD, DVD-A, etc., meaning mainly classical and jazz releases and some special editions. Would love to be wrong.

 

Hi Uncle Hippie,

I think music servers are the future. While these are often computer-based and by nature, so are downloads, I don't think the two are necessarily tied together. I much prefer a "hard copy" of my music purchases.

Also, with regard to sample rate, while I find 2x rates (like 24/96) preferable to 1x rates (like CD's 16/44), I find a threshold is crossed when recordings are made at the 4x rates (like 24/192). In other words, I find the jump from 24/96 to 24/192 and appreciably greater one than that from 16/44 to 24/96.

So I see my music listening future as music server based, ideally with 4x rate files. Right now though, it seems many companies and listeners consider 24/96 the ultimate in high res. I hope more start to offer 24/176 or 24/192 versions of their releases - assuming of course, they were originally recorded at 4x rates. (The next release from Soundkeeper, due in September, will be offered at the customer's choice of 24/96 or 24/192, .aif or .wav.)

Aside from liking a copy I can hold in my hands, separate from the one on the hard drive (and hard drive backup), an hour of 24/192 stereo in a raw, uncompressed format like .aif or .wav can take up to 4 gigabytes of storage space. That would make for a long download, even on today's faster systems. I like the way Reference Recordings (with their HRx) and Chesky have been doing it: files-on-disc in the form of DVD/DVD-R.

Just my perspective, of course.

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

 

Another vote for only if done right...

 

I feel like audiophiles are going to be approaching music two ways. Vinyl and hi-resolution downloads on music servers. (24 bit/96 khz sampling the standard)

 

Yep I agree with 24/192 - why not do it right from the get go this time ? We've been thru all that compressed mess since CD's and 16/44.1 was considered 'perfect sound forever'.
As far as collections. Of course most of us true collectors will still hunt down a great pressing or a rare early 80ies CD for our extensive enough collections, but really the last thing i need is more music in physical formats I have to share my life with : 3 from 4 cornesr of the living room are cluttered with LP's and CD'S and the main bzlk is in another room - so considering I have about the same amount of music on various HD's I am thankful for that fact. Only very few people appreciate large collections of music opposed to books for whatever reasons. Plus the issue of Vinyl has to be considered -after all it is oil and once it burns the house will burn down as well.
I think as a fazit - we should be able to get our music in the same format as the master tape and if that is 24/96 okay but if it is like most of the time 24/192 I want it that way - you could sell those on DVD's or USB sticks for hardcore collectors and others with fast internet will prefer a download with a large pdf booklet.

 

All the issues as regards download speed and file size will be beside the point in a few years anyway. I'm looking forward to very high-bit recordings in the future, I doubt that 24/96 will be the standard for long—DXD and other data intensive recording schemes will doubtless make a few breakthroughs in the next few years. At the same time, I have to wonder what sort of breakthroughs in data compression will emerge in the next decade.

In any case, I suspect that the breakthrough Digital record/play system already exists—the one that can perform better than any analog system—but isn't quite out of the tinkerer's lab quite yet.

 

Given how good even cheap SACD players sound, I hope Sony gets smart and make DSD the future.

 

Agreed!

I also hate this trend of including CDs into the whole "tangible music" realm. I think it's hogwash, and it's pretty clear CD proponents are piggybacking on the tangible benefits of vinyl. It's very transparent. Vinyl is no ally of CD, and their tangible benefits are not the same. I cringe anytime I hear people talk about the cover art & liner notes of CDs. Really? Are you a smurf? You want liner notes, cover art & tangibility? Get the LP! I've said it before & I'll say it again, people don't sit around, huddled with friends & family passing around & admiring CD artwork & liner notes. CDs do not have the communal feel of vinyl. The tangible argument just doesn't hold up for CDs. Sorry.

 

I also agree with this.

 

I don't know if there is a huge market for that format. Too many low resolution download formats are in place now.

 

I heard that Gus Skinas over at Boulder's Super Audio Center is working on some interesting upgrades for the Sonoma DSD system that, when completed, could take the whole hi-rez thing to another level, stay tuned...

 

Introducing The Feelies

But it's always been like this—audiophiles and recording engineers* pursue the bleeding edge of technology, Joe & Jill Sixpack just want tunes and pay what the pocketbook can reasonably bear to hear 'em. So the home version of the game will always be less exciting than playing in the studio. In any case, Hollywood wants & needs the technology, so it will happen/is happening.


*Idea for [contentious] thread: "Does Being an Audio Engineer Automatically Make One an Audiophile?" Now duck & cover

 

The point of all this discussion is that 2496 does not have to be a problematic format like FLAC that is a "download", which most audiophiles are forced to take right now. The future is brighter than that.

I have talked on this forum about Audio DVD Creator and I can't thank enough the SH forums members here who have push me this way. THIS should be the hirez delivery system of now and the future. 2496 pcm on DVDs, playable in any DVD player. How could any of us want another format that takes a dedicated player (Blu-Ray or some other format that required "decoding" to make hirez happen. The hardware requirements that killed DVD-A and make SACD limp to the finish line ARE the problem.

If I can take my local university 2496 recordings I engineer, come home and burn them on a DVD+R that anyone can play back who owns even a $29 DVD player, is that not the solution? Folks who have heard them love them. And in the grand scheme of things, my recording gear is crap compared to what the pros use. So what? It does not deter me.

Of course, the other formats were created due to piracy concerns, but really, the music business is in such a shambles over downloads that now it is driven hugely by not album downloads anymore, but by "track" downloads at 99 Cents. The fact that someone could take a hirez disc home and pop it in their DVD player and hear the 2496 playback, only held back by the quality of their DVD player. No special format, no special decoding, just excellent sound.

The advantage is that for the engineers, mastering becomes easier now. Those that do DSD are often going to analogue for manipulation and then redigitizing their work back to DSD for SACD pressing. Even $200 SACD players could not get the masses interested, and then of course their was the issue of Sony not supporting their own format, but that is another sad tale I want to avoid for now. It is over and no point kicking a dead horse.

The point is that for small runs www.amgcds.com here in Atlanta or DiscMakers in NJ can do all this work for under $2.00 a disc (retail ready) in runs of 1,000 or less. What label, even small, could not stand that if they are truly in the music business. For "on-demand" work, buy your own multi-tray DVD burner and your own label printer and do it yourself.

My understanding is that Discwelder Bronze 1000m can even do 24/192 on DVDs if that is your choice using their "mirror" setting which moves the audio to the proper place on the DVD. Of course now we get into does your DVD player support 24/192? Most new ones do, but the reality is that 2496 sounds so good and is so universal, is it worth the problems of possible player issues? Not for me.

The $40 Audio DVD Creator program is fools gold. It can give anyone a glimpse of what is possible. If piracy is a concern then this is not for you. Even if you only want to transfer your lps in hirez on a silver disc at 2496 this is how you do it.

Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio build 9d does 2496 recording and his what I have been using for over 4 years. The newest version, build 10, does 24/192 all for under $100. Who can say they cannot do this? No one.

Buy yourself a little Mackie VLZ mixer to control the levels into your computer and give it a whirl. They have a small 2 channel one for $99. Your computer card is most likely 2496 anyway.

This should scare the labels more than anything else. All of these indie labels could be dropping great sounding DVDs on their customers in 2496 instead of doing mp3, or even cassettes that some are doing. Geez!

The future is here and we will see who will embrace it.