I mostly listen to music on a Windows pc with a FIIO Q7, HD560 in Foobar2k, which I consider to be literally baby level gear compare with the setups and gear some users have here. Anyway, I have been checking on rebuilding my music library and I notice that FLACs with 24b-48kHz really sound different from the previous tracks I had, but above that i.e., 24b-96kHz, 24b-192kHz or even DSF tracks does not sound different at all.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, I literally just change from some Marshall Monitors and listening music in windows VLC to this beginner level gear. So, I assume my lack of knowledge and lack of higher level gear is the culprit to me not finding any difference with quality levels above 48kHz. I hope the community can help me with some insights for me to understand a little more, and tweak something’s while I get use to this hobby.
PD. I am not planning on buying more gear at the moment, maybe in the future I will get into more advance level stuff.
Anything greater than CD quality (16 bit/44.1 KHz) is a waste regardless of the quality of your equipment. What matters is the quality of the specific recording, mixing, and mastering, and to avoid any lossy encoding (MP3, AAC, etc.)
I disagree with regards to sampling rate. If you have 44.1 kHz sampling rate, you need a brickwall low pass filter that goes -96 dB between, say 18 kHz and 22.05 kHz to avoid aliasing on audible range (as per Shannon-Nyquist criterion.
That’s -331 dB per octave. A ridiculously high requirement.
Compare that with 96 kHz, which requires -68 dB per octave or 192 kHz which needs -40 dB per octave and higher sampling rate starts making sense.
Lossy doesn’t have to be entirely avoided, high bitrates are fine and have minimal if any difference compared to CD quality.
Nah, go ahead and lossily encode, just avoid pitfalls and research what the optimal encoder for your use-case is, and which settings to use for an acoustically transparent output file.
Lossy doesn’t have to be entirely avoided, high bitrates are fine and have minimal if any difference compared to CD quality.
Really nothing wrong with quality lossy codecs, like Ogg Vorbis 320 Kbps. Very very few people can actually tell the difference between that and lossless.
I’d say most audiophiles can’t tell the difference between opus 160kbps and lossless. There was a post a while back that challenged this sub and only one guy even got it right.
That’s where the difference between technically lossy vs. perceptually lossy becomes relevant.
If I remember correctly, there were some studies which showed strong arguments, that OGG Vorbis is technically lossy while being perceptually lossless.
Exactly. It’s so good it’s considered to generally be transparent because it is borderline impossible to tell the difference between that and lossless 44.1/16.
At 256vbr it audibly becomes a wash with 1411.
What sorry?
256Kbps variable bitrate compressed audio vs. CD uncompressed audio 1411kbps.
Yes, but what about it?
The difference between for example 256 Kbps AAC and 44.1/16 is tiny, most people can’t tell the difference.
Why would it be a waste? If something is mastered with 24 bit (and has a theoretical dynamic range of 144 dB) surely something has to be lost if you resample that to 16 bit and a 96 dB DR?
You absolutely do not want to be blasting your ears with anything close to 144db for any amount of time, if you can help it. That gets into immediate hearing loss territory. Even 96db is hearing loss territory, though not immediate.
I usually listen at 75-77db, which allows for peaks of higher than 77db without problems. Even having 144db is kinda useless for me. The question of whether your gear can produce 144db of audio is in question as well. I’ve also read that microphones can’t really record anything above 20 bits - 120db, in other words.
Nothing audible though. Once you exceed the limits of hearing, it’s all just numbers used for marketing. Bigger must be better, right?
No one actually has a playback system and listening environment that supports 144dB dynamic range. They are limited by maximum output and ambient noise floor. Nor are there any recordings requiring such a range (even ones released in hi-res formats).
Likewise, there is no musical content beyond 20KHz, and most people’s hearing drops off well before that.
In the early days of CDs, a company named Telarc released high dynamic range recordings to exploit the full capabilities of CDs. They would knock you out of your seat on crescendos, but could barely be heard during quiet passages. They made for impressive demos, but were otherwise not satisfying to listen to. It was too much of a good thing.
Today, many recordings have limited dynamic range which seem lifeless. They seem optimized for listening on equipment with limited volume in noisy environments (in the car over road noise, outside in public wearing earbuds, or played on a small wireless speaker.)
As an audiophile, this is most unfortunate. I would like to hear music with a dynamic range appropriate a typical quiet livingroom and a good stereo with large speakers that can play loud without distortion when required, as in the early days of hi-fi. CDs are more than capable of supporting that. Hi-res formats are overkill.