CD quality surprise

[Infiniteloop]

My dissertation involved the use of steel in suspension bridges.....

Suspension bridges are clearly inferior to cable stay designs so I no longer value your opinion *biggrin*

It was over 40 years ago and revolved around some of the work my college was doing on the Humber Bridge project..*beee*

What a brilliant (and beautiful) piece of engineering to be associated with! *good*

 

[davedotco]

My dissertation involved the use of steel in suspension bridges.....

Suspension bridges are clearly inferior to cable stay designs so I no longer value your opinion *biggrin*

It was over 40 years ago and revolved around some of the work my college was doing on the Humber Bridge project..*beee*

What a brilliant (and beautiful) piece of engineering to be associated with! *good*

The college did most of the hard work, the interesting aspect, that I was able to write about, was the use of digital data logers to read and correlate the measurements, something that was previously done by hand. Very elementary by todays standard, our computer, puch card operated and with an airconditioned room to itself, had less 'computing' power than an Apple watch.

Never worked on the actual project itself and have never even crossed it...*sad*

 

[Infiniteloop]

My dissertation involved the use of steel in suspension bridges.....

Suspension bridges are clearly inferior to cable stay designs so I no longer value your opinion *biggrin*

It was over 40 years ago and revolved around some of the work my college was doing on the Humber Bridge project..*beee*

What a brilliant (and beautiful) piece of engineering to be associated with! *good*

The college did most of the hard work, the interesting aspect, that I was able to write about, was the use of digital data logers to read and correlate the measurements, something that was previously done by hand. Very elementary by todays standard, our computer, puch card operated and with an airconditioned room to itself, had less 'computing' power than an Apple watch.

Never worked on the actual project itself and have never even crossed it...*sad*

It's a very beautiful thing. Been across it many times when I lived in Hornsea.

 

[TomSawyer]

When I learned to use a theodolite in Scunthorpe in 1990, the guy I was working for had worked on the construction and he told me that in checking the plumbness of the piers they sighted them up and down in the conventional way and then as an extra check measured the distance across the top and the bottom with an EDM to check they were parallel and found they weren't. They couldnt understand it initially that they could be perfectly vertical but not parallel until they realised that they were so large that the curvature of the earth was measurable.

 

[nopiano]

When I learned to use a theodolite in Scunthorpe in 1990, the guy I was working for had worked on the construction and he told me that in checking the plumbness of the piers they sighted them up and down in the conventional way and then as an extra check measured the distance across the top and the bottom with an EDM to check they were parallel and found they weren't. They couldnt understand it initially that they could be perfectly vertical but not parallel until they realised that they were so large that the curvature of the earth was measurable.

About as far off topic as possible, but fascinating all the same!

 

[davedotco]

Learning to use an old fashioned manual level, in order to pass the course, we were required to measure levels up 3 flights of stairs, across the third floor then down the stairs at the other end of the building and back to where we started.

This was a manual level which required setting up accurately on each landing, 6 times on each side of the building. If you have any idea about what that entails you will know just how fastidious I can be when it comes to setting up a hi-fi system, particularly one involving a record player.

 

[record_spot]

Sorry to rain on anybody's parade that holds the view mastering doesn't count.

Unless you're listening to the same mastering on the two difference disc formats, you're only stating your preference of two different versions of the same albums on two different formats. Good for you. Dem's da breaks.

 

[Al ears]

Sorry to rain on anybody's parade that holds the view mastering doesn't count.

Unless you're listening to the same mastering on the two difference disc formats, you're only stating your preference of two different versions of the same albums on two different formats. Good for you. Dem's da breaks.

You usually are. How many recordings of a particular piece of music do you think they make?

 

[record_spot]

Sorry to rain on anybody's parade that holds the view mastering doesn't count.

Unless you're listening to the same mastering on the two difference disc formats, you're only stating your preference of two different versions of the same albums on two different formats. Good for you. Dem's da breaks.

You usually are. How many recordings of a particular piece of music do you think they make?

How many masterings? Or how many recordings? If you're going to berate a view, then you might as well be clear on what you're talking about.

The mastering engineer takes the tapes, or a later generation of them, and preps the recording for a particular CD issue for release.

How many are made? More than you'd think.

A group on the Hoffman forum did a listing for Genesis' albums CD releases a few years ago, and many had at least three different masterings, with titles like Foxtrot having four. A couple just had the one (The Lamb), but the 1983 album Genesis had five different CD masterings.

You can berate that view by all means, and thrown cheap shots at me for making the point while you're doing so, but unless you're comparing the same mastering of an album on CD and SACD, then you're not comparing the same thing at all.

 

[andyjm]

Sorry to rain on anybody's parade that holds the view mastering doesn't count.

Unless you're listening to the same mastering on the two difference disc formats, you're only stating your preference of two different versions of the same albums on two different formats. Good for you. Dem's da breaks.

You usually are. How many recordings of a particular piece of music do you think they make?

How many masterings? Or how many recordings? If you're going to berate a view, then you might as well be clear on what you're talking about.

The mastering engineer takes the tapes, or a later generation of them, and preps the recording for a particular CD issue for release.

How many are made? More than you'd think.

A group on the Hoffman forum did a listing for Genesis' albums CD releases a few years ago, and many had at least three different masterings, with titles like Foxtrot having four. A couple just had the one (The Lamb), but the 1983 album Genesis had five different CD masterings.

You can berate that view by all means, and thrown cheap shots at me for making the point while you're doing so, but unless you're comparing the same mastering of an album on CD and SACD, then you're not comparing the same thing at all.

Thank you for the extra background info here - very interesting about the number of different masterings. This point has been made many times, but it would seem that many still haven't got it.

It is very simple to produce your own 16/44.1 file from a 24/96 file - foobar will do it for you. You can then compare two files with exactly the same master, the only difference being bit depth and sample rate.

 

[Frank Harvey]

It is very simple to produce your own 16/44.1 file from a 24/96 file - foobar will do it for you. You can then compare two files with exactly the same master, the only difference being bit depth and sample rate.

But if they're from a different master, which seems to be the case based on what is being said here, then they will be different. Then again, downsampling a 24/96 file to 16/44 file removes any possible benefit the 24/96 file had. Does a 1080p film made (downconverted) from a 4K remaster look as good, and have the same level of detail as a full fat 4K film? If the 24/96 had been produced by upsampling from a 16/44 file, then of course, there should be no difference.

Is Foobar a program they use in studios I wonder?

 

[davedotco]

It is very simple to produce your own 16/44.1 file from a 24/96 file - foobar will do it for you. You can then compare two files with exactly the same master, the only difference being bit depth and sample rate.

But if they're from a different master, which seems to be the case based on what is being said here, then they will be different. Then again, downsampling a 24/96 file to 16/44 file removes any possible benefit the 24/96 file had. Does a 1080p film made (downconverted) from a 4K remaster look as good, and have the same level of detail as a full fat 4K film? If the 24/96 had been produced by upsampling from a 16/44 file, then of course, there should be no difference.

Is Foobar a program they use in studios I wonder?

You really do not understand this do you?

The process described by andyjm is the 'gold standard' for investigating the worthiness or otherwise of hi-res playback in the home.

The process is simple, select any hi-res track to your choice, pick one that you think shows off hi-res at its best.

Use Foobar (v.2.x) to downsample the file to 16/44.1, then use the built in ABX comparator to compare the two versions of the same track from the same master.

Good luck picking one from the other.

 

[BigH]

Then again, downsampling a 24/96 file to 16/44 file removes any possible benefit the 24/96 file had.

That's is the whole point, to see if you can hear a difference, very few people can, even when listening closely to samples side by side. Some of the hype by certain companies is total nonsense.

 

[fr0g]

It is very simple to produce your own 16/44.1 file from a 24/96 file - foobar will do it for you. You can then compare two files with exactly the same master, the only difference being bit depth and sample rate.

But if they're from a different master, which seems to be the case based on what is being said here, then they will be different. Then again, downsampling a 24/96 file to 16/44 file removes any possible benefit the 24/96 file had. Does a 1080p film made (downconverted) from a 4K remaster look as good, and have the same level of detail as a full fat 4K film? If the 24/96 had been produced by upsampling from a 16/44 file, then of course, there should be no difference.

Is Foobar a program they use in studios I wonder?

You really do not understand this do you?

The process described by andyjm is the 'gold standard' for investigating the worthiness or otherwise of hi-res playback in the home.

The process is simple, select any hi-res track to your choice, pick one that you think shows off hi-res at its best.

Use Foobar (v.2.x) to downsample the file to 16/44.1, then use the built in ABX comparator to compare the two versions of the same track from the same master.

Good luck picking one from the other.

Exactly. I did this on this forum a while back. I bought a few tracks, recommended by some golden ears forumite, here, and I downsampled to CD quality.

I then null-tested the 16/44 and 24/96 version of the same recording.

The only difference was inaudible (some HF stuff at -90 DB) and the resultant file when played back was completely silent.

I've repeated the experiment at least half a dozen times on various so-called studio master recordings and the result is always the same. "The SACD/ HD version, when downsampled to CD quality is indistinguishable from the original".

It's the mastering that counts, and yes, anything above 16/44 is utterly pointless.

And yes, some SACDs sound better than the CD release, and some HD downloads sound better than the CD or CD quality download, but in every case, it's because it is a different master.

I even found one HD recording that compared against the CD quality download from the same vendor, sounded slightly "different". And it turned out that it was about a second longer for the same song. Almost imperceptable, but different.

All these pointless debates, especially from people who say "trust your ears" and ignore the basic facts, are simply irritating and one reason I rarely frequent forums such as this any more.

 

[RodhasGibson]

yes, some SACDs sound better than the CD release, and some HD downloads sound better than the CD or CD quality download, but in every case, it's because it is a different master. --------Spot On !!!!

 

[chebby]

Spurious claims of higher quality aside, doesn't this restrict choice in what you listen to?

I have CDs (and ALAC or 320k AAC rips from them) and downloads up to 320k and I stream from Apple Music and BBC iPlayer Radio. I've even got a collection of RCA Victor 'Living Stereo' classical titles on SACD/CD hybrid discs. (There was no CD-only alternative.)

I deliberately sold the last (and best) remaining 100 or so LPs from my old collection a couple of years ago in order to prevent temptation. (I like turntables more than the actual records in an 'ornamental' sense and could not be relied upon to not use the LPs as an excuse to buy another one!) Besides, LPs present such a tiny choice of what I enjoy (even in music).

In many ways I am forced, by the content, to use whatever format it's offered in. (My choice is content driven.) This is usually CD.

Case in point today: I noticed that John Finnemore's 'Double Acts' will be available, on a full quality BBC CD, in November. However - just for now - it is downloadable for £6.95 from the iTunes store, so I have pre-ordered the CD and also downloaded the iTunes 'Audiobook' version as a (just about) acceptable 'stop-gap'. (iTunes have never treated high quality, studio recorded BBC drama/comedy etc. as such and only present it in 64k 'audiobook' quality sadly.)

Another case in point (although TV this time) is my recent purchase of the brilliant Anthony Sher performance of Howard Kirk in the 1981 BBC adaptation of 'The History Man' by Malcolm Bradbury. Like many, many other such productions it's only available on DVD. Do I say ... "I will only watch HD content", or do I just accept the reality and buy a superb gem of 1980s broadcasting on DVD? (I also have the 8 CD, unabridged, Audiobook that's no longer made.)

 

[RobinKidderminster]

They've been actually the longest time on market out of any other media formats.

longer than LPs?

Quite! LPs since the 50s; CDs since mid-80s.

So LPs have been on the market for 30 years longer than CDs! !!

 

[stereoman]

some SACDs sound better than the CD release

SACD are a narrow niche and they never died nor will they soon I guess. They are constantly produced especially for some music genres like Jazz, Classical. Mastering though counts incredibly. Some CDs like the recent "Vaya Con Dios - Thank you all" or "Dead Can Dance - Toward the within" offer incredible audio quality on CD ! Thanks to great mastering and recording.

 

[Infiniteloop]

It is very simple to produce your own 16/44.1 file from a 24/96 file - foobar will do it for you. You can then compare two files with exactly the same master, the only difference being bit depth and sample rate.

But if they're from a different master, which seems to be the case based on what is being said here, then they will be different. Then again, downsampling a 24/96 file to 16/44 file removes any possible benefit the 24/96 file had. Does a 1080p film made (downconverted) from a 4K remaster look as good, and have the same level of detail as a full fat 4K film? If the 24/96 had been produced by upsampling from a 16/44 file, then of course, there should be no difference.

Is Foobar a program they use in studios I wonder?

You really do not understand this do you?

The process described by andyjm is the 'gold standard' for investigating the worthiness or otherwise of hi-res playback in the home.

The process is simple, select any hi-res track to your choice, pick one that you think shows off hi-res at its best.

Use Foobar (v.2.x) to downsample the file to 16/44.1, then use the built in ABX comparator to compare the two versions of the same track from the same master.

Good luck picking one from the other.

Exactly. I did this on this forum a while back. I bought a few tracks, recommended by some golden ears forumite, here, and I downsampled to CD quality.

I then null-tested the 16/44 and 24/96 version of the same recording.

The only difference was inaudible (some HF stuff at -90 DB) and the resultant file when played back was completely silent.

I've repeated the experiment at least half a dozen times on various so-called studio master recordings and the result is always the same. "The SACD/ HD version, when downsampled to CD quality is indistinguishable from the original".

It's the mastering that counts, and yes, anything above 16/44 is utterly pointless.

And yes, some SACDs sound better than the CD release, and some HD downloads sound better than the CD or CD quality download, but in every case, it's because it is a different master.

I even found one HD recording that compared against the CD quality download from the same vendor, sounded slightly "different". And it turned out that it was about a second longer for the same song. Almost imperceptable, but different.

All these pointless debates, especially from people who say "trust your ears" and ignore the basic facts, are simply irritating and one reason I rarely frequent forums such as this any more.

Have you tried upsampling the CD track to 24/96 and doing the same null-test? - Wouldn't that be more meaningful?

 

[andyjm]

It is very simple to produce your own 16/44.1 file from a 24/96 file - foobar will do it for you. You can then compare two files with exactly the same master, the only difference being bit depth and sample rate.

But if they're from a different master, which seems to be the case based on what is being said here, then they will be different. Then again, downsampling a 24/96 file to 16/44 file removes any possible benefit the 24/96 file had. Does a 1080p film made (downconverted) from a 4K remaster look as good, and have the same level of detail as a full fat 4K film? If the 24/96 had been produced by upsampling from a 16/44 file, then of course, there should be no difference.

Is Foobar a program they use in studios I wonder?

You really do not understand this do you?

The process described by andyjm is the 'gold standard' for investigating the worthiness or otherwise of hi-res playback in the home.

The process is simple, select any hi-res track to your choice, pick one that you think shows off hi-res at its best.

Use Foobar (v.2.x) to downsample the file to 16/44.1, then use the built in ABX comparator to compare the two versions of the same track from the same master.

Good luck picking one from the other.

Exactly. I did this on this forum a while back. I bought a few tracks, recommended by some golden ears forumite, here, and I downsampled to CD quality.

I then null-tested the 16/44 and 24/96 version of the same recording.

The only difference was inaudible (some HF stuff at -90 DB) and the resultant file when played back was completely silent.

I've repeated the experiment at least half a dozen times on various so-called studio master recordings and the result is always the same. "The SACD/ HD version, when downsampled to CD quality is indistinguishable from the original".

It's the mastering that counts, and yes, anything above 16/44 is utterly pointless.

And yes, some SACDs sound better than the CD release, and some HD downloads sound better than the CD or CD quality download, but in every case, it's because it is a different master.

I even found one HD recording that compared against the CD quality download from the same vendor, sounded slightly "different". And it turned out that it was about a second longer for the same song. Almost imperceptable, but different.

All these pointless debates, especially from people who say "trust your ears" and ignore the basic facts, are simply irritating and one reason I rarely frequent forums such as this any more.

Have you tried upsampling the CD track to 24/96 and doing the same null-test? - Wouldn't that be more meaningful?

No.

The original premise is that somehow 24/96 has more musical 'information' than 16/44.1 . Downsampling the original 24/96 file to 16/44.1 would lose this information, and therefore the resulting downsampled 16/44.1 file would sound different. As it doesn't, it seems reasonable to conclude that there wasn't anything extra audible in the 24/96 file.

Upsampling 16/44.1 to 24/96 will (should) result in a file which sounds exactly the same - as all of the information in the 16/44.1 file will be captured in the 24/96 file - proving nothing except the Foobar sox addin works properly.

 

[Infiniteloop]

It is very simple to produce your own 16/44.1 file from a 24/96 file - foobar will do it for you. You can then compare two files with exactly the same master, the only difference being bit depth and sample rate.

But if they're from a different master, which seems to be the case based on what is being said here, then they will be different. Then again, downsampling a 24/96 file to 16/44 file removes any possible benefit the 24/96 file had. Does a 1080p film made (downconverted) from a 4K remaster look as good, and have the same level of detail as a full fat 4K film? If the 24/96 had been produced by upsampling from a 16/44 file, then of course, there should be no difference.

Is Foobar a program they use in studios I wonder?

You really do not understand this do you?

The process described by andyjm is the 'gold standard' for investigating the worthiness or otherwise of hi-res playback in the home.

The process is simple, select any hi-res track to your choice, pick one that you think shows off hi-res at its best.

Use Foobar (v.2.x) to downsample the file to 16/44.1, then use the built in ABX comparator to compare the two versions of the same track from the same master.

Good luck picking one from the other.

Exactly. I did this on this forum a while back. I bought a few tracks, recommended by some golden ears forumite, here, and I downsampled to CD quality.

I then null-tested the 16/44 and 24/96 version of the same recording.

The only difference was inaudible (some HF stuff at -90 DB) and the resultant file when played back was completely silent.

I've repeated the experiment at least half a dozen times on various so-called studio master recordings and the result is always the same. "The SACD/ HD version, when downsampled to CD quality is indistinguishable from the original".

It's the mastering that counts, and yes, anything above 16/44 is utterly pointless.

And yes, some SACDs sound better than the CD release, and some HD downloads sound better than the CD or CD quality download, but in every case, it's because it is a different master.

I even found one HD recording that compared against the CD quality download from the same vendor, sounded slightly "different". And it turned out that it was about a second longer for the same song. Almost imperceptable, but different.

All these pointless debates, especially from people who say "trust your ears" and ignore the basic facts, are simply irritating and one reason I rarely frequent forums such as this any more.

Have you tried upsampling the CD track to 24/96 and doing the same null-test? - Wouldn't that be more meaningful?

No.

The original premise is that somehow 24/96 has more musical 'information' than 16/44.1 . Downsampling the original 24/96 file to 16/44.1 would lose this information, and therefore the resulting downsampled 16/44.1 file would sound different. As it doesn't, it seems reasonable to conclude that there wasn't anything extra audible in the 24/96 file.

Upsampling 16/44.1 to 24/96 will (should) result in a file which sounds exactly the same - as all of the information in the 16/44.1 file will be captured in the 24/96 file - proving nothing except the Foobar sox addin works properly.

Yes, but my point is that you would then be able to compare the upsampled file to an original 24/96 file.

To my ears, original 24/96 files usually sound richer and more natural.

 

[Frank Harvey]

I can't believe what I've just read. Let me just run through this...

24/96 sounds identical to 16/44 when you downsampled it to 16/44 (of course, in the process removing any possibility of it sounding different). It's apparently the standard thing to do, and there's never any difference...

But no one has ever tried (and it is being recommended against doing here) upsampling a 16/44 file to 24/96 because it would be pointless because it would be the same?!

Someone suggests a good idea and it is instantly rubbished without any further discussion. Pointless? Priceless more like.

 

[TomSawyer]

I can't believe what I've just read. Let me just run through this...

24/96 sounds identical to 16/44 when you downsampled it to 16/44 (of course, in the process removing any possibility of it sounding different). It's apparently the standard thing to do, and there's never any difference...

But no one has ever tried (and it is being recommended against doing here) upsampling a 16/44 file to 24/96 because it would be pointless because it would be the same?!

Someone suggests a good idea and it is instantly rubbished without any further discussion. Pointless? Priceless more like.

Forgive me, David, but you've misunderstood your first point I think. 24/96 down sampled to 16/44 sounds the same as the original 24/96 is what's being said. The point being to demonstrate that the same wave can be just as accurately represented with a lot less data.

The reason the experiment is to downsample is that the contention is that SQ would be degraded through lost info so a comparison should be able to detect the difference. The reason upsampling isnt used to prove anything is that the upsampling software couldn't embelish the signal just by adding more sample points.

 

[Infiniteloop]

Interesting. If upsampling is pointless, why is it available on Audirvana + and why does a Devialet upsample everything to 24/192?

 

[record_spot]

It's one of the "latest" things and had been with us for years. Cambridge high end players have upsampled since about 2008. My current 752BD does. But the issue, rather like remastering, is no guarantee of success.