DIgital formats matter

Alrainbow

Alrainbow

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
503
Location
USA , NYC
We all play various formats and there variations of each type.
A short list below is what I would like to get views on.
Red book 16/44.1
24/88.2
24/96
24/192

dsd 64
dsd 128
dsd 256

the formats we pick is native no upsample included in this discussion
to up sample makes this far more complex to be objective.

Please post about what each format does for you better worse and discribe each change.
 
For me, after all the years, all the formats and their variations as mentioned, all the "promises" of wonderful sound from some latest format, yadda, yadda. I still to this day have some Redbook recordings that far exceed some 24/XXX, DSD XXX or whatever recordings.

Yea, I guess I'd say the chances are slightly better if buying high-rez from a high-end label that you'd end up with a superior recording vs your average redbook recording.

..my own takeaway, thousands and thousands of $$ later? a crap master still sounds like crap in whatever format it may be released in.
 
Rayooo said:
For me, after all the years, all the formats and their variations as mentioned, all the "promises" of wonderful sound from some latest format, yadda, yadda. I still to this day have some Redbook recordings that far exceed some 24/XXX, DSD XXX or whatever recordings.

Yea, I guess I'd say the chances are slightly better if buying high-rez from a high-end label that you'd end up with a superior recording vs your average redbook recording.

..my own takeaway, thousands and thousands of $$ later? a crap master still sounds like crap in whatever format it may be released in.
Click to expand...

Well said. It's the master, not the format. My CD of Green Day's 'American Idiot' is of audiophile quality, the 24/192 master of the same sounds like sh*t (I've heard them both side by side in the same system).

I am still sticking with CD. It can sound great, and that's where all the music is. If instead of buying better gear I had put the same money into an expensive high-quality server that can equal or beat my CD transport (not easy to do) and that can decode so called 'hi-rez' (as if CD were not high resolution, duh) I would now have considerably worse sound, with less resolution. And computer audio is a pain, don't try to convince me otherwise because that ain't true; I can live without the drama I have seen elsewhere, both in person and in writing (the pages of audiophile forums are full of descriptions of problems and their "solutions").

In my view, all this format nonsense is an expensive and time-wasting distraction. It might have been useful at a time when proper CD decoding was much more of a technical challenge than it is now, but I don't see the point anymore in the current situation. I bet that good current CD playback beats SACD playback from 15 years ago when the format was hailed as the great big savior of audiophile mankind. Now SACD is basically almost defunct as a format.

In hindsight, my decision not to waste any time, money and effort on formats other than CD was one of the best decisions in my entire audiophile life.
 
And no, I don't claim that CD is a perfect format. But it is of high tonal fidelity and of extremely high resolution when implemented correctly, starting with the quality of the recording.
 
Alrainbow said:
Guys before we start shooting each other can anyone start to reply on my questions.
Its really about what we hear and change amongst the formats
so help me there then we can shoot out later
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Huh? Sorry, I'll go away.
 
Ray don't leave and don't feel anyone should make you feel so. I just want views no matter from who. We all have our views be it agreed or not.
 
Al M. said:
Well said. It's the master, not the format. My CD of Green Day's 'American Idiot' is of audiophile quality, the 24/192 master of the same sounds like sh*t (I've heard them both side by side in the same system).

I am still sticking with CD. It can sound great, and that's where all the music is. If instead of buying better gear I had put the same money into an expensive high-quality server that can equal or beat my CD transport (not easy to do) and that can decode so called 'hi-rez' (as if CD were not high resolution, duh) I would now have considerably worse sound, with less resolution. And computer audio is a pain, don't try to convince me otherwise because that ain't true; I can live without the drama I have seen elsewhere, both in person and in writing (the pages of audiophile forums are full of descriptions of problems and their "solutions").

In my view, all this format nonsense is an expensive and time-wasting distraction. It might have been useful at a time when proper CD decoding was much more of a technical challenge than it is now, but I don't see the point anymore in the current situation. I bet that good current CD playback beats SACD playback from 15 years ago when the format was hailed as the great big savior of audiophile mankind. Now SACD is basically almost defunct as a format.

In hindsight, my decision not to waste any time, money and effort on formats other than CD was one of the best decisions in my entire audiophile life.
Click to expand...

The American Idiot CD is louder than the 192 so naturally it will sound better/different. Hope u took that into account.
 
Good question i posted formats I know well so I can correctly comment on my own findings
MQA is a different story complelty being a master re issue and there mqa special sauce too.
I love mqa too but it does not fit me for formats in this matter.
Ok so I would like to make some comments on formats now
first off to up sample or buy up sampled music from cheating sellers is in part why argue.
I could name some bad ones and piss off some but not now lol.
cd red book can have some great sounds I have.
Now same songs same lable in 24/88.2 this was a common master rate used in the studio at one time the bit depth inprovement from 16 to 24 is of the biggest change why cd did not do 24/88.2 I don't know. In fact if they did hi Rez would be far less needed.
Now it's a given some don't care or hear it on there systems.
Noise flaw is paramount in music reproduction we can agree on this ?
The trouble is digital noise is not heard like analog noise. It is imbedded in the music
it robs us of clarity , dynamics and lastly it gives us digital glare. When it's removed it unleashed music in a way that is musical making it a great medium.
What a simple 16 to 24 means is a much lower noise floor it's a major change for me. It does not get heard in a car or simple system. But for the money we spend it's a master change that is a must for me.
The but rate is good too but less effective in what it does. It adds more details this alone is Great but how it adds is complex and may get lost in many setups.
Details can be broken into a few improvements.
Layers
note decay
presence
staging
holographic imaging
note decay , this is very inportant and this gets destroyed by DSP any I ever heard and don't take offense to this. Bit rate increase is in part note decay increase.
Layers is making the music have separation. It gives us in part presence but we need higher bit rate to get it all.
presence the makes us feel we are there. A must for me. Now how far we go into this facet is by bit resolution. Raw can be part of the recoding is less processed. Maple shade is very raw love it but some may feel it's to edgy there stuff is only 16/44.1 would love to get some 24/88.2.
Staging is also increased in higher bit rates and to be holographic is the highest order of all of the above
Many factors all must be in place to achieve this.
Chesky stuff made for this illusion shows what can be done. Few recordings have this level but many have enough to get you there. In depth and height.
Please add comments to this so we all better understand digital.
 
Kingsrule said:
The American Idiot CD is louder than the 192 so naturally it will sound better/different. Hope u took that into account.
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Of course.

This is not to say that a number of 'hi res' releases will not sound better than the CD. As has been pointed out, crucial releases in those formats tend to be mastered more carefully, for example in the classic rock area (which for me is less important for listening at home).
 
Wow ok here is a link to why of it makes you feel better hahaha
https://cardinalpeak.com/blog/why-do-cds-use-a-sampling-rate-of-44-1-khz/
my point is a cd is capable of a much higher bit depth and rate
back then the cart was before the horse and no one really know what was left on the table when all of this was decided.
http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/
above is bit depth for dummies doing the math 16 to 24 both depth change is huge in its allowed variations for volume levels about 250 times more 16k is 64m levels and 24 is 16 million or so. It's why the noise flaw is so much lower and why we should all use any track at 24/xx over rebook. It truly a shame we hear to what we would hear.
I'll be posting a drop box share folder
it will have the same songs in various formats. For who have a system that can show it you will be looking on your severs for the higher bit depth lol. A 24/88.2 is far above 16/44.1 it's just a shame
 
Well, as is often the case, I don't really understand what you are trying to say, and you don't seem to understand what anyone else says?

Anyway, I thought it was well known that contemporary technology was actually pushed hard to achieve the CD in it's original (and continuing) form. Advances led to the DVD, and your question really should have been, why didn't the DVD replace the CD as a preferred audio format, and to that there is no good answer.
 
All righty then as a shot is fired accross the bow of my ship.
No fear mates it's a short ship of confused soles give them some time to catch up.
Maybe others do or don't but one can learn from the links I posted
I don't claim to know all but do post on what I hear that is repeatable on any system that can show its change.
If you take the time to read this and other articles you can see it was all a simple process leading to the biggiest mistak since the cassette tape was and that 8 track was far better close to open reels and died a fast death. Lets take a breath and learn as a Group here if possible.
 
rbbert said:
Anyway, I thought it was well known that contemporary technology was actually pushed hard to achieve the CD in it's original (and continuing) form.
Click to expand...

Correct. Besides that, the history of digital development suggests that at the time a 16 bit/48 kHz standard probably would have been seen as a no-compromise standard by most digital engineers (the maximum sampling rate back then was 50 kHz, in the Soundstream system, because they wanted to cover frequencies up to 22.5 kHz, beyond human hearing). The 44.1 kHz sampling rate was a compromise because of tape storage through then existing video recorders, but is theoretically sufficient because of the Nyquist theorem (full representation of the analog wave in a bandwidth limited signal, here 20 kHz, by a sampling rate twice that frequency). A 48 kHz sampling rate would have been seen as more ideal because of filtering, yet much higher sampling rates than that (96 or 192 kHz) were never considered by most digital engineers at the time, except possibly by some at the fringe. Any claims to the contrary seem audiophile fictional re-writing of actual history. Digital engineers agreed at the time on Nyquist, and up to this day (2018), the standard sampling rate recommended by the Audio Engineering Society (AES) is 48 kHz.

Digital engineers at the time to my knowledge did not consider things like quantization noise, otherwise they might have opted for a bit depth greater than 16, which appeared ideal at the time because of its dynamic range (96 dB) which exceeds that of the dynamic range of the best home systems (80 dB or at best a bit beyond that).

Advances led to the DVD, and your question really should have been, why didn't the DVD replace the CD as a preferred audio format, and to that there is no good answer.
Click to expand...

Of course there is. The general public didn't care because they found CD good enough, and therefore found no reason to yet again repurchase their entire music catalog. Hence the flop of SACD, back then the competition of audio DVD (DVD-A) which fared even worse. We audiophiles live in a bubble that is not shared by many of our co-inhabitants of this planet.
 
So thankful for your detailed reply. Now consider this did anyone listen or just use math ?
In our realm both must be done and even if math says no one must consider why if hearing is better results. How many dacs , amps get made on perfection that sound bad.
With all of the math did anyone consider the noise floor in this. Math shows how it is lower. And I don't consider hearing above 20 k but they now say bones and flesh add to the sounds we hear.
So now that we have some great replies does anyone agree thst bit depth is major ? Does anyone hear what takes places ???
Leave off but rate for now as it matters too it's bit depth thst must be 24 first
anyone ???
 
I still don’t know what you are talking about, or if you are asking a question, what that question is.

As far as DVD replacing CD, there were avoidable problems right away. 2 competing systems, and poor promotion of each. The success of Bluray supplanting DVD for video shows (me) that better industry foresight and promotion could easily have resulted in the Digital Versatile Disc becoming the audio standard.
 
rbbert said:
As far as DVD replacing CD, there were avoidable problems right away. 2 competing systems, and poor promotion of each. The success of Bluray supplanting DVD for video shows (me) that better industry foresight and promotion could easily have resulted in the Digital Versatile Disc becoming the audio standard.
Click to expand...

Apples and oranges. The general public recognized right away the visual superiority of Blueray, whereas any potential audible superiority of DVD (or SACD) vs. CD was not obvious to them.
 
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