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This was recently discussed on the digital board but I would be interested in the opinions of those who lurk here.
As I understand it, increasing the 44.1 merely allows reproduction of higher frequencies, something not really useful unless you are a bat or subscribe to theories of subliminal affects, and any increase of the 16 bits allows a greater dynamic range, something which might, or might not, be useful with classical recordings.
As an oldie my upper frequency translation is already compromised and I cannot detect any difference in AQ with hi-rez BUT the fascination with numbers means that if there is a choice of download with no extra cost, I'll opt for a hi-rez version. Such is the stupidity and lack of logic which often prevails in this hobby.
My conclusion about all this is that hi-rez recordings receive greater tender loving engineering care and that is as much the reason for them sounding so good rather any improved technology. I'm often startled at just how good standard CD protocol albums are and am genuinely surprised to discover that on inspection, they are not hi-rez.
IMHO the big stumbling block with digital has not been its recording or the technology protocols, but the ability to translate back that digital into nice sounding analog. The first efforts were truly awful and had a lot of us clinging on to vinyl but we have progressed and I now feel that a fine digital system can sound as good, if not better than a viynl one and hi-rez is really not necessary.
What do you think?
What can be more subjective than music? It reflects our personal tastes and preferences.
Follow Ups:
If all one listens for is high frequency extension, then it is more likely that they will not hear much difference, especially with our older ears. My HF is severely compromised and has been for quite a few years (industrial noise exposure before protective equipment was required), yet I can discern a much more realistic sense of depth and separation in all types of music. My stereo system is especially suited to portrayal of realistic soundstage, with a holographic image of voices and most instruments, and I and others who listen find this quality to be enhanced with most hi-rez recordings. This is not multi-channel finery, but simple stereo.
Try concentrating your attention on depth and separation instead of only high frequencies. You might realize that there is more to it than you've previously heard.
berate is 8 and benign is 9
I've never been able to convince myself that hi-res is any better for home playback. I've tried a few randomized tests by comparing original hi-res files to downsampled and then upsampled files. And 16/44 can sound just as good in my experience.
24/96 seems obviously better for recording. And there doesn't seem to be any reason to stick to 16/44 when everything is streaming now. I'd be happy if all downloads and streaming switched to 24/48 as a standard.
Any sampling rate above 96 kHz is silly, though, and I believe the only reason people think it's better is due to a widespread misunderstanding of sampling theory as "connecting the dots" that media companies seem happy to propagate.
with de Waart and Ameling. Their "Pops in Space" recording with John Williams and the Boston is also very good.
Not a touch of the evil "grain". : )
Duparc sounds.
Ameling...what a voice.
Odd coincidence: I just got the Australian Eloquence re-issue of this from Europadisc. I seem to have gotten the last copy they had on hand. I got it for Ameling's Sheherazade. It is indeed a lovely recording.
My take (based on a plethora of stupidity and lack of logic) is that the production values embedded in a particular release (mic selection and placement, mixing decisions, the quality of the source master, etc.) will govern my judgment of the has-it-or-doesn't of a given recorded performance.
I've run into more than one instance where the 16/44 incarnation exhibits more apparent high-frequency content that the DSD128 or 24/96 or 24/192 iteration. Same with bass quality and slam. And that, I assume, reflects the quality and/or provenance of the "master" used to produce the release.
Jim
What I get in some Hi-rez is a bit more of the spatial stuff than the same in red book.
BUT Hi-rez is not really necessary for that as many beautifully recorded old recordings, some originally analog--some originally digital, can attest. It may take a high performing DAC to bring it out. Consider the Monteaux Daphnis and Chloe (analog) or the Ashkenazy Rachmaninov Symphony 1 (digital) for ex. Beautiful wall-to-wall sound. I'm sure we could all name a bunch.
IMHO it is the laziness of record producers and engineers who, rather than dong a lot of serious listening to mike set-ups, throw out a forest of microphones and "fix it in the mix" which is to blame. So much current recording is far less satisfying then the old stuff.
> IMHO it is the laziness of record producers and engineers who, rather than dong a lot of serious listening to mike set-ups, throw out a forest of microphones and "fix it in the mix" which is to blame.Laziness? It's surely money. Are the producers going to pay 90 musicians and the studio rental for hours to tweak microphone placement before starting recording anything that might go out?
Classical recording now is particularly low profitability. They'd go for a setup that has low risk, and that means the ability for one person with a computer to fix stuff to an acceptable level later.
Back in the "golden days" it was also probably money: quality microphones, amplifiers and tape recorders were very expensive, and didn't have many simultaneous channels. Now, the electronics technology is inexpensive and human time isn't.
Even large budget films will absorb all raw data as fast as possible and "fix it all in postproduction" vs give an auteur director ages to get the one perfect scene.
Edits: 06/10/21 06/10/21
"Laziness? It's surely money. Are the producers going to pay 90 musicians and the studio rental for hours to tweak microphone placement before starting recording anything that might go out?"
But they used to do it during rehearsals.
That podcast from dCS and Decca about Mercury Living Presence referred to by Par tells how it was done. There are also stories to be found about the Decca "Tree."
I think it's mostly fear that they won't get it right and want all the "fix" tools possible. Beyond that so many new recordings are made before live audiences and the mikes have to be very close.
As for "simultaneous channels." Bah! Humbug!
Some of the early CDs on Decca still sound mighty fine to my ears. In fact I still prefer them over many recent hi-rez releases when it comes to sound quality
Yes, some sound good, others shrill. Examples of the latter, Solti/CSO recording of Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet excerpts + Classical Symphony, del Tredici's Final Alice (same performers)
My limited experience is that shrillness is caused by inadequate DAC processing, something common in CDs early days with jitter the basic problem.
I rarely find it now on any in the big collection here with albums dating back to the early digital era alongside modern fare.
The "cure" is neither simple nor inexpensive and I credit success here to as much the (hard wired) Auralic G1 steamer as the Audio-gd R8 DAC. And I was surprised to discover the R8 made no improvement in the AQ over the modded LKS DA-004. All of which makes me think that we have now finally got the DAC technology right.
And I should add that I had previously labelled a CD purchased in the early days of CD, as having poor AQ but now find, with the latest gear, it is fine.
So, reading the posts in this thread I wonder if improvements heard with hi-rez reflect that the DACs being used handle the processing more deftly with hi-rez but are more challenged by 44/16??
What can be more subjective than music? It reflects our personal tastes and preferences.
There was thread a while back in another forum wondering whether the new DACs handled 44/16 so well as to obviate the need for Hi-rez. IMO there are SOME 44/16 recordings that sound, to me, as good as anything I have heard in Hi-rez.
[As an aside from another member of the LKS club, their new and more expensive DA-005 is an astonishing improvement over the already terrific unmodified DA-004. I'll be doing a review in a bit.]
I don't think the problem is in DACs. The early digital CDs that are shrill on any one of my DACS are shrill on all of them, regardless of which amplifier they are connected to:
Denon x4400h AVR
Denon DVD-3109 universal player
Oppo BDP-103
Topping D50s DAC
Marantz HD-DAC1 DAC/headphone amp
Marantz CD67se and CD-5004 players
Could you please name a few CDs - I might have one here and w ill try it out.
What can be more subjective than music? It reflects our personal tastes and preferences.
Please understand I'm not trolling and respect opinions about shrillness because I've heard that myself with older DACs. But, thankfully it is in the past here.
I sampled the following Deccas -
* The 1984 Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky (Riccardo Chailly) - superb sound
* 1988 Puccini Weekend - Soprano Opera Arias - comes through cleanly without distortion (gave me goosebumps)
* Falla Nights in the Gardens of Spain - Ansermet - initially analog (i used to own the LP) - sounds great and far better than I ever managed with expensive arms, cartridges with vinyl
* Salute to Percy Grainger - 1989 Eloquence Decca release - Clear AQ
* 1985 Te Kanawa/Solti selections from the Messiah - first class sound
For some time now I advocate testing out the capability of a DAC with harpsichord music. In my experience most DACs hash up the complex harmonics to make it sound a jangled mess. And the forte piano is disliked for the same reason.
What can be more subjective than music? It reflects our personal tastes and preferences.
the 1991 recording by Dutoit (I know, I know) of Romeo and Juliet is of demonstration quality, as are most of his Montreal recordings on Decca
I was talking about the shrillness of EARLY Decca digital CDs. The Solti/Prokofiev disc that I mentioned was recorded in mid-1982, and Final Alice was recorded in 1981. The Dutoit/Montreal stuff with good sound (most of it) that I'm familiar with is from later years, although I haven't heard the 1981 digital Saint-Saens Organ Symphony.
To name a few:
Ashkenazy Isle of the Dead/Symphonic Dances (1984)
Dutoit Scherazade (1984)
Kondrashin Dvorak (1980)
Dutoit Planets (1987)
These CDs still sound as good as any
The Dutoit/Montreal Ravel stuff dates from 1981 and still sounds fine---to me.
Edits: 06/10/21
Sure, but I mentioned early Decca CDs, not LPs. Actually, some of those early Decca mono LPs were also rather screechy!
Yes. Or to put it another way, no.
The first hurdle is whether or not the original recording was good in the first place. So a superbly engineered 16/44.1 file will always sound better than an averagely engineering hi-res one. Of course that would not normally mean a comparison of two issues of the same recording but it is an important consideration given a choice of the same repertoire but in different performances/recordings.
The next issue is the provenance of the file. Is it as near as possible to a direct copy of the original recording or has it been modified e.g. by up or down sampling. I have found that sticking to the original recording format can yield benefits so that, counter intuitively, a 24/44.1 file can be audibly superior to a 24/192 one if the original master was made at 24/44.1. Regrettably the provenance is rarely shown. Some companies will indicate it in the accompanying booklet in the brief paragraph in small type describing the location and date of the recording sessions. Other record labels or vendors will provide the information on their website ( Native DSD are exemplars for this).
Finally there is a question of the equipment used for replay and interfaces certainly play a part (e.g. network v. USB) as well as other aspects of DAC design.
So no clear answer in the " hi-res is always better" vein. However I would not do without it as when care has been taken through the production process it can be superb. BTW I am in my 70s so my high frequency hearing is no longer great. However the differences between the formats can still be distinguished.
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
In the DSD world, each doubling of the sampling rate pushes DSD's characteristic high frequency noise up another octave and further out of range of possible interaction with frequencies in the audible range. Although I and others have had some skeptical things to say about some (not all) normal DSD64 recordings, I'm a completely happy camper when it comes to DSD256. (There's not that much available at that resolution however, although Jared is always fighting the good fight over on his Native DSD site, and HDTT also has some offerings available at that resolution.)
On paper, high-rez should sound better than 16/44 or CD..... But the few times I've experienced high-rez, there was something in the playback itself that kept me from enjoying the music..... I've for a long time suspected RFI intermodulating with the music.....
This was over ten years ago, but I was at someone's house in Scottsdale, he had a system with floor-standing versions of the Don Allen Eminence coaxial speakers..... He played the CD layer of a Mercury hybrid SACD of Byron Janis/Antal Dorati/Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra performance of Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto..... Enjoyed the performance immensely, as did other visitors in the place..... The owner on a whim decided to play the same disc SACD layer on his SACD player, which was in the same system..... After 10 minutes, I requested the playback be shut down.... One of the other visitors at the place also said he didn't enjoy it nearly as much.... I was listening to the hyper-detail in the recording instead of the performance, and "fatigue" set in.
Well... I recall some of my first cds in the 1980s and they were horrible sounding.
How do I know? I still have them. So yes digital has imo also come a long way.While I have many DVD Audio both stereo / multichannel ; remember these? ; as well as a vast colection of SACDs again both stereo and multichannel.
I also have discs recorded at 16 bit 44 khtz as well as 24 bit 96 or 192 and Mobile Fidelity 24kt gold discs from The Doors, Eagles , Montrose, and many others while Mo Fi claim to use an all tube system, you REALLY can hear it come through in these 24kt gold Mobile Fidelity CDs!Also one of my favorite recordings in multichannel SACD is a pianist from down under named Fiona Joy Hawkins an 8 time grammy award winner.
Bob Ludwig produced 3 versions for her of the album Blue Dream in my opinion a masterpiece of flowing music. Ive come to enjoy most of her catalogue.
So I correlate Bob Ludwig with quality sound production, he was also involved in the early 2000s with reproducing all the origional Rolling Stones recordings and he found in many instances the speed on the origional albums were off!
So ...he fixed it with Mick searching both sides of the Atlantic for the best master tapes!
I subsequently purchased all the hybrid stereo SACDs.So in my findings it seems upon listening that the origional recording process and even the label or producer will have the most benefit in sound quality.
Oh, I almost forgot...
Also " direct to disc" anytime I see this as part of the overall recording process im usually very happy with the overall clarity as well as stereo imaging and soundstaging.So Direct to Disc is also something i look for more than resolution numbers.
So yes I dont believe hires is a guarantee for improved sound.
My Lampizator Lite 7 SET dac does pcm to 384 khtz and DSD up to 256 being fed by my Innuos Zenith mk3 sever via Roon Core and Tidal Hi Fi and high quality cabling so my digital is up to snuff for comparison.Imo origional recording process and certain engineering names or labels lend creedence or reliable consistency to quality recordings in my experiance.
Seems some things are geared more for marketing purposes.
Anyway, thats my take on digital today.
Regards,
/// Tim W. ///
Edits: 06/09/21
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