General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

---

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ General Asylum ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

I question the premise

Posted by John Marks (M) on April 22, 2014 at 09:39:43

In Reply to: Question only for those that have, at length, compared these much lauded technologies: posted by tinear on April 22, 2014 at 08:06:33:

Why not back up and start from here:

"Is 192-kHz 24-bit superior to 96-kHz 24-bit, and please specify whether you are speaking of native sample rates of new recordings, or of transfers from old analog master tapes, many of which have no musical content over 13,000 Hertz, only tape hiss."

Or even from here:

"Is 192-kHz or 96-kHz PCM superior to 44.1-kHz PCM, first for transfers from old analog master tapes, many of which have no musical content over 13,000 Hertz, only tape hiss, and then second for new native recordings."

I will caution everyone (perhaps the OP does not need cautioning) that playback performance of 192-kHz PCM can be rather DAC-dependent, and certainly is player-software dependent.

In my professional experience (which even includes a bit of pure-DSD recording the results of which I can't really do anything with) the watershed, the line in the sand, is between Red Book and 20-bit 44.1-kHz PCM. The single most important sound-quality increment is going from 16-bit to 20-bit recording (keeping in mind that early analog-to-digital converters were 14-bit or in cases even 12-bit).

For a lot of source material and even more importantly, for many commonly-used microphones, a properly functioning 44.1-kHz converter is all you will need because whatever the Platonic ideal is of the harmonic structure of a trumpet or whatever, many mics aren't catching anything over 20kHz. Lost in the noise.

So, until someone makes a serious stab at blind testing of, for instance, a good concert piano mic'ed using "known good mikes" (choosing at random, AKG 414s in ORTF) and makes one pass at 44.1/16 and one pass at 44.1/20 and one pass at 44.1/24 and then 24/96 and 24/192, and then has a decent playback system and listeners like Michael Fremer who have previously demonstrated the ability to do better than random coin-tossing in public blind testings, there will just be a lot of what I referred to in the April issue of Stereophile as "faith-based chatter" and no rigorous inquiry.

NB, there are ADCs that as far as I know take whatever the input is and process it as 6-bit (or so) quasi-DSD, and so there, you have just injected an uncontrollable variable.

I am not ruling out that depending upon the origin and the content of the recording involved, higher sample rates will sound better--but is that just the natural goodness of the particular ADC involved in recording or the particular goodness of the DAC on playback? I certainly believe that my recent 192-native project sounds best at 192; but the other files were sample-rate converted. That is an uncontrolled variable.

Until someone (I regret I did not think of this last time out, on my pipe-organ project) makes the Quixotic effort to use a state-of-the-art ADC separately to record the same source at 44.1 as well as again at higher sample rates, everyone who states an opinion is only giving voice to assumptions and prejudices, or so it would seem to me.

FWIW, one of the most experienced recording and mastering engineers tells me that if the end product is to be a CD, it is far better to record at 44.1/24, because even downconverting from 88.2 "leaves fingerprints."

I have previously expressed my disinclination to take part in faith-based chatter about the sound of vinyl. It has a distinctive, bandwidth-limited mechanically-resonant sound that many people have warm emotional associations with. (As do I. Sealed copies of my JMR 180-gr. Bob Ludwig remastering of "Songs My Mother Taught Me" for over $300.)

So what we need is, à la Shakespeare's "The Tempest," a desert island where children are raised on nothing but pentatonic harp music and Kodály's choral exercises, and 21 years later, we can ask them to decide about vinyl.

Here are two spectra for "Willow Weep for Me" from Clifford Brown's "and Strings" albumm of IIRC 1956. The first is centered on Middle C.

The second starts at 13,000 Hz.

JM

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Western Glow Tube Service

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---