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In Reply to: Re: "...does the public in general recognize the advantages and benefits of new formats. Apparently it doesn't." posted by tlyyra on May 17, 2007 at 05:45:08:
When CD came its advantages and benefits the public could readily recognize. Sales figures speak for themselves. Hi-rez has no further advantage or benefit as far as handling, track access etc. is concerned, it's simply the same. The only step forward is audio quality. I've never heard hi-rez of any kind so I cannot judge.However, that German study was done with students, i.e. young people (<25 years of age). I wonder what the outcome of such studies would be when people of 40 or 50 years of age were used. Maybe for them there's no difference to CD or the difference is too small as to worry about.
In any case audio quality aloine is not sufficient except for a small minority of what already is a niche market.
In any case it would be the audio industry that has a vested interest in knowing the exact reasons. Did they perform any studies?
Follow Ups:
I've seen, or seen a reference to, quite a many studies from the late '70s and early '80s, just before the digital format was launched, regarding just about every parameter of sound reproduction & audibility in terms of PCM vs. analogue, mostly coming from Japan. But I don't know off hand of any industry studies on hi-rez vs. PCM, even though there must be a lot of those, too, and I'm not even sure if these are what you meant, and in any case please don't ask for any references for now since today is ... my free day!Despite all the general concerns and specs design going into them, it was of course the "compact" in the compact discs that sold everyone to them. Ditto now with downloads and iPods now. As I remember it, just about the only sound improvement-related comment you ever heard anyone say at the time was that with CDs, there was no rumbling and no clicks and pops. Which was quite nice. The rest was taken at the face value.
Of course, we were all lied about their physical indestructibility and longevity. There were these amusing demonstrations were CDs were thrown around in the room like frisbees...
I think what the non-youths amongst us would hear in hi-rez is increased definition and dynamics, if nothing else. That should be evident even with age-related hearing loss affecting the audible bandwidth in its upper ranges, shouldn't it? But even significant improvement in those areas might be too little reason for most, as you say. There are too many other factors to worry about when thinking of your sound system, and almost all of them surrounded by thick mists of confusion and false information.
And with the unprecedented array of new possibilities and prospects already in sight (creating competitive pressure) there was of course no way to secure broad-based consensus and no motivation for commercial risk-taking in the industry, so there you go. By the time the future was decided (or rather left totally undecided) it was already clear that audio wouldn't for long be the moneymaker, least of all those niches inside it where there was innate interest in propagating the sound aspect. Moreover everyone had just bought again all their recordings in the disc format and wouldn't be easily persuaded to do that again, for another while.
As a starter, read thishttp://sjeng.org/ftp/SACD.pdf
Then, CD when properly dithered has a dynamic range of 115 dB. SACD offers 120 dB. But you'd also want to reproduce that range.Now look at what the amp power requirements are for various SPL (an enlarged version of the table is available in the link)
See what I mean?
Then, how loud can a given speaker play whilst keeping distortion levels low?
Klaus
Good questions. (And incidentally I was just reading Lipshitz & Vanderkooy in another context - so, that much for the weekend doing gardening.) That would surely put these benefits out of the hearing range for most of us. I think the cumulative thrust of your points speaks in favor of better solutions in our audio systems, such as well-engineered active speakers, if we want to enjoy that fabulous extra 5 dB and all the other improvements to their max.
In active speakers the amps are driving an inductive load, in a passive speaker the amp is driving a reactive load, which, according to Brad Meyer, increases the current demands on the amp to as much as several times that demanded by a simple resistor. In his article about active speakers Bob Stuart mentions a factor 3. Which would mean that the 400 Watt amp, as used in my speakers for the bass driver (8 Ohm, 98 dB), equals to a 1200 Watt outboard amp.So if you want live-like reproduction you not only need live-like timbre but also live-like SPL. Hence BIG power amps for those who have inefficient speakers. So why do audiophiles stick to those technically obsolete solutions?
To say nothing of the fact that in active applications, the speaker designer would have probably also had a big say in the design of the amps as well (if not wholly designed them from the scratch) that drive those speakers, i.e. matched them optimally together. Which would render the whole issue of external-amp matching a moot point (along with all that speaker cable mystique). A big headache gone for good for all audiophiles, and a lot more time and money left for music!
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