24 bit audio is meant for production purposes as you are likely to have more than a 100 tracks running simultaneously and the noise will add up to real noise. also the dynamic range does matter in these environments. this really does not apply to the end listener. there what really matters is the quality of the DA converter. that decides the quality of sound you hear.
i can hear the difference... you just need a device that can play it and have it played directly from the file. no youtube soundcloud nothing. probably tidal but thats paid
@G Guest Dont argue with an audiophile, they are the ones that can hear the difference between copper and gold tipped jacks. let them live on their own bubble.
@@wandcamilo3989 you would never ever hear any difference in a blind listening test. So many blind tests have been done and nobody has ever been able to tell the difference. That’s because there isn’t any difference that the human ear can pick up. Physics and facts have proved this as does this video.
24 bits is not useful for the end-user that is for sure but for recording 24b makes sense due to the much larger noise floor and precision so that these recorded sounds still have enough precision after applying EQ, high/low pass filters, compression, etc. All such 'effects' are basically conversions that result in quality loss. In the end all such tracks are mixed and a 44.1kHz/16b is really enough. By the way, compression tools like ogg and mp3 usually DO result in better encoded files when the source was in a better format then 44.1/16. Enough studies have proven that recording in 44.1kHz/24b is enough and also the minimum for applying effects unless you are going to stretch audio as then a higher frequency sample could benefit when played at a lower frequency. By the way... within the recording community there are enough people that claim that they hear the difference between a unprocessed 96kHz/24b and 44.1kHz/16b recording which is complete bullocks. Most manufacturers of audio interfaces also use such qualifications :-). Well, maybe an ear trained 15 year old can indeed hear a difference in an perfect acoustic reflection free environment but otherwise...
"really enough" to sound like ass. You are amazing man, this is the perfect summation of "well that's good enough even if not better than what was for no apparent reason". Well done. Who are you to say what is useful for the end user? I hate the justification of a downgrade. This 16/44 digital tech is older than empire strikes back. You can improve a fixed standard and hide behind "studies" and "tests" instead of every single day just hearing 24bit audio for yourself and understanding that people deserve to hear this too. It's far more "real" than 16bit, which works fine unless you HAVE A BETTER VERSION. Every one of you focuses on "dynamic range" extremes because it can be easily measured. What isn't easily measured is accuracy, soundstage, and realism of delay. Every single one of you '16/44 is best' people talk about total headroom and totally dismiss listeners of all types, from legends to internet joes to musicians and producers with more credits than you have internet followers. You dismiss them with bad out of context science and "studies" like anyone listens to music that way. Go to a club and test it. Test it in your own living room or car. Test it for your own ears because your ears don't work like my ears and stop this BS about "no one needs better audio", it's a horrible line of crap that is hurting society. Listening is the crossing of so many areas of human study and emotion that you math people really can't see your nose on this. Or listen for yourselves.
ezrazski You will not hear a difference between 16 and 24 bit master. Yes, even your ears won't hear the difference although you 'think' you do. But go ahead and buy expensive stuff as you are allowed :-) By the way, science and studies are not in your favor. Unless you have scientific results with ABX tests on your special audiophile ears then you are allowed to make such statements until then... you are just one of us.
Ramon Smits Oh but I do, and most people given a choice of their own music and their own likes/dislikes will also hear it. hollywood hears it, most musicians hear it, and anyone who used to enjoy vinyl hears it. certain kinds of modern all digital music won't benefit much, but everything from 1940-2000 that's on analog tape masters that sound amazing, well that's the goal, is to get the true audio out to the masses so people like you, basically arguing for low-res, seem ancient and backwards. most of the science and studies you think exist backing your claim have nothing to do with music and musicians and professional audio. they have to do with hearing aids, telephony, and hearing loss. none of them actually try to figure out "what sounds better" because it's too subjective for science to bother, it's not mathematical enough. but people will choose higher quality if given to them in the digital domain. most of them have never even heard it yet, but they read these types of posts and they figure well great another scam, real sounding digital audio yeah right. click here to download mp3 quality [5mb] click here to download CD quality flac [40mb] click here to download studio quality flac [100mb] it's that simple, and it's coming soon.
ezrazski You have a point in regards to music masters before 2000 which have a much wider dynamic range. That is not the point. Most classical music has a wide dynamic range. Tape master are perfectly able to record audio. Only thing is that they ware out where digital media does not. You also have a point where you can feel audio. Like very low frequencies on your body. Here you have multiple senses where you hear and feel music. Anyone that ever been to a good classical concert and was properly seated knows that. This also is true for electronic music in clubs. Just wear hearing protection :-). This is the whole reason why a lot of people seem to miss something when they only listen to music on headphones. What sounds better is all about how you perceive music. When a recording is made and you play it on e.g. a tube amp then this recording is colored when played back. I can even say that I probably would prefer this warmer audio but this would NOT sound the same as the original recording. The same for EQ'ing, some people like more bass some like a defined midrange but with good speakers the EQ should remain flat and generate audio as that should sound the same as if you were there when it was recorded. A complete digital chain ensures that the recording is as authentic as possible, can be done cheap and without any wear on your media! That does not result in anyone having better ears its just that you are more comfortable with a certain colored sound unless your ears are damaged and you try to compensate certain frequencies due to hearing loss. Either due to high volumes or just due age. By the way, most audiophiles also buy incredibly expensive cables. You probably do to I guess. If so, then enjoy the following read: consumerist.com/2008/03/03/do-coat-hangers-sound-as-good-monster-cables/
nope plain old cables for me and plain old gear. try to paint me into some hole to dismiss my point but i don't conform to your biases. i have mainstream, vintage in some cases, gear, and if you understood basic signal chain you'd know that good source + good DAC + good amp = good sound. that's what pono built, and that's what they are trying to re: improving the source. everyone who loves music should just listen to this and then form their own opinion. people telling you what you can and can't hear or feel should not be trusted on words alone, just go listen. it's just music, you'll pick it up, if not you can teach yourself to listen better, enjoy music more.
Man, I was all pleased today, as I finally got my head round Nyquist-Shannon, DACs, PCM, file formats, and after so many years of it just being a simple, but common, misuderstanding of DACs. But wow, Ive got so long to go to get to level of some of the guys posting below. You must know your stuff when you can hear things that dont generate sound, and can also modify tone by changing the mater volume setting. Sadly, when I once thought I was hearing bit-depth, and it was affecting tonal quality, I was most disappointed when further research eventually tracked it to an obscure encoder anomaly from the week before, rather than having developed the ability to hear sound that does not exist Ive also been able to realise that "warmth", "feel" , emotive reasoning for vinyl being fundametally better than cd, can now much more likely be attributed to the fundamentaly different frequency response of vinyl and CD, vinyl being log and the other linear, the differences in dymanic range, and now realising that so much vinyl is "better" because the CD will have had a slapdash master. If that was fixed, warmth would be getting calle distortion
***** I dunno why it should be all that serious. Btw, I know how the internet uses that as a generalised slur but I'd like to keep the comment section a safe place for people. I've had to remove your comment.
If you have time, consider watching the videos I made about ABX testing: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nFEvFpzldJc.html That way you can fairly judge for yourself if you hear a difference. :)
One thing I may add. Even if you are in the quietest room in the world, you would still hear your heart, breathing, swallowing, blood rushing by your ears, and clothing.
Bravo sir! Would be also good if you can demystify vinyl, so I don't have hear people saying over and over again how accurate that format is, when in fact even MP3 320kbps does a better job!
Well, Vinyl is not so incredible due to various noises that you inevitably hear but produces certain level of "warmth". But Mp3 even at high rates can´t certainly do a better job. Mr Alan Parsons (sound engineer and musician) once said that mp3 could serve to listen demos and due to its level of high compression be sent over the internet with other purposes rather than to listen high quality music. He said too, that he personally will never accept that to listen music in that format through a good sound system. May be 24bit is overestimated and for sure a teenager could hear those high frequencies and that´s it. So for now 16bit seems good enough for the rest of us. But never forget that mp3 is an audio file with a high level of compression where certain sounds are wipe off and that difference can be heard indeed with no problem.
@@marcelodb5429 man, you are answering a 9-yo message 😬 - anyhow, people seems to like still Vinyls nowadays, and me almost in my 50s still don’t miss that format at all 😉
Excellent video. This is all correct. I can approve these facts. Very well done. Keep it up. (In Addition: As you said, 24bit is used for mastering or recording audio in the studio as well as a higher samplingrate "4:4:4, 4:2:2" for video cameras is the same - for recording video - as this is a problem on the video sector sometimes, too.)
Thank you for a well thought out and articulate presentation, Lachlan. I started becoming interested in this discussion when somebody gave me what I considered his "trash." It was a Pioneer P-D70 CD player from about 1984. My father taught me to always receive something someone gives you with gratitude, so I took it and just put it in my junk room. When I was organizing my house a few weeks ago, I saw it and thought about throwing it out, but decided I should give it a listen first. I fell in love with the sound and now it's a big part of my music experience. This is what I now know about myself... 16 bit offers some incredible detail. I'm hearing things I've never heard in music before and if I was forced to listen to CDs the rest of my life, I would completely enjoy my music experience every single time. I DO have an extremely expensive hi-res player, but I'm planning to rip CDs into it, and still enjoy my CD player through world class headphones. Three weeks isn't much time for research, so I'm still going to give higher resolution a chance, but in the meantime, you've made me feel a lot better about the quality of sound that I've got currently. Thanks for the great effort.
That Pioneer P-D70 you have is one hell of a good player, I hope you still have it 7 years after your post lol. It has some of the best analytics for a true vintage CD player.
Thank you that was a very informative piece of information. I sent most of my life from the late 1960's through to the 1980's as a music enthusiast and manager of a Hi-Fi shop in London. It's good to put theoretical parameters into perspective. I recently brought a FLAC player and was bitterly disappointed but perhaps that's because I am getting on in years and my hearing is not what it was. I currently use an iPhone 5s 64 gig and have loaded it was 16 bit Wav files which fulfils my needs adequately. When the original Sony Walkman was released as a major Sony dealer I was invited to the launch at the Hilton in Park lane London where I met the head of Sony. The original walkman was a cassette based system and despite the tape his and limited dynamic range I enjoyed it for listening to cassette tapes I had recorded on high quality cassette decks to play back on the walkman ~ which I still own today with most of my other Hi-Fi equipment.
Sir you are Brilliant, Funny with comments and illustrations and an outstanding teacher!!!! A true asset to the RU-vid community. Thank you for your work and teaching me in a very comprehensive manor, EXACTLY what I needed to know. May you have a day as wonderful as you!
I am 62 years old and always work(ed) with electronic and computers and in addition I am an audiophile for most of my life. When I read something like this, I always think back of the time when I was (much) younger. I worked as a repair technician in an audio/TV shop. We also sold amplifiers, but with valves(tubes), not transistors. They were bulky, inefficient and typically produced about 10 Watts max. at 1% THD (Total Harmonic Distortion). Then Philips announced the first all transistor (stereo) amplifier. It would produce about 2 x 15W at 0.2% THD. Wow, that sounded great... When we finally received the first unit, we could not wait to test it. Then, total disappointment, it sounded like total crap... Later, others found out why. They discovered nasty things like crossover distortion which sounds terrible, even in very low percentages, while the valve amplifier produces mainly pure harmonic distortion which 'colors' the sound but, for some, even sounds pleasing... The lesson is: don't rely on a limited number of parameters to judge something as complex as sound... My advice: If you are totally happy with MP3 quality, just enjoy and save a lot of money. If you want to have the best possible sound quality, use your money wisely on things that really matter and not on a lot of 'hot air', I am sad to say, is abundantly present in the audiophile world...
I'm sorry - but there are a number of fundamental flaws in this lecture that need correction. For example, you are confused between the difference between quantisation error and dither (the noise floors that are generated by your 4-bit and 8-bit reductions of the piano recording are dither, not quantisation error). You are also confused between dither and noise-shaped dither (which you do not mention, but "noise-shaped dither" is what you mean when you say "dither" in the video). In addition, your main conclusion is flawed, since you are assuming that a signal to noise ratio is enough of a description of an audio signal's quality to determine a required dynamic range. This would only be true if both the signal and the noise were steady-state and had identical spectra. Neither of these conditions is true in the case of music with quantisation noise or dither - whether noise-shaped or not. Finally, your lecture, like the xiph.org posting, makes a number of assumptions about the playback conditions (both in terms of hardware and software) that are not necessarily true in all cases. As a result, once again, the basic statement that audio recordings distributed with a bit depth of 24 bits is a waste of space for all persons is incorrect. Of course, there are many examples of equipment and playback conditions where a 16-bit correctly-dithered audio signal is adequate. These may, in fact, be the majority of cases. However, it is easy to think of a number of examples of a consumer playback situation where the difference between a 24-bit dithered signal and a 16-bit dithered signal will be audible. Cheers -geoff
Absolutely I skipped over the discussion of dither for the sake of keeping the video short. The point remains though that as you increase the bit depth, the dithering noise decreases below audible levels. I would love to know in what situations that there would be an audible difference between the 16bit and 24bit signal. I imagine there would be some specific edges cases where that would be possible in a completely controlled environment, but I feel like there would be almost no music today, for ordinary listening environments, where this would pass any blind test. Unless of course the album was dithered very badly or somehow otherwise mastered in such a way that the signal was too low and too close to the noise floor. You obviously know your stuff, but I don't think there's ever been a blind trial that demonstrates that the increased bit depth of 24 bit audio makes any difference, and certainly not to the extent that audio companies like to claim. To that extent I believe this video makes the issue clearer in practical terms.
***** Not in all cases. You're making too sweeping a generalisation of what constitutes an "audible level". At the very least, you cannot simply use a SNR to make a decision about whether or not something is audible or inaudible. As an obvious example: take a track that starts with material that is not only significantly band limited (say, just for example, the low frequency rumble at the beginning of Sting's "Thousand Years" to pick something ubiquitous) but also rather low in level. You start listening to this track while listening to a playback device that doesn't output much level at that frequency band due to an issue with its magnitude response (say, just for example, a pair of white earbuds that come with an iThingy - to pick something that is also ubiquitous and is rather band-limited to the midrange). If you turn up the track to be able to even know that there is something going on in the low end, you'll find out that the track is noisy. Assuming that everything else in the chain is "perfect" - then it is not inconceivable to propose that you'll hear the dither noise floor of the recording. This is because (1) the low frequency doesn't mask it (since the signal and the noise have very different spectra), and (2) your playback device is boosting the noise and attenuating the signal. In this specific example, a lower noise floor will help - therefore 24 bits will be better than 16 bits - and the difference will most certainly be audible (assuming that everything else in the chain is allowing the 24 bit word to get through to the DAC, of course). My point is that you jump to a conclusion that 24 bits is a marketing myth that is useless for everyone based on a simple SNR value. That SNR is a convenient way to describe one parameter of an audio signal path - but it falls apart when you're talking about cases where the signal and the noise are different, either temporally or spectrally. So, if you said "24 bits is unnecessary for most people" I would not have a problem with that - I would even agree with you. But to claim that it's a waste of space for everyone in all cases forever is just wrong. In fact, I might even go so far as to accuse you of attacking one flawed statement (that 24 bits is always better than 16 bits) with another flawed statement (that 16 bits is just as good as 24 bits). Both of these statements are based on religion rather than fact - or at least a careful mis-interpretation (either intentional or unintentional) of some of the facts. Cheers -geoff
***** Sorry for the second posting, but I just thought of some more stuff and didn't want to clutter the previous reply: The assumed panacea of noise-shaping 16-bit dither may, at least partially, alleviate the problem of inadequate SNR when signal≠noise. However, it wreaks havoc with other playback situations. For example, take a case where a person wants to reduce the bitrate of an uncompressed, 16-bit recording with noise-shaped dither by using a lossy compression scheme. The codec may be faced with "thinking" that the energy in the top end of the signal (which is just noise-shaped dither) is actually signal - and therefore it will allocate part of the saved spectrum to that-which-should-not-be-heard. In other words, a noise-shaped dither may be interpreted as signal by the encoder. This may also happen in cases where an audio signal is (knowingly or unknowingly by the user) transcoded by a playback system. Other issues can also occur that make noise-shaping a bad idea. For example, IMD resulting in folding of high-frequency, high-energy signals down into the audible spectrum can occur in poorly-designed Class-D amplifiers or low-quality tweeters and headphones. As another example, products that re-quantise a noise-shaped signal without proper dithering (say, in an incorrectly-implemented volume control, or a poorly-implemented equaliser implemented in a fixed-point processor - both of which can be easily found in many mobile playback devices) will cause the high-frequency noise in a noise-shaped dither to fold down into the audible frequency band at audible levels. So, the xiph.org statement that noise-shaping can solve all the remaining problems makes further assumptions about the playback equipment that are not always true. I might even go so far as to say that they are rarely true. Cheers -geoff
geoff martin Thank you for your comments. You definitely make a valid point, and you're right, it's a generalisation. But again if you look at how audiophiles talk about 24 bit audio, they talk about it in terms of increased detail resolution and all kinds of other flowery expressions. This misconception is aided by marketing which seems to hint at the idea that increased bit depth is increased resolution in the same way that an 8 bit colour palette differs significantly from a 16 bit palette. If people realised that that the net effect of increasing bit depth was to make a bit of fuzz quieter, it's not nearly as an attractive proposition.I still do not think that in a normal listening environment with background noise, dithering noise is going to be something that anyone is going to be concerned with or even hear. And that is the main point of this video; that for all practical usage scenarios for these portable players, dithering noise is the least of your worries. That is the main thrust of this video: increasing the bit depth over 16 bit renders no audible difference for people in the way they generally listen to their music. For instance in your iBud scenario, I guarantee you people would complain about the fact that the iBuds let so much background noise in before anyone would think to start complaining about dithering noise. In the end this discussion is a bit absurd anyway, because neither 24 bit or 16 bit are 'necessary'. People buy luxury sports cars are unlikely to drive them at their top speeds, and some people will buy 24 bit audio tracks simply because they like the knowledge that they have something bleeding edge, even if it makes little practical difference. But I made this video to point out that increased bit depth does not result in increased detail resolution in the way that some people seem to think. Even if there are theoretical advantages of 24 bit audio, in the real world these advantages are largely moot.
There are also flaws in your "corrections." Most notably dithering doesn't actually generate noise, rather it normalizes noise to reduce the overall effect of noise so sharp peaks don't occur where our ears are most sensitive. That said the noise in digital systems renders dither to merely insurance as studio HVAC systems are only 50 dB down. Second his bit chopping *is* quantisation noise as is demonstrable by truncating raw recordings of unmastered audio. Dithering only effects the distribution of noise and not the noise itself. Lastly, all bit depth does is lower the noise floor. It does not reduce THD, IMC, jitter, any form of power noise, THD from the speakers themselves not to mention that the best amps only go -120 dB down which is 24 dB shy of 24 bits range. Additionally resistors add noise as they heat up which tends to be around -100dB at the low end. Or in other words, you'll hear noise added by resistors before you see a benefit in 24 bit audio. In fact, you'll hear the HVAC system of a recording studio before you'll hear noise in 16 bit audio. The only exceptions are shoddy gear and user error being loose jacks or bad settings etc.
16 / 48 flac with a good starter high-end DAP like Fiio x1 with a decent amp and AT50 headphones is incredibly good,honest and vibrant sound all for around $200.
Very well explained sir! I saw your video from another article that you commented on about noise floor and was curious. I feel your logic and research makes much more sense.
Technically correct, there is no difference possible in perception between 16 and 24 bits. 10 years ago I bought several Toshiba DVD players with 24 bit 192 khz audio DACs. Price per player $30. Performance, flawless. Extra 8 bits, superfluous.
Increased bandwidth brings several advantages. Music is not about simple tones. Most sounds have a harmonic structure that extends out on either side of the fundamental frequency. The inaudible ones affect the audible ones and define tonality, phase and timing. The filtering needed can be less drastic with a higher bit depth and so filter related harmonics don’t affect the signal in the audible band. There are also benefits to transient response. The 24bit system with a higher sampling rate will sound more accurate as a result. The effects are audible if the file is recorded natively as a 24bit 192kHz file. Playback will have more 3dimensional imaging and more realistic sounding instruments with better separation and better realisation of studio ambience. Compact disc is good enough but we can do better. When we get amplifiers that operate fully in the digital domain we can even beat the noise limitation during playback. Amplifiers struggle with radio frequency signals generated by digital audio jamming feedback systems and this contributes to what we hear in digital playback.
This comment is 4 years old, so I hope you have since learned and moved on from this standpoint. Firstly, if (as you say) there was more front to back depth in a mix, or better imagine or placement, this effect would be measurable by something like a goniometer, or potentially just sum and difference analysis of left and right channels. Until you can produce clear results here in the analog domain post DA conversion your argument means nothing. I'm also astounded by the amount of people that repeat the argument that frequencies beyond the human hearing range intermodulate ones in the audible range and thus require greater playback bit depth and/or sample rate. This is an illogical statement. If there indeed is modulation in the audible frequencies from ones outside (which is not a given, but scientifically yes this does happen) the equipment used to record this intermodulation RECORDS the fact that those frequencies have already interacted, and thus the audible range is recorded THE SAME as it would have been heard. Thus, regardless of band-limiting the signal to the human hearing range, what you are describing (specifically that a 44.1kHz 16 bit playback file/system CANNOT reproduce that intermodulation that happens in reality) is logically impossible. Either the recording has ALREADY encoded what happens in the audible range (the part you would've heard that changed due to the frequencies outside the human hearing range), or there was no modulation from the inaudible frequencies and thus the playback system does not have to accommodate for them. EITHER way, the playback system's resolution beyond the human hearing range doesn't matter.
CAREFUL: "recordings these days only have 20 db of dynamic range" -- while that is indeed TRUE, it certainly doesn't mean that there are only 20 db of music in there (otherwise try listening the music encoded in 24 db or 4 bits -- which is what you just proved that doesn't sound well). 20 db dynamic range just means that there's that much 'volume level' difference between loudest and quietest parts of the recording. But there is certainly more than 20 db of musical information in there, otherwise you wouldn't hear anything in the more quiet parts. Otherwise I totally agree that 16 bits is enough. Thanks for the video.
Great video! If you want better quality audio, buy better speakers. After you get nice speakers, upgrade your digital to analog converter and amplifier (assuming your speakers are passive). There really isn't much beyond that.
Having done what RealHomeRecording has suggested(Wise). Now play 96kbit/s 44.1khz Joint stereo MP3 at full volume. It will sound better than on the lower grade components. For an instant and usually tangible upgrade, get better quality source files. Sounds a bit better on low-grade components and much better on high-grade components. Cheapest approach because digital storage and internet speeds are cheaper than components. BUT - Do get some decent headphones at least and ABSOLUTELY set your devices output to the highest MIXING RATE's it supports. 192khz@24bit is common for HD Audio devices(Since 2008'ish). Chinese brand headphones can be stunning quality for the price if on a budget. Aim for flat dynamics and tweak an EQ with caution to suit your tastes. Be careful with EQ and sound enhancements because they can dramatically reduce the FIDELITY of the sound to achieve a psychological impact rather than improve the overall quality. Respectfuly Ent
Audiophiles=human being that listens through his eyes Yes audiophiles are special human beings that are able to hear things no other human being can hear as long as they know what they are listening to. When a Blind test is done, suddenly those HUGE, easy to tell differences they heard before, disappear....gotta love snake oil. ;)
So in your experience, would getting a better DAC(smartphone vs ipod or one of those low end audiophille players(fiio x5,ibasso dx90)) be more important or getting a better pair of headphones/iem?
No the exact opposite. For the money you are almost always better off spending money on the actual earphones / headphones, unless your existing output is noticeably poor sounding - hissy, distortion, or noted high output impedance.
So if an music album is remastered to 24-bit, does it make the album better? Is it worth buying? I have the original CDs, so is it any differences? Is it any better? Is it worth it? Is it like 5.1 surround sound remixes? The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s, White Album & Abbey Road was remastered to 5.1 surround sound. What does 24-bit means? Is it 5.1 surround sound remixes? The Dutch prog rock band Focus is also releasing a 50th Anniversary box set now with remastered material. It says it is a «24-bit remaster». Is it worth it when I already have the original CD albums?
The audiophile pooh-pooh industry will never focus on things that actually make a difference. Audiosnob woo-woo is far more profitable and is just as ridiculous as homeopathy and chiropractic. When you work with music reproduction objectively, the insane boutique prices become inapplicable because you're working with tried-and-tested cheap components. It's why I shake my head and sigh when people turn their nose up at the NJM4556 opamp and spend thirty times the price on something that isn't even designed for audio. When the 4556 was not only specifically designed for audio, but specifically designed for _headphones_. And yet I really can't tell the difference between a stock O2 and any multi-kilobuck amp. Gee, I wonder why.
Good summary of the original video. I would link the video you pretty much copied more explicitly at the beginning of the video, and not only in the description. Good initiative to spread out the word though about common misconceptions.
Why am I able to hear the noise floor during the Piano play with 16bit audio but not with 32bit during this video, while only turning up the level to about 80dB Spl? If all thats true
Very good. Add to that also that any greater resolution than CD 44.1K is also pointless due to human auditory bandwidth. Sony is putting out a lot of misinformation on this stuff.
TheUglyGnome Better sound because you have much bigger files. With a typical 24-bit studio master file that was recorded with 96 kHz sample rate you get 4608 kbps total bit rate whereas the CD file is only 1411 kbps. The CD files are just downsampled studio master files and nothing else. Recording companies are forced to downsample studio master files in order to fit a whole album on a 700 MB CD media. As you can see, a high resolution file in 24/96 resolution has more than 3 times the data and that results in much better sound. You get warmer, bigger, more dynamic sound with bigger soundstage and much better separation between instruments as well as much more clarity in the high frequencies, but you need much better speakers to hear the differences in the high frequencies. You also get all those frequencies that are absent on CDs. Every music instrument has harmonics located in the frequencies from 20 kHz to more than 100 kHz, depending on the instrument. Just as an example, a cymbal has very strong harmonics at 100 kHz. All those frequencies above 20 kHz affect all those frequencies in our hearing range (20 Hz-20 kHz) so you get complete sound and the sound that resembles the real instruments much better. Also, to clarify, the 96 kHz sampling rate has the effective bandwidth of 48 kHz whereas CD has only 22 kHz of effective audio bandwidth so even the 96 kHz is not perfect, but it's much better than the crappy CD at 22 kHz of effective audio bandwidth. This is very similar to comparing a 4K video file with a 1080p video file. Higher resolution is always better. The numbers never lie. Nobody cares that idiots with 5-dollar earbuds can't hear the differences. Just like video resolutions, you need a better TV to see all the pixels in a 4K file. A 1080p TV won't work for that.
Lachlan I've got a question for you. Now that you work for minidisc the manufacturers would like for you to promote 24 bit audio since they want to sell their product for this percibo resolution. So do you inform your customers about that while they're buying a high res player or headphone /earphone?
Pretty much. Any time I've noticed differences in file types I think it's actually come down to my DAC handling said files with different filters and such. For instance, I've found that most tracks in my collection actually sound worse -- taking on a plasticy timbre, when upsampled to DSD on my Auralic Vega. Upsampling to 24/192 actually sounds a bit better than the base file, but again, that has nothing to do with the file itself so much as how my DAC's designed. A DAC with the same quality of hardware only made to do 16-bit music would be just as good, if not better.
The 16 bit is exactly the lower resolution than 24 bit. If somebody somewhere thinks, that “lower resolution” means the waveform looks like step-stairs, when it actually doesn't… well, that doesn't change anything. The problem is 16 bits are not enough resolution to reproduce low level signal accurately. So the noise floor may be quite low, but those sounds of lower levels of your “dynamic range” will not be true to the original analogue sounds.
And no human can really tell the difference. I work with 24 bit when mixing/mastering only but the final output file will be 16bit. No point otherwise.
Groovistico Alex What you are saying is simply not true and not how bits are being used to encode the original audio signal. Bit depth has NOTHING to do with resolution as you are describing. Inaccuracy in low levels is not a separate issue from the noise, it IS the noise. I urge you to consider the resources that I have provided carefully. Whether at 4 bit or 8 bit or 16 bit, the original analogue sound is present in the output, and you can verify this yourself as I did in the video.
***** I tried to subtract lower bit depth file with inverted phase from higher bit depth file and the result really was only noise. So I have to admit you were right. Sorry.
***** I basically already knew what is said there, but I also red materials that say other things. Different people say different things. But the experiment when I subtract one file from another and see what was different left no doubt. I have already done such test before, but I used CD-grabbed files vs 24bit files, and there was difference in actual sound. So that is a thing to keep in mind: even if there is no difference between 16 and 24 bits as such, 24 bit releases may still sound different from CDs))))
Actually, as more and more people convinced that 24bit or 32bit is something they should buy will increase the sold volume of such equipment making price lower for us who are relying such technologies in music production. :)
Please correct me if I'm wrong here but don't most mic preamps and such audio equipment that is used to record audio have noise floors that are above 16 bit quantization noise anyway (especially if dithering is used)... which means 16 bit depth is a non issue in audio reporduction as far as dynamic range goes at least until the recording equipment improves.
No not the case. Conversion in the high end-not super high end category is -118dB this is about the 22nd bit level. Higher end preamps have a lower noise floor than -96dB. Self noise on a mic might be 18dB SPL equivalent with an overload level of 133dB. Thats 115dB dynamic range.
Guys...just go study audio engineering. There's a few things missing in this video that need to be mentioned and the premise of the video needs restating.
Ahahahah I'm trying to imagine the face of the audiophiles who spend lots of money in music player xD My preferred method to listen to music is with vinyl records, it's far from being the purest representation of sound yet it turns listening to music in an amazing ritual that no music player can come close to.
See THAT'S the kind of answer I can respect for people who say they listen to vinyl! I can totally understand that idea of ritual. Kind of makes me want to get a turntable myself XD
I'm glad that you liked my point of view! Music is an art not a science! Great job Lachlan, this is why your the only channel I always watch and push the like button in every video.
Agree completely. It's about the whole package. I'm personally a fan of the now-defunct MiniDisc format. Sure, it's old, there are better-sounding lossy codecs, the discs only hold a bit over an hour's worth in SP mode, but it's about the experience. There's just something _satisfying_ about hearing the little MD player pop open, sliding the disc in with a click, and hearing that _thunk_ as you close the lid. ... damn it, I miss my pink MZ-E520. :(
I have an old Minidisc player. It still works! Such awesome build quality. And I agree what you mean about the satisfying tactility. I still play with it every now and then haha.
Excellent video once again lachlan! Just one caveat though. Theoretically, there can't be sound in space (though astronauts have reported hearing some apparently) do to there not being any medium for sound to travel through like air (particals and such). Other than that, nice! BTW, are you going to do an update to the use story through a new video? BTW, I'm SlimShadyMJ from hi-fi :)
Try listening with headphones... or in an actual recording studio. You definitely hear the difference between 16, 24, and 32-bit. The difference between a 16-bit and 24-bit wav, is the same as the difference between a 24-bit and 32-bit bmp. You don't see the difference at a quick glance, but upon close inspection.. you see things aren't as clear and precise. It's the same for audio. Maybe not for you young kids and that electronic crap you all listen to, but for us old folks, who grew up with vinyl and magnetic tape... yes, we can hear the difference, especially in music like Pink Floyd. I hear it most in the cymbals.. they start to sound tinny at 16-bit. I've just spent 2 months restoring a concert in iZotope RX. The difference between the quality of the sound is night and day. You can literally see the difference in the sonogram... 32-bit is nice and clean, while 16-bit is brighter and all washed out. It's brighter, because it's louder/higher pitched. And it's all washed out... because it's been dithered.... noise has been added. Also... the recording engineers may record at 24-bit, but that's because they don't make 32-bit DATs. The mastering engineer then takes that 24-bit file, and works on it in 32-bit float. He then outputs the "master" at 24-bit/44.1kHz. If 16-bit was all that's needed... then they would save the masters at 16-bit. It's all about resolution. Depth. Clarity. Authenticity.
Any money you could get a 3rd party to do an ABX listening test with different bit depth audio and I can assure you that even with a lot of the music you like, you will not be able to tell the difference between the tracks. Don't forget, as you age you significantly lose sense of sound therefore just making it even harder for you to hear those very high range or very low frequency response sounds.
Moeyz69 lol... I went to recording school... I can hear the minutest of differences in audio quality. Dithering adds noise.. it truncates the word length, removing bits of sound, then replaces that with noise to fill in the gaps. There's a reason they keep masters at 24-bit and not 16-bit. Because 24-bit still has all the sound. depth, "life". Go to school... you might learn something. And as for "being old"... lol.... tell that to Bob Katz or Bob Ludwig.. 2 of the best mastering engineers ever born. Both well past their 50's. In fact, most "mastering" engineers are in their 50's. Kids today... lol :P
Moeyz69 Here's a blatant cut 'n paste from an actual record company... WHAT IS A STUDIO MASTER? A Studio Master download is the highest quality music file available anywhere. It allows you the listener to hear a recording exactly the way the original artist and producer intended it to sound, before it was altered to fit on a CD or squashed down to MP3 size.Read on for a bit of the history of the Studio Master and for a more technical insight into what makes it sound so good. So what's the story behind all this? When music entered the digital realm the major driving factor behind new technology was convenience. By taking the analogue sound wave that was once pressed into vinyl, slicing it up, and converting it to 1s and 0s allowed it to fit on a small shiny Compact Disc. These were great because they could be played thousands of times without degrading, they weren’t so susceptible to scratches and fingerprints, were easier to store and were pretty cheap to manufacture. At the time there was a big hoo-ha that they just didn't sound as good, and lacked all the great qualities of vinyl that music lovers and audiophiles had come accustomed to. And they were right, when they hit the market, CDs were actually the lowest quality music format - even 8-track tape was capable of holding much more information than this optical media. The dynamic range - the highs and lows in volume and subtleties of the music - as well as the underlying 'noisiness' of the recordings suffered, but to the average listener this didn't really matter, and they were just so convenient that most people didn't seem to care. In fact for a majority it was probably an improvement on worn out cassette tapes! But there were still those that remained firm that vinyl and the original analogue formats just sounded better. Fast forward ten or fifteen years and welcome the MP3. Suddenly the prospect of having 10,000 songs in your pocket really appealed, and it was even more convenient to be able to buy an album without walking through the rain to the record store - or even better to discover amazing new music through the internet. But this required music to be chopped up in to even fewer 1s and 0s and compressed into even smaller spaces. This is when the music really started to suffer, all that chopping and compressing sacrificed even more dynamic range, squashing the subtleties, and adding noise in the holes where there once was music. So how do we get back to the place where we left vinyl behind - all that great musicality and almost intangible qualities of the rich analogue sound - but still take the best bits of the new digital world? Step up the Studio Master download. Why is Studio Master the best quality? An interesting question to ask when moving music from the analogue to the digital realm is how much of the music we should convert to 1s and 0s? And what happens to all the information in the gaps? Linn have decided that CD quality isn't quite good enough at doing this given recent advances in technology, and doesn't keep enough of the original sound information. Music on CD is encoded at 16-bit (the bit depth) and at 44.1kHz (the sample rate). The sample rate tells us how many times the original signal has been 'sliced up' and the bit depth tells us how much information has been recorded in each slice. It's the bit depth that, for convenience, is largely referred to as the resolution. In reality the higher the resolution and higher the sample rate the fewer things we have to do to get round all the little errors that occur in the music when it is sliced up and converted from real world sound into digital and back again. Hence the higher the resolution, the closer we get to that lovely, rich, dynamic performance by the artist. Studio Master files are encoded at 24-bit or higher, and currently up to 192kHz. This is so close to analogue quality that it is virtually impossible for the human ear to perceive any difference. Therefore we feel this is the best format in which to be offering our music. This is the level that most music is recorded at these days, and that is the resolution that we offer it to you, so it doesn't get any better! www.linnrecords.com/linn-what-is-a-studio-master.aspx Think of it as the difference between regular "old school" 1080p, vs the new school 4K and 5K Retina displays. They both show the same picture, but the Retinas will have a lot more of the original detail. That's what I was trying to get across when comparing bmp's.. a 32-bit bmp has more "pure" colour, sharper edges, and overall purity to it. While a 24-bit bmp has "slightly" degraded/softer colours, and edges can seem a little soft. 16-bit bmp is even worse. It's the same with music. Sure.. you're hearing the instruments and all their notes, but as soon as you reduce bit-depth.. you're removing tiny bits of the sound.. information. Some people may not notice at all... but if you asked a musician, they'd definitely be able to tell. It's like mp3's... people who never grew up with vinyl in the analog world, actually think mp3's are giving them all the sound possible. There's a reason why Slash hates digital and prefers tape... you lose so much depth transferring to digital. And contrary to this video's explanation on dithering... dithering doesn't "add" to the dynamic range... perceived or not.
greenbag Moeyz69 It's obvious that arguing about it in internet comments will get you nowhere. If you wanted to verify to your satisfaction that you can discern a difference Greenbag then try ABXing a 24bit file downsampled to 44.1/16 against the original in Foobar2000 or with this software lacinato.com/cm/software/othersoft/abx . Who knows, you might be one of the few people who can reliably pass such an ABX. Otherwise this discussion will go nowhere.
***** Arguing?? LoL. You asked for discussion... that's what we're doing. :P Try reading from iZotope about dithering.. they make the best in the industry. Even they say you lose some sound. Even they say this myth about dithering adding to the dynamic range is mumbo jumbo... in their terms. Learn about how a sound reacts... Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release. That's the life of a sound. It's most prominent in cymbals, especially between the ride and the crash. the ride... literally "rides" out in the release, while a crash is "crash and gone".. that fast. When you start to get into compression, especially by raising the noise floor, you lose some of that release. Hell.. you basically lose 1/3 of the sound going from 24-bit to 16-bit. And since you raised the noise floor... you also raised the amplitude of the rest of your signals. That's why 16-bit sounds a bit louder than 24-bit... and sure as hell looks brighter in a sonogram. Here's a test for you... get a 24-bit copy of your favourite song, and splice it in the middle, only keeping the 2nd half. Now give it a long fade-in.. say 30 seconds. Now... output your 24-bit file to 16-bit. Open them both up and compare them... your 16 bit file will have less data in the fade-in... guaranteed. Next look at a cymbal crash, and look at it's release.. it looks like a ship's sail. The 16-bit file will have less of that sail. Less of the total sound that was originally recorded. I don't need to click your links... I took this in school.
You guys have to compare a true "Hi-Res" file and the regular 16 bit 44.1 file for yourself. Both being the same song. The device or application you're choosing to play the files back must truly support 24 bit audio playback. Just because the device is playing the file, doesn't mean it's producing 24 bit clarity. If the device isn't equipped with 24 bit audio playback, you're not going to hear the difference. Also, an obvious thing would be is to have good quality speakers/headphones and a good ear which most of you guys should have. My opinion: (When testing songs and quality differences, it is much better to do so on speakers than headphones. When you're listening to songs on speakers, you're giving the music more time to travel to your ears to actually hear the differences verses listening to headphones that are right on your ear). I'm not saying older songs that were never created in "Hi-Res" are truly hi-res. Those songs are pretty much just re-mastered and put into hi-res format. Are you guys actually testing and comparing 24 bit and 16 bit or just going by what everyone else is saying?
You are correct in that high resolution recordings often are high quality remasters. The improved sound quality comes from the re-mastering stage, not the switch to the high resolution format. There was a study in which they took high quality SACD recordings and converted them into 16/44.1 CD quality for comparison in double blind tests. They asked studio engineers, recording students and audiophiles to participate. "The test results for the detectability of the 16/44.1 loop on SACD/DVD-A playback were the same as chance: 49.82%. There were 554 trials and 276 correct answers." In other words, in guessing whether or not a sample was high resolution or CD quality, participants performed no better than if they were flipping a coin. drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf The benefit of a high quality remaster is plain; 'High Resolution' is a marketing buzzword.
Basically you're saying 24 bits is very hard to notice and thats why we shouldn't prefer it? if we're gonna start with that then probably we shouldn't even listen to flac files because it's hard to notice the difference... the whole point of listening music in high quality is to have the best possible experience, what'd be the point on saving disc storage...
This is the perfect timing for Lachlan to comeback and make a video about the truth about lossless 24 bit Apple Music, every youtuber is now making videos of how AMAZING lossless music is and how they can finally hear details in the music that they have never heard before (just like when high res audio was brand new). When in reality it’s just placebo effect.
16 or 24? does it matter? lets find out download 5 song with both 24 and 16 bit then use high quality player and headphone at moderate volume blind fold ur friend and test it conclusion: nope nope nope
Headphones? Please! Even the best headphones are crap. Get yourself a good pair of speakers and do decent acoustic treatment in your listening room instead.
Very good explanation. The only thing I would add is that more than about 80 db(A) prolonged exposure or 95 dB(A) short term exposure will damage your ears. People vary a bit on the exact numbers but in general less than 96 dB. (without the (A), which adjusts for human hearing sensitivity). It basically means that 96 dB is the difference between absolute quiet and the loudest sounds that will not make you go deaf immediately. Rock concerts go up to ~100 dB(A) if you stand right in front of the stage.
see 3:19 -- 16 bit = 65k samples per second. 24 bit = over 65 million samples per second. they talk headroom, dynamic range, and frequency range because these are extremes. pushing extremes ignores the middle, where the true emotion is. they can't explain why a violin at 24bit sounds better than the 16bit version. they can't explain why a moog at 24bit sounds better than the 16bit version. but they can try to confuse us with extreme measurements and different arguments (mastering! loudness! hearing range! nyquist! double blind! oh my!) nonsense. the 16bit days will soon be over (already over in hollywood) and these internet scientists will look even more ridiculous then they do now.
no you don't stop the sarcasm. you're argument runs all over the place but it doesn't talk about actual quality and accuracy of the recording. it doesn't talk about the accuracy and quality of the instrument sounds, of the vocal tone, of the mix. these are things that producers and mixing engineers deal with, and believe me 65 million samples per second is more accurate than 16 thousand samples per second. have you been in a recording studio, even a decent home studio? have you heard 24bit audio, both mastered to 24 and unmastered? much of the "science" of digital sound shows it's huge gaps in practice. don't mean to be a dick, your video was well produced and you did a good job on all that. but your theories about audio are loaded with half-truths as perpetuated by xiph.org. nice production doesn't make BS true.
More IS more when it comes to music audio data. Our ears and memories can process copious amounts of audible data and the scientists are WAY behind reality here. Most of the listening tests you have heard about and build your opinions on dealt with hearing loss/gain, test tone generation, and pushed for finding an acceptable resolution for consumer acceptance, not for highest accuracy. Defending 16bit audio in 2014 is like defending VHS in 2014. Have fun with that. Please re-listen to some well recorded music at mp3, then CD quality, then HD. Each play you will hear layers of crud pulled back, instruments clarify in tone and space, cymbals become analog (metal) again, and as the resolution increases you will hear more breaths, more fret noise, more mic bleed, more string scrapes, more inadvertent clicks from the drummer, and more of the room the track was recorded in (and the reverbs applied in the mix). In mp3? No reverb and decays sound horrible. No room sound or shape at all. It's why hi-hat and cymbal crashes are out of style and brick walled dub step made on a laptop is our mainstream music now. All that makes mp3 sound good and masks many deficiencies. At 16/44? Reverbs come back but they are unfocused. The stereo delays are there but also a bit fuzzy and not in an actual place in the mix. You hear instrument parts more clearly than at mp3 but they have a flatness and coldness to them. The clarity is there but not much more depth than mp3. At 24bit? Reverbs are full, lush, and focused. You hear the room (pre-delays, room shape). Stereo delays are wide and clean, like the artist wanted them. Instruments layer perfectly even when in the same pan location, and that soundstage is as wide as can be. Left is full left. You even start to hear things you've probably never heard before (if you are a consumer) -- keyboard pads, backing vocals, layers of guitar parts, bells, percussion, tympani, that you didn't think were there. Look how I described all of that without numbers or bad science. This is music, not math.
I record 24 bit audio for these videos. No one is denying that better mastering quality is better. Often for a 24 bit release they re-master the entire album. That's a good thing, but it isn't by virtue of the increased bit depth. I urge you to try doing a blind ABX test with your 24 bit audio tracks downsampled to 16 bit and see if you can pass reliably. That is much more credible than continually asserting that you hear a difference.
24 bit is really unnecessary for youtube videos of voice! all of it benefits are lost on basic VO work, you just get huge file sizes. no wonder you make videos against it, i don't think you understand what its good for. well produced music is what benefits from 24bit depth and headroom. even i would use mp3 for youtube videos, probably just record 16/44 then compress it down along with the video codec. you are right that 24bit is borderline "useless" for voice overs on youtube. but music is a totally different ballgame. i do ABX tests all the time, almost every time i bounce files after a session. i then take the various bounces to my various playback systems and take notes. this is basic music production. sometimes it's not fully blind, but listening bias does not explain away everything i hear, almost every time. also, i've had my mastering engineer deliver me the same exact mix at 16/44, 24/48, and 24/96 with generic filenames, which would constitute a blind test.
Ok YT, there are 4K TVs out there but I'm still on the fence. When I got my Onkyo my friends loved to remind me that (at the time), few movies had a 7.1 codec. Now we can buy 4K TVs. How many Blu Ray are 4K. Those of us that love audio more than video have always had to wait. The market responds quickly to visual demands, but is slow to higher audio quality (for 3 reasons). If it were my world all music would be RECORDED to DSD. Then shit out to 24b minimum. The only way RECORDING standards will ever rise to the level of video is through consumer demand. We're the few that are passionate about audio. After all, one must cooperate with audio. Phase, position, and listener/observer tastes are so varied. Not so with video. All one need do is look. Gabba Gabba Hey!
You can never beat audiophools in argument no matter the facts! You can put all the science and proof you want and you will still hit a brick wall. It's much like the same as arguing against a religious fundamentalist.
What proof could you provide if you don't perceive what's beyond the limit of your technology? Do you try hard to describe the subjective only because your frustration and..."science" keeps you stuck at a certain level, or have you been in the past some kind of music genius who lost his musical genius sense? What music do you usualy listen, friend?
Now i'm really curious what eqiupment do you have. Does it unclog your fucking perception? Sound is subjective, sheep. Educate yourself and read my gibberish again. How stupid was i to think that you would get such metaphors...
Oh yeah, stupid people always make me mad. But that doesn't matter. Let's go back to the subject and see if you understand the message. (i highly doubt it)
1. first of all, really nice video, nice animations and everything! good job. 2. to the quantization noise; you are right with all these points you named, like the noise sources from the nature, but only when it comes to play the 24bit audio through speakers in a normal room or? because the high end headphones nowadays insulate up to almost 100% of all surrounding sounds and noise levels. correct me if i made a thinking error there.. 3. a friend of mine has a little record and masterstudio, and i listened to some songs (i think 24bit&192kHz)through headphones and it sounded in general just more 'full' or 'mellow' compared to my CDs with 16bit and 44,1kHz. and i wasnt expecting something more, or my brain didnt trick me, because he didnt say me that the songs are in 'raw' master quality, i thought i get the 'normal' cd quality to listen, and asked him after listening why it sounds a bit different compared to cd tracks. 5. i bought a 24bit & 96kHz track, and the ripped the same track from my cd@ 16bit&44,1kHz i couldnt hear any difference with my 'average price class' headphones from AKG, so maybe its just a question of hardware and equipment?
Great video! So based on your research what would say what would be the most optimal audio file for us? You did say in previous video that 128kbps audio is as good as we can hear. So would you say in order to get more out of are music we should focus what other aspects? Amplification and better audio drivers?
I think for on the go listening 256k AAC or 320k MP3 is all you really need, and that's probably being better safe than sorry. Focus on getting equipment with a low output impedance and low noise, but don't spend too much!
***** I hear a difference between FLAC & Mp3 at 320kbps. Is it huge? Most certainly not, but is it worth it if you have the hard drive space? I think so. Every little helps. The idea of using a dedicated high quality DAC & amplifier on its own is not crucial, and neither is lossless files or perfectly matched impedance, but all together it does impact the enjoyment of listening to music as a form of expression & dedication to your passion.
I used to think I could hear a difference. After doing ABX tests I now objectively know that I can't, so I'm not fussed. I keep lossless on my computer because, as you say, HDD space is cheap. It's not so cheap on the go though!
***** I'm in the same boat. My Cowon portable player gets mp3 320 while I'm currently converting my PC files to FLAC. Again, it's not night and day, but together with good headphones, a good DAC and amp, etc. etc. all adds up in the end. What I'm trying to say is: It's not one thing, it's an accumulation.
***** Indeed. I'm not even sure I can reliably tell the difference between lossless and 128kbps most of the time. I used to be able to when my ears were younger and mp3 encoders sucked (AudioCatalyst was crap, but boy was it fast), but LAME is pretty awesome. I can just barely tell the difference with CERTAIN things (like Fatboy Slim's Kalifornia). I usually go with 192-256kbps CVBR AAC for on the go and 256kbps AAC or FLAC (to which I've ripped all my CDs) at home. I certainly have few qualms about buying things on iTunes, unless I know the mastering sucks. (I usually check the Dynamic Range Database and the Steve Hoffman Forums, though I take the latter with a grain of salt.)
Thank you, this was very helpful. I have purchased my second audio recording device for field recording purpose, a light weight one for convenience, and it does not record at bit depth higher than 16bit. I wanted to understand what it actually means and whether i am sacrificing on potential audio quality. I have now synced the bit rate on my older Zoom rexorder to 16bit too, where previously i have sometimes used 24bits. I would rather not need to do that. Thanks again
Hi Lachlan. Love your videos! I got a question: For all these pro DJ equipments on the market right now (such as the Pioneer DJM 900 Nexus mixer) that includes a built-in 24bit/96kHz soundcard... are you saying that it's all a gimmick as well? I always thought having clearer audio file (like .wav) played in music festivals / DJ gigs with these high performance soundcard is better for the sound experience overall.... I'm a bit confused now. lol!
No having a 24 bit 96khz mixer for production is important because it gives you more headroom when manipulating files. But if you are mastering a file for music listening it's pointless.
Again, it's not as simple as that. If you mix say 10 effects together (say as a DJ) and they were all 16 bit, the noise might add up to something audible. By keeping everything in 24 bit you can manipulate files without worrying too much about quantization noise adding up. At the same time though, if you were to listen to the output in a club where everything is being played at 115 dB and people are yelling and talking, I don't know if it would be audible. You'd have to ask a pro really. If you are asking whether it is better to be safe than sorry then yes, for a professional DJ doing live mixing of course 24 bit is better.
I understood the bit depth by this, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth It is for picture quality, but explains well about bit depth by just pictures. I observed a cricket match on SD channel have more noise, numbers blurred. The same match I saw on HD, each detail is clear, we can see shine on the sports equipments and mainly the resolution is perfect. There's space for everything in that large picture. All icons, scores are well arranged. That time I felt, that the cricket match is been shot at the highest quality but we don't receive the quality on an SD channel. HD channel is like giving the exact picture, exact quality at which they shot. Just like that I felt the high resolution audio is like receiving the audio directly from a studio.
Hello lachlan I own a pair of beyerdynamic dt770 pro 250 ohm headphones and use them with my tablet and fiio e18. So do you think buying a 350$ dollar audio player (fiio x5) is worth it considering I use 320 kbps music files in 16 bit to 24 bit audio? I am looking for more power and audio quality that my tablet cannot supply (Toshiba excite pure) so I need to get the best out of my music. Can you give me recommendations?
I think the problem is in the instruments that you are listening to. Try comparing a violin at 24 bit with 16 and yes you will hear a difference (someone like Oistrakh); a piano has a decaying sound (one you push down on the key, the sound gets lost), the violin can produce a continuous wave.
Great video! Math is incredible! I suppose you can mathematical proof or predict that due to a low bit rate noise will appear. ( with low I mean less than let's say 12 bit. ) Bit I've got questions regarding that bit and quantization stuff... I (almost) cannot imagine that there's no need of high resolution audio ... but actually it's because of the "low" sampling rate of 44.1 kHz Due to Shanon you might need 2.54 times the highest listening frequency. But DA converter makes it possible to use even less sampling frqu. Right?
Shanon only requires >2x. CD audio has 2 kHz of headroom because there are no perfect "brick wall" anti-aliasing filters, and adds 0.1 to the sampling to be >2x. That's how they ended up with 44.1 kHz sampling. For playback there is no need for a higher sampling rate. The waveform reconstructed from the samples will be the same regardless of phase (timing of the wave relative to the DAC clock).
So let me get this straight the original recording is re-recorded at 16 bit which gives no audible noise, then that same recording is re-recorded at 24 bit and now we have lots of noise? where did it come from.
I would still rather listen to 24 bit. It better represents what is possible and is therefore more accurate. The dithering is algorithmic smoothing. It’s not the same as the original sound and therefore just a band aid. True audiophile equipment has a super low noise. If you have this equipment or super high performance headphones with the right amp/dac you will come closer to hearing what what mixed in the studio. Most people won’t hear a difference because most people don’t have the right equipment or even know what to listen for. Most people will chose a “clearer” sounding speaker over an accurate speaker. They go to the stimulating factor and assume it’s better. If ears were eyes they would be watching very bright TVs. But our eyes are more attuned to color and therefore people will choose a tv with better contrast and higher color gamut. Wait. I’m looking for your other video. “Don’t waste you’re money on a 4K tv”. When is that going to be posted? You are wrong to say no one should waste their more and time on anything better than a cd quality. Most. Not all. You should start your video saying most people can’t tell and don’t have the proper way of even listening back, but some people do and that’s were you’re wrong. Sometimes it because of the flaws in equipment and listen area etc that getting higher quality source material makes sense. You’re reading is like saying, “cars have such high background noise that you would go deaf with a stereo loud enough to cover all the noise, therefore you should only use a basic little Bluetooth speaker. You’re just jealous because you can’t hear the difference.
Hey Lachlan, you should do a video on the loudness wars and what you personally think of them. Your graph at 9:40 explains this concept, but many people would probably like to know more.
It just peaked my interest because Soundgarden just re-released their 20th anniversary of Superunknown and it has been turned up to the limit. Even the Foo Fighter's wasting light was affected even though the original tapes were analog, but the CD release was turned up and compressed. Those are just a few examples that come to mind.
A question to anyone who can help. my entire music collection is verified 320k mp3s. i want to have my portable player's library at 192k mp3s to have space for a lot and still have decent quality. will a 192k mp3 which is down encoded from a higher bitrate mp3, be of the same quality as one down encoded from a lossless format or one directly encoded to 192k from cd (in perception at least, i assume it would have less actual data). i'm mainly concerned about the artefact of "drowning of percussion" in low quality mp3s. flac is just overkill for me, so can i down convert my 320s with a peace of mind or just use them as is?
Really, you did your homework! Thumbs up. You explained it 100% correct and still easy to understand. Even the 120dB-dithering-thing is included in your explaination :-D. Most of hifi enthusiasts only see the mathematical 96dB that can 16bit provide without dithering. I never saw a reason to buy one of those "high-res" audio files :-DD. To me, these are actually mixes where the final mastering step is missing yet. If I get one of those ready-to-listen audio files higher than 48kHz/16bits I curse loudly and do the missing mastering by myself. Listening to high-res files at not-so-highres devices can lead to the opposite: poor audio quality due to poor downsampling. I hate those people who come and say "hey, I bought xyz as 192/24 and it sounds so much clear and awesome"... Especially if these are faked from 44.1/16 xDDD, which you can only spot if you look at a spectral analysis of the audio.
I am here to stay.. Thanks for sharing this knowledge. It's so far in the future now but really had to refer to this to get my had over this never ending debates about 16 vs 24 bit. Learnt so much. Thanks!
I observed we can't find the difference between lower bit rate audio and higher bit rate audio especially in mobile. I convert audio files in Nero encode to 96 kbps, it removes noise and audio is fine for mobile. Less size and high quality.
I wonder though if there isn't some use for 24-bit FLAC and ALAC when using Bluetooth headphones, especially those with aptx or LDAC. Would it help the audio fidelity when transcoding? I've been wondering what happens when devices transcode lossy for Bluetooth, because I've heard some pretty awful examples.
Someone in the comments mentioned something about "losing the tail end in your release", this is what I noticed too, when listening in 16 bit, from 24 bit. The reverb tails at the end are a bit more pronounced in 24 bit. It is a very small difference, but I can hear it, and I been making music for over 20 years, so I have a very good ear to what I'm listening too. Is the difference so huge that it's the end of the world if you don't use 24 bit, no, but there is a tiny slight difference in the release of the reverb and delay tails of the sounds that you are using in 24 bit. It's nothing to have a heart attack over though. 16 bit will do, but I would rather use 24 bit just incase I have to slow the audio file down to extreme measures for some reason while making music...SBN RESONATE
Great technical yet accessible review! Almost all consumer technology companies simplify/misinform customers to drive a market. But in the end, the customer decides which product he/she wants. So thanks for informing us! :)
I disagree. I discovered the difference between recording music at 16 bit and 24 bit by accident. Early on in my digital studio I could only go as high as 16 bit. However when I upgraded to a program that defaulted to 24 bit I wondered why the music sounded better in spite of all the hardware having remained the same. I didn't realize that I was even recording in 24 bit until I tried to burn these new 24 bit tracks to CD and an error code came up. I was only after back tracking to why the new recordings were not CD wave burnable that I understood why the new recordings sounded better and why they needed to be in lower bit depth to burn to CD wave. 16 bit is a kind of bare minimum and one that has been largely supplanted by 24 bit.
I love the sound of recording at 24 bit much better than 16 bit too. It just sounds much more natural and liquid especially on my cymbals. So with this in mind I'm still confused why anybody with a decent set of ears and the proper equipment would ever prefer 16 bit over 24 bit. I can clearly hear the difference on my own recordings so it would stand to reason that if minimal mixing and mastering are being done to the music then 24 bit should sound better than 16 bit. I tend to record with everyone in one room though so I'm not doing much mixing or manipulation of the sound afterwards though.
+Çerastes OK. Thanks. I guess all the decades of practicing & performing professionally I really never really learned how to recognize the sound of my own instrument. Unfortunately it sounds like you've never recorded yourself in performance. It's just not possible to capture all the subtleties and extremes of my drumming as much using 16 bit vs 24 bit. There's more headroom using 24 bit and I'm able to run my preamps more open (not pushing into the red) when recording 24 bit which results in a richer more true sound. That's a fact in my recording & playback setup.
+Alvester Garnett : In recording, 24 bit can give your more headroom, sure. However note, that Audio recording and audio playback are two difference things. Using 24 bit when recording is not uncommon, in fact, professionals use 24 bit samples in recording and production all the time for headroom, noise floor, and convenience reasons. The primary reason to use 24 bits when recording is to prevent mistakes; rather than being careful to center 16 bit recording ... risking clipping if you guess too high and adding noise if you guess too low ... 24 bits allows an operator to set an approximate level and not worry too much about it. Missing the optimal gain setting by a few bits has no consequences, and effects that dynamically compress the recorded range have a deep floor to work with. Once the music is ready, there's no reason to keep more than 16 bits. 24 bit doesn't add anything to the final product / mix. Increasing the bit depth of the audio representation from 16 to 24 bits does not increase the perceptible resolution or 'fineness' of the audio. It only increases the dynamic range, the range between the softest possible and the loudest possible sound, by lowering the noise floor. However, a 16-bit noise floor is already below what we can hear. Also, if your recorded drumming has less than 120db of dynamic range (the limit for 16 bit audio) then it makes no difference if the bit depth is increased from 16 bit to 24 bit - the dynamic range will remain unchanged.
I will not contradict you, but one the same time, bits and compression are not sound quality, but the space for the audio files. I have heard better quality in 24 bit one 16 bit and i've heard better sound in 16 bit. I's not as easy as increasing the number of bits for better sound quality, but it's about how good quality it's on the device, like DAC, CD players etc, like how little discoloration and free of jitter, and that is where the hard work lies. If you can hear any difference, i will not comment, but if you actually do, you can still experience the sound in 24 bit as more positive than in 16, then it will still be positive for the sound experience.
Basically in a nutshell: Bit Depth is like the color depth of an image. You can have a image, 256px X 256px low, in detail, but with a high range of colors (65,000 different colors instead of just 256), and people are mistaking the bit depth for the resolution of the image.
8 лет назад
Nice example. When you have color gradient in the image you can see the diference betwen 256 colors and 65k colors. So why is it diferent in the music? It isnt. More bits = more quality.
Bit depth is more like contrast in visual terms, not colour depth. It's dynamic range. Bare in mind most recorded and mastered music will be unlikely to even have 24db of dynamic range. Modern pop/rock will come in at a DR less than 12db sometimes considerably less.
Thanks for making this video! I'll be doing some more maths on this (just to get a better understanding/feel for it). But really, it's informative, and practical; not you everyday RU-vid video. I can't thank you enough for helping me understand bit depth so well. There's a difference between knowing something and actually seeing something. I knew what bit depth was, but you showed me what bit depth was all about. Merci!
Just a general comment on HiFi: Higher bit rates and sample/mix rates are better. Humans hearing is not digital stereo. Simplifying human hearing to be the same as digital sampling rates and frequencies(With a fixed time base) completely ignores the nature of hearing: Human hearing is biologically a massively parallel asynchronous sampling system that feeds a conscious mind that has psychological responses as well as basic biochemical responses. So feeding it as much data as possible is Ideal; The MIXING rate is exactly as it sounds; the bandwidth room for all the soundscape to be produced. SO 192khz does not mean a sound with a frequency of 192kz will be heard, but a lot more lower frequency sounds can be produced with a wider timebase. Human hearing does not sync up and operate at the output rate of a fixed rate device, it samples in a scatter pattern in the time base, so not 20000 times per second; millions of conversions from a 3d microphone(ear) with thousands of pickup points(Hairs/Bones/Nerves) all operating asynchronously and in parallel. Sound waves can interact physically in the air to produce more detail through a higher mixing rate on the output; more signals per given time. Thus you have more detail that our parallel hearing can process. Again: NOT to produce higher frequencies than we can hear, but more DETAIL in the soundscape and soundstage. *Sound can also be perceived through pressure and vibration; FELT more than heard. Most obvious is SUB-BASS but higher frequencies can also be felt. More detail from a higher mixing rate can allow for the soundstage and soundscape to fill out. If you have any doubt, check your sound settings and if you can set it to 24bit(or the highest you have) then only change the mixing rate: Start at 22,050 per channel: Stereo: From 44.1khz up to 192khz+ (Highest you can find). Listen for the fidelity rather than frequency response. Listen for both MORE DETAIL and also LESS ARTIFACTS. I always notice with CD audio there is a "tinkle" digital rattle to it. Whereas with 96kz+ the sound is smoother; no matter the source resolution. Sorry for the text, some graphics would be much better, but think about it a bit like megapixels and frame rates on cameras. At a baseline (Ignoring device quality), the more of both that you have the more DETAIL you can capture. **OH NO** (Not going to get into "Humans can only see 30fps and Retina quality." -- Total nonsense for similar reasons, human vision is not a fixed framerate camera with a fps built in. Summary: FIDELITY comes from DETAIL and a higher MIXING/SAMPLING rate allows for a BROADER soundscape and soundstage no matter where you limit the BANDWIDTH(Human hearing range 0-26khz). So 192khz is not to make 192kz sounds but rather produce a more detailed soundscape and soundstage that our parallel and asynchronous hearing can enjoy. Regards Ent
Basically in a nutshell, 24 bit is only really necessary when recording tracks because it allows greater versatility when mixing. Listening to the completed mix afterwards in 24 bit is pointless, so downscale it to 16 bit safely to save hard drive space. :)
I can understand and I appreciate the work you have done to explain this. In India, let the high resolution become very common, as most people use cheap or just large speakers. They feel large or loud size means better quality. And it has too much noise, but like it, especially the bass. If 24 bit becomes common in India, we can get rid of noise at least.
Just to add to my comments, this video does a very good example of showing why you don't need 24-bit audio in a playback enjoying audio situation. 16 bit 44.1 is perfectly capable of giving you an orgasmic listening experience with anything that is properly stored in that format. In my previous comments the definite dynamic range difference in 16 bit and 24 bit may not be necessary unless you were listening to symphonic music or movie soundtracks where there are tiny sounds and huge sounds and you need to experience all of that. Besides for the last 20 years or more most popular music has been so compressed dynamically, known as the loudness Wars, that this dynamic range doesn't serve any purpose. Yes the Pono thing is a complete boondoggle!
I know that most 24 bit playback devices also play wav and flac files .What are your thoughts on these lossless files? .Ive been considering getting a lossless playback device for quite sometime .If I fork out the money for a pair of decent headphones shouldn't I be trying to get a losssless device to get the most out of them ?
hi i have the samsung galaxy note 4 edge as source of my music (the snapdragon version with wm5110E, and not the korean version with the Exynos and the Wolfson DAC) I'm still waiting for the item i purchased (the headphone sony mdr 1 ABT) what i'll use it with cable. plz, my questions is: -do i need to change my choice of sony mdr 1A BT? (where i live, there are no stores where i can listen to different headphones and compare them :s) -if i buy the fiio E18, Does it make a listening difference? is there a better comp to advise me? thanks a lot for your help
+Valet2 not all android phones...... the galaxy edge is able to output 24/96-192, and with OTG to an amp, it work as a hi res DAC till 32/384. now i have the headphones, but samsung smartphones are just a popular piece of junk, i had always a sony smartphones, this galaxy edge is my 1st samsung experience, and will be the last...i'm waiting for the xperia Z5 premium, it have a real hi res walkman on it, with the new sony codec for wireless hi res audio
The sound in the CD player was considered flat and tight until the mid-nineties. It was when oversampling began, trying to find out why people preferred analog audio. Yes, music people did it
If you had really high dynamic range music you might be able to benefit from the first 20 bits of audio. The bigger problem is lack of music mastered in high dynamic range to begin with. These recordings also are often 192khz which is supposed to give better response timing which could increase fidelity, though no additional pitch range / octaves can be heard because those are above human hearing.
A lot of this does make sense. Another important aspect of this is how the recording is made as opposed to how it's processed. Ever noticed what kind of music is played in these 24-bit recordings? They're almost always acoustic using as few instruments as possible - jazz, female vocals, etc., with a few classical orchestras/ensembles thrown in for good measure. Why? Because these ensembles can best create the greatest differences in dynamic range. Listen to how the end of the 3rd movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony builds up into the beginning of the 4th movement. You're straining to hear the quiet rumblings only to reach for the volume when the huge orchestral explosion occurs! They are also recorded using expensive, high quality audio equipment (not counting anything digital) in venues and studios that can capture the music in the best possible manner. With this in mind, you can capture pristine audio in all its glorious range and colors without the need for any extraneous digital processing. The only question now is why these 24-bit recordings sound better (clearer, more accurate, etc) most of the time. Is it because of the lower noise floor or is it doing something to the timbre of the instruments? Are there certain room acoustics that are enhanced by noise floor reductions which help bring out the true quality of the instruments in that room? So many questions.
It's also possible that whenever a 24bit version is released, they pay more attention to the mastering given the target market. If you were to convert the 'better' 24 bit version to 16 bit, it would be unlikely that you could pick out the difference in a blind test.
Çerastes It depends on what type of Hi Res we're talking about. If your referring to digital recordings using ProTools/DAWs then I agree with you. If you're talking about Hi Res sourced from analog tape, then no you're wrong.
I've been trying to record a voice over using a headset mic (I know "headset mics are horrible" but its not that bad). However, I'm getting some quantization noise? (low phssshhh) when the mic is on but I'm not speaking, it's not loud but noticeable during pauses/silence. My current sound settings are set to 16 bit, 48kHz in the sound/microphone properties, would changing it to 24 bit get rid of the noise in the recording? I'm a noob to audio stuff, just trying to figure this out.
@MF Nickster I did some more testing and after removing some background noise, it sounds like a low buzz. In the Realtek audio interface, I have the gain set at 100 +10dB boost, and the mic format is 48kHz sample rate and 16 bit depth (changing to 24 bits made no difference in the recording). The only time the buzz goes away is if I turn down the gain/boost, but then the recording volume is too low. If I add a volume filter to make it louder in the video editor, the buzz comes back.
