On 16/07/2015 04:22, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 20:56:38 +0200, John R Leddy wrote:

'Jim Lesurf[_2_ Wrote:
;94195']FWIW I've never felt that going as far as 192k/24 made much
sense for home replay. 96k/24 seems a convenient 'compromise' to me
given the use of decent replay equipment. But YMMV.

It is perhaps worth pointing out to people that if you covert to flac
you will usually find that the resulting 96k/24 file is *not* twice as
big as a 48k/24 flac from the same source.

In general there isn't a lot in the ultrasonic region, and the flac
compression can take advantage of this.

The main difference tends to be that there are more bits devoted to
'noise' in 24bit than 16bit. And flac will faithfully keep those
details.
I can't bring myself to allocate over a gigabyte of storage space to a
single-CD album. 24-bit 96kHz albums seem to average just under a
gigabyte which suits me fine. This aspect, and the fact I was willing to
convert my 24-bit 192kHz files to 24-bit 96kHz, allowed me to change my
first 24-bit 192kHz network audio player for one which has a maximum
24-bit 96kHz playback. Truth be told, until participating in this
thread, I would've quite happily converted my files to 16-bit 48kHz if I
had to and not thought any more about it.

I'd much rather a good quality production and master of a 24-bit 96kHz
album, than a 24-bit 192kHz album of poor quality. Shame someone decided
it was easier to sell numbers than improved quality. I would've
preferred the better quality no matter what numbers were associated with
the file. Maybe that's a giveaway when thinking about the relevant
skills within the industry. To fall back on the public's lack of
knowledge seems a bit defeatist and insecure to me. That said, I guess
we do tend to believe anything we're told and spend our money
accordingly.

Fortunately, I have such appalling taste in music none of this probably
matters a great deal anyway.

I've been following this discussion with a growing dismay as phrases
such as "96k/24 seems a convenient 'compromise' to me" started to rear
their ugly heads.

A guy by the name of Monty Montgomery presented a couple of very
interesting videos that nicely relate to the whole business of digital
audio (and video). The links to those videos can be found on this page:

http://xiph.org/video/

If you haven't already viewed them, I would say they are *well* worth
the time spent in order to learn some basic truths of digital audio
processing.

In episode 2: "Digital Show & Tell" he refers to an article he'd written
entitled, "24/192 music downloads are very silly indeed" where the
feedback he got suggested the need for this "Digital Show & Tell" video.

I'd never read the article before but intrigued, I paused the video so I
could *hand* type "24/192 music downloads are very silly indeed" into the
search box since there was no convenient link offered anywhere. This took
me to:

http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

I read about halfway through to the key facts - I'll read the rest later
on- where he states unequivocally that 16 bit 44.1 CD audio far exceeds
the capabilities of even the most superhuman of hearing abilities. IOW,
once you're dealing with a finalised music performance properly committed
to CD, that's it as far as 'perfection' is concerned.


I'm afraid that just reads like selective and biased, unevidenced and
unreferenced puff and hyperbole to me. Fine if that's the sort of thing
you like to read.

The only way that a 24/96 "Hi Definition" version is going to sound any
better is if the final mixdown processing used to create the CD had been
comprehensively buggered up.

Well, yes, but are you suggesting that regardless of the pre-mix source?
Live, for example?

Sadly, for most popular music and 'digital
re-masterings' of analogue studio recordings and professional multi-track
recordings of live performances, the 'buggering up' is the result of
deliberate vandalism, often in the name of 'winning the loudness wars'.

Once you've watched the videos and/or read the article, you can start
freeing up disk space with a clear conscience. :-)


I don't think you can QED just yet ;-)

The point of interest for me (which I think was the thrust of this part
of the thread?) is: what to do with live and (other) non-digital source
material.


--
Cheers, Rob