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Topic: Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations (Read 58464 times) previous topic - next topic
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Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #50 –
Quote from: _m²_ on
I don't get it. How should the waveform look after reconstruction filter?

Try this example (with slightly less arduous filter steepness):

sox -r 2k -n 1.wav synth 5 sine 996
sox 1.wav 2.wav rate -b 99.7 48k

then look at the 2 waveforms in audacity: beating in the first, smooth sine in the 2nd.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #51 –
Quote from: bandpass on
Because audio reproduction at 44.1/16 is sufficient. The public has an appetite for higher definition (e.g. TV) but if they can't perceive a difference, they don't buy it: 30+ years on and, despite trying (e.g. with formats such as DVD-A), no-one has been able to convince that 44.1/16 is lacking in any way.


I understand your argument if we are talking 'bout D/A conversion (because of human hearing isn't sensitive enough and equipment (speakers) for to reproduce audio aren't lossless) but, wasn't it A/D conversion in question here as well ... where might be some post-processing involved? Wouldn't it still be best to use as good accuracy as possible in recording/post-processing tasks?

Juha

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #52 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Because it shows the sample points joined by straight lines, saying "When the DAC recreates the wave from these numbers, you get the blue line shown in the following figure:"

There's not a DAC in the world that joins the sample points with straight lines like that.

Cheers,
David.



Hmm... 'bad' graphical illustration is enough reason ... ?

Juha

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #53 –
Quote from: Juha on
Quote from: bandpass on
Because audio reproduction at 44.1/16 is sufficient. The public has an appetite for higher definition (e.g. TV) but if they can't perceive a difference, they don't buy it: 30+ years on and, despite trying (e.g. with formats such as DVD-A), no-one has been able to convince that 44.1/16 is lacking in any way.


I understand your argument if we are talking 'bout D/A conversion (because of human hearing isn't sensitive enough and equipment (speakers) for to reproduce audio aren't lossless) but, wasn't it A/D conversion in question here as well ... where might be some post-processing involved? Wouldn't it still be best to use as good accuracy as possible in recording/post-processing tasks?

Juha

24-bit is good for post-processing (to reduce the effect of accumulated truncation error) but a typical DAW will process at >= 24 bit automatically, regardless of the input bit-depth.  Recording at >48kHz usually just fills your disk with useless information.  Exceptions include recording bats etc. e.g. for spectrograms or for slowing down into the audible range.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #54 –
Quote from: Juha on
Hmm... 'bad' graphical illustration is enough reason ... ?
You asked why the article was nonsense. The article says we need higher sample rates because lower sample rates don't give a good-enough representation of the original data back, and proves this by showing the data you do get back. Except what's shown is not what you get back at all!

What you get back (with CD, for example) contains all the frequencies that you can hear, reproduced faithfully. Any different in shape between the original waveform and what comes out of the CD player is due to changes above the range of human hearing.

This has all been discussed here before.

I'll even post the link to the FAQ...
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....7516#entry74075


Here's a much simpler argument: it's virtually impossible to ABX.

Not entirely impossible, because if you use faulty equipment (i.e. equipment that adds its own distortion) then ultrasonics can cause an effect within the audible range.

Cheers,
David.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #55 –
Quote from: Axon on
Don't get me wrong -- I really don't think 16-bit dither would ever likely be audible in this context -- but I really do think that's a closer call than some might imagine.


Good enough!
"I hear it when I see it."
 

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #56 –
Quote from: Juha on
IIRC, I read long ago on some site that using high samplerate (192kHz) in recording improves the AD conversion quality at higher frequencies (inside Nyqvist range) because of there are more samples to present the analog data as digital then (i.e. how many samples represents lets say 12kHz tone if I have understood it correctly).

Juha


What you gain by having more samples representing a 12 kHz tone is the ability to reproduce it's harmonics (24 kHz and up) if it's distorted.  If 20 (or 22) kHz is the limit of what you're trying to reproduce, then the extra samples are unnecessary.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #57 –
Quote from: xnor on
Good enough!

Not for me.

We need to be discussing SNR, not dynamic range.  What is the "spot noise" of 16-bit LPCM?

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #58 –
Quote from: pdq on
It's very simple, really.

If the analog signal contains NO content above Nyquist, then it can be reproduced EXACTLY by sampling at 2x and then converting back to analog. End of story!

I'm sorry that I oversimplified (a lot), but I get really frustrated at seeing the same misconceptions stated over and over again.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #59 –
Quote from: Juha on
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Because it shows the sample points joined by straight lines, saying "When the DAC recreates the wave from these numbers, you get the blue line shown in the following figure:"

There's not a DAC in the world that joins the sample points with straight lines like that.

Cheers,
David.



Hmm... 'bad' graphical illustration is enough reason ... ?



The reason is that its complete nonsense.  The author made up some bullshit, put it on the internet, and got ad revenue because people linked it.  Is that more clear?

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #60 –
Quote from: saratoga on
The reason is that its complete nonsense. The author made up some bullshit, put it on the internet, and got ad revenue because people linked it. Is that more clear?


? Now, that reply should need some reasoning.

Juha

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #61 –
Quote from: navalverde on
Man so many people came out of the wood work over this, so many different opinions.  I think I am going to have to just experiment and try everything


That would be a remarkably ineffecient thing to do.

Do the transfer at 24 bits for sure -- you lose nothing, and you gain peace of mind.  Your editing/declicking software is going to do everything in high-bit domains anyway (I hope).

Use a 88.2 or 96 kHz sample rate if you have a nagging feeling that 44.1 is merely adequate and again want peace of mind.  As Dan Lavry (who builds pro ADCs for a living)  has written,
"In fact all the objections regarding audio sampling at 44.1KHz, (including the arguments relating to pre-ringing of an FIR filter) are long gone by increasing sampling to about 60KHz."

Sampling a vinyl record at 192kHz is utter absurdity.

So do your transfer at 88.2/24bit.  Your files will be bigger than the really need to be, but not idiotically  so.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #62 –
Quote from: krabapple on
Do the transfer at 24 bits for sure -- you lose nothing, and you gain peace of mind.  Your editing/declicking software is going to do everything in high-bit domains anyway (I hope).

Absolutely, but he should also know that once it all the editing is finished and the data is normalized, converting to 16-bit isn't going to do any harm.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #64 –
We lately had a similar discussion in another forum and someone linked to that pages that imho do a nice, accurate summary of some numbers regarding LPs.
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/goodresolutions/page2.html

I don´t know it was already linked there, so i hope it is of some use. Don´t forget to read the other pages over there.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #65 –
This is a good read why 16 bit are enough:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....c=61758&hl=

Sometimes I wonder why people consider 16 bit audio has not got sufficient resolution.
Think of that: with 16 bits you've got 2^16 possible amplitude values the audio signal can have that are equal to 65536.
If you want to paint such a signal on a wall and each one step equals 1 millimeter you need a wall that is almost 66 meters high!
Seen that way 16 bit is quite a decent resolution.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #66 –
Quote from: Wombat on
We lately had a similar discussion in another forum and someone linked to that pages that imho do a nice, accurate summary of some numbers regarding LPs.
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/goodresolutions/page2.html

I don´t know it was already linked there, so i hope it is of some use. Don´t forget to read the other pages over there.

Interesting link, thank you.

-k

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #67 –
Quote from: Bugs.Bunny on
Sometimes I wonder why people consider 16 bit audio has not got sufficient resolution.
Think of that: with 16 bits you've got 2^16 possible amplitude values the audio signal can have that are equal to 65536.
If you want to paint such a signal on a wall and each one step equals 1 millimeter you need a wall that is almost 66 meters high!
Seen that way 16 bit is quite a decent resolution.

However, our ears a kind of like zoom lenses. Imagine zooming to wide angle to take in the full 66 meters, then to telephoto to examine 1 mm details. Your camera can't see all 66 meters at 1 mm resolution, just as your ears can't hear a -96 dB detail and 0 dB level sound simultaneously.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #69 –
Quote from: Notat on
24-bit files use 50% more space than 16 bit. With storage at less than 10 cents per gigabyte, that certainly is not a massive concern.


Assuming a constant sampling rate, of course. Perhaps my reply was ambiguous regarding this point, but that assumption was by no means implicit.

WRT storage space, TB drives are indeed fantastically inexpensive. Given finite resources, one might conceivably wish to refrain from purchasing additional HDD space, particularly if one is going to the trouble of digitizing old media that is inherently self-destructive (barring laser turntables) upon playback, rather than buying new (presumably better mastered) versions. I have roughly 6.5TB of storage space in my principal desktop, at 85% usage with no free 3.5" internal mounting points. Many people have MicroATX systems and laptops with zero free HDD slots and limited USB ports.

Likewise, a "massive waste of space" is not the same thing as a "massive concern". If time and space is free, it's not a concern at all.

Quote
I don't think we'll get anywhere trying to determine the inherent resolution of an analog medium. What we do know is that usable resolution of a decent ADC is greater than 16 bits and no more than 24 bits. To ensure no loss of data, 24-bit is a reasonable choice.


Really? I must be misunderstanding something. It seems like you're suggesting that if we ignore the actual source being captured, then more resolution on the capture side must be advantageous! But we do know the source media and the limitations of the format are well established. Standard vinyl LPs are not Platonic ideals of analog media.
Could one not make the same argument ad infinitum as better ADCs are developed?

That said, there is no loss in recording at 24bit save for the loss of disk space and the loss of immediate portability associated with 24 bit word recordings (or 16 bit at >48khz), which cannot be played back by most embedded electronics. Manipulation of larger files requires more power; additional HDDs pull additional power. Editing/denoise/declicking larger files will require more time to open/process & save such files - this could be compounded into a real issue with three hundred hours of material and an Atom system with a 4200rpm laptop drive. It's no issue at all with an i7 running fast solid state storage and three hours of material.

Minor losses to be sure, the degree of which varies depending on available resources. They are still losses unless the source file is destroyed post processing. I'm just unclear as to what benefit you're positing. Incidental losses associated with file size bloat versus what gain?

In the case where the number of records to be digitized is quite limited (many vinyl collectors own hundreds, if not thousands of platters - hence massive waste of space), and the soundcard ADC is flawed in some way at 16 bit, clearly 24 bit is the way to go. That case is not remotely universal, suggesting that exceeding 48khz sampling for this purpose is paranoia, while exceeding 16 bit word length is compounded paranoia.

edited for brevity

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #70 –
Quote from: pdq on
However, our ears a kind of like zoom lenses. Imagine zooming to wide angle to take in the full 66 meters, then to telephoto to examine 1 mm details. Your camera can't see all 66 meters at 1 mm resolution, just as your ears can't hear a -96 dB detail and 0 dB level sound simultaneously.

If you are using the amplifier volume knob to "zoom" then you can zoom in a lot if the material contains long enough quiet enough passages. By most, this is considered "cheating" or an irrelevant reason to demand better audio specs.

If you are talking about the perceptual system, we have non-linear normalization for sight as well as sound (try driving into a tunnel at a bright sunny day to see how the adaptation to brightness works). But one could just as well see this as a limitation in instantaneous sensing precision, I believe.

-k

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #71 –
In the case of vision there are dynamic range limitations in both resolution and intensity. Dynamic range of intensity is quite large due to features such as changing pupil size. Dynamic range of resolution is much more limited.

I was specifically referring to how our ears are able to, unaided, adapt to a wide range of sound level. Use of the volume control knob is something else entirely.

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #72 –
Quote from: pdq on
I was specifically referring to how our ears are able to, unaided, adapt to a wide range of sound level.

I do believe that 16 bits is usually enough to cover this range if used properly.

-k

Ripping Vinyl 192khz 24bit Considerations

Reply #74 –
Here's a little experiment to see what's going on:

I took a high fidelity recording of a percussion duet, recorded in 24 bit / 96 kHz. The track has a high dynamic range, the new ReplayGain scanner reports a track gain of +4.7 dB (for comparison: lots of my loudness war metal tracks have a gain of -11 dB!).

Here's the waveform of the chunk I've analyzed:
[a href="http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/4895/drum24vs16wl.png" target="_blank"] the level of the midrange would blow your ears). In this scenario the 16-bit noise would be around 40 dB SPL (about the same level as residential ambient noise!).


Same can be done with different sample rates, but above 20 kHz the level is already very low and drops very fast from there. I tried to listen to the content from 22.05 to 48 kHz but - as expected - couldn't really hear anything.
"I hear it when I see it."