BTW, this topic made this week's Skeptic's Guide http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/454 They mention (and base the segment) primarily on Monty's now page at xiph.org.

Great, balanced coverage for a non-specialized podcast btw. Specially with the x-ray vision-vs.-golden-ear-hearing analogy.

In your face audiophools!

Edit II: but andy o, I couldn't, for the life of me, hear where exactly they mentioned this very thread!

Quote from: includemeout on 2014-03-22 23:17:44

Great, balanced coverage for a non-specialized podcast btw. Specially with the x-ray vision-vs.-golden-ear-hearing analogy.

In your face audiophools!

Did they mention x-rays?

Quote

Edit II: but andy o, I couldn't, for the life of me, hear where exactly they mentioned this very thread!

I didn't say that, sorry for the confusion. I said the topic of this thread, which is N. Young's player and the attention it's getting.

Although, I thought it might be a good idea to email them resources available on this board, like the Meyer/Moran thread where they actually showed up.

Unfortunately she's wrong about several things, she mixes up sample rate and audio frequency, for example.  - one of the guys tactfully corrected it.

Quote from: andy o on 2014-03-22 18:47:26

BTW, this topic made this week's Skeptic's Guide http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/454 They mention (and base the segment) primarily on Monty's now page at xiph.org.

It would be nice to tell whoever is interested that the real action starts at ~28 minutes into the podcast.

This is a bit of an unfortunate quote:

Quote

"From a scientific point of view, there's no need to go beyond," said Bernhard Grill, leader of Fraunhofer Institute's audio and multimedia division and one of the creators of the MP3 and AAC audio compression formats. "It's always nice to have higher numbers on the box, and 24 bits sounds better than 16 bits. But practically, I think people should much more worry about speakers and room acoustics."

"Monty is wrong. Twenty-four bits does matter -- but for a very small sliver of the music business," said Mark Waldrep, an audio engineer who's founder and chief executive of AIX Records and iTrax.com and who focuses on high-resolution audio -- including efforts of his own to debunk some claims.

"It's always nice to have higher numbers on the box, and 24 bits sounds better than 16 bits.

Quote

"It's always nice to have higher numbers on the box, and 24 bits sounds better than 16 bits.

I'm going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and consider this a comprehension issue.

The number 24 looks better when printed on the box.

I'll keep buying used CD's for $.01 + shipping and die with my archaic optical disc format. 

I was about to ask where you were getting CDs so cheap, but then I noticed you said "used". Still, I have to wonder who's selling their CDs for only a penny plus shipping. Sounds better than bulk rate.

*speculative*

What I think happened, the audiophile vinyl vs CD debate had a lot of people in the vinyl camp, insisting that vinyl as a medium was inherently better. When it became clear that the sounds they actually loved so much was an artifact of the vinyl and not a superiority of analog vs digital, it was hard for them to save face, they had to continue to insist vinyl was superior, moving to digital wasn't something they could do and save face.

High definition audio gives them an opportunity to embrace digital and save face, because they continue to claim that vinyl was better than CD but that high definition captures the "warmth, air, richness" that they have long spouted CD lacks.

This is evidenced by statements such as "I haven't heard music this good since vinyl" (quoted earlier in this thread)

so-called HD audio gives them an opportunity to move to digital while still saving face and continue claiming their claims about vinyl > CD had merit.

HD audio is about feeding/preserving audiophile pride.

Quote from: kode54 on 2014-03-28 01:04:14

I was about to ask where you were getting CDs so cheap, but then I noticed you said "used". Still, I have to wonder who's selling their CDs for only a penny plus shipping. Sounds better than bulk rate.

You can pick them up for that on amazon marketplace

fromt hat CNET article

Quote

"Monty is wrong. Twenty-four bits does matter -- but for a very small sliver of the music business," said Mark Waldrep, an audio engineer who's founder and chief executive of AIX Records and iTrax.com and who focuses on high-resolution audio -- including efforts of his own to debunk some claims.

It's been awhile since I watched xiph's videos,  but doesn't he note somewhere the utility of 24 bits in *recording and production*?

Quote from: krabapple on 2014-03-27 15:24:44

fromt hat CNET article

Quote

"Monty is wrong. Twenty-four bits does matter -- but for a very small sliver of the music business," said Mark Waldrep, an audio engineer who's founder and chief executive of AIX Records and iTrax.com and who focuses on high-resolution audio -- including efforts of his own to debunk some claims.

It's been awhile since I watched xiph's videos,  but doesn't he note somewhere the utility of 24 bits in *recording and production*?

Yeah, I got a bit miffed at that statement because Monty does specifically state 24 bits is useful on the production end.

I do a fair amount of production and I opine that Monty gives the 24-bitters way too much slack.

(...) there have been great recordings done with 16 bits and name some favorites like Brothers in Arms.

Sony Walkman NWZ-F886: Sound quality

It's only when you come to listen to music on the Sony NWZ-F886 that it becomes apparent why someone might buy this rather than simply listening to their smartphone. The sound quality is slightly better than an iPhone 5 in every respect.

Even MP3s are improved by Sony's Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE) HX, with more depth and scale to the soundstage, so your music seems to fill your headphones with an expansive sound. Certainly it is louder, but also clearer and punchier through Sony's ear buds. There's less hiss too thanks to the Digital Noise cancellation.

The Sony NWZ-F886 really comes into its own when you load up some lossless 192KHz/24bit files. You'll need to enter the esoteric and often expensive world of hi-res audio music to find them, but Sony's High Resolution Audio Hub [http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/high-resolution-audio ] will point you in the right direction.

Swapping the unremarkable Sony earbuds for reference-quality Sennheiser HD800 headphones you can really hear the lossless versions of the same songs soar. There's a wider dynamic range that delivers more detail in the treble and more impact and weight to the bass, while vocals and mid-range instruments stand out in a much more realistic way. Be warned, you might find it had to go back to compressed MP3 files after tasting the delights of such audiophile-grade encodes.

I'm hesitant to even look at the comments

I'm hesitant to even look at the comments -- someone please do it for me   


Neil Young's Pono: 192kHz 24-bit music player produces sound quality that is wasted on human hearing. So why pay the extra for it?

Trust me you will hear the difference, I'm a music producer and I can hear a difference between 24 bit and 32 bit float so a jump from 16 bit to 24 bit should make the difference, 192khz May not be bearable but engineers will often use this to hear more and then bounce it down to 16 bit 44.1 khz ...Why would it be there as an option to producers and audio engineers if it did not make a difference Go learn something

Еven the best reproducing audio device is very very far from what we hear naturally.