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Topic: Neil Young’s new audio format (Read 130308 times) previous topic - next topic
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Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #25
[…]
Very odd they make the claim that what any of them are doing can in any way be construed as revolutionary. Apparently Neil Young hasn't heard of HDTracks, as just one example.
The latter of whom make some contentious claims of their own…

T-Bone Burnett is another one always willing to slam sound quality nowadays, but he also made the genius suggestion that if you're an artist today, you should stay off the Internet, because everybody is on it and you won't stand out
This is great logic!

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #26
Quote
presenting the highest digital resolution possible
That's a nice moving target to aim for!


I see it as an indefinite number, a conceptual amount that is only approached.

In fact there are only practical limits to digital resolution. We can make sample lengths and frequencies in the digital domain as large and as frequent as we have the numbers to express them with.  We can approach the highest digital resolution possible by establishing arbitrarily large numbers of arbitrarily large numbers, right?

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #27
Quote
presenting the highest digital resolution possible
That's a nice moving target to aim for!


I see it as an indefinite number, a conceptual amount that is only approached.

In fact there are only practical limits to digital resolution. We can make sample lengths and frequencies in the digital domain as large and as frequent as we have the numbers to express them with.  We can approach the highest digital resolution possible by establishing arbitrarily large numbers of arbitrarily large numbers, right?



I think that the only people to benefit from this new amazing leap in audio quality are the ones that play one particular instrument: The Moronica
Stpuid questions do not exist.

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #28
If you think about it, it only makes sense to move to a better format: The Red Book CD audio standard came out in 1980. The original IBC PC came out in '81 and had a 4.77 MHz 16 bit processor. It's now 2012 and 2 GHz (and greater) and 64 bit is common now. Thus, we should be listening to 64 bit audio sampled at 18.5 MHz.

The only possible answer to this lack of advancement is that the audio hardware companies are lazy and have been milking ancient technologies for every penny they're worth without spending any money at all on R&D.

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #29
If you think about it, it only makes sense to move to a better format: The Red Book CD audio standard came out in 1980. The original IBC PC came out in '81 and had a 4.77 MHz 16 bit processor. It's now 2012 and 2 GHz (and greater) and 64 bit is common now. Thus, we should be listening to 64 bit audio sampled at 18.5 MHz.


Absolutely! Likewise, I think it is a scandal that the mains voltage has been staying at 110 V in the US and 220/230/240 V in Europe since the 19th century! It's now 2012, so surely we should have moved to a couple of kilovolts by now!

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #30
If you think about it, it only makes sense to move to a better format: The Red Book CD audio standard came out in 1980. The original IBC PC came out in '81 and had a 4.77 MHz 16 bit processor. It's now 2012 and 2 GHz (and greater) and 64 bit is common now. Thus, we should be listening to 64 bit audio sampled at 18.5 MHz.



That was a joke, right?


Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #31
I believe this is the audio format Neil Young and Steve Jobs may have been working together on.  If it is, Apple will change Neil's trademarks and any copyright.

Quote
Neil Young has claimed he was working with the late Apple boss Steve Jobs on a follow-up to the iPod. Young said he and Jobs were developing a new device for listening to "high-resolution audio", which would download content "while you're sleeping".
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/01/neil-young-ipod-steve-jobs

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #32
For a forum that prides itself in adhering to the scientific method (ABX tests), this thread has a lot of lame jokes about something nobody apparently understands.

If your position is that Redbook audio is as good as it gets, this kind of reaction may make some sense.  But there are a lot of people who believe otherwise.  That doesn't make it true, but it would be nice if HA members showed a bit more curiosity about the details.

It must be DSD.  There is a lot of DSD activity behind the scenes right now, with a number of manufacturers working on devices that can play it.  There is also some skepticism about whether it's a good idea, but I think that ship has sailed.

Here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Stream_Digital

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #33
There is also some skepticism about whether it's a good idea, but I think that ship has sailed.


I fail to understand how the very real reasons why DSD is not ideal (certainly as a mastering-stage format, or as a final listening format for that matter) have suddenly become irrelevant because of a bit of dusted-off 13 year old marketing for the format, assuming that is what this actually is.
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Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #34
Here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Stream_Digital



I think we all know what DSD is, thanks.
It became of more interest lately because there are finaly ways to extrcat it from SACDs. That gave a push and inspired some labels to sell their stuff once again. Combined with some listening reports about the natural sound of DSD together with some funny pics several audiophiles will adopt it.
I wonder if Neil Young has DSD in mind because 1-bit DSD hasn´t exactly more potential as high resolution PCM.
Since Neil Young sold all his stuff on vinyl, CD, some HDCD then DVD-A and high bitrate PCM at this the only format he left out is indeed DSD.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

 

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #35
For a forum that prides itself in adhering to the scientific method (ABX tests), this thread has a lot of lame jokes about something nobody apparently understands.

If your position is that Redbook audio is as good as it gets, this kind of reaction may make some sense.  But there are a lot of people who believe otherwise.  That doesn't make it true, but it would be nice if HA members showed a bit more curiosity about the details.

It must be DSD.  There is a lot of DSD activity behind the scenes right now, with a number of manufacturers working on devices that can play it.  There is also some skepticism about whether it's a good idea, but I think that ship has sailed.

Here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Stream_Digital

quite ancient but I don't think DSD has changed.

http://sound.westhost.com/cd-sacd-dvda.htm

and this:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/...d-if-so-what-it

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #36
I fail to understand how the very real reasons why DSD is not ideal (certainly as a mastering-stage format, or as a final listening format for that matter) have suddenly become irrelevant ...

I think the problems are real.  I only meant that the market has a mind of its own.  The DSD format has some momentum.

For mastering, what other choices are better?  I know next to nothing about that.

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #37
Well, the quantization noise is a huge problem for DSD already as a straightforward playback format.  Processing 1-bit audio requires addition of even more quantization error, so anything you do in that realm will begin to present audibly injurious results very quickly.  Any mastering done for SACD, therefore, by necessity is done in PCM, usually around 24/(352.8/384), and then reconverted.

Mastering audio in a 64-bit floating point environment (as in, any respectable DAW out there today) presents absolutely no problems with audible quantization (in order to introduce audible quantization, you'd have to process the track trillions upon trillions of times), and is highly compatible with any desirable iteration of native PCM.
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Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #38
Quote
But it does have one attribute that I haven't yet mentioned. It is much, much, much easier to hide anti-piracy code in a DSD datastream than it is in PCM.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/...d-if-so-what-it

The crux of DSD? if that is what NY is using.

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #39
That was a joke, right?


Yep.

Back on topic...

The only change I could see being reasonable for electronic distribution of PCM audio (losslessly compressed or otherwise) would be to switch to a more computer-friendly 48 kHz sampling rate, as maintaining some connection to NTSC or PAL video isn't really important any more.

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #40
There seems to be a lot of talk about this new "analog like" format as well, usually referred as ANUS (analog ultra sound), maybe that was the thing that Neil was talking about?
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
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Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #42
While we're all busy speculating about the possibility of this "sooper-dooper eich-dee" format on its way to us under its shiny new Apple packaging, this seems relevant to the present realm of discussion.

http://positive-feedback.com/Issue60/dsd_usb.htm
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Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #43
That's the group I was thinking of.  It has momentum, for better or worse.

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #44
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/books/07garn.html?_r=1

Quote
This is a story that begins in earnest in the early 1980s, when digital music first arrived in the form of the compact disc. At first, Mr. Knopper suggests, almost everyone was frightened of these small, shiny new toys.

The labels worried about digital piracy and about refitting the factories that made vinyl LPs. Record stores didn’t want to buy new sales racks. Producers worried about the effects on recording sessions, now that every footstep and door click would be audible. A group called MAD (Musicians Against Digital) quickly formed, and artists like Neil Young declared that CDs were soulless.

“The mind has been tricked,” Mr. Young said at the time, sounding a bit like Yoda, “but the heart is sad.”

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #45
Sometimes I think it'd be wonderful to be that crazy. Being afraid of plastic discs seems so much simpler than being afraid of not living up to one's potential and other genuinely meaningful things.

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #46
Well, the quantization noise is a huge problem for DSD already as a straightforward playback format.  Processing 1-bit audio requires addition of even more quantization error, so anything you do in that realm will begin to present audibly injurious results very quickly.  Any mastering done for SACD, therefore, by necessity is done in PCM, usually around 24/(352.8/384), and then reconverted.

Mastering audio in a 64-bit floating point environment (as in, any respectable DAW out there today) presents absolutely no problems with audible quantization (in order to introduce audible quantization, you'd have to process the track trillions upon trillions of times), and is highly compatible with any desirable iteration of native PCM.

The link suggests DSD is the equivalent of 16-bit PCM at 176kHz, so it is not that bad?

Although I always wondered why you would use a 1-bit linear encoding scheme instead of using 1-bit for the rate (dy = dy + b; y = y + dy).

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #47
Sometimes I think it'd be wonderful to be that crazy. Being afraid of plastic discs seems so much simpler than being afraid of not living up to one's potential and other genuinely meaningful things.
Many times, HA needs a "like" button!

Cheers,
David.

Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #48
The link suggests DSD is the equivalent of 16-bit PCM at 176kHz, so it is not that bad?


The data rate is equivalent, but certainly not the way in which the data is represented.  1-bit quantization with noise-shaping galore is still 1-bit quantization, and there are inevitable problems with such a system, such as what I mentioned.
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Neil Young’s new audio format

Reply #49
Actually you didn't really mention the problem... it's that 1-bit cannot be sufficiently dithered, as shown in the classic Lipshitz / Vanderkooy paper. It may be "good enough" for a distribution format or a single conversion, but strictly speaking it's not transparent like properly-dithered multibit PCM.