Re: CD quality v. 24bit (HD) observation
Reply #20 – 2021-04-13 19:37:26
@m.shaffer ; while I don't know all of the technical details (maybe Wombat does though and there is the whole TOS 8 thing to etc), but for the sake of argument even "if" what you said is somewhat true... I figure when listening to music in general the listener is probably primarily focused on the singers voice, and maybe the core of the basic song to on some level(like the instruments etc that are more obviously in your face), more than every little detail of instruments which seem to mostly take a backseat those things would be the gist of it when just sitting back and enjoying the music (unless there are people do don't do that(?), but I kind of assume what I said there is typically the norm for most people(?)). but that stuff aside... if you can't tell by ABX test between standard lossless 16/44.1 and your "HD" track, then there is really no difference. it's more of a difference because you think it's better more than there actually being a difference, unless of course you can ABX it. because I would not even attempt to claim I can hear a difference between standard 16/44.1 and "HD" audio. because even with decent bit rate lossy audio most people will struggle to hear a difference. or another way I could put it... when the expert listening testers around here struggle to hear a difference between standard 16/44.1 and 192kbps (or so) lossy audio files, it's all that more unlikely one could hear a difference between lossless 16/44.1 and "HD" audio since the difference there would be even smaller, especially given human hearing limits (even if we assume someone with ears as good as humans can get). so even if there was by some very small chance someone could ABX standard lossless 16/44.1 vs "HD" audio, the difference would have to be very small since, at least from my observations, I think people who do listening tests around here with decent bit rate lossy files and can notice very subtle differences are pretty close to splitting hairs already (no offense to any of them as there contributions are appreciated by those around here I am sure). so when just sitting back and enjoying ones music, which even those types who do those tests around here admit, they would never(or at least rarely) notice the difference that they very slightly can when doing ABX testing (and ABX testing requires quite a bit of focus it appears after a certain bit rate for many to where it's unlikely they would notice it when just listening to random songs straight up to enjoy them), which makes it even less likely your going to notice any different between 16/44.1 and "HD" audio, especially when just sitting back and enjoying the music. with that said... you can still see random posts online here and there over the years who buy into that kind of thinking that lossy audio is crap, or at least some who might claim 128kbps is crap(but these types might be still stuck in the old days when MP3 was say 128kbps CBR and not more like the modern standards it's had for quite sometime now and AAC/Opus etc fairs even better than MP3 which I assume you probably already know that), and that lossless is much better. but if they actually do a blind listening test, it's almost guaranteed they won't do as well as they think they will (i.e. the differences between lossless and your typical decent bit rate lossy file are much less than they think they are). p.s. another possible factor... most of the equipment (i.e. headphones/speakers etc) the common-ish person is likely to use (of which I would consider myself among the common person here) is probably not going to cost more than $200-300 tops in my estimations (I would imagine even if I am wrong here it surely can't be much beyond that price point). so even assuming there are cases where $500-1000+ sound equipment is better, I am more of the mindset that after a certain price point, the gains are no where near enough to justify spending hundreds of dollars more etc. or... even for those who don't mind dropping say $1k on sound equipment, even for these types there has to be a cut off point to where after a certain point it's largely wasted $, especially if your not some professional who does it for a living and needs every little advantage they can get. one last thing, to speak for myself... I got what's probably in the ball park of 'average' headphones (Sony MDR-NC7) which are nothing special and I won't be surprised if there are headphones noticeably better than what I have, but, without having really tested any fancy headphones, my hunch is there won't be a significant enough of a difference to justify spending say $100-300 as, off the top of my head, I would imagine a fair amount of people around here have headphones in the $150-300 range(?) and while it would be nice to hear those myself just to see if I can notice a clear improvement or not over what I currently use, I am definitely not going to drop $150-300 to find out and I have my doubts about there being enough of a difference on those to justify the premium price. hell, even my computer speakers (i.e. Klipsch Pro-Media), which are above average, can still be bought for $140 or so online right now and for that price range, I can't imagine finding something noticeably better to the point I would want to spend a lot more $ to get it as those speakers have a good all around sound to them and, while not what I would call cheap, they are still within a reasonable price for the common-ish person so that they might consider getting something like those unlike if you start spending say $300+ it's starting to become a decent investment, pretty much.