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In theory you are correct - but not in practise. The "Loudness Wars" means that we don't actually get the full 16 bits, in which case I would argue that anythi

In theory you are correct - but not in practise. The "Loudness Wars" means that we don't actually get the full 16 bits, in which case I would argue that anything up to the 24/96 standard may well be an improvement.

pimeys 10y ago
I was thinking the same, until I read this article about different qualities: http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ TLDR: 16/44.1 is enough for listening purposes.
masklinn 10y ago
> The "Loudness Wars" means that we don't actually get the full 16 bits, in which case I would argue that anything up to the 24/96 standard may well be an improvement. You'll get the exact same loudness issue at thrice the storage requirements. Fight for better mastering (and ubiquitous requirement of loudness checker or across-the-board audio normalisation as iTunes Radio does), not for worthless and detrimental gimmicks. Incidentally, loudness has been trending down (very very slowly) on lossless sources since its 2005 peak: http://www.tristancollins.me/computing/dynamic-range-analysis/ http://www.tristancollins.me/computing/dynamic-range-analysi...
- pimeys 10y ago
  As a music collector, the loudness wars is one of the biggest reasons to not use the streaming services. For some old albums, services like Spotify have only the remastered versions, if available. Especially in the early 2000s remasters were very loud in expense of the dynamics. Luckily it's usually quite cheap to find the original CD versions, and the loudness wars database [0] is very helpful when hunting these. Also for some new recordings the vinyl version has much better mastering because of the physical limitations of vinyl. Good examples are Radiohead or Björk, where the vinyl versions sound absolutely amazing compared to the overly compressed digital versions. Of course there are always nice surprised, like the new Kate Bush live album, which is almost exactly 89 dB and has amazing dynamics. [0]: http://dr.loudness-war.info/ http://dr.loudness-war.info/
Dylan16807 10y ago
Loudness wars mean you need fewer bits to store the resulting audio.

pimeys 10y ago

I was thinking the same, until I read this article about different qualities: http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ TLDR: 16/44.1 is enough for listening purposes.

masklinn 10y ago

> The "Loudness Wars" means that we don't actually get the full 16 bits, in which case I would argue that anything up to the 24/96 standard may well be an improvement. You'll get the exact same loudness issue at thrice the storage requirements. Fight for better mastering (and ubiquitous requirement of loudness checker or across-the-board audio normalisation as iTunes Radio does), not for worthless and detrimental gimmicks. Incidentally, loudness has been trending down (very very slowly) on lossless sources since its 2005 peak: http://www.tristancollins.me/computing/dynamic-range-analysis/ http://www.tristancollins.me/computing/dynamic-range-analysi...

pimeys 10y ago
As a music collector, the loudness wars is one of the biggest reasons to not use the streaming services. For some old albums, services like Spotify have only the remastered versions, if available. Especially in the early 2000s remasters were very loud in expense of the dynamics. Luckily it's usually quite cheap to find the original CD versions, and the loudness wars database [0] is very helpful when hunting these. Also for some new recordings the vinyl version has much better mastering because of the physical limitations of vinyl. Good examples are Radiohead or Björk, where the vinyl versions sound absolutely amazing compared to the overly compressed digital versions. Of course there are always nice surprised, like the new Kate Bush live album, which is almost exactly 89 dB and has amazing dynamics. [0]: http://dr.loudness-war.info/ http://dr.loudness-war.info/

Dylan16807 10y ago

Loudness wars mean you need fewer bits to store the resulting audio.