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Honest question: Why is archive.org using 24-bit FLAC when >51% of the internet tells you HD Audio is useless and can even worsen the listening experience? "A

Honest question: Why is archive.org using 24-bit FLAC when >51% of the internet tells you HD Audio is useless and can even worsen the listening experience? "A consumer will never need 24-bit. Ever."[1] "24 bit audio is as useless as 192kHz sampling"[2] I would love to hear a good explanation so I can decide about the future of my audio library. [1] http://gizmodo.com/5768446/why-24-bit-audio-will-be-bad-for-users http://gizmodo.com/5768446/why-24-bit-audio-will-be-bad-for-... [2] https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

menacingly 9y ago
I think 16-bit is fine for basically every "enjoyment of music" use. I do have a hardware player capable of playing 24-bit audio, and I use it, but it's not some breathtaking experience. When the source is analog (like these old records), I can see the argument for preserving them at the highest reasonable depth. The fundamental purpose of the archive is to preserve, regardless of whether or not people subjectively prefer the sound. If the subjective experience of 24-bit is unpleasant to some people, you can always go down, but you can't add back bits that were never captured, so it's my opinion that 24 is the appropriate format here. Of course, from a philosophical perspective, we're still talking about two methods for reaching infinity and which gets "closer"
thristian 9y ago
HD audio is useless if you want to listen to audio that somebody else has prepared. However, if you want to prepare audio (or any media) yourself, it helps to have input material that's much higher quality than your output format so that you can mess around with it and still have something that's at least a little higher quality than your output format. I guess archive.org hopes that these recordings will be remixed and re-used and incorporated into future creations, as well as preserving their original form.
stordoff 9y ago
I feel like [1] hints at the reason: > Finally, the digital effects used in studios to mix music benefit from the higher 24-bit resolution file for microscopic processing duties. Using 24-bit over 16-bit keeps the door open to any post-processing the user wants to do (e.g. restoration/enhancement). I very much doubt that they consider it necessary, or even useful, for general listening.

menacingly 9y ago

I think 16-bit is fine for basically every "enjoyment of music" use. I do have a hardware player capable of playing 24-bit audio, and I use it, but it's not some breathtaking experience. When the source is analog (like these old records), I can see the argument for preserving them at the highest reasonable depth. The fundamental purpose of the archive is to preserve, regardless of whether or not people subjectively prefer the sound. If the subjective experience of 24-bit is unpleasant to some people, you can always go down, but you can't add back bits that were never captured, so it's my opinion that 24 is the appropriate format here. Of course, from a philosophical perspective, we're still talking about two methods for reaching infinity and which gets "closer"

thristian 9y ago

HD audio is useless if you want to listen to audio that somebody else has prepared. However, if you want to prepare audio (or any media) yourself, it helps to have input material that's much higher quality than your output format so that you can mess around with it and still have something that's at least a little higher quality than your output format. I guess archive.org hopes that these recordings will be remixed and re-used and incorporated into future creations, as well as preserving their original form.

stordoff 9y ago

I feel like [1] hints at the reason: > Finally, the digital effects used in studios to mix music benefit from the higher 24-bit resolution file for microscopic processing duties. Using 24-bit over 16-bit keeps the door open to any post-processing the user wants to do (e.g. restoration/enhancement). I very much doubt that they consider it necessary, or even useful, for general listening.