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and yet, we are nowhere near being able to electronically reproduce a live acoustic music performance. have you ever walked by a bunch of musical sound coming o

and yet, we are nowhere near being able to electronically reproduce a live acoustic music performance. have you ever walked by a bunch of musical sound coming out of a room and thought to yourself, "wow, those live musicians sound great" only to discover it was just a stereo playing? nope. as engineers we will never solve this problem as long as the "44.1kHz is good enough" dogma is perpetuated. here's a question. why are frequency and bit depth the only two variables under discussion here? how does the human ear locate a sound in space? suppose I place a series of 20kHz tone generators along a wall (and that I can still hear 20kHz :) and trigger them at different times, and record the session in stereo at 44.1kHz with a standard X-Y mic setup. will I be able to reconstruct the performance?

flyinghamster 9y ago
In my own experience, the vast majority of consumer audio gear doesn't even take full advantage of 16/44.1. I've made live recordings of my classical chorus, and if I want it to be listenable on typical consumer gear, I have to apply a significant amount of dynamic range compression - otherwise, it will be either too quiet, or it won't handle the peaks when played at concert volume. That being said, I'm using quite a bit less compression than the loudness-war-type mastering that is all too typical with pop music.
- chungy 9y ago
  That's the funny thing about those tools -- applied properly, it can be a great asset. Applied carelessly, you end up with clipping and brickwalls of audio.
romwell 9y ago
>as engineers we will never solve this problem [reproduce a live acoustic music performance] as long as the "44.1kHz is good enough" dogma is perpetuated It's the opposite. We are never going to solve this problem if we are going to focus on things that have nothing to do with the problem. Compare and contrast: >as engineers we will never solve this problem as long as the "copper wires are good enough" dogma is perpetuated Also, please read the article. The author specifically lists advances in audio tech they think are worthwhile to consider, such as surround sound. This actually addresses the problem you mentioned (reproducing the live performance) and the question you asked, i.e. >here's a question. why are frequency and bit depth the only two variables under discussion here? They are not, at least not in the article. Here it's because that's what's in the title, and not everyone gets to the end of the article. Some comments do talk about the importance of having a good DAC for a good sound.
- arrrvalue 9y ago
  interesting viewpoint, however, did you think about the experiment I presented? without an answer, sample rate and cabling cannot be considered equivalent distractions on the road to high fidelity.
  - function_seven 9y ago
    You’re talking about something orthogonal to the question at hand. It’s like complaining that the 4K TV sucks at VR. Of course it does. It’s not meant to provide VR. Same thing with sampling and bit-depth. Those address digital encoding of analog signals. They have nothing to say about speaker design, number of audio channels, room acoustics, or the myriad other factors that go into replicating a live stage performance.
    - arrrvalue 9y ago
      It's not obvious that 2 channels of recorded audio aren't sufficient to recreate a convincing stereo image; suggesting that I'm seeking the equivalent of VR is specious. And you haven't answered my question about the array of 20kHz tone generators. In fact, NOBODY has, and yet the question has been down-voted! How is that even possible? Posing a novel experiment which might invalidate the populist view considered harmful? TFA's author is not active in the field of advancing man's ability to recreate live music more convincingly, AFAIK; he writes codecs. He believes people shouldn't purchase 192kHz downloads. He's certainly right that most consumers won't be able to tell the difference with their current equipment. But he makes no mention of the interaural time difference in human auditory perception, so he's already not telling the whole story. There is more to learn here, folks, and down-voting a question is an embarrassing failure of these forums. Why aren't posts in support of music piracy down-voted (read above)?
      - function_seven 9y ago
        Regarding your question about the wall of tone generators: I imagine a pair of microphones inserted into the ear canals of a dummy head should be able to capture what a real person sitting there would. Once the signals are captured, and assuming perfect frequency response of the microphones and noiseless transfer of the signals to an ADC, 44.1kHz would absolutely be enough to perfectly encode the 20Hz frequencies. I put emphasis on the frequency response of the microphones. They’d have to match the frequency response of the human ear. Meaning they would not capture ultrasonics, just like our ears don’t. I am less sure of the math behind bit-depth and how it relates to our own dynamic range. I also agree that if you intend to transform the recording, mix it with others, etc, then go ahead and encode at higher bitrates and even with a higher frequency (both mic and ADC sampling). But the final product, being sold for direct listening, need not be sampled at a rate that’s beyond our hearing. No more than a video recording should be able to encode colors in the ultraviolet spectrum (A better analogy than my previous one)
ryan-allen 9y ago
This is probably the best reason why people should, at least once, go see a symphony!
nullc 9y ago
> and yet, we are nowhere near being able to electronically reproduce a live acoustic music performance. That has a lot more to do with the spatial component of the audio than anything else. Unfortunately, surround sound sufficient to really reproduce acoustic fields (and not just sound effects ping ponging around) require more cost and concessions in the listening room than many are willing to tolerate. So long as people continue to get the engineering wrong and think the sampling rate and bit-depth have anything to do with it we'll probably continue to see the market invest in the wrong solutions.
enneff 9y ago
> have you ever walked by a bunch of musical sound coming out of a room and thought to yourself, "wow, those live musicians sound great" only to discover it was just a stereo playing? Yes, I have. With the right combination of speaker setups and hi fi recordings, it is possible to fool yourself into believing there are musicians there.
- arrrvalue 9y ago
  Note that sitting in front of a speaker setup playing a carefully selected recording is not the same as the scenario above. We do not yet have the technology to fool someone walking by a room, especially for orchestral works or even an acoustic drum kit.
  - enneff 9y ago
    But I have experienced exactly this. Not an orchestra, but a recording of a band. I guess you can split hairs about the definition of "fool", but I have been fooled as you describe.
    - arrrvalue 9y ago
      Well that's exciting then! What was the setup??

flyinghamster 9y ago

In my own experience, the vast majority of consumer audio gear doesn't even take full advantage of 16/44.1. I've made live recordings of my classical chorus, and if I want it to be listenable on typical consumer gear, I have to apply a significant amount of dynamic range compression - otherwise, it will be either too quiet, or it won't handle the peaks when played at concert volume. That being said, I'm using quite a bit less compression than the loudness-war-type mastering that is all too typical with pop music.

chungy 9y ago
That's the funny thing about those tools -- applied properly, it can be a great asset. Applied carelessly, you end up with clipping and brickwalls of audio.

romwell 9y ago

>as engineers we will never solve this problem [reproduce a live acoustic music performance] as long as the "44.1kHz is good enough" dogma is perpetuated It's the opposite. We are never going to solve this problem if we are going to focus on things that have nothing to do with the problem. Compare and contrast: >as engineers we will never solve this problem as long as the "copper wires are good enough" dogma is perpetuated Also, please read the article. The author specifically lists advances in audio tech they think are worthwhile to consider, such as surround sound. This actually addresses the problem you mentioned (reproducing the live performance) and the question you asked, i.e. >here's a question. why are frequency and bit depth the only two variables under discussion here? They are not, at least not in the article. Here it's because that's what's in the title, and not everyone gets to the end of the article. Some comments do talk about the importance of having a good DAC for a good sound.

arrrvalue 9y ago
interesting viewpoint, however, did you think about the experiment I presented? without an answer, sample rate and cabling cannot be considered equivalent distractions on the road to high fidelity.
- function_seven 9y ago
  You’re talking about something orthogonal to the question at hand. It’s like complaining that the 4K TV sucks at VR. Of course it does. It’s not meant to provide VR. Same thing with sampling and bit-depth. Those address digital encoding of analog signals. They have nothing to say about speaker design, number of audio channels, room acoustics, or the myriad other factors that go into replicating a live stage performance.
  - arrrvalue 9y ago
    It's not obvious that 2 channels of recorded audio aren't sufficient to recreate a convincing stereo image; suggesting that I'm seeking the equivalent of VR is specious. And you haven't answered my question about the array of 20kHz tone generators. In fact, NOBODY has, and yet the question has been down-voted! How is that even possible? Posing a novel experiment which might invalidate the populist view considered harmful? TFA's author is not active in the field of advancing man's ability to recreate live music more convincingly, AFAIK; he writes codecs. He believes people shouldn't purchase 192kHz downloads. He's certainly right that most consumers won't be able to tell the difference with their current equipment. But he makes no mention of the interaural time difference in human auditory perception, so he's already not telling the whole story. There is more to learn here, folks, and down-voting a question is an embarrassing failure of these forums. Why aren't posts in support of music piracy down-voted (read above)?
    - function_seven 9y ago
      Regarding your question about the wall of tone generators: I imagine a pair of microphones inserted into the ear canals of a dummy head should be able to capture what a real person sitting there would. Once the signals are captured, and assuming perfect frequency response of the microphones and noiseless transfer of the signals to an ADC, 44.1kHz would absolutely be enough to perfectly encode the 20Hz frequencies. I put emphasis on the frequency response of the microphones. They’d have to match the frequency response of the human ear. Meaning they would not capture ultrasonics, just like our ears don’t. I am less sure of the math behind bit-depth and how it relates to our own dynamic range. I also agree that if you intend to transform the recording, mix it with others, etc, then go ahead and encode at higher bitrates and even with a higher frequency (both mic and ADC sampling). But the final product, being sold for direct listening, need not be sampled at a rate that’s beyond our hearing. No more than a video recording should be able to encode colors in the ultraviolet spectrum (A better analogy than my previous one)

ryan-allen 9y ago

This is probably the best reason why people should, at least once, go see a symphony!

nullc 9y ago

> and yet, we are nowhere near being able to electronically reproduce a live acoustic music performance. That has a lot more to do with the spatial component of the audio than anything else. Unfortunately, surround sound sufficient to really reproduce acoustic fields (and not just sound effects ping ponging around) require more cost and concessions in the listening room than many are willing to tolerate. So long as people continue to get the engineering wrong and think the sampling rate and bit-depth have anything to do with it we'll probably continue to see the market invest in the wrong solutions.

enneff 9y ago

> have you ever walked by a bunch of musical sound coming out of a room and thought to yourself, "wow, those live musicians sound great" only to discover it was just a stereo playing? Yes, I have. With the right combination of speaker setups and hi fi recordings, it is possible to fool yourself into believing there are musicians there.

arrrvalue 9y ago
Note that sitting in front of a speaker setup playing a carefully selected recording is not the same as the scenario above. We do not yet have the technology to fool someone walking by a room, especially for orchestral works or even an acoustic drum kit.
- enneff 9y ago
  But I have experienced exactly this. Not an orchestra, but a recording of a band. I guess you can split hairs about the definition of "fool", but I have been fooled as you describe.
  - arrrvalue 9y ago
    Well that's exciting then! What was the setup??