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Not entirely silly. Yes, the purported benefits of this high-fidelity audio are imaginary or even include undesirable traits. However, when most "remasters" of

Not entirely silly. Yes, the purported benefits of this high-fidelity audio are imaginary or even include undesirable traits. However, when most "remasters" of pop music today involve the dynamics being boosted to "loudness wars" standards for a target audience of people listening to the music through earbuds in the street, the 24/192 downloads or SACD releases are often the only way to hear the album with real dynamic range. I’m not sure how big that market is these days, though. I recently decided to move from a block in the city to a house in the surrounding countryside purely to get a quieter listening environment and let me really enjoy the high-dynamic-range recordings I have – I listen to a lot of classical music, especially the avant-garde with its even greater range, e.g. the Ligeti cello concerto starting from pppppp. Yet even among my friends who are really obsessed with such music, seeking a better listening environment seemed an extreme measure to take. So, people who a generation ago would have invested in higher-end equipment (not audiophile snake oil, just better speakers) and who would have sought silence are now giving in to listening to music on their phones or cheap computer speakers. It’s a big shift.

hashmal 9y ago
How does 24/192 help with dynamic range?
- akvadrako 9y ago
  That's the 24-bit part, which provides more play room then 16-bit. Normally 16 is plenty, by consider an example track which is heavily compressed so only the top 1% of range is used: 16-bits = 2^16 * 0.01 = 655 discrete levels 24-bits = 2^24 * 0.01 = 168000 discrete levels
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    No, that has nothing to do with it. See my reply above.
    - akvadrako 9y ago
      Your reply is not the whole picture. Compression reduces the effective number of bits of resolution.
      - hashmal 9y ago
        If you had an RGB (24 bits) image that is mostly very dark, would you say that somehow because the image doesn't use the full range of possible values, the image quality suffered? Would you say that changing the format/bit-depth would actually lead to a perceived increase in quality when looking at the image?
        akvadrako 9y ago
        I don't understand why you said I was wrong in the other comment, but you give here an appropriate analogy which makes the effect obvious. Because we only have 8 bits per channel, we all can see banding in (dynamically) compressed images. That's what increasing the depth improves.
  - djaychela 9y ago
    I think you have the wrong end of the stick there. Even if a track is heavily multiband compressed, it's still using the full range of levels, as audio will oscillate between -ve and +ve for each cycle, potentially using most of the 65,536 levels available at 16-bit (and the 16777216 levels at 24 bit). The 0.01 is not relevant.
    - akvadrako 9y ago
      No, I don't have it wrong. Compression means it's effectively using less of the range and the dynamics could be represented with fewer bits in an optimal encoding. All the levels may be used in track, but it's more biased towards the high end. To help you understand, imagine 1-bit audio. What would it sound like? For each frequency, you can only have a single volume, i.e. it's maximally compressed.
      - hashmal 9y ago
        I can confirm, you have it wrong.
        dom0 9y ago
        But also correct here: > Compression means it's effectively using less of the [dynamic] range and the dynamics [range] could be represented with fewer bits in an optimal encoding. Lower DNR can indeed be encoded with fewer bits per sample.
      - djaychela 9y ago
        I still think you have it wrong; (Dynamic Audio) Compression does mean it may be using less of the dynamic range when taken overall, but the waveform will still take up the entire span of the available bit depth. Granted that with an optimal encoding this could be biased towards the "high" end (but bear in mind that would have to be both +ve and -ve), but I still think this would miss the point, and I think it would also create distortion in the 'zero' region of the audio. If you open up heavily compressed music in an audio editor (pick any recent EDM track), it will still cross the zero point, and have maximum and minimum levels present. It will also have 'zero' (i.e. 32768 if the range is 0-65536 in 16-bit audio) present - often at the beginning and end of the track, and the audio will be centred about that in the vast majority of tracks. I'm not sure the 1-bit extreme helps with understanding this, particularly because the audio we'd be dealing with will be a mix of many frequencies; the waveform is an aggregate of the overall 'signal' at each frequency present in the mix; this is one of the reasons why multiband rather than single-band compression has become so popular (as it allows you to get the 'max' in each frequency band rather than one band dominating the overall result of the compression). I think there's a difference to take into account when considering any given momentary sample and the overall effect - yes, compression does reduce the dynamic range of the music, but you would need some sort of variable bit depth which was linked to the instantaneous amount of compression being applied to get any kind of workable lower-bit-depth encoding scheme, which seems like a lot of complexity for no significant gain (to me?).
  - copperx 9y ago
    As Barbie would say: Audio engineering is hard! Let's play with the calculator.
    - Blahah 9y ago
      Barbie has piloted commercial airliners, been on a scientific space mission, and has an M.D., so I don't think she'd be likely to say that.
      - finnthehuman 9y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Talk_Barbie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Talk_Barbie The meme "Math class is hard, let's go shopping" is only slightly apocryphal. Two of the voicebox lines were "Math class is tough" and "Want to go shopping?"
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  It has nothing to do with the 24/192 values themselves, but rather the treatment given to the recording during the mastering. Because 24/192 and SACD are "audiophile formats", the engineers who master the recordings expect them to be listened to in serious listening environments that are relatively noise-insulated so that very soft parts can be heard clearly, and there are no complaining neighbours so the loud parts can really blast. Consequently, an ample dynamic range is preserved. "Remastered" reissues on the other formats – CD or lower-bitrate downloads – are nowadays expected to be listened to through cheap earbuds or speakers and perhaps in noisy urban environments. So, the engineer applies "loudness wars" treatment, compressing their dynamic range so the listener can still hear the quiet parts even with all the noise around them.
  - aw3c2 9y ago
    You are proving the point. Treating the audio well, not giving in to the loudness, has only correlation with 24/192 releases (if you say so), there is no causation.
    - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
      Sure, there is no causation of "higher bitrate necessarily makes for better sound", but the correlation of "higher bitrate format just happens to have better mastering" is often strong enough to make these the go-to formats. There are a large number of classic recordings that are difficult to obtain in the digital era without harsh compression being applied to them, so the 24/192 or SACD release is the most convenient way of hearing them with decent dynamic range.
    - traviscj 9y ago
      In other words, it is not a technical advantage, but a social/political one.
    - JohnBooty 9y ago
      Right, absolutely. 16 bit samples give 100db+ of perceived dynamic range, more than would ever be needed. The other poster is not saying otherwise, though. They're just saying that "hi-def" formats, while technically unnecessary for end-user listening, are often the only way to obtain a decently-mastered recording. There's no technical reason for things to be that way. But that's how things are. It's sort of like buying a new car. You want the more powerful engine? Well then you also have to buy the package with heated seats, the moonroof, and the fog lights. There's no technical reason for it, but that's the only way they'll sell it to you.
kierenj 9y ago
Did you check out the article? 16 bits can cover the range very well, more than you (or anyone) could ever distinguish
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  Sigh. Please see my other reply. It isn't a matter of bit rate (indeed, 16 bits could be more than enough). It is a matter of how engineers serve the targeted markets of each format.
  - ptaipale 9y ago
    Perfectly valid point. It's not a technical limitation that "normal" recordings are spoiled by compression, but it's a commercial limitation (or whatever you call it) that has a very real impact. You cannot buy good recordings in other formats, in this format you can. So there's a market - not a very big one as such, and maybe created for all the wrong reasons, but it is there.
  - kierenj 9y ago
    I'm not sure how it's not even more "silly" then. Investing in additional infrastructure, equipment, and effort, when all you need to do is turn down the compressor ratio in the mix... Sounds silly to me.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
      Well, SACD at least offers one further advantage than lower compression: multichannel audio, which is a big deal for classical music, especially works involving spatialization. Investing in a SACD player is well worth if that repertoire concerns you.
    - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
      > all you need to do is turn down the compressor ratio in the mix The problem here is that the "you" in this sentence is not "me", or even an entity I can really influence, much less control. It's not really even the audio engineer whose boss is telling him to turn up the volume so high that only the top few bits of the 16-bit recording are in use. The boss is saying this so that the song can be heard when the user turns the volume down because of the obnoxiously noisy commercials on the radio. Those commercials have found that they're more effective when they turn the volume way, way up. And they don't give a whit about the quality of their audio as long as they can sell more cars or tickets or whatever, much less the quality of the songs that play after them, much much less the quality of the songs that someone downloads to listen to offline in a nice listening environment without commercials. The solution isn't just "turn down your compressor ratio", there's a big, hairy Nash equilibrium/politics problem that can be bypassed by offering 24/192 as a secondary product. If you want to remaster it to 16/48 after downloading, you're welcome to do so.
z3t4 9y ago
Sadly most people have never experienced good sound. When you hear it though. But taste can be very different.
- Fifer82 9y ago
  I have! I really have! My friend spends all his money on audio. I sadly just don't understand. You are correct. I was going to say that he pays infinite money for what to me is a 10% increase in enjoyment, but perhaps for you and him, your brain is better with sound, and you guys might get a 1000% improvement for your dollar. Although in any case, nothing justifies the pricetag dished out to audio enthusiasts.
  - mixedCase 9y ago
    An 100-150 dollar headset of the right type is hardly "infinite money" and I would call it paradigm-changing compared to what most people seem to be using, at least over here. It's only at higher tiers that the difference might really be imperceptible to many ears.
    - dom0 9y ago
      For all its flaws even a Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro is a very good headset that's head and shoulders above...
      - dagw 9y ago
        As someone who knows nothing about 'good' headsets, should I get the 32, 80 or 250 Ohm
        ljcn 9y ago
        It shouldn't make much too much difference unless you like to listen to them really loud (damaging-your-hearing levels). Two things come to mind though: voltage/current delivery of your amp, and damping ratio. The first depends on the characteristics of your amplifier. Some are better at delivering current, some voltage. The lower impedance (32) is better suited to high-current/low-voltage sources, which includes most portable devices, phones, etc. Conversely, the higher impedance (250) is better for high-voltage/low-current sources like tube amps. The second is about the ratio of the headphone impedance to the amp output impedance. You want a high ratio, so if your source has a large output impedance then the higher impedance headphones will sound better. Good headphone amps sometimes specify the output impedance, or you can measure it.
mtzet 9y ago
I've noticed the same thing with LP's. While LP's are technically inferior to red book CD's, they're often mastered better.
- 72deluxe 9y ago
  Why is this? I only have 16 bit 44.1kHz "normal" CDs and I notice some terrible mastering jobs, eg. RHCP Stadium Arcadium loses the snare for the first track and is like listening to minutes of distortion yet apparently the vinyl was really well mastered. Is there a technical reason why the mastering is so different for the two mediums, CD versus vinyl?
  - wvh 9y ago
    Just guessing, but maybe the CD version is also used for radio play, and needs to be mastered as loud as possible not to lose the war? I guess special purpose releases don't usually end up on the radio so they can be mastered for people who actually appreciate music. ;)
  - wiredearp 9y ago
    When you boost the loudness too much (for your specific turntable to handle), the needle will simply jump out of the groove, not kidding.
    - intractable 9y ago
      This is true, to a certain extent. But it doesn't mean that masters for vinyl always have more dynamics left intact. More often than not these days, the same compressed master is used for the vinyl. To combat the groove-jumping problem, the overall level is simply dropped.
  - rocqua 9y ago
    I've seen it argued that multi-disc setups are where the loudness wars started. When you can switch between CDs quickly, you start comparing how they sound. If the volume knob is left alone, the CD that is mastered louder is going to sound louder, and thus better. Thus, people started mastering CDs for loudness. An alternative idea of mine is simpler. Loud music is considered worse than quiet music (quiet music sounds worse, but loud music still does, and also bothers other people). So, when you need to pick a volume setting for your collection, you bias towards setting it lower, so the really loud ones don't become too loud. Thus, the quieter CDs are annoying because they always sound quiet, whilst the load CDs sound about right, because your volume is much more suitable for them.
5zBFyURxgY 9y ago
Still very silly IMAO. Very, very few recordings are done in 24/192 because of the many implications this has on your entire studio setup. You'll need an exceptional good clock to start with, and all other equipment needs to align to that clock. Then all plugins/processing you use needs to be in the same 24/192 domain, otherwise your signal is reduced to the limit of that plugin/processing and all previous efforts are lost. Most music producers use samples, most are 16/44, so what's the point to try to get that to 24/192, filling the signal with zero's.. If a piece of music is in very rare occasion truly 24/192 then the listener who downloaded the track still needs a exceptional good clock (that are both expensive and hard to find) to playback without signal reduction. IMAO 24/192 is just a marketing thing for audiophiles that don't really understand the implications. 24/96 should be a reasonable limit for now, although personally I think 24/48 is enough for very high quality audio.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  You ought to have read the rest of this thread before leaving this comment. I’d be very happy with 24/96 or 24/48 if I could get recordings at that bitrate that aren't given a loudness wars treatment. Since I often can't, I have to go for 24/192 or SACD even if all that extra room is completely superfluous, just because that format was decently mastered. > Most music producers use samples... Most people interested in better-quality sound in this particular context aren't listening to contemporary electronic music with samples. 24/192 or SACD is so desirable for reissues of older recordings in pop or jazz genres where those formats were mastered with higher dynamic range, while the available CD versions or lower-bitrate downloads were mastered with loudness-wars compression. The format is also attractive to classical music listeners, because SACD gives you multichannel audio; and some classical labels are now giving loudness-wars treatment to the non-SACD or non-24/192 formats of a particular new release.
  - leephillips 9y ago
    "some classical labels are now giving loudness-wars treatment" That's depressing.
DCKing 9y ago
The loudness war seems to have been a temporary problem, prevalent mostly because music was primarily listened as downloads of individual files or small collections of files. Music streaming services have since become a very important music listening medium. Spotify, Google Music, Apple Music and others do normalization of these loudness levels. This neutralizes the loudness wars as it makes loudness wars treatment of music useless, at least when listened on streaming services [1]. Music mastered in the loudness war will still have problems with dynamic range but the perverse motivations causing the war are simply not as relevant for new music. I agree the loudness war was a huge problem a few years ago, but changing trends in the ways music is being listened to is solving it. The way you present the loudness war problem is therefore somewhat out of touch. [1]: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywgeek/why-spotify-lowered-the-volume-of-songs-and-ended-hegemonic-loudness https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywgeek/why-spotif...
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  The loudness war is a matter of degree. Sure, steps have been taken so that we maybe won't see another Death Magnetic where the compression has resulted in outright ear-bleeding distortion. But when most music today is listened to from portable devices in loud environments, it’s hard to believe that we are ever again going back to the level of dynamic range common before the loudness war. As I said, even some classical music (and jazz) labels are now issuing their music with considerably limited dynamic range, and a dynamic range as ample as it traditionally was is available only to those who buy the SACD (and listen to the SACD layer of a hybrid SACD, not the CD layer) or the high-resolution download.
  - jackhack 9y ago
    Add to this the 'Bass arms race' happening in the past 15 years. It is especially noticeable if one listens to "modern" vs older CDs vs the radio. I suppose Producers now feel compelled to exercise subwoofers and thump the audience, or compensate for crappy earbuds in the target audience, or maybe that's just what people want because even radio commercials are complicit -- it's difficult to listen to someone talk with "thump/thump/thump" drumbeats in the background. Often, I simply turn it off. In my car, I have the bass response dialed back by about 50%, and even dip the mid-range by about 15% to get what sounds to my ears like a flat response. I have mild hearing loss from the 250 to 1k range, so my ears are already attenuating the signal -- I can only imagine how "bass heavy" it must sound to someone with normal hearing!
JohnBooty 9y ago
the 24/192 downloads or SACD releases are often the only way to hear the album with real dynamic range. Yeah, this is often true. Some of Green Day's (a band I've never previously been into) albums were released in 24/192 or 24/96 a few years back and they actually sounded really great, with real dynamic range. Also true? The completely absurd fact that sometimes a vinyl rip of an album will actually have the highest dynamic range, even though vinyl has a much smaller dynamic range than 16/44 audio. Bands often use "loudness wars" mastering for the digital release and then proper mastering for the vinyl release.
- justin66 9y ago
  > Yeah, this is often true. Some of Green Day's (a band I've never previously been into) albums were released in 24/192 or 24/96 a few years back and they actually sounded really great, with real dynamic range. Back in the day you'd occasionally see remastered "gold" discs released. The advertising made a big deal about the disc material. Those probably sounded different too (they managed to sell them at a great premium) but with those, they sounded better because of the newer remastering, not the disc technology. It's certainly possible this is the case with some of those releases remastered for SACD as well. The label probably didn't give Green Day a huge amount of money for production when they made Dookie, for example, but it eventually sold 20 million copies and additional production made sense. If it sounds better to the listener it's a real benefit, too, but it is quite likely not down to the playback technology. Two oddball things I've noticed about remasters in the last couple of years: there's some agreement out there that the newest remaster of Hendrix's records is not the best. And King Crimson, who has an audiophile following and decorates their catalog with remasters with alarming regularity, removed a little dynamic range (an oversimplification) from the newest remaster of Larks Tongues in Aspic when remastering the CD and mastering for DVD/A because people very understandably complained about the (technically very good) previous version being too quiet. Audiophiles say they want dynamic range, but...
  - tripzilch 9y ago
    Yeah it's still the artist's choice how much dynamic range is needed to express their music. More dynamic range just for the sake of it, seems just as bad as sausage flattening to get as loud sound as possible.
rplst8 9y ago
> Not entirely silly. Yes, the purported benefits of this high-fidelity audio are imaginary or even include undesirable traits. However, when most "remasters" of pop music today involve the dynamics being boosted to "loudness wars" standards for a target audience of people listening to the music through earbuds in the street, the 24/192 downloads or SACD releases are often the only way to hear the album with real dynamic range. No. It's still entirely silly. The reason? The dynamics are unrecoverable once squashed by a limiter or compressor during the remastering process. The fidelity of the delivery medium is moot after that happens.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- S_A_P 9y ago
  This. Once the "master" is treated with the maximizing limiters that are used in the loudness war the files are just rendered into their separate file formats. If the SA cd promised that they reloaded the source tape/protools/whatever DAW was used and remixed/ remastered the songs to actually have dynamic range then I would be interested. As far as I am aware this isn't happening, and is implausible for any record of considered a classic
  - olleromam91 9y ago
    Why implausible?
    - S_A_P 9y ago
      The scope of work involved is too great to remix and remaster all the records. I also know that most indie records are not kept in their multitrack form as meticulously as big label acts.
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    Loudness-wars compression is a product of the digital recording era, and quite a few years into it, too. A lot of music that people still want to listen to today predates all that. Many SACD reissues do go back to the source tape. This is a frequent cause of complaint with SACD reissues of classic jazz recordings from the 1960s: sometimes you get better sound in terms of dynamic range than any previous CD issue of that recording, but in the meantime the source tape may have deteriorated in parts. Even with recordings from the “loudness wars”, there is sometimes room for dynamic range improvement when remastering. A good example is Rush’s album Vapor Trails. This was an infamously botched recording upon its original release, on a scale with Death Magnetic. Because loudness-wars treatment plagued the original tracks before mixing, the damage could never entirely be repaired. However, the additional process of compression applied to the source during transfer to CD could be reversed, so the album was eventually reissued as Vapor Trails Remixed, and while still flawed, that reissue has a lot more room to breathe than the original CD release.
ksk 9y ago
What are some examples of popular songs that had their loudness boosted?
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  Almost any reissue of material that has already appeared on CD in an earlier generation. Compare the post-millennial CD remasters of Slowdive's Souvlaki or the Cocteau Twins discography to the original CD issues of those albums in the early 1990s. Generally anytime an album is announced as "newly remastered" these days, the sole significant change is decreasing its dynamic range.
  - ksk 9y ago
    Any examples that I can listen to online?
davidgerard 9y ago
Yep - non-shitty masterings are the one legitimate reason for "hi-res" audio. Even if you could downsample it to 16/44 with no perceptible difference.
quakenul 9y ago
It is entirely silly. The believe that there is causation between a high fidelity, high dynamic range release and 24/192 is exactly the issue. Yes, those high dynamic range releases usually get published in 24/192. No, the fact that they get published in 24/192 does not, as far as human hearing goes, add anything to the dynamic range or otherwise the fidelity of the recording. Since the correlation is so strong, it is of course entirely understandable that people assume causation exists.

hashmal 9y ago

How does 24/192 help with dynamic range?

akvadrako 9y ago
That's the 24-bit part, which provides more play room then 16-bit. Normally 16 is plenty, by consider an example track which is heavily compressed so only the top 1% of range is used: 16-bits = 2^16 * 0.01 = 655 discrete levels 24-bits = 2^24 * 0.01 = 168000 discrete levels
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  No, that has nothing to do with it. See my reply above.
  - akvadrako 9y ago
    Your reply is not the whole picture. Compression reduces the effective number of bits of resolution.
    - hashmal 9y ago
      If you had an RGB (24 bits) image that is mostly very dark, would you say that somehow because the image doesn't use the full range of possible values, the image quality suffered? Would you say that changing the format/bit-depth would actually lead to a perceived increase in quality when looking at the image?
      - akvadrako 9y ago
        I don't understand why you said I was wrong in the other comment, but you give here an appropriate analogy which makes the effect obvious. Because we only have 8 bits per channel, we all can see banding in (dynamically) compressed images. That's what increasing the depth improves.
- djaychela 9y ago
  I think you have the wrong end of the stick there. Even if a track is heavily multiband compressed, it's still using the full range of levels, as audio will oscillate between -ve and +ve for each cycle, potentially using most of the 65,536 levels available at 16-bit (and the 16777216 levels at 24 bit). The 0.01 is not relevant.
  - akvadrako 9y ago
    No, I don't have it wrong. Compression means it's effectively using less of the range and the dynamics could be represented with fewer bits in an optimal encoding. All the levels may be used in track, but it's more biased towards the high end. To help you understand, imagine 1-bit audio. What would it sound like? For each frequency, you can only have a single volume, i.e. it's maximally compressed.
    - hashmal 9y ago
      I can confirm, you have it wrong.
      - dom0 9y ago
        But also correct here: > Compression means it's effectively using less of the [dynamic] range and the dynamics [range] could be represented with fewer bits in an optimal encoding. Lower DNR can indeed be encoded with fewer bits per sample.
    - djaychela 9y ago
      I still think you have it wrong; (Dynamic Audio) Compression does mean it may be using less of the dynamic range when taken overall, but the waveform will still take up the entire span of the available bit depth. Granted that with an optimal encoding this could be biased towards the "high" end (but bear in mind that would have to be both +ve and -ve), but I still think this would miss the point, and I think it would also create distortion in the 'zero' region of the audio. If you open up heavily compressed music in an audio editor (pick any recent EDM track), it will still cross the zero point, and have maximum and minimum levels present. It will also have 'zero' (i.e. 32768 if the range is 0-65536 in 16-bit audio) present - often at the beginning and end of the track, and the audio will be centred about that in the vast majority of tracks. I'm not sure the 1-bit extreme helps with understanding this, particularly because the audio we'd be dealing with will be a mix of many frequencies; the waveform is an aggregate of the overall 'signal' at each frequency present in the mix; this is one of the reasons why multiband rather than single-band compression has become so popular (as it allows you to get the 'max' in each frequency band rather than one band dominating the overall result of the compression). I think there's a difference to take into account when considering any given momentary sample and the overall effect - yes, compression does reduce the dynamic range of the music, but you would need some sort of variable bit depth which was linked to the instantaneous amount of compression being applied to get any kind of workable lower-bit-depth encoding scheme, which seems like a lot of complexity for no significant gain (to me?).
- copperx 9y ago
  As Barbie would say: Audio engineering is hard! Let's play with the calculator.
  - Blahah 9y ago
    Barbie has piloted commercial airliners, been on a scientific space mission, and has an M.D., so I don't think she'd be likely to say that.
    - finnthehuman 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Talk_Barbie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Talk_Barbie The meme "Math class is hard, let's go shopping" is only slightly apocryphal. Two of the voicebox lines were "Math class is tough" and "Want to go shopping?"
Mediterraneo10 9y ago
It has nothing to do with the 24/192 values themselves, but rather the treatment given to the recording during the mastering. Because 24/192 and SACD are "audiophile formats", the engineers who master the recordings expect them to be listened to in serious listening environments that are relatively noise-insulated so that very soft parts can be heard clearly, and there are no complaining neighbours so the loud parts can really blast. Consequently, an ample dynamic range is preserved. "Remastered" reissues on the other formats – CD or lower-bitrate downloads – are nowadays expected to be listened to through cheap earbuds or speakers and perhaps in noisy urban environments. So, the engineer applies "loudness wars" treatment, compressing their dynamic range so the listener can still hear the quiet parts even with all the noise around them.
- aw3c2 9y ago
  You are proving the point. Treating the audio well, not giving in to the loudness, has only correlation with 24/192 releases (if you say so), there is no causation.
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    Sure, there is no causation of "higher bitrate necessarily makes for better sound", but the correlation of "higher bitrate format just happens to have better mastering" is often strong enough to make these the go-to formats. There are a large number of classic recordings that are difficult to obtain in the digital era without harsh compression being applied to them, so the 24/192 or SACD release is the most convenient way of hearing them with decent dynamic range.
  - traviscj 9y ago
    In other words, it is not a technical advantage, but a social/political one.
  - JohnBooty 9y ago
    Right, absolutely. 16 bit samples give 100db+ of perceived dynamic range, more than would ever be needed. The other poster is not saying otherwise, though. They're just saying that "hi-def" formats, while technically unnecessary for end-user listening, are often the only way to obtain a decently-mastered recording. There's no technical reason for things to be that way. But that's how things are. It's sort of like buying a new car. You want the more powerful engine? Well then you also have to buy the package with heated seats, the moonroof, and the fog lights. There's no technical reason for it, but that's the only way they'll sell it to you.

kierenj 9y ago

Did you check out the article? 16 bits can cover the range very well, more than you (or anyone) could ever distinguish

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
Sigh. Please see my other reply. It isn't a matter of bit rate (indeed, 16 bits could be more than enough). It is a matter of how engineers serve the targeted markets of each format.
- ptaipale 9y ago
  Perfectly valid point. It's not a technical limitation that "normal" recordings are spoiled by compression, but it's a commercial limitation (or whatever you call it) that has a very real impact. You cannot buy good recordings in other formats, in this format you can. So there's a market - not a very big one as such, and maybe created for all the wrong reasons, but it is there.
- kierenj 9y ago
  I'm not sure how it's not even more "silly" then. Investing in additional infrastructure, equipment, and effort, when all you need to do is turn down the compressor ratio in the mix... Sounds silly to me.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    Well, SACD at least offers one further advantage than lower compression: multichannel audio, which is a big deal for classical music, especially works involving spatialization. Investing in a SACD player is well worth if that repertoire concerns you.
  - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
    > all you need to do is turn down the compressor ratio in the mix The problem here is that the "you" in this sentence is not "me", or even an entity I can really influence, much less control. It's not really even the audio engineer whose boss is telling him to turn up the volume so high that only the top few bits of the 16-bit recording are in use. The boss is saying this so that the song can be heard when the user turns the volume down because of the obnoxiously noisy commercials on the radio. Those commercials have found that they're more effective when they turn the volume way, way up. And they don't give a whit about the quality of their audio as long as they can sell more cars or tickets or whatever, much less the quality of the songs that play after them, much much less the quality of the songs that someone downloads to listen to offline in a nice listening environment without commercials. The solution isn't just "turn down your compressor ratio", there's a big, hairy Nash equilibrium/politics problem that can be bypassed by offering 24/192 as a secondary product. If you want to remaster it to 16/48 after downloading, you're welcome to do so.

z3t4 9y ago

Sadly most people have never experienced good sound. When you hear it though. But taste can be very different.

Fifer82 9y ago
I have! I really have! My friend spends all his money on audio. I sadly just don't understand. You are correct. I was going to say that he pays infinite money for what to me is a 10% increase in enjoyment, but perhaps for you and him, your brain is better with sound, and you guys might get a 1000% improvement for your dollar. Although in any case, nothing justifies the pricetag dished out to audio enthusiasts.
- mixedCase 9y ago
  An 100-150 dollar headset of the right type is hardly "infinite money" and I would call it paradigm-changing compared to what most people seem to be using, at least over here. It's only at higher tiers that the difference might really be imperceptible to many ears.
  - dom0 9y ago
    For all its flaws even a Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro is a very good headset that's head and shoulders above...
    - dagw 9y ago
      As someone who knows nothing about 'good' headsets, should I get the 32, 80 or 250 Ohm
      - ljcn 9y ago
        It shouldn't make much too much difference unless you like to listen to them really loud (damaging-your-hearing levels). Two things come to mind though: voltage/current delivery of your amp, and damping ratio. The first depends on the characteristics of your amplifier. Some are better at delivering current, some voltage. The lower impedance (32) is better suited to high-current/low-voltage sources, which includes most portable devices, phones, etc. Conversely, the higher impedance (250) is better for high-voltage/low-current sources like tube amps. The second is about the ratio of the headphone impedance to the amp output impedance. You want a high ratio, so if your source has a large output impedance then the higher impedance headphones will sound better. Good headphone amps sometimes specify the output impedance, or you can measure it.

mtzet 9y ago

I've noticed the same thing with LP's. While LP's are technically inferior to red book CD's, they're often mastered better.

72deluxe 9y ago
Why is this? I only have 16 bit 44.1kHz "normal" CDs and I notice some terrible mastering jobs, eg. RHCP Stadium Arcadium loses the snare for the first track and is like listening to minutes of distortion yet apparently the vinyl was really well mastered. Is there a technical reason why the mastering is so different for the two mediums, CD versus vinyl?
- wvh 9y ago
  Just guessing, but maybe the CD version is also used for radio play, and needs to be mastered as loud as possible not to lose the war? I guess special purpose releases don't usually end up on the radio so they can be mastered for people who actually appreciate music. ;)
- wiredearp 9y ago
  When you boost the loudness too much (for your specific turntable to handle), the needle will simply jump out of the groove, not kidding.
  - intractable 9y ago
    This is true, to a certain extent. But it doesn't mean that masters for vinyl always have more dynamics left intact. More often than not these days, the same compressed master is used for the vinyl. To combat the groove-jumping problem, the overall level is simply dropped.
- rocqua 9y ago
  I've seen it argued that multi-disc setups are where the loudness wars started. When you can switch between CDs quickly, you start comparing how they sound. If the volume knob is left alone, the CD that is mastered louder is going to sound louder, and thus better. Thus, people started mastering CDs for loudness. An alternative idea of mine is simpler. Loud music is considered worse than quiet music (quiet music sounds worse, but loud music still does, and also bothers other people). So, when you need to pick a volume setting for your collection, you bias towards setting it lower, so the really loud ones don't become too loud. Thus, the quieter CDs are annoying because they always sound quiet, whilst the load CDs sound about right, because your volume is much more suitable for them.

5zBFyURxgY 9y ago

Still very silly IMAO. Very, very few recordings are done in 24/192 because of the many implications this has on your entire studio setup. You'll need an exceptional good clock to start with, and all other equipment needs to align to that clock. Then all plugins/processing you use needs to be in the same 24/192 domain, otherwise your signal is reduced to the limit of that plugin/processing and all previous efforts are lost. Most music producers use samples, most are 16/44, so what's the point to try to get that to 24/192, filling the signal with zero's.. If a piece of music is in very rare occasion truly 24/192 then the listener who downloaded the track still needs a exceptional good clock (that are both expensive and hard to find) to playback without signal reduction. IMAO 24/192 is just a marketing thing for audiophiles that don't really understand the implications. 24/96 should be a reasonable limit for now, although personally I think 24/48 is enough for very high quality audio.

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
You ought to have read the rest of this thread before leaving this comment. I’d be very happy with 24/96 or 24/48 if I could get recordings at that bitrate that aren't given a loudness wars treatment. Since I often can't, I have to go for 24/192 or SACD even if all that extra room is completely superfluous, just because that format was decently mastered. > Most music producers use samples... Most people interested in better-quality sound in this particular context aren't listening to contemporary electronic music with samples. 24/192 or SACD is so desirable for reissues of older recordings in pop or jazz genres where those formats were mastered with higher dynamic range, while the available CD versions or lower-bitrate downloads were mastered with loudness-wars compression. The format is also attractive to classical music listeners, because SACD gives you multichannel audio; and some classical labels are now giving loudness-wars treatment to the non-SACD or non-24/192 formats of a particular new release.
- leephillips 9y ago
  "some classical labels are now giving loudness-wars treatment" That's depressing.

DCKing 9y ago

The loudness war seems to have been a temporary problem, prevalent mostly because music was primarily listened as downloads of individual files or small collections of files. Music streaming services have since become a very important music listening medium. Spotify, Google Music, Apple Music and others do normalization of these loudness levels. This neutralizes the loudness wars as it makes loudness wars treatment of music useless, at least when listened on streaming services [1]. Music mastered in the loudness war will still have problems with dynamic range but the perverse motivations causing the war are simply not as relevant for new music. I agree the loudness war was a huge problem a few years ago, but changing trends in the ways music is being listened to is solving it. The way you present the loudness war problem is therefore somewhat out of touch. [1]: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywgeek/why-spotify-lowered-the-volume-of-songs-and-ended-hegemonic-loudness https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywgeek/why-spotif...

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
The loudness war is a matter of degree. Sure, steps have been taken so that we maybe won't see another Death Magnetic where the compression has resulted in outright ear-bleeding distortion. But when most music today is listened to from portable devices in loud environments, it’s hard to believe that we are ever again going back to the level of dynamic range common before the loudness war. As I said, even some classical music (and jazz) labels are now issuing their music with considerably limited dynamic range, and a dynamic range as ample as it traditionally was is available only to those who buy the SACD (and listen to the SACD layer of a hybrid SACD, not the CD layer) or the high-resolution download.
- jackhack 9y ago
  Add to this the 'Bass arms race' happening in the past 15 years. It is especially noticeable if one listens to "modern" vs older CDs vs the radio. I suppose Producers now feel compelled to exercise subwoofers and thump the audience, or compensate for crappy earbuds in the target audience, or maybe that's just what people want because even radio commercials are complicit -- it's difficult to listen to someone talk with "thump/thump/thump" drumbeats in the background. Often, I simply turn it off. In my car, I have the bass response dialed back by about 50%, and even dip the mid-range by about 15% to get what sounds to my ears like a flat response. I have mild hearing loss from the 250 to 1k range, so my ears are already attenuating the signal -- I can only imagine how "bass heavy" it must sound to someone with normal hearing!

JohnBooty 9y ago

the 24/192 downloads or SACD releases are often the only way to hear the album with real dynamic range. Yeah, this is often true. Some of Green Day's (a band I've never previously been into) albums were released in 24/192 or 24/96 a few years back and they actually sounded really great, with real dynamic range. Also true? The completely absurd fact that sometimes a vinyl rip of an album will actually have the highest dynamic range, even though vinyl has a much smaller dynamic range than 16/44 audio. Bands often use "loudness wars" mastering for the digital release and then proper mastering for the vinyl release.

justin66 9y ago
> Yeah, this is often true. Some of Green Day's (a band I've never previously been into) albums were released in 24/192 or 24/96 a few years back and they actually sounded really great, with real dynamic range. Back in the day you'd occasionally see remastered "gold" discs released. The advertising made a big deal about the disc material. Those probably sounded different too (they managed to sell them at a great premium) but with those, they sounded better because of the newer remastering, not the disc technology. It's certainly possible this is the case with some of those releases remastered for SACD as well. The label probably didn't give Green Day a huge amount of money for production when they made Dookie, for example, but it eventually sold 20 million copies and additional production made sense. If it sounds better to the listener it's a real benefit, too, but it is quite likely not down to the playback technology. Two oddball things I've noticed about remasters in the last couple of years: there's some agreement out there that the newest remaster of Hendrix's records is not the best. And King Crimson, who has an audiophile following and decorates their catalog with remasters with alarming regularity, removed a little dynamic range (an oversimplification) from the newest remaster of Larks Tongues in Aspic when remastering the CD and mastering for DVD/A because people very understandably complained about the (technically very good) previous version being too quiet. Audiophiles say they want dynamic range, but...
- tripzilch 9y ago
  Yeah it's still the artist's choice how much dynamic range is needed to express their music. More dynamic range just for the sake of it, seems just as bad as sausage flattening to get as loud sound as possible.

rplst8 9y ago

> Not entirely silly. Yes, the purported benefits of this high-fidelity audio are imaginary or even include undesirable traits. However, when most "remasters" of pop music today involve the dynamics being boosted to "loudness wars" standards for a target audience of people listening to the music through earbuds in the street, the 24/192 downloads or SACD releases are often the only way to hear the album with real dynamic range. No. It's still entirely silly. The reason? The dynamics are unrecoverable once squashed by a limiter or compressor during the remastering process. The fidelity of the delivery medium is moot after that happens.

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S_A_P 9y ago
This. Once the "master" is treated with the maximizing limiters that are used in the loudness war the files are just rendered into their separate file formats. If the SA cd promised that they reloaded the source tape/protools/whatever DAW was used and remixed/ remastered the songs to actually have dynamic range then I would be interested. As far as I am aware this isn't happening, and is implausible for any record of considered a classic
- olleromam91 9y ago
  Why implausible?
  - S_A_P 9y ago
    The scope of work involved is too great to remix and remaster all the records. I also know that most indie records are not kept in their multitrack form as meticulously as big label acts.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  Loudness-wars compression is a product of the digital recording era, and quite a few years into it, too. A lot of music that people still want to listen to today predates all that. Many SACD reissues do go back to the source tape. This is a frequent cause of complaint with SACD reissues of classic jazz recordings from the 1960s: sometimes you get better sound in terms of dynamic range than any previous CD issue of that recording, but in the meantime the source tape may have deteriorated in parts. Even with recordings from the “loudness wars”, there is sometimes room for dynamic range improvement when remastering. A good example is Rush’s album Vapor Trails. This was an infamously botched recording upon its original release, on a scale with Death Magnetic. Because loudness-wars treatment plagued the original tracks before mixing, the damage could never entirely be repaired. However, the additional process of compression applied to the source during transfer to CD could be reversed, so the album was eventually reissued as Vapor Trails Remixed, and while still flawed, that reissue has a lot more room to breathe than the original CD release.

ksk 9y ago

What are some examples of popular songs that had their loudness boosted?

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
Almost any reissue of material that has already appeared on CD in an earlier generation. Compare the post-millennial CD remasters of Slowdive's Souvlaki or the Cocteau Twins discography to the original CD issues of those albums in the early 1990s. Generally anytime an album is announced as "newly remastered" these days, the sole significant change is decreasing its dynamic range.
- ksk 9y ago
  Any examples that I can listen to online?

davidgerard 9y ago

Yep - non-shitty masterings are the one legitimate reason for "hi-res" audio. Even if you could downsample it to 16/44 with no perceptible difference.

quakenul 9y ago

It is entirely silly. The believe that there is causation between a high fidelity, high dynamic range release and 24/192 is exactly the issue. Yes, those high dynamic range releases usually get published in 24/192. No, the fact that they get published in 24/192 does not, as far as human hearing goes, add anything to the dynamic range or otherwise the fidelity of the recording. Since the correlation is so strong, it is of course entirely understandable that people assume causation exists.