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We AB tested 16-44.1 and 24-96 versions of some really good classical recordings recently - you need good listening equipment (ears and electronic) but undoubte

We AB tested 16-44.1 and 24-96 versions of some really good classical recordings recently - you need good listening equipment (ears and electronic) but undoubtedly the dynamic range and top end (particularly) sounded better. It really depends on the listener, the source, and the equipment. A few years ago I did lots of AB testing with some Sony xm1000w3s (Sony LDAC) and Tidal Hifi with some 24bit masters and it was an incredible experience that changed my mind in the whole "640K.. 16bit is enough" argument.

nyolfen 3y ago
"you need more than anecdotal evidence" "have some anecdotal evidence"
- replete 3y ago
  [flagged]
- replete 3y ago
  Apologies, that flippant comment was super rude and juvenile and I am taking it as a signal that I really need a break, I don't normally speak in this way. Yikes. Also totally fair, I shouldn't be hastily writing comments but I am interested in audio and wanted to share my experiences, naively. I have some 'hires' recordings that I can't tell the difference between a CD at all and do not care for, and some where I hear more details (on very high end), more separation between instruments - and from what I'm reading it seems more like this is a mastering issue. The difference on some of these recordings enable a kind of subjective 'holographic' spatial effect in me (perhaps the cause of my emphatic response) and it seems I have probably falsely attributed this to the higher resolution as the factor.
  - nyolfen 3y ago
    i appreciate your apology and i didn't mean it as an attack on you personally, it was just meant to highlight the irony. perhaps i could have phrased it more sensitively
fsckboy 3y ago
things that are slightly louder "sound better". How did you control this sort of thing?
- eviks 3y ago
  Sure, but that's also easy to normalize in a proper test
Mistletoe 3y ago
Was your test blinded? I guess there is a chance you are an outlier but blind tests like this one don't support what you are saying. http://archimago.blogspot.com/2014/06/24-bit-vs-16-bit-audio-test-part-ii.html http://archimago.blogspot.com/2014/06/24-bit-vs-16-bit-audio... >In a naturalistic survey of 140 respondents using high quality musical samples sourced from high-resolution 24/96 digital audio collected over 2 months, there was no evidence that 24-bit audio could be appreciably differentiated from the same music dithered down to 16-bits using a basic algorithm (Adobe Audition 3, flat triangular dither, 0.5 bits). >Furthermore, analysis of those utilizing more expensive audio systems ($6,000+) did not show any evidence of the respondents being able to identify the 24-bit audio. Those using headphones likewise did not show any stronger preference for the higher bit-depth sample. No difference was noted in the "older" (51+ years) age group data (not surprising if there is no discernible difference even with potential age-related hearing acuity changes).
eviks 3y ago
I'd rather trust solid hearing biology/physics plus all the other failed tests > the effective dynamic range of 16 bit audio reaches 120dB in practice [13], more than fifteen times deeper than the 96dB claim. > 120dB is greater than the difference between a deserted 'soundproof' room and a sound loud enough to cause hearing damage in seconds. > 16 bits is enough to store all we can hear, and will be enough forever. https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_1bv2b https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_1...
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  We also can't see more than 60 fps according to so much research. And why would we want 10 bit screens? I checked out the link, and the Sample 2 file does not represent any wave and is not audible, so the article contradicts itself.
  - ReactiveJelly 3y ago
    We would want 10 bit screens because the research indicates that the dynamic range of human vision is around 90 dB or 1:1,000,000,000, which is alarmingly higher than even 1:1,024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range#Human_perception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range#Human_perception If all research is wrong, I'm gonna start drinking vinegar and building perpetual motion machines :P
    - jbverschoor 3y ago
      According to Pantone, "Researchers estimate that most humans can see around one million different colours". So research says we only need 7 bits. "Research".. sponsored by corporations, and peer-checked by scientific voting rings. A bunch of incrowd elitists who like to use jargon. Science and politics these days are pretty similar
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        Are you both talking about the same thing? Is dynamic range the same thing as 'number of colors'?
jbverschoor 3y ago
These days "good equipment" unfortunately means: - Sonos - Airpods - Beats
- pimeys 3y ago
  All with Bluetooth compression... For that price range, Hifiman produces pretty good planar headphones. The edition XS sounds really good.
ReactiveJelly 3y ago
Why AB and not ABX?
- wuiheerfoj 3y ago
  Because the base rate is 50% in an either/or test
  - squeaky-clean 3y ago
    But you don't necessarily know they're guessing what you're testing for in the A/B test. If they are answering which one sounds better, some songs will genuinely sound better with a little lossy compression. Did you check to see if any audio samples deviated from the base 50% rate in either direction? For example if 70% of people chose the compressed version of Audio Sample 15, that still demonstrates an ability to discern a difference. It just turns out they like the lossy sample more. For a contrived example, imagine an A/B test where you have to tell me which image has more red. Image 1 is a dark red panel on the left and a fully bright white panel on the right. Most people would say the left is more red, but in my fictional test it is actually the white panel because (100, 0, 0) has less red than (255, 255, 255). If you use ABX, people know exactly what they are supposed to be matching.
amlib 3y ago
The 24-96 is different master, some sound engineer just had a field day in the studio and produced a better mix. Repeat the test with a 16-44.1 version downsampled (use something like sox with the ultra high quality resmapler) from the 24-96 version and I guarantee you will not be able to spot any difference compared to the "true" 24-96 version.
- saltcured 3y ago
  I understand the theory of this, but cannot reconcile it with an experience I had in person a decade ago. In the acoustically prepped monitoring booth of his recording studio, a friend of mine tried to give me an ABX test of 24bit 96 kHz recording and its 16bit 44.1 kHz rendering that was supposedly done right. I heard the difference and easily picked the high-rate one that sounded more life-like. With my best effort, I described it as having a clearer high frequency spectrum, while the other sounded muffled in comparison. I am left wondering if the 44.1 kHz file wasn't actually rendered correctly with dithering, or if my friend failed to actually get his studio equipment to play it back correctly. I.e. was some overly aggressive low-pass filter done during the conversion or during the playback.
  - amlib 3y ago
    As you said yourself, it was most likely a rendering issue. A bad low-pass filter would have attenuated the high-end when converting to 44khz. Also, this is afaik the reason why all modern audio uses 48khz, you get a little bit more head-room when designing a low pass filter and you can even choose a less aggressive and perhaps less computationally expensive one that still won't have an effect on the humanly perceptible frequencies.
    - publicmail 3y ago
      I think the reason a lot of modern audio is at 48k has more to do with it being accompanied by video, which has independently settled on sampling rates of 48k, 96k, etc.
deaddodo 3y ago
I love how you can pull out 100 studies and side by side comparisons of recording tools/listening devices much more precise than the human ear that all show this as being flim-flam; and still "audiophiles" will convince themselves to spend 5-25k on specialty equipment that has no effect on their experience. You're better off spending your money on a bog standard DAC/AMP (feel free to opt for tube even, if you insist) combo running through a pair of decent headphones off of 320kbps MP3/AAC (or FLAC, if you insist) source. Even, if we took your subjective insistance that this specialty equipment improved your experience by .00001%, it's probably not worth the 500-1500% increase in expense. As to your specific example, I can guarantee you that your Bluetooth codec (LDAC or not) introduced far more sound artifacts than the difference between 16 and 24-bit sound.
- zigzag312 3y ago
  I would be interested in those studies if you can link a few of them.
- KeplerBoy 3y ago
  Placebo is one hell of a drug and has an effect much larger than .00001%. It might not pass an ABX test, but it absolutely does sound better to those who want it to sound better.
eredengrin 3y ago
How do you know that the 24/96 and 16/44 came from the same masters? If this isn't controlled for then of course the result might be different.[0] Also, what is xm1000w3s? I can't find any record of this so I'm guessing maybe it is referring to the WH1000XM3 headphones? Given ldac is also mentioned this seems a reasonable guess as it's a bluetooth model. If that's the case I wouldn't call it "good listening equipment", the default frequency response curve of the wh1000xm3 is incredibly bad, it's barely worth listening to classical music on without using AutoEq[1] or something equivalent (I have a pair and it's much worse than my old Ath M50s which were like half the price). The bass heavy curve of the headphones is far more noticeable than any difference between 16/24 bit audio would ever make. [0] https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_dmdm https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_d... [1] https://autoeq.app/ https://autoeq.app/

nyolfen 3y ago

"you need more than anecdotal evidence" "have some anecdotal evidence"

replete 3y ago
[flagged]
replete 3y ago
Apologies, that flippant comment was super rude and juvenile and I am taking it as a signal that I really need a break, I don't normally speak in this way. Yikes. Also totally fair, I shouldn't be hastily writing comments but I am interested in audio and wanted to share my experiences, naively. I have some 'hires' recordings that I can't tell the difference between a CD at all and do not care for, and some where I hear more details (on very high end), more separation between instruments - and from what I'm reading it seems more like this is a mastering issue. The difference on some of these recordings enable a kind of subjective 'holographic' spatial effect in me (perhaps the cause of my emphatic response) and it seems I have probably falsely attributed this to the higher resolution as the factor.
- nyolfen 3y ago
  i appreciate your apology and i didn't mean it as an attack on you personally, it was just meant to highlight the irony. perhaps i could have phrased it more sensitively

fsckboy 3y ago

things that are slightly louder "sound better". How did you control this sort of thing?

eviks 3y ago
Sure, but that's also easy to normalize in a proper test

Mistletoe 3y ago

Was your test blinded? I guess there is a chance you are an outlier but blind tests like this one don't support what you are saying. http://archimago.blogspot.com/2014/06/24-bit-vs-16-bit-audio-test-part-ii.html http://archimago.blogspot.com/2014/06/24-bit-vs-16-bit-audio... >In a naturalistic survey of 140 respondents using high quality musical samples sourced from high-resolution 24/96 digital audio collected over 2 months, there was no evidence that 24-bit audio could be appreciably differentiated from the same music dithered down to 16-bits using a basic algorithm (Adobe Audition 3, flat triangular dither, 0.5 bits). >Furthermore, analysis of those utilizing more expensive audio systems ($6,000+) did not show any evidence of the respondents being able to identify the 24-bit audio. Those using headphones likewise did not show any stronger preference for the higher bit-depth sample. No difference was noted in the "older" (51+ years) age group data (not surprising if there is no discernible difference even with potential age-related hearing acuity changes).

eviks 3y ago

I'd rather trust solid hearing biology/physics plus all the other failed tests > the effective dynamic range of 16 bit audio reaches 120dB in practice [13], more than fifteen times deeper than the 96dB claim. > 120dB is greater than the difference between a deserted 'soundproof' room and a sound loud enough to cause hearing damage in seconds. > 16 bits is enough to store all we can hear, and will be enough forever. https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_1bv2b https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_1...

jbverschoor 3y ago
We also can't see more than 60 fps according to so much research. And why would we want 10 bit screens? I checked out the link, and the Sample 2 file does not represent any wave and is not audible, so the article contradicts itself.
- ReactiveJelly 3y ago
  We would want 10 bit screens because the research indicates that the dynamic range of human vision is around 90 dB or 1:1,000,000,000, which is alarmingly higher than even 1:1,024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range#Human_perception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range#Human_perception If all research is wrong, I'm gonna start drinking vinegar and building perpetual motion machines :P
  - jbverschoor 3y ago
    According to Pantone, "Researchers estimate that most humans can see around one million different colours". So research says we only need 7 bits. "Research".. sponsored by corporations, and peer-checked by scientific voting rings. A bunch of incrowd elitists who like to use jargon. Science and politics these days are pretty similar
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      Are you both talking about the same thing? Is dynamic range the same thing as 'number of colors'?

jbverschoor 3y ago

These days "good equipment" unfortunately means: - Sonos - Airpods - Beats

pimeys 3y ago
All with Bluetooth compression... For that price range, Hifiman produces pretty good planar headphones. The edition XS sounds really good.

ReactiveJelly 3y ago

Why AB and not ABX?

wuiheerfoj 3y ago
Because the base rate is 50% in an either/or test
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  But you don't necessarily know they're guessing what you're testing for in the A/B test. If they are answering which one sounds better, some songs will genuinely sound better with a little lossy compression. Did you check to see if any audio samples deviated from the base 50% rate in either direction? For example if 70% of people chose the compressed version of Audio Sample 15, that still demonstrates an ability to discern a difference. It just turns out they like the lossy sample more. For a contrived example, imagine an A/B test where you have to tell me which image has more red. Image 1 is a dark red panel on the left and a fully bright white panel on the right. Most people would say the left is more red, but in my fictional test it is actually the white panel because (100, 0, 0) has less red than (255, 255, 255). If you use ABX, people know exactly what they are supposed to be matching.

amlib 3y ago

The 24-96 is different master, some sound engineer just had a field day in the studio and produced a better mix. Repeat the test with a 16-44.1 version downsampled (use something like sox with the ultra high quality resmapler) from the 24-96 version and I guarantee you will not be able to spot any difference compared to the "true" 24-96 version.

saltcured 3y ago
I understand the theory of this, but cannot reconcile it with an experience I had in person a decade ago. In the acoustically prepped monitoring booth of his recording studio, a friend of mine tried to give me an ABX test of 24bit 96 kHz recording and its 16bit 44.1 kHz rendering that was supposedly done right. I heard the difference and easily picked the high-rate one that sounded more life-like. With my best effort, I described it as having a clearer high frequency spectrum, while the other sounded muffled in comparison. I am left wondering if the 44.1 kHz file wasn't actually rendered correctly with dithering, or if my friend failed to actually get his studio equipment to play it back correctly. I.e. was some overly aggressive low-pass filter done during the conversion or during the playback.
- amlib 3y ago
  As you said yourself, it was most likely a rendering issue. A bad low-pass filter would have attenuated the high-end when converting to 44khz. Also, this is afaik the reason why all modern audio uses 48khz, you get a little bit more head-room when designing a low pass filter and you can even choose a less aggressive and perhaps less computationally expensive one that still won't have an effect on the humanly perceptible frequencies.
  - publicmail 3y ago
    I think the reason a lot of modern audio is at 48k has more to do with it being accompanied by video, which has independently settled on sampling rates of 48k, 96k, etc.

deaddodo 3y ago

I love how you can pull out 100 studies and side by side comparisons of recording tools/listening devices much more precise than the human ear that all show this as being flim-flam; and still "audiophiles" will convince themselves to spend 5-25k on specialty equipment that has no effect on their experience. You're better off spending your money on a bog standard DAC/AMP (feel free to opt for tube even, if you insist) combo running through a pair of decent headphones off of 320kbps MP3/AAC (or FLAC, if you insist) source. Even, if we took your subjective insistance that this specialty equipment improved your experience by .00001%, it's probably not worth the 500-1500% increase in expense. As to your specific example, I can guarantee you that your Bluetooth codec (LDAC or not) introduced far more sound artifacts than the difference between 16 and 24-bit sound.

zigzag312 3y ago
I would be interested in those studies if you can link a few of them.
KeplerBoy 3y ago
Placebo is one hell of a drug and has an effect much larger than .00001%. It might not pass an ABX test, but it absolutely does sound better to those who want it to sound better.

eredengrin 3y ago

How do you know that the 24/96 and 16/44 came from the same masters? If this isn't controlled for then of course the result might be different.[0] Also, what is xm1000w3s? I can't find any record of this so I'm guessing maybe it is referring to the WH1000XM3 headphones? Given ldac is also mentioned this seems a reasonable guess as it's a bluetooth model. If that's the case I wouldn't call it "good listening equipment", the default frequency response curve of the wh1000xm3 is incredibly bad, it's barely worth listening to classical music on without using AutoEq[1] or something equivalent (I have a pair and it's much worse than my old Ath M50s which were like half the price). The bass heavy curve of the headphones is far more noticeable than any difference between 16/24 bit audio would ever make. [0] https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_dmdm https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_d... [1] https://autoeq.app/ https://autoeq.app/