Message to golden-eared audiophiles posting at ASR for the first time...

[egellings]

I agree with that. 16 bit 44.1 (cd quality) is sufficient - and probably indistinguishable for listening. That is why I am fine when listening to Amazon Music HD - rather than Ultra HD.

Yep. Don't ask for a drop forge when all you need is a tack hammer.

 

[j_j]

Perhaps, but make sure the bits have not degraded. You get better quality bits depending on how they get there. You can try this experiment at home!

Sarcasm, right?

(It's sad that I have to ask, but that's probably not your fault.)

 

[j_j]

I agree with that. 16 bit 44.1 (cd quality) is sufficient - and probably indistinguishable for listening. That is why I am fine when listening to Amazon Music HD - rather than Ultra HD.

There are arguments for 64kHz sampling based on hypothetical cases, and solidly based arguments for a bandwidth of 25kHz based on young people. But for most of us, Redbook is just fine.

 

[DonR]

Spikes under your router, bits come in sharper.

 

[j_j]

Spikes under your router, bits come in sharper.

Sometimes we need the laughing out loud emoji here.

 

[teashea]

Spikes under your router, bits come in sharper.

indeed....................

 

[Axo1989]

Perhaps, but make sure the bits have not degraded. You get better quality bits depending on how they get there. You can try this experiment at home!

The first sign of degraded bits is the serifs are missing from the 1s ... this happens as they tumble through the tubes of the internet.

 

[DonR]

The first sign of degraded bits is the serifs are missing from the 1s ... this happens as they tumble through the tubes of the internet.

So more like I's and O's than 1's and 0's? I hate when it gets like that.

 

[teashea]

So more like I's and O's than 1's and 0's? I hate when it gets like that.

Well one must understand that some like the 0's to be rolled off a bit and like to add a little harmonic distortion/saturation to the 1's.

 

[Axo1989]

Well one must understand that some like the 0's to be rolled off a bit and like to add a little harmonic distortion/saturation to the 1's.

Rolled off, absolutely.

I guess we need some work on whether it's best to use tube amps to restore the analog-ness lost to the intertubes, or whether that's just too many tubes. Can there be too many tubes?

 

[Axo1989]

So more like I's and O's than 1's and 0's? I hate when it gets like that.

Pretty sure you've nailed the difference between thin/cold digital and warm/rich analog character there.

 

[DonR]

Pretty sure you've nailed the difference between thin/cold digital and warm/rich analog character there.

So I guess I have discovered the Daniel Hertz secret.

Daniel Htz. Only ones that understand digital vs analog?

“Daniel Hertz is the only company that understands the difference between analog and digital audio, can measure it, and has a solution to deliver pure analog sound from standard digital formats including streaming.”...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Just round off the 1's and 0's until they become I's and O's.

 

[Mart68]

Recent conversation from Reddit :

A: Is streaming 24bit really practical? Anyone who cares enough to want 24bit is going to want locally stored file playback I would think

B: Curious why you would say this? Any halfway decent home internet of at least 20 Mbps should have no issue with streaming even 24/192.

A: Streaming is a very imperfect way of getting the string of 1s and 0s from where they are stored to the DAC without degradation. In order of degradation: worst to least it would go something like: streaming over the internet, streaming over home wifi from network storage, pulling from a spinning connected external hard drive, pulling from a solid state connected external hard drive, pulling from a file buried within files on the playback device, playing directly from the C:/ Hard Disk itself. You can try this experiment at home.

B: That’s… that’s not how it works

I was B in this conversation. I have reached the point where I have a difficult time engaging in other Audio forums, there is so much misinformation and misunderstanding out there - confident ignorance. I used to engage but now I just don't have the patience. So grateful for ASR...

rings a bell. Just the other day I was being told CD sounds 'Much better' if ripped to a hard drive (a solid state hard drive ofc).

I made my excuses and left. It's just too much like hard work on some forums. No-one is interested in discussing anything that really makes a difference to sonics.

 

[IAtaman]

rings a bell. Just the other day I was being told CD sounds 'Much better' if ripped to a hard drive (a solid state hard drive ofc).

I made my excuses and left. It's just too much like hard work on some forums. No-one is interested in discussing anything that really makes a difference to sonics.

You come across things like these and suddenly the spikes under the router makes a lot of sense.

 

[keith_h]

Undeniably?

Are you sure you knew *why* it sounded underwhelming?

The point is, there's what you hear (sighted), and there's the *reason* for what you hear, and listeners often make erroneous assumptions about the latter based on the former.

Are you sure you knew *why* it sounded underwhelming?

Yes. Immature technology and poor mastering of existing recordings. Compared to vinyl recordings of the same albums it sounded woeful and this was well documented at the time in the early 80's.

The loudness wars: why many CDs sound bad | Tim Anderson's IT Writing

 

[MarkS]

The article you cite does nothing to support your claim.

 

[krabapple]

Are you sure you knew *why* it sounded underwhelming?

Yes. Immature technology and poor mastering of existing recordings. Compared to vinyl recordings of the same albums it sounded woeful and this was well documented at the time in the early 80's.

The loudness wars: why many CDs sound bad | Tim Anderson's IT Writing

THis (below), the introductory paragraph about loudnesss wars, which were not a feature of the first generation of CDs) is your conclusive evidence that sighted bias wasn't at play? Seriously? What it really points most reasnably is: it's the mastering. Not the early CD players, and not the CD format itself.


"Trouble is, to some ears there were CDs that didn’t sound as good as the LPs they replaced. Various theories were put forward as to why that might be the case. Some claimed that 16 digital bits were insufficient. Others said that early CDs were being made from LP cutting masters, which sound artifically bright to compensate for limitations of vinyl, or that engineers could not kick bad LP-based habits. The answer was to wait for improved remasters."

 

[ahofer]

I was an early CD adopter, and I remember being very disappointed with a lot of the mastering. I sought out vinyl recording of chamber pieces I really liked. But pretty soon you could get Telarc and Chandos recordings that showed clearly it wasn’t the medium. My mentor in college also made live digital recordings (early Sony Digital Tape) of the Muir Quartet that were excellent.

The introduction of CD coincided with what I’d call the darkest period in Deutsche Grammophon’s recording techniques. Huge multi-mic setups that ended up flattening everything out.

 

[MarkS]

I bought a CD player (Marantz FD1000SL, the Marantz rebranding of the Philips player) the very first day it was available in 1984, along with some Telarc and Japan-import Denon CDs. They were absolutely wonderful, and the Telarc CDs were much better than the vinyl LP equivalents that I already owned.

And the vast majority of classical music mastering by the majors (DG, London, CBS) was horrifically bad throughout the 60s and 70s. That had nothing to do with CD.

 

[NoxMorbis]

I bought a CD player (Marantz FD1000SL, the Marantz rebranding of the Philips player) the very first day it was available in 1984, along with some Telarc and Japan-import Denon CDs. They were absolutely wonderful, and the Telarc CDs were much better than the vinyl LP equivalents that I already owned.

And the vast majority of classical music mastering by the majors (DG, London, CBS) was horrifically bad throughout the 60s and 70s. That had nothing to do with CD.

I remember in the early 80s when we all moved from vinyl to CDs. Some 'audiophile' friends we knew called CDs 'sterile' sounding. Back then I didn't care. To me CDs were amazing becsaue of portability and to me they sounded perfect, no clicking, popping, etc. And, we didn't have to buy vinyl and then cut it to tape to listen in our cars. When I think back on those days, I think those guys had two words mixed up: sterile vs accurate.