Finally! High-quality music downloads are coming

[soundhound]

I seem to vaguely remember a set of files I uploaded several years ago which challenged people "on the other forum" to hear a difference between portions of various songs which were native 16 bit, interspersed with sections carefully reduced to 8 bits. Most people were not able to reliably tell when those transitions took place by ear alone. To tell the difference between 16 bits and 24 bits would be orders of magnitude more difficult, and that was the point of the test; to show that 24 bit encoding was basically bullshit marketing. 24 bit encoding has its place in the original recording phase so that when DSP operations are performed on the files, rounding errors do not become audible. But for final release, 16 bits has more dynamic range than any home environment.

 

[Kazaam]

^^^
Heck, a lot of us hear wouldn't be able to *reliably* tell the difference between an MP3 done at 320kbps vs a regular CD at 44.1kHz/16bits. Myself probably included.

That said, I'm not ready to declare 24-bit audio a complete waste on the consumer end. My guess is that it mostly is a waste, but part of me still wonders sometimes if it does provide, perhaps, at least a little good in some instances. But, with that said, I'd just be happy if music downloads would standardize on lossless 44.1kHz/16-bit audio. And then have the industry concentrate on making 44.1/16 sound as good as possible when new music is recorded and released.

 

[Yesfan70]

I seem to vaguely remember a set of files I uploaded several years ago which challenged people "on the other forum" to hear a difference between portions of various songs which were native 16 bit, interspersed with sections carefully reduced to 8 bits. Most people were not able to reliably tell when those transitions took place by ear alone. To tell the difference between 16 bits and 24 bits would be orders of magnitude more difficult, and that was the point of the test; to show that 24 bit encoding was basically bullshit marketing. 24 bit encoding has its place in the original recording phase so that when DSP operations are performed on the files, rounding errors do not become audible. But for final release, 16 bits has more dynamic range than any home environment.

I agree. I still have that test CD you sent me years ago. That was a very hard test!

IMO, I think DVD-A and SACD are overkill and overpriced compared to the price and quality of what you get with a well recorded CD of the same material. Most people are not going to take into effects issues like their hearing ability (both what we can hear and how we differentiate various sounds), their system's limits, and how well the listening environment (room treatments, etc) has been made.


Used to, I would look at getting an album on SACD or DVD-A first as opposed to CD. Now I just can't justify spending $15-$20 on a DVD-A/SACD disc that's just marginally better than CD sound counterpart for $3-$4. The real appeal to me with the higher rez formats is mainly the multichannel aspect and frankly I see nothing wrong with just having "5.1 CD sound" (16bit/44.1kHz) as opposed to having to have DVD-A/SACD for 5.1 lossless audio. Seems that would have been the easier more simple solution, especially if 5.1 at 16bit/44.1kHz can still fit on a CD.

 

[Kazaam]

The real appeal to me with the higher rez formats is mainly the multichannel aspect and frankly I see nothing wrong with just having "5.1 CD sound" (16bit/44.1kHz) as opposed to having to have DVD-A/SACD for 5.1 lossless audio. Seems that would have been the easier more simple solution, especially if 5.1 at 16bit/44.1kHz can still fit on a CD.

You'd need to use lossy compression such as DTS in order to fit 5.1 channels from a typical album on a CD. Specifically, you can fit just under 80 minutes of 5.1 music on a "DTS-CD". Some of these sound quite good, IMO, despite being lossy.

Now... as for DVD?

I have no idea how many minutes of music of 5.1 channels LPCM at 48kHz/16bit audio could fit on a typical dual-layered disc, assuming there would be no stereo tracks or bonus material, but it's an intriguing idea. I'm totally guessing here, but I would imagine you'd only be able to do some of the very short albums??? I'd be curious to know if anyone has a precise idea of the maximum length such an album could be? Such a disc would have been playable in any regular DVD-Video player at a decent-enough "CD-level" sound quality for all 5.1 channels. Plus, there wouldn't have been any need for the labels to resort to the inclusion of a Dolby Digital 5.1 track (limited to a lousy 448kbps on DVD) in an attempt for backward compatibility as was done with DVD-Audio releases that utilized PPCM/MLP lossless compression..

 

[Yesfan70]

The real appeal to me with the higher rez formats is mainly the multichannel aspect and frankly I see nothing wrong with just having "5.1 CD sound" (16bit/44.1kHz) as opposed to having to have DVD-A/SACD for 5.1 lossless audio. Seems that would have been the easier more simple solution, especially if 5.1 at 16bit/44.1kHz can still fit on a CD.

You'd need to use lossy compression such as DTS in order to fit 5.1 channels from a typical album on a CD. Specifically, you can fit just under 80 minutes of 5.1 music on a "DTS-CD". Some of these sound quite good, IMO, despite being lossy.

Now... as for DVD?

I have no idea how many minutes of music of 5.1 channels LPCM at 48kHz/16bit audio could fit on a typical dual-layered disc, assuming there would be no stereo tracks or bonus material, but it's an intriguing idea. I'm totally guessing here, but I would imagine you'd only be able to do some of the very short albums??? I'd be curious to know if anyone has a precise idea of the maximum length such an album could be? Such a disc would have been playable in any regular DVD-Video player at a decent-enough "CD-level" sound quality for all 5.1 channels. Plus, there wouldn't have been any need for the labels to resort to the inclusion of a Dolby Digital 5.1 track (limited to a lousy 448kbps on DVD) in an attempt for backward compatibility as was done with DVD-Audio releases that utilized PPCM/MLP lossless compression..

What about compression like Flac or MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) that's used for DVD-As? Still could be pushing it for CD, but I would think DVDs would have enough storage. If I remember, a dual layer one sided DVD disc has up to 9GB storage? The other concern would be if a Toslink connection has enough bandwidth to pass a 5.1ch 16/44.1 signal.

 

[Zing]

Some of these sound quite good, IMO, despite being lossy.

Agreed! This was my very first multichannel disc and, to this day, I think this sounds better than some of my best SACD/DVD-A discs.

 

[Zing]

The other concern would be if a Toslink connection has enough bandwidth to pass a 5.1ch 16/44.1 signal.

Both Toslink and Coaxial can pass that.

 

[Kazaam]

The other concern would be if a Toslink connection has enough bandwidth to pass a 5.1ch 16/44.1 signal.

Both Toslink and Coaxial can pass that.

Can they? I started to doubt myself after Yesfan questioned it. I'm really not sure. I'm almost thinking they can't now.

 

[Yesfan70]

The other concern would be if a Toslink connection has enough bandwidth to pass a 5.1ch 16/44.1 signal.

Both Toslink and Coaxial can pass that.

Another win for simplicity. Maybe if the manufacturers would have stuck with the DVD format and 16 bit 5.1 sound, "Advanced Resolution" audio would have fared better and there would have been no need for a new format and compatible players.

 

[Zing]

Can they?

What's Dolby Digital and DTS?

 

[Yesfan70]

Can they?

What's Dolby Digital and DTS?

Lossy. What I was wondering about was Lossless 5.1, 16/44.1. I was wondering if it is an easier solution with CD or DVD as opposed to 5.1 24/96 lossless audio with DVD-A and SACD's DSD bitstream.

 

[Kazaam]

Some of these sound quite good, IMO, despite being lossy.

Agreed! This was my very first multichannel disc and, to this day, I think this sounds better than some of my best SACD/DVD-A discs.

You know, sometimes I wish all of my SACDs and DVD-Audios had simply been "DTS-CDs".

(1) DTS-CDs have the benefit of being easily "backed up", which is a term that I used to only think of as a euphemism used by others when referencing illegal copying, but after having most of my music flooded once, I no longer feel like a catastrophic loss couldn't happen. Is it unlikely? Sure, but I'd sure feel better knowing I had a backup in an off-site location! Ever try backing up an SACD or a DVD-Audio? You'll need a special player that ignores the "digital watermark" flag for DVD-Audio, and I'm unaware of anything for SACD. Maybe the closest thing is to get one of those "HDMI breakout boxes" so that you can grab a transcoded 88.2/24bit LPCM stream in the digital realm, but I don't think those things are easily obtained and I wouldn't know how to use one.

(2) DTS-CDs work quite well in iTunes (and supposedly some other music server software, too). It's quite nice being able to stream 5.1 Surround Music from my laptop just as quickly and easily as I do regular stereo CDs.

Say... wasn't there some talk of 24-bit downloads in this thread somewhere? My bad. It's just that I don't get much of an opportunity to converse about 5.1 like in the good ole days!

:teasing-tease:

 

[Zing]

Lossy. What I was wondering about was Lossless 5.1, 16/44.1.

Ah! You didn't 'splain yourself, Ricky.

I didn't see the word "lossless" mentioned, I just saw the query about toslink being able to pass 5.1 16/44.1 - which it can - now that you're going to throw 5.1 16/44.1 lossless into the mix, I still say it can. But that content won't fit on a CD.

 

[Zing]

Say... wasn't there some talk of 24-bit downloads in this thread somewhere? My bad. It's just that I don't get much of an opportunity to converse about 5.1 like in the good ole days!

I seem to recall there is a Multichannel thread here. I also recall asking if you'd consider providing some of those Kazaam's Multichannel Music Reviews. I further recall you saying you'd be delighted to do such a thing. But what I don't recall is SEEING ANY! :angry-tappingfoot: :angry-cussingblack:

 

[Kazaam]

Say... wasn't there some talk of 24-bit downloads in this thread somewhere? My bad. It's just that I don't get much of an opportunity to converse about 5.1 like in the good ole days!

I seem to recall there is a Multichannel thread here. I also recall asking if you'd consider providing some of those Kazaam's Multichannel Music Reviews. I further recall you saying you'd be delighted to do such a thing. But what I don't recall is SEEING ANY! :angry-tappingfoot: :angry-cussingblack:

Hmmm... I have no idea what you're talking about!!!! :angelic-green:

In my defense, I started the project, intending to begin with titles that were still easy to get, but I only got one review up. That said, ain't that "Polyphonic Spree" post a gem?

 

[Kazaam]

Since the article mentioned that iTunes could already play 96/24 material, I figured I'd give it a whirl tonight.

fwiw... I had a WAV file and iTunes properties correctly identified it as 96/24. My hope was that perhaps the Airport Express, with its optical digital output, would be able to wireless send a 96/24 signal to my receiver. Unfortunately, my Onkyo 605 identified it as 44.1kHz. Not sure if that was due to limitations in the Airport Express (I have the oldest version of it), or if it was limitations in my laptop, which doesn't have any fancy sound card.

Also of interest was that iTunes played the 96/24 file on my laptop speakers, but I suspect it was probably "downrezzed" to 44.1 or 48kHz.

And when I tried to transfer the 96/24 WAV file to my iPod Photo, it gave me an error. However, I was able to use iTunes to sucessfully convert the 96/24 WAV into a 44.1/16 WAV file and that transferred to my iPod and played just fine.

Seems like maybe it's not worth it for Apple to go with 96/24 given the incompatibilities, but I'm nonetheless still kind of excited at the prospect that Apple might one day offer 96/24, in which case I'm sure future hardware will become more compatible. But, on the other hand, you've got to figure 96/24 is overkill for a lot of stuff. Check out Mark Waldrep's (AIX) opinion of why HDTrack's so-called hi-rez downloads of the Rolling Stones are overkill; http://itrax.com/Pages/ArticleDetails.php?aID=31&x=10&y=12. Though, he does appear to believe that hi-rez downloads, given the proper recording, can sometimes be beneficial.