It’s the time of year for saving money!
Even a casual review of the usual audiophile websites, trade magazines, consumer electronic equipment ads, professional organizations (think: NARAS or the CTA), or content providers like HDTracks, Qobuz or the new Amazon Music HD streaming services reveals a substantial level of interest in hi-res audio, hi-res music or HD-Audio. No matter what you call it, high-resolution audio is being aggressively promoted as the next major advance in music listening.
I was there at the introduction of this “new and improved” audio technology back in 2000. In fact, my specialty audio label, AIX Records, is responsible for some of the very first albums recorded and released using 96 kHz/24-bit PCM on the newest incarnation of the DVD format – DVD-Audio discs.
Since that time, I’ve watched as the music and consumer electronics industries have embraced and promoted hi-res audio. I’ve been a strong and vocal advocate for real high-resolution recordings, given keynote addresses, served for five years on the high-end audio board at the CTA, wrote a comprehensive, 880-page book called Music and Audio: A User Guide to Better Sound, and participated on numerous panels focused on better fidelity and hi-res. And I’ve also been a sharp and vocal critic of the numerous false representations made by organizations, services, and industry types anxious to profit off of hi-res audio and music. It’s way past time for a reality check of what is and what isn’t high-resolution AND if it actually matters to audiophiles.
Back in the early summer of 2014 after a series of protracted discussions, conference calls, and compromises, a press release titled, DEG, CEA, The Recording Academy and Major Labels Reach Agreement on Definition for High Resolution Audio was issued with minimal fanfare. The formal definition they agreed to was intended to “convey a clear message” to all interested parties. It defines high-resolution audio as “lossless audio that is capable of reproducing the full range of sound from recordings that have been mastered from better than CD quality music sources.”
The next paragraph adds: “In addition to this definition, four different Master Quality Recording categories have been designated, each of which describes a recording that has been made from the best quality music source currently available. All of these recordings will sound like the artists, producers and engineers originally intended.”
The gist of the press release says that a recording with specifications better than “CD-Quality” qualifies as a “hi-res audio” track or album AND can be accompanied by the associated “hi-res audio” logo. Despite numerous inconsistencies and problems with the proposed definition, it has been widely accepted by almost everyone concerned — until very recently when Amazon moved the goal posts and began labelling CD-Quality as HD and real HD-Audio as “Ultra HD”! And Yes, they actually did that.
For those of you unfamiliar with the specifications spelled out in the Redbook, the document Sony and Phillips wrote to lock in all aspects of the Compact Disc format, it calls for stereo programming at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and 16-bit words encoded using PCM. Launched in the fall of 1982, it has been the dominant music delivery format until very recently. In 2019, streaming music officially eclipsed the venerable Compact Disc. Distribution of music on physical media is dying, if it’s not already dead even if audio enthusiasts deny such facts.
The introduction of the DVD-Audio and SACD in 2000 was intended to replace the Compact Disc. Both of these new formats promised higher fidelity, optional 5.1 multichannel surround sound mixes, and new hybrid capabilities. For example, the discs that AIX Records released had programming on both sides of the disc. The real high-resolution tracks — the 96 kHz/24-bit stereo and surround mixes — were encoded using MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) and found on the DVD-Audio side and the videos and bonus features could be played back on existing DVD-Video machines from the other side of the disc. The battle between SACD and DVD-Audio raged on for a number of years until both disappeared. File downloads in both encoding schemes made physical discs obsolete.
I’ve written almost daily on my RealHD-Audio.com blog about high-resolution from 2013. I applied the term “provenance” to the music productions and pointed out that an analog master from the pre-digital age transferred to a 96 kHz/24-bit PCM bit bucket maintains the same fidelity as the original analog tape. It doesn’t magically elevate the fidelity to that of a CD and therefore can’t legitimately be called a “hi-res audio” track according to the definition above. I was told at the time by members of the high-end audio board of the CEA/CTA, being truthful about real world music fidelity would be “bad for commerce.” In other words, the member companies would make less profit if they were honest about the fidelity of rereleases of analog masters at higher sample rates. Shortly thereafter, I was unceremoniously “uninvited” by the board because I wasn’t willing to sign on to their disinformation campaign. A campaign that continues to this day.
The confusion associated with hi-res audio is out of control these days. It turns out that the “hi-res audio” logo, which was developed by Sony, was intended to apply to hardware only. Any time you see the logo on download or streaming music services like Qobuz or Amazon, it’s being misapplied. In fact, there is a logo for “hi-res music” but it’s not nearly as pervasive and not as “cool” as the Sony design. And now Amazon Music HD is confusing things further by elevating CD fidelity to HD status. Why would they do this? Because they want everyone to believe that the fidelity of their service is better than what we’re used to getting from our compact discs and existing systems. It’s good for commerce to say your albums are HD. It’s not so good when you start to realize that the whole ‘hi-res” music thing just might be a hoax.
I have been a strong advocate for real high-resolution recordings, ones that were captured at the time of the original performance using high-resolution equipment. AIX Records, 2L, MA Recordings, and many other specialty audiophile labels actually produce and release hi-res music. But the major labels generally do not. They repackage, remaster, and rerelease analog albums in hi-res, digital bit buckets but the fidelity of their reissued catalog will never reach the potential of a bona fide HD recording. And new productions are rarely recorded at greater than 48 kHz/24-bits, mastered to within an inch of their “dynamic range” lives, and pushed out with management – NOT artist – approval. I was a mastering engineer for years. I can tell you that the artists were pretty much never there for the final mastering sessions.
My enthusiasm for high-resolution has diminished in recent years. After reading numerous studies and articles on the topic, I’m inclined to agree with those that believe Redbook CDs are sufficient to capture all of the fidelity we need when listening to recorded music. I do believe that audio engineers reap tremendous rewards by using high-resolution specifications during recording sessions but that doesn’t mean that delivering 96 kHz/24-bit WAV or FLAC files to consumers makes any perceptible difference in the final listening at home. I understand that this position goes against the industry position. In fact, it rejects 20 years of my own thinking. I’ve spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours producing and releasing over 75 real high-resolution albums. Did I waste all that money and time?
What could possibly bring me to reverse my own strongly held position? It was a study – a survey that is happening right now. As part of a sabbatical I was granted during the fall 2019 semester from my college professor gig, I’m conducting a survey open to all music listeners. Those who sign up are provided access to 40 full length, downloadable music files.
There are 20 different tracks from the AIX catalog of new 96/24 masters in a variety of genres including rock, folk, classical, jazz, and country. Half of them are the original native 96/24 versions and half have been carefully down converted to Redbook CD quality – 44.1/16. Participants are encouraged to play these files on their own systems using speakers or headphones. Systems can be as simple as a DAP or as elaborate as a fully tweaked out audiophile rig costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The only requirements are that you confirm that you are hearing the playback at 96 kHz/24-bits (some system down convert automatically) and that you do not analyze the files using any software or hardware tools. No looking at peak levels or peeking at the spectral distribution. The guiding rule is to just use your ears.
After you’ve finished listening, you’re asked to submit your answers using an online form. You will be asked to identify which of the A or B versions you believe is the high-resolution original master. The music industry claims you’ll experience a new level of fidelity with hi-res audio and new hi-res capable hardware. This survey may provide additional information to the hotly debated topic of whether hi-res audio is real or not. In any case, it will be fun to test your own ears with some award-winning recordings from the AIX catalog.
I want to encourage everyone to participate in the survey. You can sign up to receive the files by visiting this page on my blog site — HD-Audio Challenge II. The survey was launched in the fall and will conclude in March. Already over 700 people have accessed the files and almost 200 have submitted their results. The more people that participate, the more data we’ll have and the stronger the case whatever the result show.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the fidelity we experience at home or in our automobiles is less dependent on the specifications of the recording or delivery format and far more dependent on the skill of the recording engineer, the sensitivity of the producer, and the desire of the record label to maintain the best fidelity possible through the production and distribution phases of a release. Sadly, very few recordings make it to the public “as the artist intended.”
Hi-res audio will undoubtedly continue to be the “shiny object” in the marketing of new hardware and content. As an insider, my advice is to be skeptical of the messages coming from the music and consumer electronics industries, from journalists and online magazines, and experts with an interest the additional “commerce” generated by the marketing of “hi-res audio.”
Mark Waldrep, as one of the pioneers of high quality digital audio, is always worth a read. Even if you disagree with him (which in this case I don’t).
I am a Waldrep fan, bought his book, a truly a top-notch reference text on HiFi audio. I took his 24/96-14/44 ABX test and got 1 out of 6 correct, I was guessing. Communicated with him a number of times, and he does have a stick up his ass about MQA. But as we all know it sounds great, particularly on Analogue remasters. He makes valid points about $$ grab aspects of MQA, but I bought in when Tidal HiFi came into being and am not sorry. I respect his point of view. I own many of his 5.1 Blue rays, and they are my reference standard. He does pedal his wears, we all do, but I find him very objective. He has asked Bob Stewart a number of times to MQA his 24/96 5.1 samples and they did not comply. I wonder why? He has mentioned that to me on a number of occasions. Good question.
Yes, I’ve never quite grasped why he has such a gripe about MQA (which he doesn’t mention in this piece). He knows that Bob Stuart isn’t a snake-oil salesman or likely to develop something as evil as some people seem to think he has – both were on the same team with DVD-Audio for example and they must know each other well enough to sit down and have a chat.
I am also a Waldrep fan, also bought his book. So it makes me wonder did you read his book?
Fact # 1: MQA is NOT lossless, but still it is being marketed as though it was.
2: virtually all commercial productions are recorded at 48 kHz/24-bits — and heavily processed so that the dynamics are almost completely flat. There is no data above the Nyquist frequency of the original 48 kHz file. If you upsample this to 96 kHz/24-bits the file will just contain a lot of zeros.
3: the first step in the MQA process is a word length reduction to 17 bits, a lossy process. No matter what you do hereafter you can never get back to same information as in the original 24 bit file.
So why not just use FLAC files 96 kHz/17-bit they will have the same data rate as MQA but FLAC is lossless, MQA is not.
Supporting MQA means handing over the entire recording industry to an external standards organization. MQA wants:
• Licensing fees from the recording studios
• Licensing fees from the digital audio product manufacturers
• Hardware or software access/insight into the DAC or player
• Subscription fees from every listener via Tidal, and/or royalties from purchases of re-releases by the recording industry
MQA is $$ grab – for a lossy system! How is this NOT selling snake oil???
Links:
“Music and Audio – A User Guide To Better Sound-Single Page” – by Mark Waldrep
https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/mqa-is-bad-for-music
https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa
I still like what MQA does with old analogue music on my system it has increased soundstage and dynamics. I am back listening to the old classics because of Tidal/mqa. That is 90% of my listening.
To be honest… For a loot of people is dificult to find the difference between a good mp3 and a cd or hi-res. I’ve been working on advertising for more than 20 years, and I know all the lies we can deliver to sell a product… So! I agree with everything you say! I know you will make more than one angry! But! You are the expert…
Funny you say that. One of the best recordings I have ever heard was a mp3 of Steely Dan’s album “Aja.” Convinced me many years ago that what truly matters isn’t the file format (be it analog or digital), but the recording, mixing, and mastering. I’ll take a properly mixed and mastered lossy recording over a poorly mixed/mastered lossless recording any day…
See I have to say that I am a dispute with a claim there is no difference. I have a very high-end audio system. And I have actually been involved in blind testing with using the different formats Hi-Rez MP3 etc. In an every single in I repeat in every single episode in a blind test I was able to tell the difference in several other people as well.😂
And I don’t believe you…Well, unless the track was re-mastered, which is often the case.
It’s not about me, and if you believe me. You could list your equipment, I mentioned few pieces, in order to back up my opinion of HiRez and some validity to my opinion. Your contribution – “I don’t believe you”.
Have a nice day!
My two systems consist of Genelec loudspeakers: one is made of 8331 x 2 + 7350 sub; the other 1032C x 2 + 7360 x 2 subs. I feed both systems an AES signal rendered by an Aeries G2 streamer, subsequently re-clocked by Mutec MC3+USB x 3 tethered to Mutec REF10 oscillator. An Uptone EtherRegen kicks off the chain with a super low-jitter ethernet signal.
Futher, my spaces are acoustically treated with ample bass traps, absorbers and diffusers.
The sound is highly resolved, exceptionally clear, with superb imaging.
Now, I personally can pinpoint issues with poor and even mediocre mastering, and very low-res can be detected as well. But certainly past 320 kbp it’s impossible to reliably tell any difference between tracks.
From my experience, the biggest contributors for achieving excellence sound, after a great set of speakers, are room treatment and minimizing jitter in the chain. High-res files play very little part here, and that’s the reason, despite enormous efforts by the industry, that the formats have never caught on.
A nice day to you as well.
Very nice setup! There are people out there who are unable to hear difference between 320 kbps MP3 and FLAC, ripped from same cd, to these people I’m lost for words. Anyways, let’s just enjoy music, and argue about formats. If rather listen my favorite music with FM radio, than some audiophile recording of lounge jazz or string quartet, captured with lab grade mics and Nagra recorders. These Chesky and other audiophile recordings sound incredible, but the music they release is unlistenable to me. Seriously, I’d rather listen Depeche Mode on old cassette Walkman every time.
Many words of wisdom…
Sorry for having thrown you off with my mbp typo. Corrected that and other typos above.
Same here, you just need high quality audio reproduction gear. With my true class A circuit Classe’ Audio amps and Dynaudio loudspeakers I hear the difference every time.
It is surprising that you can hear a difference every time, but formal, documented, professional research efforts have not yielded a similar result. Have you read those papers, and if so, why do you think you’re getting a different result?
I agree with that you can tell the difference..😓
I took Bob’s test. 1 of 6, I was guessing. His test takes 24/96 originals and downsamples to 16/44. Regular mp3 originals are easy to detect.
Exactly! Many people can’t even hear the difference between 128kbs and 320kbs MP3, usually because their hardware is such low grade, the output sounds same. Get Audeze LCDi4 and Fiio M11 DAP, listen to true HiRez files, and then same track ripped from CD to FLAC, and you will hear the difference. I don’t agree with author of article at all, he claims it makes no difference if original all analogue recording is converted to HiRes or CD red book. That just isn’t so. But he will need a true low distortion equipment.
If I may, I believe it also has to do with ear training and experience. Until you know what to listen for, you’ll have an idea what the differences are!
I can’t remember his name – the electronics reviewer who used to write for New York Times and left a few years ago. He believes that teaching people what to listen for is cheating. I say it’s absolutely necessary.
Oh, and I can’t wait to take Marks challenge. I have a few systems in the house, I’ll listen on various levels of gear.
Wonderful article, Mark. Like you, I have been chasing high fidelity nearly all my life, wishing recordings could sound like they did when I was a kid in the 70s. They don’t, for a myriad of reasons. I also tried Amazon HD a while back, and left a note on their community forum likewise pointing out that I don’t believe a 16/44 recording qualifies as “HD.” Nobody from Amazon responded. Regardless, as I age, I care less about it because my ears and my equipment have hit a diminishing returns limit, and so I decided simply to just go back to enjoying the music… But know that many of us agree with you!
Mark has taken a very brave stance. Good luck with the Challenge and please present the results here. I maintain a life long fascination with audio but don’t listen much because my hearing is totally compromised by Menieres disease, all I can do is read about it. Look after your hearing everyone, you’ll miss it if it goes!
A counter argument is here – https://www.stereophile.com/content/high-resolution-audio-primer?fbclid=IwAR0fryOyZ3SAo6xSsx3fCJTm3kxWz4iLTCQeravbbe0oO8hKAMo8UVTQSCE
I suggest readers bypass Jim Austin’s article — which cherry-picks snippets of a paper to support his pre-existing views — and go straight to the source: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=20455.
Thanks for the original source
I suggest skip his opinion altogether, and listen for yourself! Use electrostats and top amplification, and I want author to keep parroting that true HiRez audio isn’t superior to cd. This article is simply misinformation.
I agree, although the tests would likely be more effective with high-quality conventional speakers, which are likely to have flatter response and a more neutral sound. Using Foobar2000 (which is free), anyone can easily set up a blind test between any combination of high-res, CD-res and data-compressed files that they choose, and can take as long as they like to make their comparisons. I strongly encourage audio enthusiasts to do their own research and come to their own conclusions whenever possible.
Interesting reading but he sort of lost me with “It shows that high-rez and CD-rez audio are audibly different. If test tones sound different, then it’s completely plausible—even likely—that music sounds different, too, although differences are likely to be harder to detect with complex stimuli like music.” Not sure I would agree with that.
If I download the tracks how do I get them played on my system? I have a current iPad, an older Thinkpad with W10, and a Chromebook. None have an hdmi out. My system is driven by a Denon AVR.
As a retired recording engineer, I can find no faults in Mark’s analysis whatsoever.
I can only imagine what kind of ‘high end’ gear you were using in your engineering years. Bose? JBL? No wonder you are unable to differentiate HiRez and cd, your equipment is not capable of reproducing the benefits of HiRez, distortion of your low end masks the difference that’s on recording, you just can’t hear it.
Really? You really think that Bose is used in recording studios? No need to be so insulting man. You’ve got to trust the judgement of a recording engineer who can instantly compare the live sound with the recording and ultimately the final sound quality in it’s final format. It’s all about how well the music was recorded in the studio and how well the quality was preserved through to the final product. I have many CDs that sound just as good as the hi-rez version, but I also have hi-rez files that certainly sound more defined than the CD version, but not by much – usually better defined bass, more drums impact, clearer mids. I can only hear these differences with my Sennheiser HD800S headphones/amp setup.
In any event, like most things, it all depends………..
With iPad or ThinkPad you will never any difference. Can I ask, what headphones are you using? The ones that came free in iPad box? See, here is the issue – people without even mid-fi audio equipment arguing about HiRez vs cd, and these are the loudest voices how HiRez is a scam. HiRez is not for people like you, it’s for people with low distortion, high resolution equipment.
I do not use these devices for listening. I was using them to download the files. I was asking how do I get them to play on my home theater system which has Denon AVR, Firestick 4K, and PS3 as input devices. The Denon has iPod/USB input, Bluetooth, inputs in addition to hdmi inputs. None of my computers have an hdmi output although the iPad and Chromebook can cast the audio/video of a source like Netflix. So is my only option to buy a DAC to be an interface between the computer and the Denon?
What Denon? You can use the USB input using your Apple USB cable but you’re going to be limited to the quality of the DAC in the Denon.
Are there limitations in USB cable specs or is it solely the player spec; in this case the Denon AVR -X3200W.
The 3200 didn’t fare so well in the tests on audiosciencereview site but the files should play doing that way.
If you could borrow/trial a well measuring DAC/Headphone amp and headphones, that would be your best bet to understand if you could hear a difference.
It would be interesting to find a setup that someone could hear the difference and then offer that same system to each participant to know if they were distinguishable.
Chris
Thanks very much for the very encouraging response to the article. I’m traveling and will send the credentials to all those wishing to participate in the HD-Audio Challenge asap.
I agree with this commentary. The great majority of the albums and tracks sold by HDTracks (and presumably the other sellers of hi-res digital music) were originally recorded in “Red Book” 16/44 format, and then upsampled to 96/24 or above and reprocessed and hyped to be “High Res”. And continue to be as general practice in the industry.
I found that I had wasted my money: this reprocessing actually degrades the sound more than any improvement due to higher sample rates and the (theoretically) consequently less intrusion of the HF filtering into the audio band. It’s all a matter of a complicated series of tradeoffs, which aren’t in favor of musicality.
The few actual originally recorded 96/24 and above albums were noticeably, marginally better, but I would question the minimal value for money.
To do these evaluations I have been using fairly high quality equipment: a high-res audiophile-grade DAC/headphone amp, headphones, and music source, consisting of a Chord Hugo 2, HiFiMan HE1000se planar magnetic headphones, and Samsung Galaxy S4 tablet running UAPP Android USB processing to the USB cable output to the DAC.
Of course, if HiRez is converted from CD, it obviously won’t sound better, no one has argued that it would. True hirez means audio is recorded HiRez all the way. Or HiRez is converted from all analogue recording, never compressed to cd standard, and then the resulting HiRez audio difference is huge.
On my system I can clearly hear significant differences between a file ripped in FLAC format versus the same file ripped in WAV, even though both are supposed to be truly lossless and indistinguishable (the WAV sounds much better). On this system the HDtracks HiRes version of the Brubeck Take 5 album (the analog tape supposedly digitally remastered in HiRes) is only marginally better than the same file in 16/44 Red Book.
This was also the case with playback with the other system I maintain, using a state of the art Yggdrasil DAC driving a Moon Audio IHA-1 tube headphone amp.
How do you explain these data points?
Many hd tracks were side-sampled from analog masters that had been re mastered digitally which is not the same thing at all. Analog being a much purer representation of the sound wave,
Almost no one has ever mastered in red book. Those that were held digitally on DAT or file.. were mostly down sampled from higher res masters into redbook. .
In this day of bigger, badder, faster has got to be better it is refreshing to hear from an expert in this field say that for the vast majority of consumers of recorded audio content, going to the expense to adopt the latest biggest, baddest, fastest technology may have reached a point of extremely diminishing returns. Just cause we can do it doesn’t always mean it is better. For the record I have spent the last 60 years chasing that elusive goal of perfect reproduction both as an audiophile and 48 years as a professional broadcast television engineer (now retired). To those who wish to pursue the highest resolution possible in the digital audio domain at home, please do, it is OK. I have had a great deal of fun and learned a lot doing the same.
The proprieters of audiophile record labels are uniquely positioned in this controversy. I have a large body of inferential and anecdotal data, plus hundreds of reverse-sighted experiments (the outcome was opposite to the scene indications) that indicate the science of audio has suffered from a vicious circle, creating the largest selection bias in the history of science.
Hearing is a neuroplastic sense. We are born unable to recognize any sonic parameters, but rather learn to recognize sounds in response to consistent and coherent stimuli. We grow neurons to mirror the aural organization of time and space as transduced by thousands of parallel nerves coming from active sensors where even the physical transmission to the Basilar Membrane is orders of magnitude more complex than the scalar model of hearing. Our neural processing networks accumulate, self-wire and program predominantly while our cranium is growing to accommodate the sensorily driven growth of the cerebral cortex and white matter.
What you CAN hear depends on your aural capture during this critical period between your first breath and the onset of adulthood around age 18. The resolution of your hearing in terms of musical sonic events and acoustics depends on the information content of your hearing history while growing up. Hearing acuity is therefore stimulated by high-resolution sounds of Nature and/or live acoustic music, and stunted by exposure to noise pollution, whether generated by engines and motors, friction or impacts, annunciators, or LOUDSPEAKERS.
As evidence for the first part, I cite two studies of hearing made by researchers outside of audio specialization utilizing trained musicians as test subjects. I was raised in an acoustic household until age 13, in pine forests or seashore with no traffic and a piano as the only source of music. We had no phonograph and never listened to the radio, as my parents were both Classically trained and we lived beyond the reach of FM. Audio never sounded like music to me, and I collected similar opinions from professional musicians in an informal survey over 50 years.
It turns out that if you measure the hearing of musicians, you get different answers than the textbooks which measure the general population. 99% of the data in the ostensible science of audiology and audio reproduction uses apparatus derived from radio technology – most often continuous wave oscillators, microphone transduction of music, and headphones. This means that since 1932 (Fletcher-Munson and Blumlein experiments) the test subjects were radio and phonograph listeners living in urban or suburban noise pollution. Blumlein used Decca employees, many of whom listened to speakers as part of their job!
Professional musicians hear the starting and stopping of notes ten times better than the general population:
http://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html
AND, children given musical instruments and lessons grow 10 BILLION more neurons than average, in part to hear better:
http://www.musicianbrain.com/papers/Hyde_MusicTraining_BrainPlasticity_nyas_04852.pdf
I have been building speakers to emulate the timbral, temporal, transient and spatial (polar radiation pattern) parameters of traditional instruments and testing them on conservatory graduate musicians. In experiments of hour long concerts of solo and duo Violin, Viola, Cello and Contrabass, audiences comprised of conservatory trained string players were unable to detect when we were amplifying, despite the microphones in front of the instruments, the speakers next to the players and gains well over 10dB. Further, these were mostly premieres of contemporary compositions utilizing every “extended technique”, i.e. every way you can use a Cremonese instrument to make sound.
Transparency of audio compared to a live source using ears trained by decades of daily exposure to live orchestral strings is an historical first.
Note it is essential that all audio chains be discrete channels of one mic to one speaker and for ensembles, OVOMOS: one voice, one mic, one speaker. This is partly because the acoustic size and shape of the speaker needs to match the instrument, but also because MIXING IS DISTORTION. Combining more than one microphone into one speaker is spatial distortion, an event that can’t happen in acoustic reality; likewise splitting one microphone into more than one speaker (panning, monitors, surround, etc.) Therefore a string quartet consists of a Cello speaker, Viola speaker and two Violin Speakers, arranged in quartet format.
It is interesting what musicians do NOT hear: frequency response variations. Harman International developed a testing and training software that uses compensated headphones to measure if listeners can hear deviations in frequency response – and musicians get consistently low scores! I believe this is because of their training in undersized rooms with random and sparse acoustical treatment and on Classical stages surrounded by three specular walls, so their brains grow, wire and program neural circuits to compensate for acoustical comb filtering.
OTOH, musicians have high sensitivity to TIME DISTORTION (i.e. phase shift and time delays from resonances) and waveform of transients – like notes starting and stopping, the musical consonants that comprise 50% of the meaning but only 5% of the ETF (energy, time and frequency). The waveforms of acoustically generated note onset and ending are different from the musical vowel waveforms (tones) and also more variable with expression. This confirms all the minimalist recording practices of near coincident mic pair, zero knobs and zero post-processing. Every knob and process in recording, mixing and mastering studios causes phase shift, which is time and space distortions.
I suggest you include two more questions in your survey – how many hours per week the subject listens to live acoustic music, and whether it is more or less than the number of hours they listen to audio amplification or reproduction – because the ubiquitous temporal and spatial distortion of conventional recordings and speakers degrade your hearing, as do other noise pollution sources.
I also recorded hundreds of amplified concerts using an ORTF pair in the audience because these speakers record the same as the original instruments. Here is a live recording of amplified acoustic guitar, Jeremy Andrew Bass playing Daniel Pesca’s “Intermezzo”:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgi3ctc0nvp3otc/3%20Pesca%20Intermezzo.wav?dl=0
This enables minimalist recordings of events like the following, which is a solo Viola with live looping and stereo processing using a Viola speaker and a pair of Cello speakers. This is Jessica Meyer’s debut as a composer, and also her first time performing in public with electronics, as it sounded in the audience:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/b8f0b6k53w9wx36/AADN_CdKpmlpJWJLts54rAira?dl=0
Thanks for this.
Your comment was worth an article in and of itself. The brain is indeed an amazing device, capable of both convincing us that there are differences where none exist while at the same time filtering out things it would consider distractions (in a given context).
In the end it’s all short the enjoyment of the experience. It’s sad when people forget that.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the great insight!
Very well-reasoned and knowledgeable article. It’s sad to me that so much attention has been given to this subject, with so many people trying desperately to find that rare condition under which a few listeners using super-high-end equipment might be able to hear a difference between 24/96 and 16/44.1. Meanwhile, the high-end audio world is embracing products that introduce colorations that are easily be heard by practically anyone under even the most stringent testing conditions.
It is a hobby with narrow appeal for masses, and that’s how will always be. Get Stax 009 headphones, feed them with Tidal HiRez audio, that has been recorded and mastered in hi res all the way, and you will know what level of audio reproduction is possible today. But again, it is very people who are into that. But DO NOT say HiRez is a scam, don’t say that it isn’t better than cd audio, because it just isn’t true.
You’ve addressed none of the contentions I made, and attributed to me things I didn’t state or imply, specifically that high-res audio is a “scam.” Did you mean to post this elsewhere?
I feel it’s the wrong paradigm to focus on “better or not.” Hi-rez is not always better than CD for the fact that some recordings are just not good, and also a lot of “Hi-rez” stuff is ancient reissues. Then it depends if one’s system and listening spot and hearing is up to hearing differences if any. Now when everything is done well, I’ve heard some really great stuff. Whether that is worth more expense depends on the individual.
If you want to hear some of AIX recordings WITH MQA on Tidal there are a number on this complete list including music by Steve Pierson, Emil Richards, David Garfeild, Paul Williams, And AIX Allstars – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SLs7Cx840YKXYL94d0ST7j60nneUqDn-/view?fbclid=IwAR0wEjBFzPBLXpB-fLGurxZ_7Y7mx4rpAkNY9EWoyRUtVhdVrX93nvbFx5Q
To a point, I care less about resolution than I do about compression. I’ve heard PLENTY of “Hi-Resolution” files that might be higher than Redbook specs but sound dynamically flat, just a solid wall of sound.
Good luck..
MQA sounds better than anything out there ..
Marketing HiFi and audio to under 40 yo consumers should be the goal for survival..
Remember folks, different doesn’t mean better, just different.
Commerce, capitalism, greed, money drives industry leaders to wave the the ‘new holy grail flag’ to celebrate their latest format and convince us with hyper-marketing campaigns to plop down our money because our well-being will improve and in the end we will attract ravishingly beautiful women because of our good taste in music. The reproduction of music for consumer listening in our homes has to hail new incredible change every year or the market stagnates and shareholder dividends go flat. As a once performing musician I follow each musician and what they are playing on their instrument. All instruments unite in my mind to produce the collective outcome: live or recorded. For over 50 years I have pursued faithful reproduction of music in my home, at considerable cost. Truth be known though; I don’t care if I am listening to Miles Davis on a $25K system at home or the factory CD player in my Jeep. The fact is I am listening to Miles and it’s the music that is most important to me, I could not live without my music.
I’m not an expert as you, but I do think that the kind of challenging that you are proposing is definitely wrong. I have a different challenge for you: Listen to ONLY Hi-Res music for a week, at least five days, (the files you wrote about above are the true Hi-Res recordings). Then, after a week, listen to cd or mp3. I guarantee you will note a (big) difference. Blind test in the moment listening to both files one after another is not a good idea and definitely tricky IMHO. Try it out! 😁
Gustavo, exactly! I left my Audeze LCDi4 headphones in Europe, and went packpaking to SE Asia, took Audeze iSine 20 headphones with me. After several months got back to LCDi4, and realised the huge difference. Listening different audio recording for few minutes with one system, then few minutes with another, people have difficulty telling which is which, same with cd vs HiRez. But listen to HiRez track for few days, then sand tracks ripped from CD, and you’ll notice considerable difference!
But then how do you know it’s a big difference without making comparisons? Blind testing is not a good idea only for people who make or buy products that are uncompetitive. There are innumerable scientific studies, in audio and countless other fields, where subjects can readily distinguish among products in blind tests — and blind tests can involve quick switching or lengthy comparisons. If your ears need help from your eyes, you’re not trusting your ears.
Blind testing tells you nothing. Gustavo has the right idea, you have to listen for lengthy periods of time to appreciate high end equipment, playing hi res. music. There is a difference. Just like the difference in camera pixels. You could not pick out a 12 mpxl photo from a 18 mpxl photo without knowing what to look for, but you could tell a poorly shot photo on a quality camera from a well composed one on a cheaper camera. Like sound, and visuals, a lot has to do with the photographer and the sound engineer. Great equipment, and great mastering will always produce more satisfying results in the long run. CD can sound great in the hands of master engineers, and can also sound absolutely horrendous, as when CD first came out. I actually threw out several of them for that reason. With higher resolution though, the law of diminishing returns makes it very difficult to actually differentiate one from the other. So once you get to a certain level of resolution and mastering, there will be little in the way of recognizable difference in the actual perception of quality. I believe CD has demonstrated that level, where any higher resolution does not necessarily produce greater enjoyment and emotional involvement, even though in theory at least, it appears that way. Thats the bottom line.
Why does “Blind testing tell you nothing”? Or are you specifically meaning the quick comparison A/B/X type? I’ve been thinking that long-term blind tests would be interesting, though you’d need a poker-faced housemate or something. The flip side is all long term listening tests are perhaps worthless as well, since we get used to different systems, and since audio memory is infamously poor.
Most consumers and even “audiophiles” don’t have the equipment or have their equipment set up in such a way to even get close to being able to hear what is available to them on a standard Redbook CD much less hi-res music. Focus on quality of the equipment and proper setup and room tuning, then you can add new formats for better sound. Marketing is killing quality by focusing on what is new instead of what is good.
The Mastering Guide to Audio Formats and Delivery Mediums –
If most streaming services demand hi-res files from musicians , and most sound engineers record in it. why do we imagine that listening to it through the right system will make little difference compared to the recording they downsample to. The biggest single issue is not the quality or fidelity of the recording process it’s the quality of the reproduction equipment.
If your system contains the words Bose or Sonos, or even Apple then there really is little point perusing Hi-res as the article implies.
Listening to vinyl has always implied a serious commitment to the quality of the equipment, as well as the quality and fidelity of the media. CD’s have been the only format where setting up and maintaining equipment was not onerous, and the quality standards of the media were consistent.
Also the graphical reproduction of the differences in the wav file is massively understated – the differences in size of the data-files, and therefore accuracy of the wave reproduction is hugely greater at hi res. Rendering a high res file is easy. Many good smartphones can do that. Taking that signal accurately and feeding it at the right clock speed, into a Hi Fidelity system so you can hear the difference is far far harder.
Thank you! People with mediocre gear claim there is no difference in sound quality. The issue is their equipment. Get Stax electrostats and top amplification! But most people never will, very very few do, and for those few there is a substantial difference. It’s a wonder hobby!
Itsthat but also that selling the media at premium rates is hard if you let everyone know that they HAVE to have at least 5K’s worth of kit, and the room, to hear the difference. And that the configuration is not easy. That you need fast internet, NAS servers, Ethernet cabling, and many other non hi-fi type set ups..
And that plugging a Beats headphone into an iphone just won’t do it nor will buying a network player
So it’s easier to bias confirm, what people who who don’t have the correct set up hear … which is no difference.
Ian, I always assumed this goes without saying, that people who buy HiRez tracks have the gear necessary to justify HiRez prices. Forgive for this example, I’m packpaking in Asia, and I bought a used pair of Audeze LCDi4 in Singapore, at good price, because I left my own i4 in Europe, and took lesser headphones with me for next 2 months. DAPs are Onkyo X1 and Ibasso 200. These are probably best IEM headphones for any price, they retail $2400 USD. Now Shure is making KSE series electrostats IEMs, and that’s their competitors. But I wrong. Really wrong. There is a guy in commenting hear, and is using iPad as source, he didn’t mention what headphone he is using. An iPad! No wonder people keep parroting they can’t hear HiRez and cd sounding different. His comment blew me away, this is so insane!
“The biggest single issue is not the quality or fidelity of the recording process it’s the quality of the reproduction equipment.” I’m sorry, but no audio professional would share this view, and this is one of the few subjects on which Harry Pearson and Julian Hirsch would probably have agreed. The recording process has a far bigger effect on the sound than any distribution format, amplifier, DAC, etc. Many years ago, on the first Stereophile Test CD, they did a brilliant and rather sly demonstration where Gordon Holt read his essay “Why Hi-Fi Experts Disagree” and they switched among various studio microphones — and you can hear how radically the sound changes. https://youtu.be/OfBACAKoVPs
Bravo. This has been my understanding as well.
Is it me or do 44.1khz files sound better played through a 24bit 192khz system than a 16bit 44.1khz system (upscaling)?
There’s a TV show called Brain Games. In one episode, there were about 20 volunteers who were played a sound at a high frequency. Like all the over-50s, I couldn’t hear it, but the kids in the group could, including my 20-ish daughter watching with my wife and me. I doubt that Neil Young, in his 70s, after playing loud rock in stadiums, has better hearing than I do. But he has advocated for hi-rez only, and I am very skeptical about such an investment.
I can hear the difference without even listening to the recording.
While reading an article on Wikipedia describing SACD format it concluded with the statement that a group of audio engineers in a double-blind listening test could not tell the difference between SACD and Redbook CD reproduction. While waveform differences can be measured using high precision electronic means, the human ear is far less sensitive and far more tolerant to distortion than proponents of hi-resolution formats may believe. But at the end it’s not just about the music it’s about the positive psychology of using the format.
Hehheh. Coke-New Coke-Classic Coke.
99.99% of people are going to listen to their music on some $5 Chinese ear buds they got off Amazon. No way you’re telling a different with that garbage equipment, even between mp3 and high res. I just have entry level gear – sound blaster dac, shiit amp, and DT770 Pro 250Ohm – and i can definitely tell the difference between Tidal’s mqa, cd quality, and mp3s. But it definitely depends on the mixing/mastering still. Case in point, every single Jay-Z album on Tidal is mqa but sounds like garbage. I know there’s debate about whether or not mqa even qualifies as hi res. I’m not trying to argue that one way or another.
The difference between a producer and an audiophile … producer knows what is bullshit marketing. Audiophiles are obsessed with incorrect facts and talk themselves in circles to convince themselves they know what they hell they are talking about.
http://www.tonestack.net/articles/digital-audio/why-192khz-does-not-make-sense-for-music-playback.html
I wish I didn’t agree with your assessment of us audiophiles, but in many cases, it’s accurate. When an audiophile likes something, there is often a screwy reason (“skin effect”) or pointless generality (“you’ll never get good sound with a complex signal path”) invoked. I far prefer it when someone just says, “I like this. It sounds xxxx to me”) without all the bull.
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“… the fidelity we experience at home … is less dependent on the specifications of the recording or delivery format and far more dependent on the skill of the recording engineer, the sensitivity of the producer, and the desire of the record label to maintain the best fidelity possible….”
That is precisely the conclusion I’ve reached, after demonstrating my very resolving stereo, set up in a very quiet room, to dozens of people — and of course, listening myself. Of my collection of about 3500 releases, about 500 are above CD resolution. Of the most breathtaking recordings in my collection, some are 24/96 or other HR formats, but most are Redbook.
I’ve come to believe that if a higher proportion of HR recordings sounds better, it is because more care has been taken in making and mastering the recordings, not because of the format.
Kudos, Mark!
I totally agree with Mark’s opinion on Hi-Res Audio in this day and age. I also admire is open-mindedness by conducting the survey to lighten his burden when the majority of listeners will come to the same conclusion.
Mark, this article has been an eye-opener. I certainly agree with you that redbook CD delivers a SQ that transcends that of “hi-res” files. And, since you have mentioned MA Recordings as one of the specialty record labels that record at a high sampling rate, I happen to own one of their CD’s, and it sounds great. (Jack Garfinkel is a very talented recording engineer). My only caveat is that you mention that SACD, as a format, has disappeared. It is still big in Japan (also an alphaiville song). And there are some conductors who insist on releasing their recordings on a SACD, e.g. Eduardo Lopez Banzo, the conductor of AL AYRE ESPANOL, who has recorded several CD’s of Spanish “VILLANCICOS” (Another term for what, in European Baroque Music, are called “CANTATAS”). Eduardo is also an Handel specialist, and has released several of his latest recordings on SACD’s. Keep up the good work!
Amen. Hallelujah. The truth will set you free.
Thanks for this, very interesting information.