The end of my discovery…. Please read

[Pcryan5]

Can’t get that page to load, plus it’s likely behind a paywall.

This was an interesting article and video I came across a few weeks back - certainly food for thought.

"Listening": a Video Tribute to Art Dudley

Listening, an extraordinary video tribute to the late writer Art Dudley's taste, vision, and devotion to music, premiers this month on Stereophile's YouTube channel. The video follows the unusual path of Art's beloved Altec Lansing Flamenco loudspeakers from their home in Upstate New York to...

www.stereophile.com

I am surprised they paywalled it as it was public domain for year.
Here is a free one.

Between Sound and Silence
NYTIMES

 

[Bozzz]

I imagine you now feel good after telling the world your opinion about the various quality levels of digital audio.

But… others may disagree. Hi-res audio does not have to do with frequencies beyond human hearing. It has to do do with many other aspects including making recordings easier to fit in the the recording medium.

I do feel good actually. As I stated I don’t think that I’m right and everyone who listens to high res is wrong. Just expressing my opinion. We all have them and are free to express. I value yours.

 

[Mr Ee]

I imagine you now feel good after telling the world your opinion about the various quality levels of digital audio.

But… others may disagree. Hi-res audio does not have to do with frequencies beyond human hearing. It has to do do with many other aspects including making recordings easier to fit in the the recording medium.

Disagreement in the audio community! Never!
Yeah, hi res certainly has its place, but for me I'm happy with 'CD quality' at the point of consumption, and if that's off a 192khz remaster that's great by me too.

 

[Bozzz]

Disagreement in the audio community! Never!
Yeah, hi res certainly has its place, but for me I'm happy with 'CD quality' at the point of consumption, and if that's off a 192khz remaster that's great by me too.

Agreed

 

[adias]

Disagreement in the audio community! Never!
Yeah, hi res certainly has its place, but for me I'm happy with 'CD quality' at the point of consumption, and if that's off a 192khz remaster that's great by me too.

The problem is that transcoding is a major sound quality killer.

 

[LtMandella]

Why are so many obsessed with high res audio?

I have debated the usefullness of high res (> 16bit/44.1k) since it became available. There _are_ some measurable differences in analog signal reproduced in higher res. For one thing, it can be shown mathematically that it is possible for 44.1k to clip when being decoded even if the digital encoding did not clip, whereas higher res (DSD for example) doesn't show this potential.

This is just one issue, there are others where the required filters that all DAC decoders need can cause less distortion when the bit rate is greatly higher than 44.1K

The consensus I have heard repeatedly, and I definitely experience myself, for example, is that DSD tends to sound "less grainy" in the treble. Try listening to some tracks that have been upsampled to DSD 2X and report back here. I bet you will agree...

 

[DRC]

the bit rate is greatly higher than 44.1K

44.1KHz is not the bit rate. The bit rate for CD audio is 1,411Kbps.

 

[AlanB]

Must admit to a little smile when I checked out the webpage for the excellent VinylStudio software mentioned earlier today in another thread where he has a recommendation for a friend’s business - he runs an ear wax removal service…

Indeed, the best upgrade I ever made to my hifi was when I first had my ears syringed. (The second was getting a WiiM).

 

[Griff]

---

Had similar advice from my ear doctor. Also to stop using IEMs and only use over the ear headphones (open backed preferred) he liked music

My ear doctor gave me the advice to do this at least every second year. Especially for such an obsessed headphone user like me. No idea if this is "medically correct" but he told me frequently headphone usage can produce some additional earwax..It makes no harm and the medical insurance pays.

 

[wunderkind]

I know this forum has its roots as a digital music streamer and DAC centric foundations. Naturally there are a lot of emphasis on measurements and processing specs. However music listening is very subjective. It doesn't matter how high spec your equipment is if your listening area is bad. Or poorly placed speaker locations. Get those in order first. Else go with a high quality pair of open-backed headphones.

 

[BMoreJazz]

Hirez is no different than any other interest. What many miss is that it is a learned process. Your ears have to be trained to know what you are hearing. It is about subtitle nuances. There is no “wow” to it. Once you understand that, you are always looking for it. Think of it as the difference between a casual jogger and an Olympic Marathon runner. They both run but one is more skilled at it. In the end, they both enjoy running.

 

[PaulD]

Having recently acquired a Wiim mini I’m trialling hi res for the 1st time and must admit the jury’s still out. My initial impressions are that Tidal Hi Fi + streamed from Tidal Connect via the Wiim sounds the best to my ears, more natural than Qobuz. Not sure that I’m prepared to pay £20 a month for the privilege though. Think I’ll trial Amazon !

 

[CrystalGipsy]

Why are so many obsessed with high res audio? Don’t get me wrong I was one of them. I read countless reviews on DACs and getting the “best” audio I could. I stream Apple Music/Classical via Airplay 2 to my Wiim Pro Plus. Goes to my Willsenton r8 tube amp then on to my Denton 85th anniversary speakers. Sounds amazing. And yes it’s not high res it’s 16/44.1 cd quality audio. From articles I’ve read cd quality audio covers the entire range of human hearing. Our ears aren’t capable of hearing high res frequencies. 999 people out of a 1000 can’t hear the difference. I still have a Qobuz subscription that doesn’t expire for another week or so. So I did some experimenting with my and my wife’s ears. We switched back and forth from Qobuz and Apple Music playing Pat Metheny’s latest album. Audio quality on Qobuz was 24/96 Apple Music was 16/44.1. She nor I could tell any difference. My wife is no audiophile by any means or am I but she said why pay for something your ears can’t hear. And I kind of agreed with her. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying I’m right or better than anyone at all. Music and audio systems are a wonderful world/hobby to be in. To each their own. Your money your choice. Basically what I’m rambling about is that I’m happy with what my 52 year old ears can actually hear. Thank you for reading. Listen on.

You dont get CD quality from Apple Music/Classical via Airplay 2, you only get lossy AAC compresssed streams. But if you dont hear the difference good for you. I can tell AAC over CD for some music but not all, I find cymbals give compressed material away. I am happy with CD and continure to buy, play and rip them but also buy hires for downloads as with Qobuz sublime there are cheaper than CD quality and often Bandcamp downlaods are hires. But I do struggle to hear a difference between them on well mastered material, a good master is a good master regardless of format even if its AAC. Hires exists to move the DAC filtering stages in the upper registers outside of human hearing so presents less artefacts during the DA process hence why its use for mastering where there is a lot of ADC/DAC processes.

 

[The WiiMer]

My supposed ability applies not to all like persons. I was born without eyesight and will never have any. I was told by audio engineers my ears are equally capable and hearing is equally acute or more so than many audio engineers. I can discern differences but not on all equipment. It takes special monitors and other gear connected to them to make discernment possible. I concur most persons cannot discern amongst these two attributes of digital audio. In 2017 I took a hearing test and was told I can hear at a zero decibel level which surprised me. I know not any statistics of persons whom can hear at a zero decibel threshold thus it may be commonplace for all I know.

 

[The WiiMer]

If we are all of a certain age... we killed our hearing going to clubs, concerts, and decibel testing music loud enough in our rooms to get a response from our parents. My "golden ears" now need a tin horn to direct sound to them. Though i'd be interested in shoxx headphones using bone conduction.

Thankfully I never did any of that; personality reasons for an entirely different conversation. I went to a singular concert and could not handle the excessively high amplitude in the environment thus I can never do that again although I enjoyed other facets of it. Whenever the most slight decrease of hearing is detected in either of my ears I become scared for I use my ears for survival; my entire world is predicated on sound and my ears enable me to be no less than hyper-observant.

 

[goodmore]

Having the illusion the artist is playing live in your living room is the goal. It's a never ending quest that can never be obtained yet we still try. Sounding good doesn't seem to be good enough until the epiphany. You had yours.

 

[merifon]

I don't trust anyone's ears, nor impressionistic reviews. As for the rest, I don't pretend that others can trust mine... When you want to capture subtle differences in listening, it is certainly necessary to prepare a setup that allows you to quickly switch from one source to another, during the synchronized reproduction of the same editions. As far as I'm concerned, in the comparison between a famous compressed-only streaming service and an uncompressed one, in some cases (not always) I noticed differences in favor of the uncompressed one. In the end, since the price was identical, this was enough for me to choose. High resolution, as already mentioned, is essential in the production phase but if it can be achieved without particular efforts, even on the end user, I don't see why not to go with it.

 

[The WiiMer]

Indeed, the best upgrade I ever made to my hifi was when I first had my ears syringed. (The second was getting a WiiM).

Once every seven days I use a battery-powered ear irrigation system on each ear. It requires water and uses one of five thresholds of pressure akin to a fully automatic machine gun but much less powerful and specialised replaceable tips. I use warm filtered water on its medium power setting three of five. Twice or thrice I used 3% food-grade hydrogen peroxide mixed with filtered water but it irritated the ear canals and that was not good. The process takes ten minutes maximum. It is absolutely not placebo effect when I state every seven days my hearing is refreshed and renewed in such a way that all sonic quality – good, bad, and ugly – hit the eardrums in such a direct manner that it scared and impressed me the first time I used it and continues to be one if not the most satisfactory feelings ever experienced. The machine is not designed ergonomically but thus far is the best thing I have done for my ear canals. Not all ear irrigation systems are created equally and one day perhaps I will find a more favourable machine.

 

[d6jg]

I don't trust anyone's ears, nor impressionistic reviews. As for the rest, I don't pretend that others can trust mine... When you want to capture subtle differences in listening, it is certainly necessary to prepare a setup that allows you to quickly switch from one source to another, during the synchronized reproduction of the same editions. As far as I'm concerned, in the comparison between a famous compressed-only streaming service and an uncompressed one, in some cases (not always) I noticed differences in favor of the uncompressed one. In the end, since the price was identical, this was enough for me to choose. High resolution, as already mentioned, is essential in the production phase but if it can be achieved without particular efforts, even on the end user, I don't see why not to go with it.

I think you will find that all streaming services are compressed. The differential is lossy vs lossless (but both are compressed).

 

[BMoreJazz]

Many people run Marathons but only so many can win Olympic gold. The same applies to resolution. If you don't put in the time you fully understand what you actually hearing, then you can't know what you are missing. The majority of people listen to music because they like what they are hearing. A few listen because they also like the quality of what they are hearing. They can tell the difference between a symbol and a trash can lid when most only care about how the music makes them feel.