Stereo Receivers

[james]

I didn't think that it had anything to do with extending the frequency range, as much as the ability to capture and extract more information in the audible range.

[jon abbey]

sorry for just participating in this discussion at the fringes as I really hate them and have had too many of them over the years, but the only other thing I will say is that it depends somewhat on the kind of music you are listening to.

for instance, I listen to hip-hop nonstop on my iPod and for that even 192 MP3s are usually fine as they're mastered to be ideally played that way (one time I even bought a CD because I really loved a song from it that I had played endlessly on MP3, and the CD sounded worse!!). for EAI or whatever we're calling the general area I work in these days, I just use AIFFs whenever possible, because why not? like was said above, space really isn't an issue.

[james]

sorry for just participating in this discussion at the fringes as I really hate them and have had too many of them over the years, but the only other thing I will say is that it depends somewhat on the kind of music you are listening to.

for instance, I listen to hip-hop nonstop on my iPod and for that even 192 MP3s are usually fine as they're mastered to be ideally played that way (one time I even bought a CD because I really loved a song from it that I had played endlessly on MP3, and the CD sounded worse!!). for EAI or whatever we're calling the general area I work in these days, I just use AIFFs whenever possible, because why not? like was said above, space really isn't an issue.

that's certainly true. in fact, I kind of like low fi noise, black metal, etc on cassette tape, though I don't buy that format often

[Mo Noyz]

I didn't think that it had anything to do with extending the frequency range, as much as the ability to capture and extract more information in the audible range.

That's something I think folks who profit from hi-res want us to believe. And truth be told, those not familiar with Nyquist, or without an electrical engineering degree, would never know that sampling rates are directly tied to frequency. But anything below 20kHz can be completely captured at a 44.1 sampling rate. It's actually why they decided that as the optimal sampling rate when the digital music was born.

It's really fascinating stuff. I'd encourage you to read up on it at your leisure. I think you'd find it interesting.

[Mo Noyz]

sorry for just participating in this discussion at the fringes as I really hate them and have had too many of them over the years, but the only other thing I will say is that it depends somewhat on the kind of music you are listening to.

for instance, I listen to hip-hop nonstop on my iPod and for that even 192 MP3s are usually fine as they're mastered to be ideally played that way (one time I even bought a CD because I really loved a song from it that I had played endlessly on MP3, and the CD sounded worse!!). for EAI or whatever we're calling the general area I work in these days, I just use AIFFs whenever possible, because why not? like was said above, space really isn't an issue.

Shit brother, there's nothing to be sorry for. I essentially agree with all of this. As I said before, I've read a piece from at least one sound engineer claiming anything over 190kbps crossses over the "CD quality" threshold.

I do have some older MP3's encoded at 160kbps, and they do indeed sound a little ragged. Cymbals and upper register piano notes especially sound...well, bad.

As for AIFF, it's just personal preference. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that. Find something you like, and run with it. If folks don't like it, they can convert it to whatever they want, not that it will make a difference.

The biggest upside to AIFF (and it's a significant upside), is that it is more universally supported than FLAC and ALAC.

[Mo Noyz]

BTW, jon. I have a silly/noob question(s) for you. And you don't need to take the time to answer if it's too much of a pain in the ass.

But you record most of your artists directly through the board, right? No mics necessary unless there's acoustic or ambient sounds involved? So when you are in the process of recording, do you do so at higher sampling rates and then mix them down? Or do you simply bring everything in at 16/44.1 and just do a straight transfer? Is there a lot of post production involved?

[jon abbey]

I never actually do the recording myself, although sometimes I am there. many people these days work in 24/96 until they get to the final material, and then transfer it to 16/44.1 for CD. Yuko wants me to sell hi-res DLs of applicable projects (she is a big fan of hi-res mainstream classical) but I am not totally convinced and haven't done it yet.

also I'd have to go through project by project but I doubt many of them are recorded without mikes completely, there aren't many laptops on Erst and never have been. thinking about it quickly, I released 8 titles this year on various Erst imprints, none were recorded entirely directly*.

*amusingly, the one I thought might have been (Medium Rude), I just checked the instrumentation and both credit 'microphones' as their first instrument.

[Mo Noyz]

That's awesome.

[Mo Noyz]

As for the hi-res proposition, I hope you decide against it.

[james]

I'd be first in line.

[Mo Noyz]

Mastering is everything. You can't make anything sound better at 192kHz than you can at 44.1kHz.

That was the problem with first generation CDs. They were still being mastered the way LPs were, which left out a significant portion of the dynamic range digital was capable of. Unfortunately, that eventually introduced the "loudness wars". Which is why most recent releases sound absolutely horrifying.

[Mo Noyz]

James, here's a really outstanding piece that breaks down hi-res. I would have posted it yesterday, but for the life of me couldn't find it (thought I'd saved it to my favorites, but alas...).

https://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

[Mo Noyz]

Wow! Here's an interesting one. 128 (!) AAC vs lossless ABX.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrfX-g8auc8