People skin up on album covers. They snort ketamine off CDs. That should tell you everything.
I mostly agree with this. That link that you provided is pretty good. I do have one minor quibble. Other than space, I see NO downside to 98KHz sampling, PROVIDED that the signals are properly filtered to be below 20KHz. I can see his point about harmonics making extra noise, but if the filters properly get rid of stuff above 20KHz, those harmonics should not be a problem. I have no experience with high-end hardware like that, so I donât know what kind of filters they use. Otherwise, great article.
As he said, going to 24 bits does not hurt, and will drop the noise a little bit. However, if you donât hear any noise in the first place, what is there to gain? I am not a music professional, but I think that CD quality is just fine. Really, CD quality is a step up from MP3! The MP3 audio codec works by throwing stuff away. They use âpsycho-acousticalâ models where people did a bunch of studies. âIf I play this tone loud and a very similar tone quietly, you canât even notice the quiet one.â From that study, it is OK to throw out the quiet tone, because nobody can hear it anyways. So MP3 works by literally throwing out a bunch of stuff that the model says that you canât hear. So, an MP3 is supposed to sound the same, but it is not the same. When you listen to actual CD format music (wav for FLAC, for example), nothing is thrown away.
Now, FLAC compression throws nothing away. It just knows about the properties of sound files and takes advantage of mathematical properties of sound wave files to shrink. I could give a quick, stupid example of how to make a âpoor manâsâ lossless compression, but I am not sure that is necessary.
Thank you again, Kevin.
Iâm of an age that I come at this from a background of LPâs and then CDâs. For me, mp3 is the johnny-come-lately. My issue is not âmoving upâ to CD-quality, but âmoving downâ to mp3 quality. I will purchase FLAC over mp3 for download every time.
Can I hear the difference? With limited testing, Iâm not quite sure with a good 320 mp3. Lower than that, I believe I can.
Meh. Personally, I canât hear the difference between 320 MP3 and CD, but I donât claim to have golden ears. MP3 is lower quality, but I find it âgood enough.â If you want BMW sound and not Chevy sound, you probably want FLAC. The easiest way is to just buy a physical CD and rip it. I know not know of any place that sell FLAC files, but I havenât really looked. Places like Amazon and Google offer MP3, Apple does AAC.
http://www.hdtracks.com sells FLAC and Apple Lossless. (I havenât used them.)
Actually, FLAC downloads are quite common in the elitist world of classical music.
one of the things about commercial music is that itâs played back on consumer electronics of varying quality.
The CD spec is 16 bit, 44000 Khz, Stereo.
So what does that mean?
It means that a CD can reproduce sounds between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz. with 96 dB of dynamic range, stereophonically. Babies can hear 20 KHz tones. Adults generally canât,
Now, itâs possible to design a cheap speaker that will produce clean sound to 20.000 Hz. Bass sounds, are a problem. I myself have bookshelf speakers that reproduce tones between 62Hz and 23 KHz, and fall off beyond that. I donât have a subwoofer connected to this setup-- no real room.
So, no chance to reproduce the delicate sound of thunder. No chance to make the room shake. But most of the musical genres are generally covered.
The CD audio now is limited to 62 Hz to oh, letâs be generous and call it 15,000 Hz, with a certain amount of falloff at either endâŚ
Now, these speakers are rated at 92.5dB @ 2.83 V, which means that if Iâm using them in a 40dB room., to actually use all that dynamic range, the peaks would be 130 dB (extremely dangerous to hearing), and Iâd have to have a 6000 W amplifier which would blow my speakers and my budget. Best I can do is 109 dB or so-- before distortion creeps in and starts making everything terribly uncomfortable. (I havenât tested this).
The final bit is âstereo.â If everythingâs done exactly right, the result is a three dimensional image of the sound that sort of floats between the speakers. This depends on a lot of factors, not least the room. My computerâs speakers donât really do this because I havenât fussed with them enough, and space constraints.
This is what Iâm listening to right now. The opening measures of violins needs to be just above the threshold of audibility, or youâll end up getting a nasty surprise when the church bells ring out.
Analyzed folder: /Volumes/LaCie/Itunes/Music/Oleg Caetani_Orchestra Sinfonia Di Milano Giuseppe Verdi/Shostakovich_ Symphony No.11 in G minor, op.103 1905 (Caetani)
DR Peak RMS Filename
DR16 -8.03 dB -29.96 dB 01 I. Adagio (The Palace Square).m4a
DR13 -0.29 dB -18.90 dB 02 II. Allegro (The 9th Of January).m4a
DR15 -0.51 dB -22.75 dB 03 III. Adagio (Eternal Memory).m4a
DR13 -0.03 dB -17.88 dB 04 IV. Allegro Non Troppo (The Tocsin).m4a
Number of files: 4
Official DR value: DR14
Now, if your speakers and amplifier arenât up to the task, or your car is noisy, this will turn out to be a rather boring, nearly silent, piece of music punctuated by moments of noise. Most CDs arenât recorded with this much dynamic range.
Instead, they look like this.
Which sounds loud on the cheapest set of speakers, and unbearable on anything decent.
Analyzed folder: /Volumes/LaCie/Itunes/Music/R.E.M_/Accelerate
DR Peak RMS Filename
DR5 -0.01 dB -5.44 dB 01 Living Well Is The Best Revenge.m4a
DR5 -0.01 dB -5.76 dB 02 Man-Sized Wreath.m4a
DR5 -0.01 dB -5.86 dB 03 Supernatural Superserious.m4a
DR5 -0.01 dB -8.01 dB 04 Hollow Man.m4a
DR6 -0.01 dB -7.32 dB 05 Houston.m4a
DR5 -0.01 dB -6.14 dB 06 Accelerate.m4a
DR6 -0.01 dB -8.44 dB 07 Until The Day Is Done.m4a
DR5 -0.01 dB -6.13 dB 08 Mr. Richards.m4a
DR5 -0.01 dB -7.09 dB 09 Sing For The Submarine.m4a
DR5 -0.01 dB -5.87 dB 10 Horse To Water.m4a
DR5 -0.01 dB -5.81 dB 11 Iâm Gonna DJ.m4a
Number of files: 11
Official DR value: DR5
You canât really make sound this cruddy, and still have a working vinyl record, so I suppose LPs have a certain advantage. But itâs nothing to do with the technical limits of the CD.
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