The truth behind High-Res Audio

There is a very interesting video over at the TWiT network about High-res audio. Scott Wilkinson talks with recording engineer Mark Waldrep about high resolution audio, and his latest effort to educate the public about it.

https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks/episodes/274?autostart=false

Alas I don't have an hour and ten minutes to watch this so let me guess that Mr Waldrep won't be saying that 16/44.1 is fine and anything higher is a waste of hard disk space?

Well, I did listen to the entire podcast and the thing that struck me is that this guy is a tireless crusader for high-res audio. He is someone out there who is passionate about music recording/mastering. He is strongly motivated to educate people as to what makes good audio vs bad audio. For us here who care about these things he is an industry professional who is definitely on our side.

Check out his latest project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1856656547/music-and-audio-a-user-guide-to-better-sound

wavelength said:

Well, I did listen to the entire podcast and the thing that struck me is that this guy is a tireless crusader for high-res audio. He is someone out there who is passionate about music recording/mastering. He is strongly motivated to educate people as to what makes good audio vs bad audio. For us here who care about these things he is an industry professional who is definitely on our side.

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Realistically, we are not all of one mind on the issue of "high-res audio" (large sample size and/or high sample rate). Some of us are firmly in the "Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem" camp, exemplified by Monty Montgomery. Some of us are in the "more is better and I can hear it" camp, exemplified by Neil Young. Some of us are in the "DSD sounds better and I can hear it" camp. We all agree on the benefits of multichannel audio (hence the site name), but I'd argue that high resolution audio has been largely a distraction to this web site. By way of example, I don't see why we have a HiRez poll, rather than a (single) multichannel poll: I don't think it makes a lot of sense to leave off Scheiners's Grammy-Winning surround mix of Layla simply because it was released on a DVD-V.


I like Waldrep. He's a reasonable guy, he makes good recordings, and he debunks a fair amount of nonsense. Most importantly for this site, he's a tireless crusader for immersive multichannel audio.

Eclectic said:

Realistically, we are not all of one mind on the issue of "high-res audio" (large sample size and/or high sample rate). Some of us are firmly in the "Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem" camp, exemplified by Monty Montgomery. Some of us are in the "more is better and I can hear it" camp, exemplified by Neil Young. Some of us are in the "DSD sounds better and I can hear it" camp. We all agree on the benefits of multichannel audio (hence the site name), but I'd argue that high resolution audio has been largely a distraction to this web site. By way of example, I don't see why we have a HiRez poll, rather than a (single) multichannel poll: I don't think it makes a lot of sense to leave off Scheiners's Grammy-Winning surround mix of Layla simply because it was released on a DVD-V.


I like Waldrep. He's a reasonable guy, he makes good recordings, and he debunks a fair amount of nonsense. Most importantly for this site, he's a tireless crusader for immersive multichannel audio.

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Listen to the podcast. Listen to the other short video in the link I provided. Waldrep uses the phrase "high-res audio" over and over. To me it's pretty clear that he wants his name associated with high-res audio. He leaves no doubt that 96kHz/24 bit PCM is his format of choice. He always manages to plug dvd-audio at some point as the format that changed the way he thought about audio back in 2000 or so. I just can't listen to him and not get the impression that he believes in high-res audio as the golden path to better audio fidelity. To me, he definitely comes across as a a high-res crusader.

I agree with you that the debate here on QQ forums about "high-res audio" can be taxing. But fidelity is something that is too big a component of recorded music. You are never going to stop people from talking about it. And Digital Multichannel audio (cuz I don't know anything about Quad) has always offered up different formats for people to listen to and to judge the merits of. Some people care about the formats and others not so much. But the formats are there like it or not and people will discuss them.

Eclectic said:

I don't think it makes a lot of sense to leave off Scheiners's Grammy-Winning surround mix of Layla simply because it was released on a DVD-V.

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no one of pro. does recording in lossy format. so why in the hell after all efforts of recording,
mixing, mastering... do degradation to the sound when all tech and delivery mediums are here and pretty cheap.
it's just plain stupidity.
and Mark Waldrep absolutely right. i'm not into all recorded by him stuff due to musical genre preferences
but soundwise all his works are amazing. he know what he is doing.

Eclectic said:

We all agree on the benefits of multichannel audio (hence the site name), but I'd argue that high resolution audio has been largely a distraction to this web site.

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And the audio hobby in general.

*Good recording and mastering* trump 'high resolution' every time, in the hierarchy of 'stuff that really matters to what you hear'.

And multichannel is a whole 'nother ballgame.

By way of example, I don't see why we have a HiRez poll, rather than a (single) multichannel poll: I don't think it makes a lot of sense to leave off Scheiners's Grammy-Winning surround mix of Layla simply because it was released on a DVD-V.

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It doesn't. except that there's a coterie that imagines (deludes itself, really) that DTS and AC3 lossy compression are instantly ruinous to good sound. Despite many examples to the contrary.

It's stupid, especially when most of them are probably listening in *highly* compromised environments, with ears that can barely hear above 16 kHz... as most of us are. The 'hit' to audible quality that professional lossy encoding makes pales beside the hit that suboptimal room acoustics and speaker design makes.

Then again there are people who call Redbook 'lossy'....and those who think digital itself is 'lossy' (compared to, say *vinyl*)...the idiocy never ends. @: