The case for 96 kHz (and 88.2) vs Lower Resolutions (44.1 and 48)

[ar surround]

I found this very short and interesting summary explaining why higher resolution is beneficial even for old ears that can no longer hear high range frequencies.

https://heronislandstudio.co.uk/?p=155
Here is the crux of the article:

"Yet people reliably report that high sample rates like 88.2 and 96 KHz sound better than 44.1 and 48 KHz. The reason for this, as the legendary mastering engineer Bob Katz explains, is in the way currently designed digital to audio analog converters (DACs) work. When converting from digital to analog for playback, it is very difficult and expensive to produce an undistorted signal with lower sample rates like 44.1 or 48 KHz. There are at present no commercially available systems that can reproduce these sample rates without distortion. However, once you are at a high sample rate like 88.2 or 96 KHz a good converter can produce a completely undistorted analog signal with ease. So the difference people are hearing, is not the high frequency content, but the fact that lower sample rates cause the converters to distort the analog signal."

I don't know how old the article is, but the implication may be that the high-end DACs perform better than the run-of-the-mill DACs on material with the lower resolutions. And that there isn't as much difference between the DACs for processing material at 88.2 and 96 kHz resolution.

 

[JohnN]

I want to know why the same sample rate on Blu-ray sounds better than on DVD. Player?

https://www.waves.com/sample-rate-myths-busted-audio-myth-busting

 

[bluelightning]

Not another one of these threads! Most half decent consumer DACs already upsample the 44.1 /48KHz signal to a higher sample rate internally anyway. Any differences are more likely from the analog filter chosen at the output.

 

[Electric Moo]

Not another one of these threads! Most half decent consumer DACs already upsample the 44.1 /48KHz signal to a higher sample rate internally anyway. Any differences are more likely from the analog filter chosen at the output.

Well how is that going to be better than a native 24/96 file?

 

[ar surround]

Not another one of these threads! Most half decent consumer DACs already upsample the 44.1 /48KHz signal to a higher sample rate internally anyway. Any differences are more likely from the analog filter chosen at the output.

I was eagerly waiting for a reply saying, "Not another one of these threads!" I am disappointed that it took over 8 hours for one to appear.

 

[4-earredwonder]

I was eagerly waiting for a reply saying, "Not another one of these threads!" I am disappointed that it took over 8 hours for one to appear.

And then there is of course 192/24 which some feel is overkill but from the plethora of Japanese Imported BD~A [stereo] discs which have been produced by UMG [Jazz and Classical] sound extraordinarily wonderful to these ears....and what's the harm .... anyway? Add to those Classic Records superb HDAD 192/24 Stereo DVD~A discs........

24/192 DVD~A STEREO

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Beck's Sea Change (HFPA BRD-A), offers both stereo and multi-channel in 192/24

 

[4-earredwonder]

Not another one of these threads! Most half decent consumer DACs already upsample the 44.1 /48KHz signal to a higher sample rate internally anyway. Any differences are more likely from the analog filter chosen at the output.

Here's a perfect example of an HDCD encoded CD versus the same program on DVD~A 24/96: The higher res DVD~A literally 'smokes' the HD CD!

https://www.discogs.com/master/38700-Neil-Young-Greatest-Hits

 

[DuncanS]

When I read stuff like this steam normally comes out of my ears!

"Yet people reliably report that high sample rates like 88.2 and 96 KHz sound better than 44.1 and 48 KHz. The reason for this, as the legendary mastering engineer Bob Katz explains, is in the way currently designed digital to audio converters (DACs) work. When converting from digital to analog for playback, it is very difficult and expensive to produce an undistorted signal with lower sample rates like 44.1 or 48 KHz. NOT TRUE, distortion is produced by non-linearity and excluding Sigma-Delta, you mostly find that distortion products increase with sampling frequency with ADCs & DACs.

There are at present no commercially available systems that can reproduce these sample rates without distortion. However, once you are at a high sample rate like 88.2 or 96 KHz a good converter can produce a completely undistorted analog signal with ease. So the difference people are hearing, is not the high frequency content, but the fact that lower sample rates cause the converters to distort the analog signal. For the tech minded, this is due to ripples in the bandpass filter cased by restricted high pass bandwidth in lower sample rates. NOT TRUE, this is NOT distortion, this frequency ripple would be introduced by a moron who chose the wrong filter type, like a Chebychev which has ripples in the pass-band! Using something like the common Butterworth or Bessel filters you'd find that they are flat in the pass band. Also you wouldn't use a bandpass filter you'd use a Low Pass to keep the Bass"

"It’s not that these higher rates actually contain extra musical information, the issue is to do with the filters playback systems need to use to decode digital TRUE, it eases the slope of the filtering. Higher rates allow playback systems more room to work, and many will sound better as a result. Some people even record at 192 KHz, however there is some evidence that rates this high are actually less accurate due to the maths involved. WHAT!!! its the same maths!"

"The difference between this and higher rates is small and will not make or break how good your music sounds. TRUE, bit depth is more important than sample rate, 16-bits is good enough for most"

From an Electronics point of view most of what is written is rubbish, people do perceive things differently, and we may think humans are very good at hearing differences, but we aren't. We all love vinyl (I do, Petr Kropotkin doesn't) and a good LP sounds great, but its distortion figure is many times higher than all digital systems.

 

[4-earredwonder]

When I read stuff like this steam normally comes out of my ears!

"Yet people reliably report that high sample rates like 88.2 and 96 KHz sound better than 44.1 and 48 KHz. The reason for this, as the legendary mastering engineer Bob Katz explains, is in the way currently designed digital to audio converters (DACs) work. When converting from digital to analog for playback, it is very difficult and expensive to produce an undistorted signal with lower sample rates like 44.1 or 48 KHz. NOT TRUE, distortion is produced by non-linearity and excluding Sigma-Delta, you mostly find that distortion products increase with sampling frequency with ADCs & DACs.

There are at present no commercially available systems that can reproduce these sample rates without distortion. However, once you are at a high sample rate like 88.2 or 96 KHz a good converter can produce a completely undistorted analog signal with ease. So the difference people are hearing, is not the high frequency content, but the fact that lower sample rates cause the converters to distort the analog signal. For the tech minded, this is due to ripples in the bandpass filter cased by restricted high pass bandwidth in lower sample rates. NOT TRUE, this is NOT distortion, this frequency ripple would be introduced by a moron who chose the wrong filter type, like a Chebychev which has ripples in the pass-band! Using something like the common Butterworth or Bessel filters you'd find that they are flat in the pass band. Also you wouldn't use a bandpass filter you'd use a Low Pass to keep the Bass"

"It’s not that these higher rates actually contain extra musical information, the issue is to do with the filters playback systems need to use to decode digital TRUE, it eases the slope of the filtering. Higher rates allow playback systems more room to work, and many will sound better as a result. Some people even record at 192 KHz, however there is some evidence that rates this high are actually less accurate due to the maths involved. WHAT!!! its the same maths!"

"The difference between this and higher rates is small and will not make or break how good your music sounds. TRUE, bit depth is more important than sample rate, 16-bits is good enough for most"

From an Electronics point of view most of what is written is rubbish, people do perceive things differently, and we may think humans are very good at hearing differences, but we aren't. We all love vinyl (I do) and a good LP sounds great, but its distortion figure is many times higher than all digital systems.

I used [past past tense] to LOVE vinyl ..... even have a wonderful TT/tonearm/cartridge combo but due to my love of solo piano and classical music could not even remotely stand any vinyl aberrations which is why I placed my bets on a very high end all Meridian digital system....and never looked back.

As we speak, I am playing a 24K GOLD CD remaster of Janis Ian's BETWEEN THE LINES. It sounds excellent, as is, but I would much prefer a QUAD SACD remastering from Dutton Vocalion [wouldn't we ALL].

Yes, we ALL hear differently and yes, at a certain age our hearing goes south ...... even a lot of young people I know suffer hearing loss [hereditary?] and I consider myself lucky to still have pretty good hearing....for an old buck!

My point being ........ 16 bit/44.1 kHz is OK for a lot of albums but I still can verily hear the difference between 16 versus 24 bit. And I'm way beyond that placebo effect nonsense which seems to pervade a lot of low versus higher res discussions. Like the difference between 1080p blu ray versus 3840 x 2160 4K ...if you can't see the difference in contrast levels, brightness and more vibrant color pallettes [especially when HDR/Dolby Vision are applied] ........ either get glasses or a better HDTV ... like OLED!

 

[bluelightning]

Well how is that going to be better than a native 24/96 file?

Here's a perfect example of an HDCD encoded CD versus the same program on DVD~A 24/96: The higher res DVD~A literally 'smokes' the HD CD!

https://www.discogs.com/master/38700-Neil-Young-Greatest-Hits

How do you know they are not mastered differently?

 

[bluelightning]

Well how is that going to be better than a native 24/96 file?

Please tell me where in my response I said it is going to be better than a native 24/96 file. As far as the frequency range of 0 to 20KHz is concerned, it is certainly going to be no worse off if implemented correctly. Using higher sample rates is no guarantee of better performance either.

Is it true that audiophiles have trouble with reading comprehension?

 

[bluelightning]

When I read stuff like this steam normally comes out of my ears!

"Yet people reliably report that high sample rates like 88.2 and 96 KHz sound better than 44.1 and 48 KHz. The reason for this, as the legendary mastering engineer Bob Katz explains, is in the way currently designed digital to audio converters (DACs) work. When converting from digital to analog for playback, it is very difficult and expensive to produce an undistorted signal with lower sample rates like 44.1 or 48 KHz. NOT TRUE, distortion is produced by non-linearity and excluding Sigma-Delta, you mostly find that distortion products increase with sampling frequency with ADCs & DACs.

There are at present no commercially available systems that can reproduce these sample rates without distortion. However, once you are at a high sample rate like 88.2 or 96 KHz a good converter can produce a completely undistorted analog signal with ease. So the difference people are hearing, is not the high frequency content, but the fact that lower sample rates cause the converters to distort the analog signal. For the tech minded, this is due to ripples in the bandpass filter cased by restricted high pass bandwidth in lower sample rates. NOT TRUE, this is NOT distortion, this frequency ripple would be introduced by a moron who chose the wrong filter type, like a Chebychev which has ripples in the pass-band! Using something like the common Butterworth or Bessel filters you'd find that they are flat in the pass band. Also you wouldn't use a bandpass filter you'd use a Low Pass to keep the Bass"

"It’s not that these higher rates actually contain extra musical information, the issue is to do with the filters playback systems need to use to decode digital TRUE, it eases the slope of the filtering. Higher rates allow playback systems more room to work, and many will sound better as a result. Some people even record at 192 KHz, however there is some evidence that rates this high are actually less accurate due to the maths involved. WHAT!!! its the same maths!"

"The difference between this and higher rates is small and will not make or break how good your music sounds. TRUE, bit depth is more important than sample rate, 16-bits is good enough for most"

From an Electronics point of view most of what is written is rubbish, people do perceive things differently, and we may think humans are very good at hearing differences, but we aren't. We all love vinyl (I do) and a good LP sounds great, but its distortion figure is many times higher than all digital systems.

You said it way better than I could.

 

[DuncanS]

I used [past past tense] to LOVE vinyl ..... even have a wonderful TT/tonearm/cartridge combo but due to my love of solo piano and classical music could not even remotely stand any vinyl aberrations which is why I placed my bets on a very high end all Meridian digital system....and never looked back.

As we speak, I am playing a 24K GOLD CD remaster of Janis Ian's BETWEEN THE LINES. It sounds excellent, as is, but I would much prefer a QUAD SACD remastering from Dutton Vocalion [wouldn't we ALL].

Yes, we ALL hear differently and yes, at a certain age our hearing goes south ...... even a lot of young people I know suffer hearing loss [hereditary?] and I consider myself lucky to still have pretty good hearing....for an old buck!

My point being ........ 16 bit/44.1 kHz is OK for a lot of albums but I still can verily hear the difference between 16 versus 24 bit. And I'm way beyond that placebo effect nonsense which seems to pervade a lot of low versus higher res discussions. Like the difference between 1080p blu ray versus 3840 x 2160 4K ...if you can't see the difference in contrast levels, brightness and more vibrant color pallettes [especially when HDR/Dolby Vision are applied] ........ either get glasses or a better HDTV ... like OLED!

I prefer 24-bits, but I often wonder if its down to the fact they're (usually, but not always!) more carefully mastered/remastered.

 

[ar surround]

Bottom line? Despite all of the explanations and claims, I rely on the @marpow test: ‘Sounds really #&$@<* good’ whatever the resolution.

 

[bluelightning]

Bottom line? Despite all of the explanations and claims, I rely on the @marpow test: ‘Sounds really #&$@<* good’ whatever the resolution.

Enjoy what you have and don't fret too much about it

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I record 96 or 192...it definitely helps when processing.

Once you actually bounce it down, I can't tell the difference between 48 and 96, and usually there aren't too many ultrasonics in my music, so I just bounce it to 48.

The difference between 16 and 24 bit is definitely there and 24 bit is a must always.

 

[4-earredwonder]

How do you know they are not mastered differently?

What would be the likelihood of that? Neil even states on the DVD LPCM 96/24 ..... PLAY THE DVD ...it sounds BETTER! And it CERTAINLY DOES! As I've stated in other threads I think those Japanese XRCD 16/44.1 discs sound SUPERB.....some of them are pressed on 99.9% pure silver but as with those 24K Gold CDs, I would definitely ascribe superior mastering and careful replication to their ultimate success but of course they do carry a VERY premium price [usually $40 list per disc]. On sale, I've paid as little as $4.99 for those discs and can happily report, I've never heard one I didn't like!

 

[kfbkfb]

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/96khz-vs-192khz.31343/#post-593198
Really no need to greatly exceed 58kHz and 20bits, 96kHz and 24 bits seems like it's enough of a safety margin.


Kirk Bayne

 

[barfle]

I have a lot of RBCDs that sound just fine, and I even have several MP3s that sound just fine (mostly Amazon D/Ls, but I really wish they'd go FLAC). Now, if I were in the business of producing and selling digitally recorded music, I would probably use 96/24 during production, because there's plenty of leftover bits that could get lost during something simple as a gain change, but wouldn't be audible.

I have a fair collection of AIX recordings, which have 96/24 DVD-A tracks, and they sound superb. Of course, Dr. Waldrep was pretty careful in his recording studio, so I'd expect them to sound good. There's also the CDs engineered by John Eargle, who knew what he was doing, and they are also superb.

But there's SO MUCH MORE to great sound than how many bits get thrown at a song that, although there are reasonable minimum standards, that's not the parameter that make me buy stuff.