Please don't focus on bits, when the [loudness wars][1] are the primary enemy of quality sound _reproduction_ in most (not all) music recordings today.<p>This is about radio.<p>As you sit in your car, tune your radio to your local Top 40 station. You'll notice that, even when you turn down the dial to the lowest audible setting, you perceive a constant drone of music/noise (depending on how you feel about pop music). Now, tune to the local classical station. Little spurts of noise can be heard, punctuated by... quiet spots. The average consumer thinks: "What's wrong with this music?! I have to turn up and turn down my volume all the time!" Connoisseurs of classical music, however, encourage dealing with this high dynamic range, because [dynamics][2] are a critical part of classical music.<p>Here's the sad part: POP MUSIC DOESN'T NEED TO HAVE ITS DYNAMIC RANGE SMASHED! Radio stations can easily take high dynamic range source material and run it through a [compressor][3] to limit the dynamic range, thus making their music more car compatible (solving the classical music 'problem'). However, consumers expect to hear the same when they download an AAC/MP3 and play it outside their car. "What's wrong with this old recording, it's so quiet", is a common complaint. Of course, when iTunes (and competing software) have features like automatic output leveling ([Sound Check][4]), compressing dynamic range at OUTPUT and not at MASTERING should be the choice producers make.<p>Yet, the industry persists, making the music louder at the expense of eliminating its dynamic range. They're painting soundscape with a more limited palette (though, doing a surprisingly effective job, given the limitations).<p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war</a>
[2]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamics_(music)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamics_(music)</a>
[3]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression</a>
[4]: <a href="http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2425" rel="nofollow">http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2425</a>
When the CD was designed, 44kHz at 16bits was chosen because that exceeds the limitations of human hearing.<p>With the introduction of Blue-Ray audio, there have been claims that the added resolution makes it sound better. However, some members of the Boston Audio Society did extensive testing where they compared (A/X/B) high-quality Blue-Ray music versus the same music downsampled on the fly to 44kHz/16bit -- and even after extensive listening on very expensive equipment by expert listeners, it was impossible to tell the difference.<p>The results are reported in:
E. Brad Meyer and David R. Moran, "Audibility of a CD-Standard A/DA/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback", JAES Volume 55 Issue 9 pp. 775-779; September 2007. (<a href="http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14195" rel="nofollow">http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14195</a> -- I read a PDF last summer, but now I can't find a non-paywalled version).<p>At the same time, there is widespread agreement that music released on Blu-Ray Audio sounds better than CDs -- but this is not because of the extra bitrate, it's because the sounds engineers pay more attention to details, and the discs are marketed to Hi-Fi enthusiasts, so there is no pressure to e.g. destroy the dynamic range by over-compressing the sound (which makes it sound superficially better on low-end equipment).
Unless the dynamic range of the environment you're in is greater than the difference of the dynamic range between 16 and 24-bit, and unless the audio content also possesses that dynamic range, you will never hear the difference.<p>It's still useful to record at 24-bit, though, to give yourself the extra headroom and avoid digital clipping. Recording at 24-bit is basically a no-brainer.<p>Don't even get me started on recording using sampling rates higher than 44.1 kHz. This has been discussed ad-nausem on various audio forums.<p>Mix Magazine (I think) ran a double-blind test to see if people from all walks of life, including experts in the audio industry, could hear the difference between CDs and super-audio CDs. They could not. I believe we have indeed reached the limits of human hearing.
Really, all this talk of introducing "higher quality" digital music is the record companies looking for the next way to keep you paying for content you already own.<p>I can even understand their fear. Until now every format has had a mass market lifespan of ~15-20 years. When people switched, huge numbers of 'library' albums would be sold providing a nice amount of income for very little work.<p>It's hard to imagine people ever paying to replace existing mp3/aac tracks, and worse - you and I can give each of our children a perfectly reproduced copy of our entire music library.
When getting into these discussions of bit depth and sampling rate, the debate is endless among audio engineers about the differences. What really makes a difference is the specific gear you use (mics, preamps, processors, a/d converters, clocks, etc.).<p>Debating the numbers without discussing the signal chain is somewhat ridiculous. A fantastic (great gear) 16/44 chain will sound a lot better than a crappy 24/192 chain. The concept of a signal chain "only being as strong as the weakest link" is of great importance.<p>That is only the tracking side of the equation. Eventually, individual tracks get mixed down. Your summing bus is the flip side, and there is a lengthy debate over mixing in the box (digital summing) vs. analog summing, which can be done with a traditional mixing console, or with the recently invented category of gear known as "summing boxes." (There are of course many further variations and permutations.)<p>On top of that, the skill of the engineer will also make a large difference. Those interested in the details may wish to visit a site such as gearslutz.com where these topics are discussed and debated in great detail.
Recently, Apple started talking about 24 bit. Now HP/Dr. Dre is talking about 24 bit. It makes a good story. But fact is, most audio bought online is in some compressed format (mp3,mp4/m4a/aac). Digital audio compression works by reducing the bitrate of certain parts of the music (frequency-time blocks). So 24 bit is nice but audio compression reduces it anyway.<p>So, this is apparently not about compressed music then? It must be about uncompressed music. Well, we can't change the redbook CD standard. I guess these people must be talking about DVD-As and SACDs then? They clearly are not.<p>Now there is one thing that I would actually love to see (but that these people do not seem to be talking about). I would love to buy 24 bit 96 kHz FLAC-encoded music on iTunes. Or maybe not FLAC but Apple Lossless or whatever and maybe not iTunes but Amazon or some new HP thing. I don't care. But Lossless, High-Quality Music in some major online music store. Now that would be something!
"The speakers built into a portable computer are most likely a bit hopeless – and it may well be that HPs are better than most – but that is easily overcome by plugging in powered speakers, or using an external digital to analog converter (DAC)"<p>I bought a low end recording audio interface( E-MU Tracker Pre) whitch features a pretty decent DAC and boy oh boy does it make the music pop!<p>Comparing a 192kbps MP3 featuring a big dynamic range with headphones connected directly to the on board audio on my laptop vs headphones connected to my Tracker Pre there is a night and day difference. On the external sound card the MP3 still sounds a little flat, but it does it with class as opposed to boring on the onboard DAC.<p>So before you get into the whole "OH LAWL, MUST ONLY LISTEN TO FLAC" thing start by updating your sound card, its well worth the money!
So there is this recent talk about sound quality from computers, and it makes sense to me that dynamic range would be the biggest culprit against good sound quality. However, every now and then I still here people chime in that upgrading your sound card will also increase your sound quality. Being curious, I went in search of sound card reviews. Of the reviews that I can find, and which aren't ten years old, I can only find reviews of the high end cards which obviously come to the conclusion that the high end cards produce high quality sound. Of course, the numbers they show are quite meaningless, because I have nothing to compare them too. Are there reviews of onboard audio anymore? I have a feeling that technology has progressed to the point that all onboard audio is good enough assuming you have decent speakers/headphones, but does anybody else know?
I master my songs to 24-bit 192khz - a single master and every multitracked track. Even with 20 tracks at that resolution, each song fits on a DVD-R.<p>As to why I need that resolution, my ancient analogue synth can sound good at that high resolution.<p>As for distribution, I just post FLAC files to my website.
Indeed, bit depth is hardly the problem. Uncompressed 16/44 sounds really good, and they can offer that now.<p>The problems are compression and end-user audio equipment. (And they are only problems if the consumer cares.) If the industry wants to tangibly move quality forward, they should simply up the standard bitrate to 320 or beyond, today.
Anyone have any tips/links to convert my CD's into great quality MP3's (for listening only) ? I've been using VBR, 196, Lame etc, but this was recommended to me years ago...<p>Which encoder/tool/settings do you recommend for Windows (and Mac) ?
We have reached the limits of human hearing, to believe that tweaking the sampling rate or bit depth will improve audio quality is foolish. We should use the 16 bit we have better – that’s the real problem. 24 bit won’t help with that.
It may be interesting to note that probably any computer manufactured in last five years is perfectly capable of playing 24bit PCM at ridiculous sample rates (like 192kHz) as even low-end audio codec chips for Intel HDA support that.