Will high-resolution audio make a difference?

[Phil O'Keefe]

I read an interesting article recently:

http://www.prosoundnetwork.com/article/ces-dives-into-high-res-audio/17277

It looks like consumer audio standards may finally start to see improvement. I certainly think it would be better in terms of quality if we could stream uncompressed 24 bit files instead of 16 bit / compressed MP3s. Do you think audio and music in general will become more popular once audio file standards improve?

 

[t_e_l_e]

 

hmmm thats a short question with no short answer

when i read neil youngs autobiography i had a lot of points to argue about his hi quality sound project pono

first of all it is not the quality of the medium alone, which need to be increased, but also the quality of playback systems. and this is much harder todo.

think of lowend consumer electronics, like 5$ mp3 player, damn most people run around with an iphone/android as their mp3 player with the crap iphone ear plugs and the crap playback software limited in its speed etc...

the bad word is consumer electronics, look at the mass of playback system most people buy for less than 100$, home stereos, car hifi you name it....

 

 

 

but thats not the biggest issue imho.

everywhere you go, you are poluted with sound, in a cafe, in a restaurant, on the street by other peoples music and oh do not forget the jingle jangle from the mall you can't turn off.

music/sound all the time, from different sources, at the same time played on low tech speakers and pollute our mind and makes us numb. the low quality sound comes to our ear as noise, where we can't distinguish which song or band it is, but we know it, when we hear it again, the same noise....

i'm not sure, if this would be better, if the noise pollution would be played in high quality audio...

but i'm think as long as we polluted with this noise from everywhere, most of the people give a damn about high quality audio, cause of the pollution they never get the difference and they don't care....

 

yes there are audio geeks and hifi freaks out there, they and me would love it, but they are not the mass market...

 

edit: oh and don't forget the internet, with all the low quality rips offs, from youttube etc content which can not and will not replaced overnight...

[LSSD]

While I think mp3 "quality" is highly unfortunate I dont think 24 or 16 bit is going to make a difference to the average person. For most people music is background, they listen on lousy equipment, generally at pretty low volumes, and while they are doing other things: talking, eating, surfing the internet, washing clothes, dealing with thier kids, ect.  People have shorter and shorter attention spans, little time, and there is lots of competition from so many things that focusing on the details of music is unlikely for most.  Hell even great live music often doesnt get most people to shut up and actually pay attention.

[Folder]

DVD audio and SACD came out about 15 years ago but neither caught on with the public.

I remember at the time seeing them in stores but I don't think the general public ever understood what they were all about.

First of all I think the names were confusing. I remember having conversations with people about them and they would tell me they had a DVD audio player when all they really had was a DVD player. They thought their DVD player played audio so it must be DVD audio. SACD stands for Super Audio Compact Disc. I don't think most people understood that it was a different format and that you needed a $5000 player to play an SACD but it wouldn't play DVD audio. Not mention that there was a format war between the two technologies so nobody could figure out which format to go with

The other problem was that some of the DVD audio discs were 192khz and others were 96khzs. I remember a problem with some DVD audio discs where people thought they were buying 192khz but they were really only 96khz. Then you had menus you had to scroll through in order to choose stereo or surround sound or video. Then you had single and double rate DSD and then quad rate and octuple rate. Some of the SACDs were double layer with a regular 16 bit PCM CD layer and some of them had video I think.

I don't think there's ever been a bigger product roll out blunder than high def audio and it's too bad because if somebody had just designed a simple "stereo audio disc" and made sure that the players were backwards comptible with CDs I think CDs would be considered ancient technology by now.

As far as streaming high def audio is concerned I think we will probably have to up the bandwidth speeds in this country. Most people I know have DSL lite and can barely watch a video on Youtube without it and glitching and stopping .

[KHAN]

 

It's all in the playback systems. I'm all for uncompressed formats, but most people [even engineers] can not differentiate between wave and 320 mp3.

 

As for higher bit/sample rate. I thought is was already proven that there is no advantage as a delivery medium.

?www.lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-white-paper-the_optimal_sample_rate_for_quality_audio.pdf

?lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf

 

[jimbroni2]

I think playback systems always evolve to reflect the most popular audio format in public use. So if streaming methods improve to 24bit, and becomes popular then portable playback systems will eventually follow suit. And why wouldn't they, bean counters need very few excuses to sell us new gadgets. As bandwidth continues to improve I see no reason why 24 bit shouldn't take off, unless of course they decide to charge higher prices for higher quality audio.

[Zooey]

A couple of random thoughts on the subject:

 

If you can't get listeners to commit to CD quality audio, how is "high resolution" audio going to be more successful?

A pop song subjected to typical pop music mastering sounds identical at 16 or 24 bit.

There are already services selling high resolution downloads--where are they getting them? Who protects consumers from buying CD quality audio that has been upsampled?

How does high resolution audio translate to earbuds or car stereos? All other factors being equal, could you tell the difference in a blind test?

 

[Jasco]

<P> Do you think audio and music in general will become more popular once audio file standards improve?</P>

<P> </P>

 

No, I think audio file quality standards matter little to the average person. The average person won't hear the difference, or care. And the average person will still usually buy the cheapest junk they can to listen on.

 

In my opinion, music becomes more popular because of great songs, performances, and artists... and sometimes marketing.

 

 

[WRGKMC]

Many of your computer manufacturers are already installing 24/96 sound cards in their computers and stock cards now.

It hasn't changed how people listen to their music, much of which is downloaded as MP3's

 

I see it as being similar to how radio was long ago. All your pop music was played on AM radio

and the kids didn't mind all the noise and static because they could buy an AM radio cheap.

Kids, especially today don't have allot of cash even if they have a job.

Their big expanse item is their cell phones followed by maybe an IPod and laptop.

 

Those are their playback tools, at least till they get older and can afford a car with a good stereo system,

then they may get a surround sound TV or a Hi Fi system.

 

Older people who been around longer will likely have a high quality system and value it.

Their ears may need it after all the loud bands they've heard as well as their ears aging.

Many people do live their lives not knowing any difference in sound quality until it gets down

to sounding very bad, like an old telephone.

 

I hope things do go the way Radio did moving to FM for quality. Even radio has taken a big step

going backwards at this point. Satellite radio really sucks balls for sound quality.

Cable TV has gotten just as bad. The files they send over cable now are so

compressed the audio frequencies sound like they are being passed through a washing machine.

 

Its all about money. Instead of adding the hardware to support the networks, they strip the signals

down to the lowest quality possible. It works when there's no network congestion, but during peak hours,

those minimal quality digital files degenerate to nothing by the time it gets to your set.