HD Audio Content - Why are we so behind?

M

mokkapoop

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
1,155
I just got to thinking today. Knowing how music is recorded and produced (my fiance is a recording artist) I finally realized how far behind we are in delivering HD quality audio. When a single track, or a full album for that matter, is recorded it is then "compressed" to what we now know as CD quality. This is simply done due to the size limits a CD has to offer (roughly 750mb).

However, this day in age with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD quality audio and video, why has there been not research and development done to utilize DVD or even HD type media to produce crisper, wider ranged, higher quality audio albums? Being a music junky and now having a nice home theater system, I want to hear music in a better quality.

Anyone else agree or grasp my concept or is it just the 3 Barq's talking today?
 
Check out DVD-A, which is DVD-Audio.

Check out SACD, which is Super-Audio CD.

Check out HDCD, which is... welll, High-Definition CD.
 
Ok....after doing some research here...I did find the conecpt of DVD-Audio.

What is this HDCD you speak of?
 
Damnit! I feel like a freaking idiot! Why am I so behind on this stuff?

Ok....so my next question is: Who wins the battle for HD quality audio albums? DVD-A, HDCD, etc?
 
mokkapoop said:
Damnit! I feel like a freaking idiot! Why am I so behind on this stuff?

Ok....so my next question is: Who wins the battle for HD quality audio albums? DVD-A, HDCD, etc?
Click to expand...

nobody wins. People don't buy cds, why would they buy high definition cds? Besides most people can't even tell the difference between a well encoded 128kbps track and a lossless one.
 
Thats absurd! If you cannot tell the difference between 128kbps and CD quality.....then something is really fucked in your head.....seriously.

I absolutely hate the fact that I ripped all my CD's to 320kbps and sold them all....thinking MP3's were awesome. That was my mistake. Now that I have a serious audio system, I want them back.....but even more....I want to hear them all in HD quality sound.
 
I remember some test that made it to digg showing that very few people actually could hear it.
 
I dont care what people think....the concept of higher quality audio (where we can hear it, decode it to be better in different speakers and deliver content in a clearer way) is there....but I just guess since the "average" consumer can't distinct between crappy quality and good quality....well then why should HD content be produced? It's stupid.....
 
zmjone2992 said:
I remember some test that made it to digg showing that very few people actually could hear it.
Click to expand...

I can tell the difference, but I think some of it depends on what a person is listening through. A crappy system is going to make even the highest bit-rate recording sound like a garbage can quartet.

I rip most of my stuff at 200kbps VBR, and I can't tell the difference between that and 320kbps, but I can recognize the 128kbps as inferior. The highs and mids sound muddy, but I'm sure someone with more experience could make a whole list of things they can pick-out.
 
mokkapoop said:
When a single track, or a full album for that matter, is recorded it is then "compressed" to what we now know as CD quality. This is simply done due to the size limits a CD has to offer (roughly 750mb).
Click to expand...
You've fallen victim to an error many make with respect to the concept of compression, I think.

CD audio is not compressed by means of data compression, unless you qualify that downsampling is a type of compression (and not all albums are necessarily downsampled at any point during production, though most are). Modern CDs are compressed by means of dynamics compression. Perhaps you read some Rolling Stone article or something that didn't clearly differentiate between the two types of compression (not uncommon). Dynamics compression simply takes audio information registering beyond a certain amplitude (threshold), squishes it down in accordance to a defined ratio, then raises the overall level of the program by some increment (referred to as makeup gain). This process reduces dynamic range whilst increasing overall loudness. The actual Redbook CD format doesn't define any set of rules pertaining to RMS loudness or dynamics compression, so modern mastering engineers have a field day with compressors and limiters to hit a level of 'loudness' requested by producers and/or labels. This has been labeled the "Loudness War" and is the reason why audiophiles seek other formats like vinyl, which have physical limitations that do not 'permit' extremely loud mastering and are typically less compressed and more dynamic than the CD masters.

Now, because of the nature of pulse-code modulation, low-amplitude signals are represented with fewer bits than high-amplitude signals, which is one justification for dynamics compression (yet not a reasonable one). Other sampling methods, such as 1-bit pulse-density encoding, don't suffer from this shortcoming, but have other inherent shortcomings.

mokkapoop said:
However, this day in age with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD quality audio and video, why has there been not research and development done to utilize DVD or even HD type media to produce crisper, wider ranged, higher quality audio albums?
Click to expand...
There have been, and these formats have ultimately failed. See DVD-Audio and SACD.

One issue here is that no study, that I'm aware of, has conclusively shown that high-resolution digital audio (24-bit/192kHz PCM or DSD) is actually audibly different from an identically-mastered 16-bit/44.1kHz CD audio master in blind or double-blind testing.

If you ask me, "HD" audio arrived with the Redbook CD Audio disc a long, long time ago. 16-bit/44.1kHz digital audio is a fucking great thing.

mokkapoop said:
Thats absurd! If you cannot tell the difference between 128kbps and CD quality.....then something is really fucked in your head.....seriously.
Click to expand...
Do some double-blind testing against lossless and modern lossy encoders sometime. You'd be surprised at the results you'll probably get.

mokkapoop said:
I want them back.....but even more....I want to hear them all in HD quality sound.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but what is HD-quality? What does that even mean?
 
That was an awesome read man. Honestly, my original post was talking out of my ass....but now I am starting to grasp the concept.

Needless to say....do you see CD's sticking around for quite some time? Do we have no future in HD audio?
 
I think we'll have a newer, vastly more successful high-resolution audio format eventually, yeah. Within 10 years? No, I wouldn't say that's likely. While our speakers and so on are going to be evolving (they're still by far the limiting factors here), our ears aren't really going to be, and we can only physically perceive so much detail. The possible level of detail you can fit onto an audio CD is actually pretty immense despite the underwhelming-looking specs -- some advanced dithering algorithms can yield an 'apparent' bit depth of about 18 to 19 bits from an actual 16 bits per sample.

Unless you know you're missing something from the CD master, I wouldn't even worry about it. Definitely check out DVD-Audio and SACD though.
 
phide said:
Unless you know you're missing something from the CD master, I wouldn't even worry about it. Definitely check out DVD-Audio and SACD though.
Click to expand...

If these formats are "said to be failures", why would you buy them? I was looking through Best Buys online store and found nothing but crap that was converted over to these other formats.
 
They're failures from a commercial perspective. There's nothing wrong with the formats themselves -- they're both great if only for the surround mixes and occasionally less aggressive compression during mastering. As a general rule, the SACDs and DVD-Audios are produced to higher standards, so they'll typically sound better, or at least different, than the comparable CD masters, though sometimes they'll be pretty much identical to the CD version, so it's a luck-of-the-draw sort of deal.
 
One issue here is that no study, that I'm aware of, has shown that high-resolution digital audio (24-bit/192kHz PCM or DSD) is actually audibly different from an identically-mastered 16-bit/44.1kHz CD audio master in blind or double-blind testing.
Click to expand...

Did you know that Stereo Review did a blind test with 25 audio/hi-fi professionals that resulted in the conclusion that there was no perceptible audible difference between a 12,000 dollar Futterman tube amp array and a 200 dollar Pioneer receiver? Interesting bit of DBT trivia.

I think about that every time I think about spending more money on audio, it usually discourages me (and lord knows I could use the discouragement).
 
Nicolaskl said:
Did you know that Stereo Review did a blind test with 25 audio/hi-fi professionals that resulted in the conclusion that there was no perceptible audible difference between a 12,000 dollar Futterman tube amp array and a 200 dollar Pioneer receiver? Interesting bit of DBT trivia.

I think about that every time I think about spending more money on audio, it usually discourages me (and lord knows I could use the discouragement).
Click to expand...

This is interesting
how much do you have to spend on speakers before you can't tell the difference ?
 
You should always be able to tell the difference with speakers. Even speakers of the same type and price should sound different due to differences in cabinet construction, crossover design, etc, etc.

That said I'm sure there are a lot of speakers out there that are so similar in design and construction that it definitely wouldn't be easy to tell them apart in a DBT.

But that doesn't necessarily justify spending 20 grand on a pair of bookshelf speakers. Speakers should sound different, which ones sound not just different, but better, is probably as much a function of individuals tastes as it is cost.
 
Nicolaskl said:
You should always be able to tell the difference with speakers. Even speakers of the same type and price should sound different due to differences in cabinet construction, crossover design, etc, etc.

That said I'm sure there are a lot of speakers out there that are so similar in design and construction that it definitely wouldn't be easy to tell them apart in a DBT.

But that doesn't necessarily justify spending 20 grand on a pair of bookshelf speakers. Speakers should sound different, which ones sound not just different, but better, is probably as much a function of individuals tastes as it is cost.
Click to expand...

You hit the nail on the head.

Everybody's ears are shaped different, which makes a difference on how people hear different sounds. Speakers, speakers cabinets, the room acoustics, the materials they are made of, etc etc, also have an impact on acoustics.

Up to about 3 years ago, I had low-end Jensen home theater speakers and a JVC receiver. I could not tell a difference on 128kbit MP3s compared to 160kbit or higher. I always thought it was a waste of bandwidth and drive space. Now I have a high-end set of Klipsch speakers (KLF-30s) on a high-end Sony ES receiver and Carver amps. 128kbit MP3s sound like crap compared to 160kbit or higher MP3s!! I only use lossless now... Get a set of good quality speakers and you should be able to hear the difference.

I have not paid much attention to the audio formats because now I strictly only mess with digital file formats.
 
mokkapoop said:
Thats absurd! If you cannot tell the difference between 128kbps and CD quality.....then something is really fucked in your head.....seriously.

I absolutely hate the fact that I ripped all my CD's to 320kbps and sold them all....thinking MP3's were awesome. That was my mistake. Now that I have a serious audio system, I want them back.....but even more....I want to hear them all in HD quality sound.
Click to expand...

Do a blind comparison between a well encoded Mp3 @ 320 and the CD or FLAC and I'll bet you can't here the difference.

I've heard of people saying they can, perhaps they are telling the truth. However, I've never seen it.
 
PolygonGTC said:
Do a blind comparison between a well encoded Mp3 @ 320 and the CD or FLAC and I'll bet you can't here the difference.

I've heard of people saying they can, perhaps they are telling the truth. However, I've never seen it.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering what extra info is being stored in lossless vs 320k Mp3 for the same song? Why is the file size 4-5x bigger? Surely there must be a difference. Maybe not noticeable on your alarm clock radio or a portable media player...

I wonder if this relates to hi-def movies. Some of the new blu-ray/hddvd movies look stunning, and others barely look better than a standard dvd. Perhaps not all songs are high quality? This also goes on the judgment you are watching it on a high-end HDTV. Kind of like how high-end speakers will make a bigger difference on a audio CD vs 128k MP3 than some cheap $50 Bose speakers.
 
i think about it as hearing the difference between equipment well before changes in good modern compression. i use 320kbps for mobile listening and get lost in the music regardless.
 
PolygonGTC said:
Do a blind comparison between a well encoded Mp3 @ 320 and the CD or FLAC and I'll bet you can't here the difference.
Click to expand...
Issues can reveal themselves fairly plainly in 'killer samples'. Generally, developers aware of such problem samples can implement specific changes that eliminate them.

ShagnWagn said:
I'm wondering what extra info is being stored in lossless vs 320k Mp3 for the same song? Why is the file size 4-5x bigger? Surely there must be a difference.
Click to expand...
More than you might guess when you compare the waveforms, but less than what you might hear. That's the beauty of psychoacoustic coding models.

A fair amount of compression in lossy codecs is due to lowpass filtering. Attenuating high frequencies reduces the complexity of the waveform, allowing encoders to work a little more 'plainly'.
 
I would love nothing more than an improved format so that I can push my system even further than where it is now.

As for the average consumer not being able to tell the difference between mp3 and lossless, I don't think it's due to their inherent inability to differentiate the two, but moreso because they do not "try" to tell the difference or find any reason to do so. Music to most people is background music, there is no motivation to listen to music in any different manner otherwise.
 
ShagnWagn said:
I'm wondering what extra info is being stored in lossless vs 320k Mp3 for the same song? Why is the file size 4-5x bigger? Surely there must be a difference. Maybe not noticeable on your alarm clock radio or a portable media player...
Click to expand...

Encoding in Mp3 is supposed to remove the frequencies that you can't hear. Encoding in FLAC is more about reorganizing the data while using some compression. However, all the original data is still there and thus can be recovered. With an Mp3 that data is lost. On the contrary, as phide stated, the sampling can effect this. However, I've yet to run across such phenomenon and I've encoded a lot of CDs for people.
 
Just for the record, I used to sell extra-high-end audio and home theater equipment up until last year. When there was nobody in the store, I would do side-by-side comparisons of different equipment and sources, and you bet your ass when you put the right combination of equipment together you can tell a difference between almost any source.

When you slide a well mixed and mastered CD into a Conrad-Johnson D/A 1 run through a CT5 and two Simaudio MoonROCKS monoblocks plugged into two Dynaudio Evolution Masters... I can't even begin to describe how unbelievably incredible that sounds. Though, for a system that will run you well over $200k, what do you expect?

I plugged in my iPod next full of Apple Lossless and 320kbps MP3s and you can hear distortion and hiss and artifacts galore that are off in those ranges that you simply can't produce over a conventional audio system. Better equipment simply breathes new life into recordings, and this effect is increased exponentially with the as the quality of the equipment goes up. It's too bad such a thing is so impractical for anybody with a net worth of less than a few million...
 
i guess it does not help that i cant hear above 15 and a half khz :( breathing definitely sounds unnatural in mp3's as well as symbol crashes but for mobile listening i don't mind. my speakers are not accurate enough to make it noticeable at >320kbps

is it safe to say sacd and dvd audio will remain around there current prices (equipment) because lack of wide spread adoption?
 
Tangent inc. said:
i guess it does not help that i cant hear above 15 and a half khz :( breathing definitely sounds unnatural in mp3's as well as symbol crashes but for mobile listening i don't mind. my speakers are not accurate enough to make it noticeable at >320kbps
Click to expand...

I also can't hear above 15KHz, but I definitely can hear the DISTORTION that MP3's even encoded at 192KHz adds to cymbals. (I was comparing my MP3 rip versus my original CD.)
MP3 encoding doesn't just remove higher frequencies, it also causes some weird distortion with loud, short duration, high frequency sounds. MP3 pro has largely dealt with the cymbal distortion, but unfortunately nobody uses MP3 pro.
 
I can tell the difference between a 128kb MP3 and CD, but it's not a difference that I'm willing to pay for :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top