What Does Hi Resolution Audio Mean?

[Bob Rapoport]

Originally posted September 2015. Its holds up pretty well after 10 years.

The other day I noticed a posting on one of my favorite Facebook communities, All Things Music, Movies, and Home Theater. A regular contributor posted this Music Resolution Comparison Chart that shows all the various resolutions of digital audio from the lowest MP3 to the highest LPCM and DSD. One person’s comment really struck me as revealing, he asked “what does this mean?” The answer is pretty simple, as you go up in resolution, you can play back at higher SPL with absolute clarity, to the point where today we can hear a one-to-one copy of the original master recording at home, what I like to call the “holy grail of high fidelity”. Click on the chart for the rest of the story.

 

[Tim Dawson]

And some would say that it means that the marketing doofs had too much free time on thier hards . . . . :-)

 

[Bob Rapoport]

And some would say that it means that the marketing doofs had too much free time on thier hards . . . . :-)

Marketing had nothing to do with it, the scientific progress by Sony to extend the storage capacity of their 5" optical disc is what made it possible. It took a long time, from 700 Mb over 74 minutes CD in 1984 to 100 Gb over 3 hours 4K Blu-ray in 2017. If you've never seen UHD 4K or heard native Hi Res Audio, get an audition at your nearest AV store. There's never been a better time to be an audiophile than right now.

 

[Tim Dawson]

Marketing had nothing to do with it, the scientific progress by Sony to extend the storage capacity of their 5" optical disc is what made it possible. It took a long time, from 700 Mb over 74 minutes CD in 1984 to 100 Gb over 3 hours 4K Blu-ray in 2017. If you've never seen UHD 4K or heard native Hi Res Audio, get an audition at your nearest AV store. There's never been a better time to be an audiophile than right now.

If it's beyond the resolution of human hearing, it's marketing spew, nothing more . . .

 

[Bob Rapoport]

If it's beyond the resolution of human hearing, it's marketing spew, nothing more . . .

Normally I would agree with you but this has nothing to do with human audibility. Increasing the dynamic range of all the content we hear so that it matches the original master recording is the goal I describe in this thread, the pursuit of high fidelity. Its clearly audible when you compare a CD with only 90 dB dynamic range to a Blu-ray with 120 dB dynamic range, equal to the original master recording. I conclude from your comments that you've never heard a live concert on Blu-ray or SACD at home, do yourself a favor and visit any modern AV store so you can make an informed opinion about this. There's no question that marketing hype about RCA cables and speaker wire can be hard to prove, but that rule does not apply to hi res audio resolution.

 

[Tim Dawson]

I have both, but again, you seem to be missing the key point.

Sure, CD to DVDnto BluRay, etc. have been improvements, but they don't carry the latest "Make everything HD!" naming hype (There are even sunglasses sold as "HD") . . . Dynqmic range, freq response, etc. are all just functions of bitrate and encoding bit depth . . . and all will reach a point where the human is the limit. So,mwhilemimprovements are great, I also feel that the harder they feel the need to market something,mthe less significant the change is (since it would be obvious without thenhype). So, most humans are hard pressed tomhear past 20KHz, so where is the line for that? You mentioned 120db dynamic range, but that is well beyond the threshold of almost immediate hearing damage on one end, and will likely extend below the noise floor on the other, so where do extensions to this become irrelevant (if they are not there already)? It seems like a lower dynamic range *IF* the material is correctly encoded to use it, could be audibly identical in most cases . . .

And, of course, if the playback system is not capable of reproducing this entire range, the point is largely moot . . . (and you also have to get the mastering engineers to not compress or alter the masters in any way, and likely, a lot of folks would not want that, since a lot of the "mainstream" music consumers would likely find that dynamic range not to thier liking.

 

[Bob Rapoport]

I have both, but again, you seem to be missing the key point.

Sure, CD to DVDnto BluRay, etc. have been improvements, but they don't carry the latest "Make everything HD!" naming hype (There are even sunglasses sold as "HD") . . . Dynqmic range, freq response, etc. are all just functions of bitrate and encoding bit depth . . . and all will reach a point where the human is the limit. So,mwhilemimprovements are great, I also feel that the harder they feel the need to market something,mthe less significant the change is (since it would be obvious without thenhype). So, most humans are hard pressed tomhear past 20KHz, so where is the line for that? You mentioned 120db dynamic range, but that is well beyond the threshold of almost immediate hearing damage on one end, and will likely extend below the noise floor on the other, so where do extensions to this become irrelevant (if they are not there already)? It seems like a lower dynamic range *IF* the material is correctly encoded to use it, could be audibly identical in most cases . . .

And, of course, if the playback system is not capable of reproducing this entire range, the point is largely moot . . . (and you also have to get the mastering engineers to not compress or alter the masters in any way, and likely, a lot of folks would not want that, since a lot of the "mainstream" music consumers would likely find that dynamic range not to thier liking.

Glad to hear you're a hi res adopter. The improvement from 16 bit to 24 bit is audible even to non-audiophiles, the sound quality is richer, smoother, and fuller, all parameters you cant measure. I've not compared 24 bit to 32 bit yet because there's not much 32 bit content on the market. I agree as well about bandwidth, 20KHz is beyond audibility for most humans but not cats and dogs. I can easily hear the difference between 44.1K and 96K sample rate but not between 96K and 192K. Regarding up to 120 dB dynamic range, being able to feel the increase in SPL to that of a recording of a live performance is my definition of AV NIRVANA. We were trying to achieve that goal when I was with Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs in 1977 but vinyl's storage capacity made it necessary to compress the dynamic range down to 60 dB, we made some progress but never came close to the original magnetic tape dynamic range at 85 dB at 15 IPS on 2" tape.

Agreed, you need a system with the power, capable of reaching these parameters and the privacy to turn it up. Room size matters in that equation too.