Autechre The Oversteps 16 bit or 24 bit deal

So Bleep informs me the album has been released digitally a month early.

I'm normally a CD buyin' guy, but faced with the prospect of buying the album in lossless format right now, I don't think I can really wait.

Now, you can choose 24 bit or 16 bit files. I may be alone in this, we'll see, but even when I've got these files, I'm gonna burn them to a CD. There's a bunch of reasons - I like listening to whole albums, my good stereo is not near my computer, etc.

Thing is, you can't burn 24 bit files to a CD anyway. If I run 10 metres of RCA cable from my computer to my stereo, by the time the 24 bit music's been out my computer's workmanlike d/a converters, along 10 metres of RCA cable and then into an amp, who knows if the potential microscopic difference 24 bit could have made will be audible anyway?

I would like to be able to download both versions and set myself up to do a blind test to see if I could hear any difference, but I have to choose one or the other. Ah well, it's gotta be 16 bit for me.

I'm pretty audiohilic (or snobby) and CD quality has always been enough for me as a delivery format, especially when most artists (excluding Autechre) don't make good use of the potential of the format anyway. I've tried various blind shootouts and never been able to consistently qualify differences in sample rates above 44khz. When I'm producing I record in 24 bit, but am still totally cool with 16/44 bit being the delivery format.

So I wondered, what's everyone else doing re: these downloads? 24 bit? 16? Listening on your computer or on a stereo? Burning to a CD (heh) or not? Don't care?

You get a physical copy anyway, so get the hi-rez just for shits and giggles, even if the difference is unnoticeable. I converted mine to lossless/24 bit and it sounds like sex through a good DAC. Some serious deep DACing, really.

  On 2/24/2010 at 2:39 AM, baph said:

You get a physical copy anyway, so get the hi-rez just for shits and giggles, even if the difference is unnoticeable. I converted mine to lossless/24 bit and it sounds like sex through a good DAC. Some serious deep DACing, really.

You're right! A moment later I realised 'I'll buy the CD, have the 16 bit versions a month from now and get the 24 bits in the meantime'

I ordered the 24-bit .wavs pretty much right off the bat, wondering if they would take advantage of it (after all, lots of dynamic range was part of autechre's development in quaristice).. but mixwise the two versions are identical. I guess that makes sense, would be expensive to master two separate versions. I assume the 24-bit version is the mastering engineer's final pass before s/he converts them down to 16-bit..

Would be fun to compare the two though when i go to one of the local studios later this year (good room, converters+monitors) and see if anyone can tell the difference.

Anyway not complaining, the 24-bit .wavs sound great either way!

I have the 16-bits. I've never heard 24-bits, but I honestly doubt I could easily tell the difference unless it was very loud and I had no noise around me.

My reason for getting the 16-bits was so that I could get them on my iPod for sure (mine's old) and for size's sake.

I'm listening to the 24-bit wavs on my mp3 player.

  On 2/24/2010 at 5:34 AM, xxx said:

It's the babies we need to focus on--with their pristine cochleas and untouched minds.

lol

  On 2/24/2010 at 2:57 AM, TwiddleBot said:

I ordered the 24-bit .wavs pretty much right off the bat, wondering if they would take advantage of it (after all, lots of dynamic range was part of autechre's development in quaristice).. but mixwise the two versions are identical. I guess that makes sense, would be expensive to master two separate versions. I assume the 24-bit version is the mastering engineer's final pass before s/he converts them down to 16-bit..

Correct. Any professional CD is gonna be mastered in 24 bit and then simply converted down to 16 bit.

It's a bummer that ipod's don't allow you to play 24 bit recordings (at least since I last checked).

  On 2/24/2010 at 6:33 AM, Wall Bird said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 2:57 AM, TwiddleBot said:

I ordered the 24-bit .wavs pretty much right off the bat, wondering if they would take advantage of it (after all, lots of dynamic range was part of autechre's development in quaristice).. but mixwise the two versions are identical. I guess that makes sense, would be expensive to master two separate versions. I assume the 24-bit version is the mastering engineer's final pass before s/he converts them down to 16-bit..

 

Correct. Any professional CD is gonna be mastered in 24 bit and then simply converted down to 16 bit.

 

It's a bummer that ipod's don't allow you to play 24 bit recordings (at least since I last checked).

As far as I know, they'll convert to 16 bit for onboard playback. So even if it seems like you're playing a 24 bit file, you aren't.

itunes should be able to convert wav files from 24bit to 16bit

and then straight to cd and ipod from there on.

the 320kps mp3s are quite lovely too..

how much do i have to spend to get a soundcard that will operate in 24-bit? i only bought the 16-bit wavs because i highly doubt i'd be able to tell the difference if i could actually play the 24-bit version.

most soundcards even cheapo on board ones can do 24-bit output

not mine apparently (yamaha audiogram 3), not that i'm too fussed anyway. oversteps already sounds as good as i want it to sound, and i highly doubt my music would benefit from 24bit recording/mixing.

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:05 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

is 24 bit industry standard? aren't we capable of up to 64bit these days?

This may sound surprising, but using 64 bit is relatively new. Lots of software is only just changing over, and not without teething problems. And using 64 bit in a widespread fashion on a music project can be so crippling to your computer(s) CPUs that it's generally impractical or a waste of time. A 64 bit sample library is also huge.

24 bit is already considered 'well more than good enough' as an interrim recording medium. 16 bit is also 'well more than good enough' as a delivery medium, if you believe it's already capable of producing frequencies so high that only the untouched cochlears of children can hear them :) 16 bit also produces more dynamic range than almost anyone makes use of.

Most of people already do interrim work at higher sample rates or bitrates, because it preserves accuracy on the way, but in terms of the resolution of the final delivery medium, as we get into 24 bit and above, and higher sampling rates, we really are entering the voodoo / hard-to-detect-benefits range in terms of human hearing.

ok wait. isn't the bits-per-sample thing totally irrelevant to frequency response?

44.1kHz sampling rate in digital audio means that's 44100 samples per second for a stereo signal, so a frequency response of up to half of that per channel. i.e. the horizontal stuff on a timeline. anything above that will ride the Nyquist roller coaster.

nothing to do with 24bit, which means that every sample is stored as a 24bit data unit which is then mapped from -1 to +1 for the DAC.

that's right.. 16-bit probably works out to about 93dB dynamic range once you factor in dithering, 24 bit supposedly 144dB (tho i doubt much equipment out there can reproduce 144db dynamic range!)

and yeah most recordings don't take advantage of the extra range. I mean theoretically you could. eg: an orchestra has easily 120dB dynamic range or more. with 24-bit you could capture the absolute quietest bits and still have room to capture all the transient attacks of the percussion without squashing anything. and drive your neighbors nuts playing it back in it's full glory

man.. 64-bit. i could see that being useful for some kinds of exploratory studio work but as a delivery format, wow, pretty extreme. like 192kHz

  On 2/24/2010 at 4:47 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

you could always convert the 24 bit files into 16 bit ones. you wont notice any difference if you do

simplifie'd

i do all my work at 128-bits with 384khz , fuck all you faggots who'll settle for anything less, get yer ears checked

Don't know if this is jazz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

so anyhow.

when I convert the wav files from 24 to 16bit to play on the cdplayer.

I choose 44.1kHz right?

  On 2/24/2010 at 10:27 PM, uiert said:

so anyhow.

 

when I convert the wav files from 24 to 16bit to play on the cdplayer.

I choose 44.1kHz right?

yep. (CD: 16bit & 44.1kHz)

  On 2/24/2010 at 9:50 PM, Awepittance said:

i do all my work at 128-bits with 384khz , fuck all you faggots who'll settle for anything less, get yer ears checked

$150 gold-plated firewire cables to go with that?

through your $3000 (for cheap crappy $50 parts in a fancy box *cough*BOSE*cough*) stereo?

  On 2/24/2010 at 9:55 PM, kanarie said:

Don't know if this is jazz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

nice!

  On 2/24/2010 at 10:38 PM, TwiddleBot said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 9:50 PM, Awepittance said:

i do all my work at 128-bits with 384khz , fuck all you faggots who'll settle for anything less, get yer ears checked

 

$150 gold-plated firewire cables to go with that?

 

through your $3000 (for cheap crappy $50 parts in a fancy box *cough*BOSE*cough*) stereo?

Nobody takes Bose seriously, not even snake-oil worshipers.

Watch watmm get hit with a letter from Bose's lawyers just for this post. Sorry watmm.

Poppy Crum.