No 24bit WAVs with Vinyl?

  On 6/12/2013 at 12:09 PM, oscillik said:

I can guarantee you that 90% of those who say there is no difference, have also got their soundcard configured incorrectly.

I'm in the other 10%

(Running a pair of AKG701s through Focusrite's Scarlett 8i6, output set @ 24bit/96Khz)

  On 6/12/2013 at 12:18 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 6/12/2013 at 12:09 PM, oscillik said:

I can guarantee you that 90% of those who say there is no difference, have also got their soundcard configured incorrectly.

I'm in the other 10%

(Running a pair of AKG701s through Focusrite's Scarlett 8i6, output set @ 24bit/96Khz)

 

if there is no difference, why have it set to 24bit/96KHz?

 

so it's correct

  On 6/12/2013 at 12:22 PM, oscillik said:

if there is no difference, why have it set to 24bit/96KHz?

 

I think it were the default setting on my version of the audio-interface driver (mine has a separate mix controller to tweak routing & sample rate)

 

I also do a lot of half speed mix-downs of sounds/tracks i.e. record at 88Khz and thus when played back an octave down have a sample rate of 44Khz. I didn't used to and wondered why all the mixes sounded so muddy (eg. https://myspace.com/cubusmusic/music/song/hello-zhongmao-79212772 )

I have my apogee duet set up for 24 bit/44.1 (I'm not producing atm), and with that fairly well respected dac driving Sennheiser HD-650s, I'd be lying if I could pinpoint much that was clearly not psychological in origin. That's listening to mastered, commercial alacs and not in any kind of production workflow.

 

My ears are not what they were ten years ago, but... Uh, I don't actually have any sort of point to make here.

I always notice slight differences in my own music between 24-bit and 16-bit. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but at the very least it's "easier" to get better sounding music at 24-bit than it is at 16-bit, so what are the chances that there is literally no difference between 24-bit and 16-bit on even extremely well mixed/mastered music? I'd say very slim. And even there is a small difference that is only apparent to the author, why would you not want a 24-bit copy? Clearly if you're listening to uncompressed music over 320kbps mp3s your primary concern is having a lossless, pristine archive of music you care about. Hard drive space is cheap, bandwidth is cheap, why settle for anything less?

It's a placebo effect, you might think you're noticing slight differences in 16 vs. 24, but the mere fact that you know which you're listening to inherently creates a bias, no matter how subjective you think you're being.

 

There are certainly mathematical differences between 16- and 24-bit but not audible differences. If there were/are audible differences then someone should be able to prove so through a double-blind listening test, however this has yet to be done by anyone.

 

The sufficiency of 16 bits (and 44.1 kHz) for end listening is founded on a solid body of scientific knowledge (human auditory processes, acoustics, sampling, etc.) but is nonetheless still a theory, and like all theories can never be proven true with absolute certainty. The beauty of scientific theory lies in the fact that it only takes one counterexample to prove false.

 

  On 6/12/2013 at 12:59 AM, deadfly said:

An interestin article about 24 bit:

 

http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

 

This is defiantly one of the better articles demystifying "hd" audio out there.

If 24-bit is audibly better than 16-bit you should listen to 24-bit, if 24-bit is audibly better due to a psychological placebo... it's still gonna sound better, so surely you may as well still listen to 24-bit if it's available.

Here is a question for you 16-bit devotees: if a 16-bit file is identical to a 24-bit file from a listener's perspective, why are there so many different dithering methods available(POW-r #2, UV22HR) that sound different? If you can take any 24-bit file and render it perfectly into 16-bit file, there would be no need to have more than 1 dithering method because you could never hear a difference between them.

  On 6/12/2013 at 12:47 PM, baph said:

I have my apogee duet set up for 24 bit/44.1 (I'm not producing atm), and with that fairly well respected dac driving Sennheiser HD-650s, I'd be lying if I could pinpoint much that was clearly not psychological in origin. That's listening to mastered, commercial alacs and not in any kind of production workflow.

 

My ears are not what they were ten years ago, but... Uh, I don't actually have any sort of point to make here.

 

flol

  On 6/13/2013 at 4:53 AM, cult fiction said:

Here is a question for you 16-bit devotees: if a 16-bit file is identical to a 24-bit file from a listener's perspective, why are there so many different dithering methods available(POW-r #2, UV22HR) that sound different? If you can take any 24-bit file and render it perfectly into 16-bit file, there would be no need to have more than 1 dithering method because you could never hear a difference between them.

 

Because audio myths and because mastering engineers have to master for systems trough which there might actually be some barely audible difference that wouldn't matter at all anyway. Mostly because audio myths and obsessed people.

  On 6/13/2013 at 4:53 AM, cult fiction said:

Here is a question for you 16-bit devotees: if a 16-bit file is identical to a 24-bit file from a listener's perspective, why are there so many different dithering methods available(POW-r #2, UV22HR) that sound different? If you can take any 24-bit file and render it perfectly into 16-bit file, there would be no need to have more than 1 dithering method because you could never hear a difference between them.

Can you provide some audio examples? I'm genuinely interested.

Ffwd to 34:34 -

 

 

And try not get overwhelmed by the thumbnail picture of Poppy Crum