Topic: Perhaps a Silly Question But: What does 24/192 Sound Like?

[jmz93]

I can clearly hear the difference between 16- and 24-bit.  But how would those of you who think you can hear a difference describe 24bit/44.1K and 192K? 

Is the analogy between regular video and high-definition video a bad one to make, comparing different audio resolutions?

[noahbickart]

I think most folks can not hear much if any difference between 48kHz and 96kHz on a dac that handles both settings well.

On certain recordings with a great deal of dynamic range (classical symphonic recordings, etc), I find the 24/16 difference to be very much worth the added HD space.

-Noah

[BC]

lol I dont know. But I would bet there is not much difference except on a very high end system, and I would think even there is it subtle.

[terrapinj]

there was an article someone posted here several months ago about a studio doing blind tests that few if none could distinguish the difference between

i think the biggest advantage is for doing post work - the more samples the better

[goodcooker]

What does 24/192 Sound Like?

It sounds like 24/44.1 with the fans from a bunch of hard drives running in the background 

I think the conventional wisdom with sample rate is that it takes two times the upper most audible frequency to recreate the sound accurately ie....a sound at 20K Hz must use a sampling freq of 40K

I took a listening test recently and the highest freq I could clearly hear was 17.5kHz. I now record at 24 bit/44.1 . I used to record at 24/48. I think the trade off is that the artifacts introduced by resampling affect the sound more adversely than recording at the lower sampling rate.

At double the freq 44.1 theoretically reproduces 22.05 kHz accurately which is higher than the freq response range of almost all microphones anyway...with some exceptions, Earthworks being one.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

I have a relatively high system.  I did an almost blind comp between 96k and 48k.  The recordings were two separate nights so obviously not the same material but there was no apparent difference to me between the two sampling rates.

[DSatz]

It all depends on the implementation at each sampling rate. The better the implementation, the less it will "sound like" anything at all. Of course any real-life comparison depends on many things that aren't strictly a matter of the sampling rate.

For a clear, well-informed discussion of the possible advantages of sampling at rates higher than 44.1 kHz, see Julian Dunn's AES paper "The benefits of 96 kHz sampling rate formats for those who cannot hear above 20 kHz," which is available for download on http://www.nanophon.com/audio/antialia.pdf.

Please consider this, though: Better recording technology doesn't always make recordings sound "better." Sometimes it just makes them sound more like the signals coming from the microphones, which sometimes it not what people would rather hear. Plenty of people have fallen head over heels for various kinds of distortion. I can sympathize, but I prefer as an engineer to apply such distortion consciously--not to have it built into the equipment I'm using, where I can't raise or lower the effect when I want to.

I'm wary of recording devices that are said to make things sound "better," since if they have any effect on the sound quality at all, logically there will also have to be times when they make things sound different in a way that I would not call better. There's no device or process that always makes things sound better, and never makes them sound worse!

--best regards

[boyacrobat]

cleaner and louder

g

[notlance]

It all depends on the implementation at each sampling rate. The better the implementation, the less it will "sound like" anything at all. Of course any real-life comparison depends on many things that aren't strictly a matter of the sampling rate.

For a clear, well-informed discussion of the possible advantages of sampling at rates higher than 44.1 kHz, see Julian Dunn's AES paper "The benefits of 96 kHz sampling rate formats for those who cannot hear above 20 kHz," which is available for download on http://www.nanophon.com/audio/antialia.pdf.

Please consider this, though: Better recording technology doesn't always make recordings sound "better." Sometimes it just makes them sound more like the signals coming from the microphones, which sometimes it not what people would rather hear. Plenty of people have fallen head over heels for various kinds of distortion. I can sympathize, but I prefer as an engineer to apply such distortion consciously--not to have it built into the equipment I'm using, where I can't raise or lower the effect when I want to.

I'm wary of recording devices that are said to make things sound "better," since if they have any effect on the sound quality at all, logically there will also have to be times when they make things sound different in a way that I would not call better. There's no device or process that always makes things sound better, and never makes them sound worse!

--best regards

DSatz, once again your comments are helpful.  It is more about the implementation rather than the rate.

The paper you reference is good, but unfortunately it's over ten years old, so some of the problems it raises may have been solved by better implementations.  For example, Section 2.2 describes filters with ripple-free passbands that eliminate pre and post echos, and that paragraph says "These approaches are not normally used for digital audio applications - presumably because of the requirement for greater computation."  As you well know, computational power has increased tremendously since 1998.

So it's possible a poor implementation of 24/192 could sound worse than a good implementation of 24/44.1!  With my gear I have not heard a difference between 44.1 kHz and 192 kHz, much less can I determine which sounds "good" and which sounds "bad".  So I record at 44.1 kHz to save having to resample if I want to burn a CD, and to save memory and time in post processing.

[udovdh]

Even on a modest NAD setup (with some Tannoy and Zhaolu thrown in) I can say: it sounds the the closest you can get to those thick, wide studio master tapes.
I am not saying I can hear differences but this stuff sounds really good.

[Scooter123]

I can't hear the difference. 

But then I can't tell the difference between 320 mp3's and 16 bit either.