Topic: What's the point of recording at 48/96...

[Duncan]

...when the source is a stack of speakers in a crowded room?

Would you ever hear the difference between that rate and 16/44100

Is it over kill?

Duncan

[JasonSobel]

I assume you mean 24/96, and not 48/96.
personally, everything I record these day is 24/96, for a few reasons...

1) I can definitely hear a difference over 16/44.1.  it sounds more "real, lifelike, and natural"

2) I often record music that is fairly dynamic.  the 24 bit resolution allows me to set the levels a bit more conservatively, and not worry about "wasting bits" by not running my levels high enough.

3) when I downsample/dither a show to 16/44.1 format for CDs, often times, my primary listening environment is my car.  in that situation, a very dynamic recording is often tough to listen to.  because of this, many times I'll apply some compression.  usually just a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio.  for any sort of processing, I've found the results to be much more pleasant when the original recording is at 24 bit.  much fewer digital artifacts.  and of course, I still have the original 24 bit version, unedited and uncompressed, to listen to when I'm at home and listening on my nice playback system.

and lastly, digital storage is relatively cheap these days.  so why not record at the higher resolutions if it is available to you.

but, on the other hand, with my new 16 gig CF card, I could, in theory, be recording at 24/192 and still get 4 hours of recording time, enough for most shows.  yet, I choose to record at 24/96, because I've deemed 24/192 "overkill" and I think 24/96 is just dandy.  so ultimately, you may decide that 24/96 is "overkill" and that's your choice to make.  personally, though, I think 24/96 it's worthwhile.

[Patrick]

I agree with Jason.  I also tend to record a lot of "acoustic" music, either on stage/ stage lip or even unamplified sources.  Therefore I am wanting to capture everything that I can with my recording, and 24/96 will give me just that.

I can also hear an immediate difference between redbook (16/44.1) and 24/96 even with my PA recordings.  I don't know how to compare the 2, but I had never heard my mics sound the way they do when I first started running 24/96.

When hi-res audio becomes more standard in a few years, I will be thankful that I spent the extra time and hard drive space recording 24/96 now.  I'll be able to enjoy them much more for a long time in the future.

[willndmb]

i would do 24/48 at least

[boojum]

Have any who can hear the difference done so in a double blind test yet? 

[JackoRoses]

Have any who can hear the difference done so in a double blind test yet? 

I did it to my friend who doesn't have a clue about 16 bit vs 24 bit and he heard the difference.
and I hear it as well.

[taosmay]

Sorry if this is so basic, but help me out... In order to playback a source recorded at anything above 16/44.1, you will first need the higher resoultion source/equipment (more than likely your taper gear, right?) to do the playback, but then you need a DAC that supports the same bits and resolution which your source recording was made on, in order to be able to listen back to the higher resolution recording, on your home stereo, correct?

Harold

[DaveG73]

Totally OT but just wondering if you taped Alabama 3 down in Bournemouth the other week Duncan?

I had heard the sound was really poor (and not for the first time) so was just wondering if you did or how it turned out?

Dave.

(Yes I realise this should have probably been a PM, but I am drunk)

[Shawn]

Sorry if this is so basic, but help me out... In order to playback a source recorded at anything above 16/44.1, you will first need the higher resoultion source/equipment (more than likely your taper gear, right?) to do the playback,

yes. to play back recordings done at higher resolution than 16/44.1 you need equipment that can play those formats, but it does not have to be your taping gear. DVD Audio players will work just fine as well as many high quality PC sound cards (like the squeezebox). so you don't have to use your taping deck as the playback device.

but then you need a DAC that supports the same bits and resolution which your source recording was made on, in order to be able to listen back to the higher resolution recording, on your home stereo, correct?

right. although some devices that can't playback higher resolution files can resample the recordings on the fly.

[taper420]

Harold: yes

Thread:
As many on this board have said, I find the greatest advantge is had when going to 24 bits. The difference in quality between 48 and 96 is negligable at best. When using my mics, I personally can't hear a difference between the two. My mics also don't pick up anything over 20k anyway, so the signals not there to record. Perhaps if I get mics with a wider range in the future I will hear a difference. I don't now. I would also have to make sure my preamp has a wide range too.

I'd also make note that some who espouse the benefits  of 96 and 192 argue that we are subconsciously hearing harmonics in the high frequencies that add to our perception of the over-all sound. It would have to be subconscious because studies have shown, with rare exception, the limit of human hearing is just around 20k. But I am willing to bet on the results of another study. Sit a random sampling of music listeners in a room and play 2 samples of identical music for them. But tell them one is higher quality than the other and spell it out with technical data. Ask them which sounds better. Which one do you think they'll pick?

I've also seen discussion on the accuracy of clocking for high sample rates. It seems the higher the sample rate, the higher the rate or error. So you would need a pretty high quality clock for the benefits (if any) of the higher sample rate to outweigh the degradation due to clocking issues.

Just some stuff to think about.

[taosmay]

Thanks for the answers. Re: ShawnSmith's reply that you can use a DVD Audio player though, I didn't know that you can transfer and record from a high resolution source onto a DVD Audio player, so that you can then listen back to the high resolution source on the DVD Audio player, through your home stereo(or am I missing something in that scenerio?). And his point about using PC soundcards(like the squeezebox), is strictly for playback through a computer setup and speakers, and not a regular home stereo, I think. And devices that re-sample on the fly (if they can't playback at higher resolution), are more prone to timing errors, correct?

I record on a Sony D100 at 44.1, and transfer to an HHb cdr-830 standalone cd recorder. I record at 44.1 on the D100, instead of 48kHz, since in the transfer to the HHb, it would down sample on the fly to the redbook standard of 44.1. Would that be the way most people here would go, given those equipment limitations?

taper420 - points well taken. I found it interesting after putting together a home hi-fi set up ~10 years ago that I could hear differences in my digital cables. Personally I stay away from TosLink optical cables. I like Kimber Kable AGDL coaxial cables. At the time I also bought a Genesis Digital Lens, due to concerns regarding timing/clocking issues(I had Genesis modify it to accept a 48kHz signal too).


It really hurts having the following equipment sitting in storage, while I am using inferior equipment currently: the Digital Lens, McCormack Micro Line Drive(pre-amp), McCormack DNA 0.5 Amp, and Dahlquist DQ32 speakers. I still have and use the aragon D2A2 DAC I used in that set-up though.

[boojum]

Have any who can hear the difference done so in a double blind test yet? 

I did it to my friend who doesn't have a clue about 16 bit vs 24 bit and he heard the difference.
and I hear it as well.

You did not answer the question, however.  ;o)

[Teen Wolf Blitzer]

2/18/2002


The last time I recorded 16/44.   

My playback might not dictate 24/96 now but once the kids are gone look out!   

[F.O.Bean]

My playback might not dictate 24/96 now but once the kids are gone look out!   

so true. I'm in the same boat minus the kids. I also record mainly at 24/48 since its SOOOO much easier for me to edit the 24/48 files over the 24/96 files. I know, lazy taper syndrome. But for me to record 24/96, I have to split the files just right so they dont go over the 2GB limit save those split up files. saving cue sheets is a PITA since if i track out my 16-bit first(what I always do since the cue sheet would be a complete one, then when i go to do my 24/96 wavs to cue/track out, i have to manually track what doesnt fit on the 24/96 cue since the 24/96 stuff is DOUBLE thye space the 24/48 stuff is

plus, my ears cant tell a diff between 24/48 and 24/96 for PA stuff, so I could care less And I can easily burn a DVD-A of my 24/48 stuff, and like I said, its HALF the HDD space and ALOT easier to edit. Just open 24/48 WAV per set, add gain/resample/dither save. open 16-bit wav in cdwave, save cue sheet for each set, save tracks and rename/flac/upload. no splitting files so they dont get bitten by the 2GB rule

anyway ............

[leehookem]

My playback might not dictate 24/96 now but once the kids are gone look out!  

so true. I'm in the same boat minus the kids. I also record mainly at 24/48 since its SOOOO much easier for me to edit the 24/48 files over the 24/96 files. I know, lazy taper syndrome. But for me to record 24/96, I have to split the files just right so they dont go over the 2GB limit save those split up files. saving cue sheets is a PITA since if i track out my 16-bit first(what I always do since the cue sheet would be a complete one, then when i go to do my 24/96 wavs to cue/track out, i have to manually track what doesnt fit on the 24/96 cue since the 24/96 stuff is DOUBLE thye space the 24/48 stuff is

plus, my ears cant tell a diff between 24/48 and 24/96 for PA stuff, so I could care less And I can easily burn a DVD-A of my 24/48 stuff, and like I said, its HALF the HDD space and ALOT easier to edit. Just open 24/48 WAV per set, add gain/resample/dither save. open 16-bit wav in cdwave, save cue sheet for each set, save tracks and rename/flac/upload. no splitting files so they dont get bitten by the 2GB rule

anyway ............

WORD!  plain and simple.  that's the way I roll.