How many of you are playing high-res audio? (meaning sampling rates of either 88.2/96/176.4/192 or DSD)?

Reply

Peter Posted: Thu, Aug 8 2013 1:57 PM

rated by 0 users

This a question asked by the esteemed Geoff Martin - a good response would be welcome - I'll let it run 3 weeks as people are on holiday!!

Reply

mbee replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 2:51 PM

rated by 0 users

I used a Sonos player and bought a Beosound 5 Encore for 2 main reasons :

1. High res files support (bought on Qobuz, 24/96 max for the Encore, most of my files are 24/44,1 or 24/48, some 24/88,2 and 24/96)

2. MOTS

Question : why do you say that high res audio is only sample rate? For me HD audio is also (and I think that's the only thing that you can actually hear) defined by the bit depth... 

Reply

Carolpa replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 3:36 PM

rated by 0 users

this should not be a question, if previous systems were capable to do so (except dsd)!

Quality digital sound = high sample/bit rates or dsd

Reply

Millemissen replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 5:35 PM

rated by 0 users

mbee:

Question : why do you say that high res audio is only sample rate? For me HD audio is also (and I think that's the only thing that you can actually hear) defined by the bit depth... 

I suppose Peter used the 'short version' of that theme - I am quite sure he knows tha bitdepth is important.

MM

Reply

Millemissen replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 5:47 PM

rated by 0 users

Carolpa:

this should not be a question, if previous systems were capable to do so (except dsd)!

Quality digital sound = high sample/bit rates or dsd

Quite agree with that.

And it seems that noone in Struer noticed, that  this support is let away in the new platform.

It is even more important now than before, because it has become quite easy to buy highres music online.

Speaking of 'Quality digital sound' - what about the missing decoders for the HD sound formats on Bluraydiscs.

This 'problem' hasn't been solved yet in the new engine - and we still have to let our BRP's decode to PCM before sending the sound to the soundprocessor in BV11/V1/BSys4.

Greetings Millemissen

Reply

Peter replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 5:51 PM

rated by 0 users

Millemissen:

mbee:

Question : why do you say that high res audio is only sample rate? For me HD audio is also (and I think that's the only thing that you can actually hear) defined by the bit depth... 

I suppose Peter used the 'short version' of that theme - I am quite sure he knows tha bitdepth is important.

MM

I am sure he didn't!! He merely cut and pasted Geoff's question!!

Reply

Søren Hammer replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 5:54 PM

rated by 0 users

I prefer 24 bit/44.1 kHz over 16 bit/196 kHz

Reply

mbee replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 6:06 PM

rated by 0 users

Søren Hammer:

I prefer 24 bit/44.1 kHz over 16 bit/196 kHz

And I think I even prefer 24/44,1 over 24/196... Because of file size

Reply

elephant replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 6:06 PM

rated by 0 users

I have some SACD and now buy LINN downloads

When I retire I might go back to my CD collection and resample ... it "only" took two or three weeks of full time application when I first ripped and built the library and 99% of my purchases since then have been online

Reply

elephant replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 6:08 PM

rated by 0 users

elephant:

I have some SACD and now buy LINN downloads

When I retire I might go back to my CD collection and resample ... it "only" took two or three weeks of full time application when I first ripped and built the library and 99% of my purchases since then have been online

and given my cloth / tin ears, I am not sure how much I would be willing to pay . . . but it would be nice to know that it was subliminally there

Reply

Millemissen replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 6:11 PM

rated by 0 users

Peter:

I am sure he didn't!! He merely cut and pasted Geoff's question!!

Allright then - at least I think Geoff knows.

Greetings MM

Reply

Jeff replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 6:43 PM

rated by 0 users

Quality digital = 16/44.1 recorded by an engineer who knows what they're doing. Too much mythology and wishful thinking unrelated to reality going on wrt HD audio formats.

Reply

Premiumverum replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 7:01 PM

rated by 0 users

Hi res audio is not very useful. Do some research in how it actually works (sampling theorem) and you will see 16bit 44.1kHz is already very good for two channel audio. The people who invented CD's thought it through very well. I think if audio has more channels encoded higher bitrates could be a good thing though.

Reply

Millemissen replied on Thu, Aug 8 2013 9:39 PM

rated by 0 users

Hi Jeff, hi Premiumverum,.

Jeff has a point, when he says that audioquality highly depends on the process of recording, engineering and mastering - but that does not mean that a highres version of the same piece of recording shouldn't be better than the lowres.

And highres does not mean upsamlng from a lower bitrate (as Premiumverum points out might happen) - but encoding into high resolution.

If highres music is nescesarry is an ever ongoing discussion - it is up to everybody to judge what he/she needs. So - feel free to state that you don't need it.

In this post  we were asked to give a vote if we play highres audio and if we want support of highres in a B&O product. If needed we should make up another thread for discussing the cons and pros of highres.

Greetings Millemissen

Reply

Carolpa replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 12:10 AM

rated by 0 users

DELETED

just vote for the correct option

Reply

Jeff replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 2:34 AM

rated by 0 users

Well, I've yet to see any evidence HD audio does anything other that stroke some people's audio egos, ala golden ear and princess and the pea thing, and give everyone something else to buy. Not content with selling you Dark Side Of The Moom on LP, cassette, CD, and SACD they now want to sell it to you again. There are true, serious problems in recorded sound that should be getting the lions share of attention, including bad studios, poor recording, over compression, and the inability of two channel to really capture an event properly, but what we see are things like this that are driven more by commercial expediency. 

If a small company like B&O had chased DCC, MD, Elcassette, and every other stillborn or rapidly expiring format they probably wouldn't be in business. The only reason it might make sense for them to do it this time is that DAC chipsets are fairly cheap and backwards compatible with all previous sample rates. That and perhaps PR value. I've seen too many alleged golden ears fail to distinguish between CD quality and MP3 despite all of their assurances and preening to have any confidence in the alleged benefits of HD. And I understand sampling theorem, and the mathematical justification doesn't relate to real world sound systems and the limitations of the human ear. Higher bit depth for recording, 24 vs. 16, I'm there! For playback, meh. 

It always amazes me how pointing this out makes some people act like I just killed their cat.

Reply

Stan replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 3:16 AM

rated by 0 users

I already bought a BS5 so I can listen to some of these formats if I wish (although hi-res audio formats were not an issue when I bought it because I don't think it supported them in the beginning).  I did buy a hi-res audio file from Naim, and it sounded better than the CD rate file I also download.  Then Puncher was kind enough to down sample this hi-res file to CD, and I cannot tell the difference between them. I guess this puts me in the skeptic camp... Although I am glad my bs5 can play these files if only to prove I'm not missing much.

Stan

Reply

Jeff replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 5:32 AM

rated by 0 users

Stan:

I already bought a BS5 so I can listen to some of these formats if I wish (although hi-res audio formats were not an issue when I bought it because I don't think it supported them in the beginning).  I did buy a hi-res audio file from Naim, and it sounded better than the CD rate file I also download.  Then Puncher was kind enough to down sample this hi-res file to CD, and I cannot tell the difference between them. I guess this puts me in the skeptic camp... Although I am glad my bs5 can play these files if only to prove I'm not missing much.

Stan

Which goes to show that just like with SACD the differences, where there are any, are due to differences in mastering that have nothing to do with sample rate or bit depth regardless of what the proponents say. 

What we need is better attention to detail and more perfectionism in mastering not a new format. There's only so many times I'm gonna buy DSOTM.

Reply

Peter replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 8:13 AM

rated by 0 users

Go on! You know you are as bad as me! I have at least 6 different copies - 3 of them vinyl!

Reply

Millemissen replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 10:11 AM

rated by 0 users

Carolpa:

I simply do not understand this discussion!

normally there is a lot of complaining that B&o does not follow new technologies. Now B&o askes if their device should deliver it. But no still no good! why should we have the possibilities of higher sample and bit rates?

If B&o want to be at front of technology it MUST have these options. Further on every one against, should think twice before complaining again about new features not implemented.

regards

This thread came on because Geoff Martin (here: http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/6920/62111.aspx#62111) answered a question:

"The BV11 & BeoPlay V1  series do not currently support 88.2 kHz or 176.4 kHz sampling rates in the audio path. This came as a surprise to me (as I said in an earlier post, I run 96 kHz without problems) so I have raised the issue internally here in Struer to a number of people across different areas in the product development department.

Many thanks for raising this issue"

And then asked:

"You can do a poll!? Cool!

Thanks for your help Peter! I look forward to the response.

Reply

Premiumverum replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 12:15 PM

rated by 0 users

Millemissen, you are right, this poll is not about if highres is actually better and even useful. Jeff raises some very valid points about this.But that is a different discussion, this poll is about who uses it and would it be a good addition for B&O.

I think it would be a good idea to implement good compatibility with any sample rate available in digital music. B&O is about a luxury experience. Owners shouldn't have to worry about the sample rate and the compatibility when using their B&O system. It should just work. There is demand for this so why not!

Reply

Geoff Martin replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 12:52 PM

rated by 0 users

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your participation in the poll - and for your discussion that follows it. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this.

I have already addressed the "why" behind the question - It's simply because I'm curious about the real world. But, to be honest, I wonder if the beoworld community - particularly those who would participate in such a poll - are representative of the "real" world...  

As for the small debate that has ensued, I would like to weigh in a little...

Any discussion regarding the merits (or lack thereof) of high-resolution audio (whatever that might mean - sampling rate, bit depth, fixed point vs. floating point, encoding (i.e. PCM vs DSD vs. lossless something else), filter topologies (i.e. minimum phase vs. linear phase vs. apodising vs. something else), noise shaping strategies, clock stability / Jitter & wander, etc. etc. etc. ... ) are fraught with pitfalls - one should be very careful about making any definitive conclusions. In this area, I typically listen to people with questions rather than answers - and here's why:

Simple, logical arguments (i.e. human hearing goes in textbooks from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, so sampling rates don't need to go higher than a little-above-40kHz) are typically based on an inadequate set of assumptions (the above case assumes that all I listen to are sine tones, for example...).

Other simple, logical arguments (i.e. higher sampling rates result in higher temporal resolution) are based on a incorrect assumptions of how analogue-to-digital-to-analogue conversion actually works.

Many home-made listening "tests" are flawed, either because (1) the listener KNOWS what they're listening to (thereby negating any validity in the experiment) or (2) the experimenter don't know EVERYTHING about the system he/she is using to do the test (i.e. it is not uncommon for a DAC to change characteristics with sampling rate - noise floor, reconstruction filter, ripple in the passband, etc... Some systems have sampling rate conversion (either up or down) or format conversion (i.e. PCM to Sigma-Delta inside the DAC, and so on and so on...)

Consequently, personally, I think that the wisest path to take in this case is agnosticism.  I am still waiting to see conclusive, incontrovertible proof that there is a limit - or that there is no limit - to the required resolution (in any domain) of PCM digital audio. I have some opinions (that I will not share unless we're sitting at the same table, each of us with a single malt...) - but they are only opinions, so they don't really apply to anyone but myself.

I do, however, believe firmly in preference. If you like your high-res file or your CD or your vinyl or your 1/4 magnetic tape running at 30ips or your SACD or whatever, then I believe that's what you should use. To quote Douglas Adams, "I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?"

cheers

-geoff

Reply

Peter the Biker replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 1:08 PM

rated by 0 users

Nice to follow this thread especially to Geoff and Jeff ...

And I share their disgust to poorly recorded material, which can be blown up but not be improved.

Reply

mbee replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 1:26 PM

rated by 0 users

I totally agree with Geoff to say that this poll is a completely bad idea :

Beoworld has nothing to do with real world, even with "normal B&O buyers"

Reply

Jeff replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 2:58 PM

rated by 0 users

Peter:

Go on! You know you are as bad as me! I have at least 6 different copies - 3 of them vinyl!

Well, you've caught me there! I have two vinyl and at least three versions on CD, plus a downloaded iTunes one I bought when I didn't have access to the CDs and wanted to listen to it!

Reply

Geoff Martin replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 3:03 PM

rated by 0 users

mbee:

I totally agree with Geoff to say that this poll is a completely bad idea

I don't think that THAT's what I said - and if it was, it's certainly not what I meant.

Cheers

-g

Reply

Geoff Martin replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 3:17 PM

rated by 0 users

Barry Santini:

it is not very expensive for any manufacturer to offer playback compatibility for all known formats

Hi Barry,

I think that you need to be a little more specific. For example, take a look at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs

Should every audio play be able to decode all of those? At every bitrate?

My question is only partly facetious - the specifications of any piece of gear (or a plugin, for example) has to draw some lines somewhere - if there's one codec on that list that is not going to be supported, then that means all of them are up for discussion. When calculating the cost and development time required to support a given codec and bitrate, you have to consider the licensing and legal fees (where applicable), writing the code, ensuring that the hardware supports the codec/bitrate, and all the testing that is required to ensure that everything works in all cases.

And thanks for the offer of ale! :-)

Cheers

-geoff

Reply

Millemissen replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 4:20 PM

rated by 0 users

Geoff wrote: " I wonder if the beoworld community - particularly those who would participate in such a poll - are representative of the "real" world..."

mbee wrote: "Beoworld has nothing to do with real world, even with "normal B&O buyers""

Reply

Jeff replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 5:09 PM

rated by 0 users

Geoff Martin:

Barry Santini:

it is not very expensive for any manufacturer to offer playback compatibility for all known formats

Hi Barry,

I think that you need to be a little more specific. For example, take a look at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs

Should every audio play be able to decode all of those? At every bitrate?

My question is only partly facetious - the specifications of any piece of gear (or a plugin, for example) has to draw some lines somewhere - if there's one codec on that list that is not going to be supported, then that means all of them are up for discussion. When calculating the cost and development time required to support a given codec and bitrate, you have to consider the licensing and legal fees (where applicable), writing the code, ensuring that the hardware supports the codec/bitrate, and all the testing that is required to ensure that everything works in all cases.

And thanks for the offer of ale! :-)

Cheers

-geoff

 

All very valid points. And maybe it's also a case of if the codec developer will even license you to use it (Apple...cough cough).

Reply

Millemissen replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 5:55 PM

rated by 0 users

"....Should every audio play be able to decode all of those? At every bitrate?"

Reply

Geoff Martin replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 6:19 PM

rated by 0 users

Millemissen:

By the way - Geoff - does a PUC exists for your Cambridge Azur BD?

Sorry - I have no idea. I never have a setup in the listening room that lasts long enough for me to worry about PUC codes. In fact, I don't even know how to set them up on any B&O equipment. I'm audio-only - and that keeps me busy enough to keep my nose out of UI stuff... :-)

And thanks for the offer of more free beer! The weekend is looking up!

Cheers

-geoff

Reply

Millemissen replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 6:24 PM

rated by 0 users

Allright - I understand your point --- just focus on the important things ;-)

Have a nice weekend.

Gretings MM

Reply

Carolpa replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 6:59 PM

rated by 0 users

Millemissen:

"....Should every audio play be able to decode all of those? At every bitrate?"

 

"All very valid points. And maybe it's also a case of if the codec developer will even license you to use it (Apple...cough cough)."

No of cource they should not!!!

But that was not the original statement (from Carolpa) that triggered these discussions and the poll:

"I use an Oppo BR but the BV11 won't accept DSD-PCM converted 88.2 or 176.4 kHz signals (this is what the Oppo send as output format). Homemedia on the BV11 also doesn't accept these formats. After upsampling them to 96kHz (files for Homemade) they are audible. But this is impossible with the output signal from the Oppo. Thus no SACD!"

He and I just want that what was possible with the BSys3 based BV's should also be possible with BV's based on the 'new engine' - he did not ask for support of ALL codecs and bitrates.

Greetings Millemissen

 

1st. The codecs can't be that expensive, because even cheap BR player do have a lot of them installed.

2nd as said, B&o shouldn't support all codecs. as long for pcm more bitrates and sample rates are supported

Reply

fergus replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 7:22 PM

rated by 0 users

Do you need a special player/speakers to play SACDs?

Reply

Carolpa replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 7:41 PM

rated by 0 users

Stan:

I should add that I voted for "proper hi-rez" (vinyl)

Most newly produced vinyl is first cleaned/remastered. This is almost solemnly done in the digital domain. Thus vinyl can't be better than the digital domain signal it was produced from!

Reply

Carolpa replied on Fri, Aug 9 2013 7:44 PM

rated by 0 users

fergus:

Do you need a special player/speakers to play SACDs?

A sacd player or a cd or dvd or br player which is capable to play the sacd layer of a sacd disc. And with B&o the player must decode the dsd format (=sacd) to pcm. You also need a BV or BS3 with hdmi