davewantsmoore

If you take the better sounding recording... and you convert it to 16/44, then it will sound just the same (with certain caveats). ie. you should not attribute the higher sound quality to the container it is delivered to you in. The actual reason(s) for the goodness of the sound you are referring to .... could be a number of things. It will depend on the specifics of the recording.

Storing the frequencies between 20khz and 40khz. But... typically. They are extremely quiet They are highly distorted by your record player They are highly distorted by your speakers ... but even if they were loud and undistorted, they would still be inaudible. It isn't necessarily the wrong choice to work at a high(er) sampling rate (it's a complex discussion, with lots of ifs and buts) ..... however the 4 dot points above should not be forgotten, and they are all too quickly discarded by people who "heard a high sample rate thing which sounded good and make the leap of faith that 'more is better' "

It is using the "psychoacoustic" smoothing of REW, which is 1/3octave below 100Hz..... so it is too much smoothing to tell much. In short.... at low frequencies (eg. < 200Hz), then yes. ---- The reason is that it is relatively "minimum phase". What this means is that the phase is directly related to the frequency response. All the "wiggly" phase chart is telling you is that you have a wiggly frequency response..... and if you fixed the frequency response so it was flat ... then the phase response would also be flat. Your unsmoothed frequency response chart looks quite good.... but to look at the low frequency performance in more detail, you need to look at how the response varies in time ..... charts like waterfall and decay will show you if any of the peaks in the response "ring" out longer than they should. At an educated guess, those charts will also look ok.

There isn't "extra information" when looking at the same range of frequencies. If you look at the frequencies between 0 and 20,000 Hz. ..... a 48khz sampling rate represent them with the same amount of information than a 96khz sampling rate does.... and with the same amount of information than a 192khz sampling rate does.... and with the same amount of information than a 384khz sampling rate does. The higher sampling rates don't give "extra information" to lower frequencies.... they only allow the storage of higher frequencies.

Lots longer Well, at least talking about it for lots longer.... I have one of these (early version), which I don't use ('cos I run digital to the speaker now), but it does sound very good.

No, do not do that. It needs to be a specific glue, which is strong but flexible. It dries quite quickly. Something like this: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/140750591406 FWIW, the surrounds on your speaker look damaged, and should really be replaced, if you can source the right ones (but that is a much bigger job than just gluing up what you have).

Well, it isn't anything to do with higher sampling rates in digital audio.... I can't tell you that.

Only you can tell me what you mean (I'm not trying to put word in your mouth, heh). .... high(er) sampling rates allow for high(er) frequencies to be stored. Nothing more, nothing less. So, I figured you meant that, but for record players. Sure, I've heard a lot of people say that.... it's the analogy to sampling rate, which is problematic. There are a lot of people who say that. They are wrong. Sure, the thing which they are listening to, might sound better than some other thing ..... but their "reason why" (the higher sampling rate) is incorrect.

So you are saying that 45 rpm records (can) contain higher frequencies than 33 rpm records ?!

Higher sampling rate (in digital audio) means that the audio contains (or can contain) higher frequencies. It doesn't mean higher sound quality, or higher precision, or higher anything else. I think you should reconsider watching the video and trying to understand it.... if you care about understanding digital audio.

Yes. If there is any "jiggles" (this is an official technical term now) .... they are the higher frequencies, which are purposefully not being stored. Yes... if we sample faster we can capture the higher frequencies.

If you do this test .... and you take the "high res" file, and you resample it carefully to 16/44, and play it on the "16bit player"... and they players are both very good quality. They will sound the same. This is somewhat moot. To do high quality interpolation does not in any way require that we either feed DACs with a high rate input (because it can be oversampled internally) or that we distribute audio in high rates. It certainly can depending on the DAC

It's hard for me to understand what you are saying..... ... but if what you mean is that "removing frequencies above 20khz is definitely altering frequencies below 20khz" ..... then you are wrong. These frequencies (below 20khz) CAN be removed without any alteration (to above 20khz). It depends on how you do it.

It is easy to check whether this is happening or not. If you are changing the frequencies below 20khz, then that is bad.... and you should change what it is you're doing.

Looks like they are only operating it (ART) at fairly low frequencies.... which is understandable, I guess ---- previous comment about speaker directivity.... just too many permutations to check - or- make the assumption directivity is good (which is probably bad)

Definitely. A higher direct to reflected ratio, and a more consistent frequency response to the reflected sound improves fidelity by the most massive margin that you could almost say that everything else ('except flat-ish frequency response in the direct sound) is irrelevant. So bringing that sort of thing to any and every system is huge. People have been talking about this for so long now (~15 years), it feels like jetpacks and the paperless office. It will be super interesting to see how the (consistency of) frequency response vs angle in a speaker plays into this. (ie. how well can they optimise speakers which do not have a consistent response vs angle) ..... and also what the availability is like for very! high channel counts (like >> 50, or whatever).

Yes. It's obvious as to why 24bit is used in a production environment, or for "archival" or whatever .... but in a playback system it is completely unnecessary.

Because: Sounds above 20khz are not audible. The response of your tweeters are absolutely garbage above 20khz..... and so even if it was audible (it's not) you'd probably want to turn it off. It would be tempting at this point to trot out all the "studies" showing that sounds above 20khz might be kinda audible somehow. They are garbage studies which show nothing. Disclaimer: I spent many years trying to prove to myself that higher frequencies than 20khz (and hence "high res" audio) WAS audible..... because it c/would be a "no brainer" way to improve fidelity. The rub is that even if you have a reasonably linear transducer, and even if you amplify the high frequencies by HEAPs, they are still not audible..... BUT you have to be careful, as doing this can create distortion in the (actually) audible band( below 20khz), which can sound "different" (and make you think > 20khz is audible). FWIW, after all that..... I came to think there's not even much relevant content above 10 kHz (!!!!!) You also do want to be careful that the phase between 5 and 20khz is linear .... and if you have some sort of sharp rolloff at 20khz ish, then this can be a problem (audible). That is simple to correct though (if you have digital filters, anyways).

Not if the audio content is the same. ie. if you get a source file (of any "resolution") and resample it to 16/44 (or whatever) you won't be able to tell the difference. There are a few issues that can make this more murky.... and mislead people into thinking that 16/44 is "insufficient". For files you buy or stream, the content is not always the same.... so if you compare a "high res" download to the CD, then it isn't always the same content. ie. it's a different mastering or mix of the audio (so of course it will sound different). This is especially true for older stuff that has been re-released, re-mixed, re-mastered Some DACs might benefit from an input which is in a higher sampling rate. But this isn't because the higher sampling rate is "better quality audio" ..... so it doesn't matter if you use a "high res" source you download or stream, or if you resample 16/44 to the higher rate yourself. Poor quality resampling (both up and down) can hurt the fidelity of the audio. I think people will come to realise in the future that the effect of this has been understated. If audio is created in a certain sampling rate, I think there is a very good case of leaving it at this rate, and not resampling it. There is zero reason to expect that higher sampling rates than 44 will offer any improvement. It just comes down to what the artists put in the container. It's nothing to do with the bitrate or sampling rate.... it's simply what the artist created. If you resampled it to 16/44, it would still sound as "air and treble it’s unlistenable" The internet is just full to overflowing with misinformation and bad-takes about how digital audio works.... surprisingly (perhaps UN-surprisingly) from people who should know better. If you increase the sampling rate you can include higher frequencies. If you increase the bitrate you can include quieter sounds. ^^^ Precisely this and nothing more. If you increase the sampling rate it does not allow you store the lower frequencies with any "higher precision" .... and if you increaser the bitrate it does not allow you store the louder sounds with any "higher precision". For the portion of the spectrum that is covered by 16/48 ..... 24/192 covers that same portion of the spectrum with the same precision.

IMVHO MFSL 2019 > BL 1996 > Original CD .... but it's obviously subjective. Hmmm... Was it remastered again (or just reissued and the remaster is a misprint) in 2021? I'll have to check it out.

Oh, I am very much.... but consumers in general, not so much. Sure, everyone "wants what is good".... but they aren't generally interested in doing anything different to get it. OTOH, artists are typically very interested in getting their works out there in the best fidelity possible. You mean the DRDB? Sure, it's a great service. Sometimes it's hard to tell, but I doubt it's typically on purpose. There's a 2004 remaster that was published by various in different regions mostly under subtables of Universal (which EMI is now one) in 2004/2005. .... but you've picked a doozy here, and it's possible Qobuz have made a mistake too. Elsewhere Universal keep publishing/reissuing the 1996 BL master.... so I reckon that's probably it. Heh.

Hehe.... I just had a bit of a read about this, but had to close the search down as I couldn't handle all the bad takes being offered about "resolution", "formats" and "remastering", etc. etc..... even on sites where people purport too know better (professionals, etc.). I'd never heard about that (DRDB) ... and didn't find anything. But, NY did back the Pono project for the reasons you cite.... but quickly found out that consumers weren't that interested (hint: talk to the artists, they're the ones ultimately responsible). Perhaps that's why he ended up sponsored by big-pharma (ran out of $) .... <hides>

These are the minimum and maximum ranges encountered in each section processed. Max min and avg all tell you something, depending on the question you want to answer.

It's hard to tell when this version came out. It was on an album in 2020 and a box set released in 2022, both available in various digital rates/depths.... it seems pretty new.... and also not quite clear what if anything was altered for this "reissue", or what the source was (although you would assume analogue).

Non linear distortion from good quality record players and tube amps is quite small, and usually inaudible. That being said.... if it sounded different, then one or both, was "distorted". <shrug>