People who believe that they can hear differences between 16-bit/24-bit or even 44.1kHz/96kHz+ sampling rates fall under these categories:
1. They're wrong and their ABX method is flawed, or they lied about doing ABX because doing a proper ABX is too much work (sorry!)
2. Their hardware/OS is interfering with the audio in a way that makes the output quality vary depending on source parameters (this could be caused by crappy output filters, crappy resamplers, unwanted signal processing somewhere in the chain, interferences caused by poor hardware implementation, etc)
3. In the case of 96kHz+ content, sometimes the ultrasonic information interferes with amplifiers/speakers causing additional issues which peoples' minds can intepret as "different" and "better"
4. "High resolution" content is often mastered differently, so you're hearing an improvement in the mastering process, not an improvement because of the high resolution itself
If you want to be scientific about it, you have to at least look at the output FFT of a test signal at all those test parameters to ensure that your hardware/software isn't messing it up. Check noise floor, check for harmonics, check for unwanted signals and possible intermodulation products, check square wave response to make sure nothing is oscillating (particularly relevant to DIY/modded hardware). The checks should be done at the final outputs (ie, speaker amp or headphones amp output). Do a white noise test and look at an averaged FFT to see if the linearity changes or if funky filters get switched in at different sampling rates, sometimes that's a thing..
In my experience, things that contribute to audio quality, sorted from highest contributing to lowest contibuting:
1. Speakers and room size/acoustics (together, this is by far the biggest factor)
2. Actual source quality (recording/mastering quality, format compression if any, bit-accurate output etc)
3. Basic issues (ground loops, bad power, interference between components - such as from switching PSUs etc)
4. Amplifier
5. DAC quality (power filtering, power regulation, output coupling, opamps/output stages, main clock oscillator phase noise, complexity of clock tree, dac chip jitter sensitivity, choice of dac chip)
6. Source path (ideally you want to avoid things like SPDIF that need clock recovery or cheap USB converters that carry really dirty power into the signal path and/or produce a lot of jitter because of a crappy clock... stick with I2S all the way if you can, since that's what the DAC chips will use). Some hardware generates I2S with microcontrollers or FPGAs, and is asynchronous to, and isolated from, the data input. Beauty.
1369. Your SD card brand (make sure to only use Sony's low-noise SD cards, or all this stuff will be in vain.
I'm a compulsive ABXer and anti-BS hardware dev person. I love proving myself/being proven wrong. I'm lucky enough to be able to hear to ~22kHz. :v I went to music school as kid. I have no friends because I science too much. If you can't trust me, then who can you trust...
Sony is stupid. Why? Because if you look at the costs of the audiophile products sold to these idiots, like $600 for a 1 meter power cable -
http://www.lessloss.com/dfpc-series-p-213.html
or $1,600 for a 6 ft speaker cable with mono crystal pure copper strands and vibration absorbing nanoparticles (yes they really say that) -
http://www.lessloss.com/anchorwave-interconnects-and-speaker-cables-p-205.html
Sony is stupid because they could charge a whole lot more for the card than they are.
It is, although it's worth noting that the SPI bus itself has to be carefully managed because otherwise you are going to start seeing high frequency switching noise. Maybe it has better termination than the average card, which would certainly reduce emissions through the contacts.
Even if you disagree that 24 bit playback is worth while, surely you must accept that if the goal is to implement it then very small amounts of electrical noise will quickly raise the system noise floor far above where the digital one is.
4. "High resolution" content is often mastered differently, so you're hearing an improvement in the mastering process, not an improvement because of the high resolution itself
In my experience, things that contribute to audio quality, sorted from highest contributing to lowest contibuting:
1. Speakers and room size/acoustics (together, this is by far the biggest factor)
3. In the case of 96kHz+ content, sometimes the ultrasonic information interferes with amplifiers/speakers causing additional issues which peoples' minds can intepret as "different" and "better"
HD audio is low pass filtered to remove content above the audible range anyway. The reason for going to 96KHz is to reduce aliasing of high frequency signals, not to allow higher frequencies.Quote4. "High resolution" content is often mastered differently, so you're hearing an improvement in the mastering process, not an improvement because of the high resolution itself
Indeed, but that alone is reason enough to welcome HD audio. One of the reasons why SACD and DVD audio are popular is that they require the mastering process to meet certain requirements set out by Dolby, which includes things like the minimum average dynamic range that limits compression. Same reason people buy old second hand CDs from the 80s, same reason they buy vinyl in fact. Old CDs were properly mastered, vinyl simply can't support the amount of compression that modern CDs can due to limitations of the format.
Speakers? They're physical objects. They depend a lot on quality materials and good construction. They cost a lot more than $150 to build them properly.
I think i do hear the difference between 24 and 16bits, but i don't hear any difference between 41khz and 48khz or 96khz. But for my test i use crappy recording, crappy integrated Realtek ALC1200 and crappy speakers/headphones. But in my crappy equipment 24 bits work.
Sony didn't invent the Walkman.
It was a German who invented it.
Sony's first Walkman prototype was nearly a one to one copy of the german design.
Sony lost the lawsuit after nearly 30 years.
I think i do hear the difference between 24 and 16bits, but i don't hear any difference between 41khz and 48khz or 96khz.
The "rounding" you are thinking of is quantization, but nothing in the design of the memory card has anything to do with quantization. Selling this memory card for superior sound quality is like selling sheet music printed on canvas vs. regular paper, for superior playback by a violinist reading music. It's actually much worse than that, because a violinist could miss a note - but a digital music player isn't missing 1's and 0's from a non-audiophile card.
Question: do you think 24 bit recording is pointless? Have you ever compared it directly with a 16 bit recording in a double blind test? Having said that, such a test is of somewhat limited use because 16 bit mandates different mastering techniques and parameters, but even so...
People are stupid, someone once said there are two things in the Universe that have no limit;
Love
and
Stupidity.
You might want to watch this and understand why it is mathematically not possible to hear a difference between 16 and 24 bits sampling:
http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml
Interesting video link. Thanks for that.
Hey Dave, that SD card is just the tip of the iceberg. Try this: http://www.audioquest.com/ethernet/diamond
Ethernet cable; 5500$ for 8 meters.
Want a power cable for 7000$? This is for you. http://www.audioquest.com/power-cables/wel-signature
No, I think 24 bit recording is very valuable. The range of music is around 80db (max - most of it is way, way less), but recording in 24 bit allows the audio engineer to be a lot less careful about setting their levels during the recording process. It also gives them more headroom during the mastering/adjustment process.
There is something similar going on in the classical music world, where famous performers and music critics are convinced that old famous string instruments sound better than new ones. (A Guarneri or Stradivari violin sells for millions of dollars at auctions).
This was thoroughly debunked in double blind experiments, but the myth lives on.