![]() The answer lies deep in digital signal theory, psychoacoustics, and signal detection theory, which is the science of testing subjective responses. Silverman also said, "I'm not sure anyone has the definitive answer as to how, or even if, high resolution audio sounds better. It's one thing to hear the sound in the studio, but the music will mostly be "consumed" as background filler. ![]() ![]() Silverman believes that the way today's pop music is arranged, designed and performed is strongly influenced by the quest for extreme loudness and limited dynamic range required for music listened to on-the-go with tablets, ear buds and phones. That initially held true with CDs, but now that most people experience music away from home, in noisy environments, on lossy streaming services like Spotify, all of that informs the way producers, artists, and engineers approach their next recording. That's the way it worked in the 1950s, with LPs and singles, which were heard at home on a hi-fi and on the radio, so the engineers made recordings that sounded best at home and on the radio. Why are recordings handicapped this way? I asked my friend, mastering engineer Alan Silverman about it, and he described a "feedback loop" where producers, artists and engineers make their way through the studio process to release an album, and how they later hear it in the real world influences the way they'll make their next album. More samples and/or bits won't restore the missing information. While the advantage of more bits is nice in theory the benefits may be lost when the recording, mix, or mastering engineers crush the instruments' and vocalists' soft-to-loud dynamics. A 24-bit recording has more bits than a 16-bit recording, duh, and those extra samples and bits can more accurately capture the subtle stuff, like the breath of a vocalist or the ambient sound of a recording venue. A 192kHz sample rate recording has twice as many samples per second as a 96kHz recording, which is more than double the sample rate of a CD. So if the film is murky, a high definition TV won't make it any sharper.Ī high-resolution audio file's "sample rate" refers to the number of samples recorded per second when the analog sound waves were converted into a digital file. They produce sharper, more vivid images than standard resolution TVs, but a blurry old movie, transferred to a 1080P Blu-ray, won't make the film any clearer. Grappling with the concept of high resolution audio might be too abstract, so it might make sense to compare it to high definition TVs. Sure, it would be so much easier if we could predict a recording's quality with a number, but the numbers just define the limits of how good it could be, not what it will be. If the original recording quality was crap, it's always going to sound like crap. ![]() In other words, a great recording on MP3 will definitely sound better than an overly compressed and processed one as a 192 kHz sample rate, 24 bit FLAC. Those factors influence sound quality far more than the release format. ![]() Before we dive into the numbers I want to make the point that sound quality is first determined by the quality of the gear used to record, mix and master music, and perhaps even more important, the skill and artistry of the engineers. Maybe, but I also think that standard resolution CDs and 320 MP3s, ALAC, and FLAC files can sound good, really good. High-resolution audio is frequently touted as the best possible way to experience music. ![]()
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