Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
@Katsunami: that is interesting. I have not bought a CD in forever. Just dug out an old CD from 1996 and it sounded quite good on flat. If new CDs nowadays are not recorded like that any more then I don't want it. Didn't want to even try to artificially boost bass. (No, I didn't use Beats either, just some old DCM monitors and a sub to help out below 80hz).
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Demonstration of what loudness does to the music:
Listen with good headphones, and you'll notice the lost punch of the bass and drums in the compressed music.
Also, this is not just CD's. People *think* that high-resolution music (24 bits, 192 kHz) sounds better than music on CD (16 bits, 44.1 kHz). That is bullshit. Why? Because the number of bits determines how loud music can become. If the full 24 bits of dynamic range would be used, a 24-bit song would blow your head to kingdom come. The maximum recordable frequency is the half of the sample rate. A CD has a 44.1 kHz sample rate, so it can record up to +/- 22 kHz. That is more than enough, because even humans with the best ears ever can only hear up to 20 kHz; and only in their teen years. Therefore, being able to record up to 96 kHz is utterly useless.
Conclusion: 24 bits, 192 kHz music wastes a HUGE amount of space and doesn't bring you any advantages. Then, why does it often sound better? The reason is that these files are often taken directly from the original master, and are *NOT COMPRESSED* (= made extra loud). If you take such a file, and then downsample it to 16 bits, 44.1 kHz, it will sound exactly the same. This is because of the the reason given earlier: you can't use the full 24-bit dynamic range, because it's too loud, and using more than 44.1 kHz is a waste because no-one can ever hear it.
(edit: DuckieTigger reminded me by PM that 24 bit / 192 kHz is not useless as a format while recording, mastering and editing. That is absolutely true, as you have more data to work with, similar to shooting and editing pictures in RAW-format instead of JPG. What I mean to say is that actually *listening* to 24 bit / 192 kHz gains you nothing as compared to 16 bit / 44.1 kHz.)
So yes, 24-bit/192 kHz music often sounds better, but it's not for the reason people think. It's not because of the higher resolution or sample rates, but because it's often not compressed.
(If someone would not accept this from this post:
You're invited to read the article under this link, written by a Ph.D. in audio research. I assume he knows his stuff.)
That 24-bit/192 kHz can be compressed however, and it'll sound just as bad as compressed 16-bit/44.1 kHz CD-music; the end result will just be a huge amount of wasted space.
PS: A low dynamic range is not always automatically an indication of badly recorded music. A lot of new age music with soundscapes in them, and no drums/rhythm have the same volume throughout. Even if not compressed, that sort of music will have a low dynamic range while still being well-recorded. Such music can easily be made louder without hurting it, but who wants to listen to new age/zen music at 100 dB...?