New Blu-Ray format music

[DavidW]

That only having a few tracks issue is disappointing.  I can see Amazon UK and FR not allowing Autorip for out of state customers.  Doesn't amazon restrict their mp3 sales by region or country?

[Todd]

I can see Amazon UK and FR not allowing Autorip for out of state customers.  Doesn't amazon restrict their mp3 sales by region or country?

I assume they limit distribution based on some formulation, but here's a tricky one: I bought Abdel Rahman El Bacha's new LvB sonata cycle from Amazon France.  It has AutoRip, but I did not get it.  Amazon US currently only offers MP3 downloads.

?

[Madiel]

You're just encapsulating all the reasons I will be sticking with physical media as my primary source of music (and video) purchases for many years to come, even if I actually USE the rips from those physical media a great deal of the time.

(cf my dissatisfaction with Spotify elsewhere)

But then the powers that be really do seem keen to make using that physical media more difficult.  When I was reading about Blu-Ray, I saw that one of the reasons it beat out a rival format was that the movie studios backed Blu-Ray's implementation of copy protection and DRM (digital rights management).  I just don't understand why they keep focusing on a continually failed strategy.  The answer doesn't lie in trying to prevent people from copying, the answer lies in taking away the incentive to copy.  Using carrots rather than sticks.

Digital Rights Management, in all its forms, is one of the major reasons I don't embrace all the new technologies.  I'm going to keep buying books rather than e-books because companies can't easily walk into my house and remove volumes from the shelf.  I'm not going to make Spotify my main source of music when they can unilaterally erase all my playlists of my iPhone.  And I celebrate the fact that the Australian High Court blew a big hole in region codes on the grounds that it was stopping people from using perfectly legal software or discs that they had bought overseas. 

And when I can buy a CD from a UK or USA supplier, but can't buy a track from iTunes in the UK or USA, it's a no-brainer to stick with CDs!

[jut1972]

The only advantage blu-ray audio can have is multichannel sound. High bitrate sound in a normal home listening environment is indistinguishable from normal CD quality sound. The two differences in high bitrate sound are frequency response extended beyond the range of human hearing and beyond the range of most music too; and a dynamic range so broad that in order to hear all the way down to the noise floor, your volume would have to be turned up so high you would incur permanent hearing damage. Pointless for human ears.

However, multichannel sound is a significant improvement over 2 channel, just as 2 channel was over mono. But most people with home theater setups haven't necessarily designed their systems with music listening in mind. I did and I'm very happy I did, but it was a LOT of work to get right and I don't know if the average Joe would be willing to go to the efforts I have. Depending on people like me to support an entire format would be a pretty dicey proposition.

Sorry totally disagree with the first paragraph. The blu ray audio I've heard blows red book CD out of the water.   

Totally agree with the second paragraph.

[Todd]

The blu ray audio I've heard blows red book CD out of the water.

That looks like hyperbole.  Can you elaborate with specifics?

[Pat B]

That looks like hyperbole.  Can you elaborate with specifics?

You probably know this already, but...

I think a lot of times these comparisons are really comparing different masterings, not different formats. Unforunately the copy-protection on the newer formats makes apples-to-apples comparisons difficult.

Or maybe he can hear up to 40 kHz.

[jut1972]

Nope dont have ears like a bat Pat.
But can recommend this if you want a good demo.

http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=NBD0009

[Gurn Blanston]

Oh fuck this .. I'll be dead when this takes off (which I highly doubt) as the future is now wrapped up in the instant downloading/sampling culture etc. by legions & legions of young'uns. An old bag like me is content with his extremely overblown CD library to the end, just thinking of replacing things at this point in my life with some hot new format gives me a headache. I do buy blu ray for movies however, as I missed the whole DVD thing for the most part, and just got a new fancy TV last year. 

I could have written this, it expresses my own feelings fairly accurately.

That looks like hyperbole.  Can you elaborate with specifics?

I could have written this, it expresses my own feelings fairly accurately.

In any case, my own ears can't even extract the maximum audio range out of Redbook standards; why would I pay thousands to get even more sound that I can't hear, it indeed that sound is actually revealed by this equipment?   

[DavidW]

In any case, my own ears can't even extract the maximum audio range out of Redbook standards; why would I pay thousands to get even more sound that I can't hear, it indeed that sound is actually revealed by this equipment?   

Many people don't seem to realize that headphones and speakers themselves are not sensitive to arbitrarily high frequencies, they roll off pretty early which is a fancy way of saying that the higher the frequency, the quieter the gear reproduces it until it doesn't at all.  So even if these audiophiles have golden bat ears, they still could not hear the difference.

[jut1972]

...but that ignores every frequency you can hear and the extended dynamic range. 

My understanding is CD is 16 bit resolution, Blu-ray audio is 24 bit.  These discs aren't upscaled rip offs they are remasters from the original and so will sound better than the CD version. 

They sold bucket loads in France when they were released.  If it meant spending thousands this would be doomed to failure, like SACD / DVD-A, but many people have a Blu-ray player these days as they are now so cheap.

[Todd]

These discs aren't upscaled rip offs they are remasters from the original and so will sound better than the CD version.

So what if they are 24 bit?  That in and of itself doesn't guarantee better sound.  I've done A/Bs between original DSD recordings and CD down conversions, and there was little to no difference.  24 bit is just another high res format that has and will over-promise and under-deliver.

As to the extended dynamic range, that's the audiophile equivalent of a pink elephant.  Red book CD has a dynamic range of 90 dB normally, and can go higher.  That's more than domestic loudspeakers can reproduce accurately - and I'm including the huge, hugely expensive, and hugely overrated speakers like Wilsons.  And that doesn't even take into account the amplifiers driving the speakers, none of which, not even Boulder or Krell, would be able to put out the power necessary to replicate a full scale orchestra swinging from mezzo piano to fortissimo.  You would need something like, or even more powerful than, the 5000 watt custom amps that Bob Ludwig uses in his mastering studio to achieve something even close to that.

Years ago I owned a Sony Classical CD of a couple symphonies by Giya Kancheli, and the disc came with a warning about the huge dynamic range and how it could damage speakers.  Sure enough, the disc had the widest dynamic range of any disc I'd heard before, or any I've heard since.  The quiet music was very quiet, and turning the volume to a level to hear it, even played back quietly, resulted in loud passages that were just too loud.  Even classical recordings are compressed, and they must be compressed, they are just compressed less than rock and pop. 

To the extent there is a significant improvement in sound in a high res format, it is largely due to the superior remastering that is performed, as Pat B pointed out.

Many people don't seem to realize that headphones and speakers themselves are not sensitive to arbitrarily high frequencies, they roll off pretty early which is a fancy way of saying that the higher the frequency, the quieter the gear reproduces it until it doesn't at all.  So even if these audiophiles have golden bat ears, they still could not hear the difference.

Not just speakers, but some electronics, too.  My speakers are theoretically capable of playing up to 40 kHz at a 3 dB drop off – and with Salk speakers, I trust Jim Salk and Dennis Murphy to be honest – but it doesn't matter, because I use Naim Audio for my main and bedroom systems, and Naim Audio purposely rolls off ultrasonic frequencies (ie, above 20 kHz) in their preamps, because they claim it can cause amplifiers to perform in non-linear fashion.  I use NAD for my home theater, and their gear has no such filtering, but it doesn't matter, because there is no musical content – or even "air" – at or above 20 kHz.  Oh yeah, and I have lost the ability to hear even 20 kHz frequencies in the last 2-3 years, anyway.  I know, because I occasionally perform frequency sweeps, and I used to be able to hear this frequency at normal volume, then elevated volume, but now I just can't hear it.  I can still hear 16 kHz though.  Nothing really happens at the frequency, either.

[bigshot]

Sorry totally disagree with the first paragraph. The blu ray audio I've heard blows red book CD out of the water.

There's an easy way to find out for yourself. Take a high bitrate audio file and knock it down to CD quality using the proper dither. Then compare it to the original high bitrate file. I've done this and there is absolutely no audible difference. Nor should there be. The increased information in a high bitrate file only extends the noise floor lower and the response wider, and redbook CDs are already beyond the range of human hearing on both of those counts.

High bitrate audio is handy for mixing. You can pull up an instrument in the mix without pulling up the noise floor with it. But for normal listening, it is pointless.

[bigshot]

Many people don't seem to realize that headphones and speakers themselves are not sensitive to arbitrarily high frequencies, they roll off pretty early which is a fancy way of saying that the higher the frequency, the quieter the gear reproduces it until it doesn't at all.  So even if these audiophiles have golden bat ears, they still could not hear the difference.

Actually, when it comes to sampling rate, most consumer equipment isn't designed to reproduce very high rates. The result is that any information up in the higher frequencies gets reproduced as harmonic distortion down in the audible frequencies. High sampling rates can actually sound *worse* than CD quality.

CD quality is capable of reproducing from 20 Hz to 21kHz, which is the full range of human hearing. With proper dithering, the dynamic range is 110 dB. Raise that over the noise floor of the average quiet listening room and you are talking peaks of as high as 140 dB. That is high enough to cause permanent hearing damage. Why would anyone need more than that?

[Parsifal]

As to the extended dynamic range, that's the audiophile equivalent of a pink elephant.  Red book CD has a dynamic range of 90 dB normally, and can go higher.  That's more than domestic loudspeakers can reproduce accurately - and I'm including the huge, hugely expensive, and hugely overrated speakers like Wilsons.  And that doesn't even take into account the amplifiers driving the speakers, none of which, not even Boulder or Krell, would be able to put out the power necessary to replicate a full scale orchestra swinging from mezzo piano to fortissimo.  You would need something like, or even more powerful than, the 5000 watt custom amps that Bob Ludwig uses in his mastering studio to achieve something even close to that.

I would phrase it in the opposite way.  Higher resolution helps the softer passages.  If you are listening to a CD and a passage is using the maximum volume you are benefiting from the full 90 dB dynamic range of the recording.   The intrinsic noise level of the recording is 90 dB below the sound you are listening to.  However, when you get to a soft passage, perhaps you are listening to a solo violin playing pianissimo, the violin may be playing at a volume 60 dB softer than the full orchestral tutti,  but the intrinsic noise level is still the same.  Your audio program is only 30 dB above the intrinsic noise level.  The question is, can you hear that intrinsic noise level? 

I can't.  When I've set the volume to listen to a CD at what I consider optimum volume, so that the loud passages are loud but not uncomfortably loud, I find that that intrinsic noise level of the CD is sub-audible.  During the soft passages, I hear crickets in the yard, breezes rustling trees, the refrigerator compressor at the other end of the house, the very feint whistling that I detect in my ears if I pay close attention.  I don't hear any noise from my audio system.  If I stand up and put my ear right up to the speaker I can the amplifier's noise background, but if I step back just a short distance, it is entirely swallowed up in the ambient noise of the room.  Based on that, I'm pretty skeptical that the high resolution is going to help.

I also have a rather nice SACD/CD player which, according to its specs, reproduces the full dynamic and frequency range of SACD.  When I switch back and forth between the CD and 2 channel SACD layer, I hear no difference in sound quality.

[DavidW]

Not just speakers, but some electronics, too.  My speakers are theoretically capable of playing up to 40 kHz at a 3 dB drop off – and with Salk speakers, I trust Jim Salk and Dennis Murphy to be honest – but it doesn't matter, because I use Naim Audio for my main and bedroom systems, and Naim Audio purposely rolls off ultrasonic frequencies (ie, above 20 kHz) in their preamps, because they claim it can cause amplifiers to perform in non-linear fashion.  I use NAD for my home theater, and their gear has no such filtering, but it doesn't matter, because there is no musical content – or even "air" – at or above 20 kHz.  Oh yeah, and I have lost the ability to hear even 20 kHz frequencies in the last 2-3 years, anyway.  I know, because I occasionally perform frequency sweeps, and I used to be able to hear this frequency at normal volume, then elevated volume, but now I just can't hear it.  I can still hear 16 kHz though.  Nothing really happens at the frequency, either.

Those are some fantastic speakers!  And I didn't know that electronics can filter out or not reproduce those high frequencies.  Thanks for the info Todd and Bigshot.

I would like to know what instruments frequently go above 16 kHz?  And what am I missing, I can't hear well beyond that frequency?

[Todd]

I would like to know what instruments frequently go above 16 kHz?  And what am I missing, I can't hear well beyond that frequency?

Here's a handy chart, that lists instruments along with fundamental tones and harmonics.  Nothing really goes on above 16 kHz.  Maybe the ondes martenot does something up there.

[Parsifal]

I've found this to depend on the recordings.  A lot of hybrid discs, yes, I agree, no perceptible difference between the layers.  But there are some where the difference is vast.  My theory (and it is only a theory) is that it tends to be recordings mastered in DSD then converted to PCM for the CD layer, which ends up being not-that-brilliant considered purely as CD sound.

The trouble with that argument (in bold) is that all PCM sound is effectively converted from DSD.  Virtually all audio analog-to-digital converters are delta-sigma converters (the so-called one-bit converters where the amplitude of the signal is described by the fraction of the time the bit is 1 vs 0).  DSD consists of storing the internal 1-bit data of a delta-sigma converter, rather than the conventional PCM output.  So all PCM audio data is converted from DSD.  Sometimes the DSD is stored and it is converted later, sometimes the DSD is converted to PCM internally by the analog-to-digital converter.

The supposed advantage of SACD and DSD is that the 1-bit data from the 1-bit analog-to-digital recorder is sent, raw, to a one bit digital-to-analog converter, without the intermediate conversion to PCM and back to 1-bit data.

If the Red book layer of a hybrid SACD sound bad, it probably means the botched the conversion somehow.  My A/B comparisons are based on Pentatone, and they are very careful and smart and do everything right.

[bigshot]

I've found this to depend on the recordings.  A lot of hybrid discs, yes, I agree, no perceptible difference between the layers.  But there are some where the difference is vast.  My theory (and it is only a theory) is that it tends to be recordings mastered in DSD then converted to PCM for the CD layer, which ends up being not-that-brilliant considered purely as CD sound.

Many hybrid disks use entirely different masterings on the two layers. I suspect they are hobbling the redbook layer to make the SACD layer sound better.

Pentatone is the only label I was able to find where the redbook and SACD layer were always the same mastering. I think that's because a significant portion of their clientele probably don't even own a SACD player and are just interested in them as CDs.

[Parsifal]

Here's a handy chart, that lists instruments along with fundamental tones and harmonics.  Nothing really goes on above 16 kHz.  Maybe the ondes martenot does something up there.

The trouble is your handy chart may well have been made with conventional audio equipment which is insensitive to sound above 16 kHz.   Why would dogs have hearing up to 60 kHz if there is nothing to hear above 16 kHz?

The reason audio reproduction above 20 kHz is not useful is because the human ear can't detect it, not because the sound is not there.

[Todd]

The trouble is your handy chart may well have been made with conventional audio equipment which is insensitive to sound above 16 kHz.   Why would dogs have hearing up to 60 kHz if there is nothing to hear above 16 kHz?

The reason audio reproduction above 20 kHz is not useful is because the human ear can't detect it, not because the sound is not there.

I was posting in the specific context of music reproduction, the very subject of this thread.  A whole bunch goes on way up the frequency spectrum.  So what?