Does hires music really sound better and if so, why?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ส.ค. 2024
- Humans can hear up to 20,000 Hz and then only when they are young and unable to afford a good stereo. So why high resolution audio files? Are they snake oil or real audio quality?
Contents of this video
00:00 - Intro
00:22 - Start of program
01:19 - Hires production
02:49 - DSD production
03:51 - Why then?
06:01 - Playback time
08:54 - And MQA?
10:45 - Hires please?
12:27 - But why?
13:47 - And upscaling?
15:17 - PCM or DSD
16:27 - The wrap - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I am an electronic engineer with extensive broadcast and studio experience. If I can comprehend 50% of what Hans is saying, it is a good day. No one is more knowledgeable. I appreciate all you do. Thank you.
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Hi, I'm trying to find double blind A/B studies of audiophiles discerning whether the source is high res or not. I can't find any, could you point me in the right direction?
the Audio Engineering Society (aes.org) has a library with over 600 papers on the subject. This is the most entertaining: www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=5426
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Thanks! The paper costs $33 :) I'll just consider it silly and move on...
There are more papers and many are cheaper but free scientific papers are extremely rare. Scientists have to live too.
The time and effort that you put into educating your audience is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your balanced approach.
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Definitely one of the more interesting discussions on high res DA conversion and it helps to explain much of what I’ve heard and experienced with higher end vs lower end digital sources. It’s a shame that MQA being a proprietary technology hasn’t been properly expounded upon as to what its benefits really are. There’s a lot of confusion about what MQA really brings to the consumer.
True
Good to see you back Hans - a very clear explanation of the hi-res benefits and PCM vs DSD formats. Thank you.
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A Hans Video to Start the weekend
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You are the most informative HI-FI Audiophile pragmatist i have encountered on all formats. I humbly thank you for your philosofical profesionalism on these different informative tutorials keep up the good work and lets all enjoy the music or whwtever reproductions.
Thanks!
Thank you Hans, another very informative and well produced video.
Glad you enjoyed it
“Please don’t look at the numbers, but use your ears” is the best advice Hans.
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Don’t chase high res , enjoy the music.
@@dieselbrodeur for some. It’s all about the numbers!
Very interesting.
Your conclusions are new to me but I’ll use my ears to verify them 😊
Thanks.
That's the only way
Wow, I never expected the bigger difference to be with the more budget dacs but it makes sense the way you explain it. Definitely worth a thump up, thanks Hans
My pleasure!
Than for this, very interesting and informative. Thoughtfully and clearly presented, as always 👍
So nice of you
Fantastic video, very insightful and useful. Thank you sir 🙂
You are very welcome
As always, thank you for the excellent education!
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So glad you’re back, from Munich, from Vacation, from whatever. Really enjoy your channel. This video helped me sort a few things out, but I have much to learn. I’m trying now to organize my music library as you recommend. Creating the directory structure you recommend seems like a lot of work on my Mac.
Great to hear!
Thank you, sir, for another informative video. Your advice to trust one's ears is the reason I subscribe to your channel.
While I certainly wouldn't argue against hi-res audio, it seems to me there is a sort of "arms race" amongst manufacturers in an effort to keep us constantly buying new gear.
You're so right.
Hi Hans,
Great video! I’m glad I bought a Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ back in 2020 when they were phasing out the model. I just ordered an S-Booster PSU yesterday and your video on the S-Booster convinced me to do so. I was happy to hear your thoughts about MQA. I finally woke up and hooked up the USB cable from the Mytek to my Bluesound Node N130 as I was using a digital coaxial cable before. I’ve been ripping CDs to a Samsung SSD so I can use an old Sony VAIO laptop as a Roon Core. I can’t thank you enough for all of your videos that have helped me to improve my gear and understanding of analog and digital technology.
my pleasure entirely. Enjoy the music!
Another wonderful video, Hans. Many thanks, as always. I do like DSD downloads because I sense finer transient performance, particularly from percussion instruments. I buy from NativeDSD Music and love what I hear.
You are welcome!
I must say, I truly admire your consistency, all your videos with that blue shirt.
This gives me the impression that you are "your own man", and you don't care what others think of you, you will continue to share what you believe is true and right.
I am going to find your patreon page and send you 20 euros to have a nice Belgian beer.
Also, I will add that your camera positioning is superior.
You are reading notes but you truly appear to be looking at me directly in the eye.
Good job.
Wow, thank you!
Yea, he has always had great clear sound a a fixed professional camera angle. This combined with the sensible findings video after video makes him one of the best on TH-cam.
A Nice belgian beer - let him get Leffe or La Chouffe :) and listen to music while enjoying 2 or 3 of those in the evening
I love to hear an intelligent man speak and you are that man🥰😍👍🙌
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I am confused. My understanding of high resolution audio was that it isn’t just a matter of frequency range, but also the “smoothing” of the digital waveform - in effect to match the original analog wave. More resolution fills in the gaps as it were. My own experience is that I can absolutely tell the difference on certain recordings. “Roundabout” by Yes from HDTracks sounds simply superb with excellent bass and airy clean highs. I have several early CD’s that I could almost place below cassette tapes in terms of sound quality. They have hideous glassy, brittle highs and almost continuous high-end noise. A certain reviewer insists HiRes is dead and doesn’t sound any better than CD Red Book.
I suggest he needs to question his position. Thank you Hanz, I very much appreciate the extra detail and I agree with your thoughts about the Denafrips Ares II. Keep up the good work!
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I'm not sure you need to be that 'strong' in the way you frame your view on the other reviewer? In the words of Hans, - it's complex. If I'm thinking of who you are, I think their view was more nuanced? It's also clear that some formats have come and gone, Where are my HDCDs, for example? My very nice Densen Beat 400 XS has that proudly displayed on the front. My Dad's Quadraphonic sampler LP is in my record collection somewhere too :-) . I think their point was similar to Hans's - to produce hires audio is costly and Red Book CD is well established and everwhere.
The processing path is also not that transparent to us as listener, both in terms of production and reproduction. I remember noticing, and it being a thing for, CDs showing DDD, or some combination of As an Ds to indicate how the CD was created. I'm less interested in that now. My Densen has now packed in and I've bought a PS Audio Perfect wave SACD transport to play CDs. I don't have any SACDs and I don't think I've really noticed any to buy over the years, at least where I've shopped for music. I listen to the PST via a HiFi Rose 150B and I chose not to upsample (can't recall what filter I use) as I prefered the sound after swapping around. However, the PST might be doing all sorts of fancy stuff internally. Back to the Densen - CD players, once the transport is sorted, is all about the DAC, and therefore the DSP and ASP. I guess it was always about the DAC (or more realistically the complete AD conversion process). It's also very difficult to make generalisations about how a particular format 'sounds'. I'm not going to complete the list of my systems's signal path and speakers but if those poor CDs were of performers you liked, perhaps you could tailor your system to get your best enjoyment out of them? Or find a format of those recordings that you prefer?
@@dowster64 high res is not at all expensive. It’s standard in todays production. It’s just that 16/44 is still a standard resolution so a master will be resampled to that format regardless. Eg by far the largest streaming platform Spotify is 16/44. For the wast majority of music there is no real demand for high resolution. If you look at classical music at Qobuz that’s a different ball game.
Well I made my own mind up some years ago. I recorded and mixed a record (my first in 96/24 after previously always using 48/24) using Metric Halo converters, vocals through rode k2 valve mic. But it was mastered in a very hi-end studio (all the normal gear-maselec, Manley, tubetech, lavry gold converters etc) with top of the line monitoring in professionally built purpose room (computer in another room etc) …on dithering down the master to red book, I couldn’t hear a difference in that perfect listening environment. The engineer said he can sometimes notice some tell-tale differences if he concentrates but these differences were not actually part of the experience of listening to music. Ok, so maybe a higher grade recording with more acoustic music will render some more discernible differences in a quick switching A B test, but I’d bet money there is no ‘practical’ listening difference between red book and hires.
So for me 44/16 it is. Anything more is bandwidth/storage waste. Studios Remaster things at hires to grab some money, often times just up-rezzing stuff to satisfy those who think they can hear the difference. What makes a difference is the recording and mastering quality; but the consumption format? Spare yourself
@@lindsaywebb1904 I disagree, I re-listen everything I had on CD, now at Qobuz in 96/192 and certainly hear a lot more details than before.
The very best video about a very controversially discussed topic
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Excellent presentation sir. You put the reality of our fetish into perspective. Well done.
Thanks (I think)
Your knowledge is massive in the details. I happen to love MQA that I feed into my system from my bluesound node. I hear a definite difference on most tracks compared to cd. I don’t care what anyone else says who bought into the garbage spread by the haters.
I like it so I use it period. Thank you for your videos Hans 🍻
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very educational
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Very clear. This makes total sense. Thanks for explaining so clearly. Since most audiophiles don't own the €10.000 plus dac's that surpass the use for high res files, what a great time we now live in for the rest of us, where loads of high res files are available through subscription on tidal, Qobuz etc.
So true
Good explanation. But Is it possible you can go deeper into the dsd format? so, from the recording in dsd, mixing in analog or pyramid (which converts to dxd, which is a conversion to pcm, so the magic of dsd is gone?) possible upconversions to dsd 256 from dsd64 and then de processing in roon and a chord qutest for example, which use dop instead of a native analog processing of dsd (also takes away the beauty of native dsd?). So when is it done right (will it sounds at it's best) and when is dsd not made and processed well? would be quite interesting i think!
Sure, watch th-cam.com/video/hXFIq11JAas/w-d-xo.html
nice analysis Hans... I am curious about the new Meitner MA3... which may be less available in Europe...
We shall see
I am always curious about what makes a recording sound good. I have no idea, but I know it when I hear it. And it is, of course, consistent over the years, so it's not my imagination or "snake oil", whatever sonic alchemy is taking place is real, even if I can't explain it. Good-sounding recordings usually are simpler ones with fewer instruments. And, conversely, more complex recordings, say a symphonic orchestra, always seem problematic with producing a true sound.
Reproducing complex music gets better when better equipment is used and better equipment has a higher price....
You need to keep in mind that CD quality recordings and "Hi-Res audio" often come from different masters, so it's not the file quality necessarily that makes it sound better.
Hey Hans great video as always! Did you hear the latest from MoFi? They’ve been making our vinyl out of digital! Please make a video on this subject we’d love to hear your report?
I have made videos on the subject severalties. Almost all vinyl is made from digital masters already for years.
I can distinguish between Tidal's Masters and Hi-Res music files. I know I can hear the difference between lossless FLAC and generously compressed MP3 files. That's how much I know about my own abilities.
Well, is suffice, doesn't it?
Nice sun tan Hans
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Hello Hans --I'm about to take the plunge on the Grimm Mu1 (gulp!) based on your thorough evaluation (plus the fact that this unit now has made its way into your 1A reference system) My current setup is Chord's DAVE and MScaler along with Innuos USB reclocker and PhoenixNet. I will include the USB reclocker in the chain and see how the Grimm performs in that scenario. Three questions for you: Did you initially include the MScaler in the signal chain with the Mu1? What were the SQ results? When you make mention of your 1A reference system, you did not include the SJ power supply for the DAVE. Do you still own this? ok FOUR questions...
anything put between the MU1 and the DAVE will not improve the sound quality. Washing a perfectly white shirt will not make it whiter but will wear the fabric. The SJ power supply was beyond my financial capabilities.
I think it\s much more of a challenge to find quality recordings than finding anything in high res. High res can be all the same, if the recording is poor.
Agreed
You look good! Got some sun eh?
Yes, thanks
I download MQA as my choice of HR files, to these ears they sound fantastic, and is my go to choice, I'm I being fooled by my own brain and ears, its possible, could somebody could show me a whole raft of graphs and charts to show this, but my point is this to me they sound fantastic, and that is important.
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Previously there was, among other things, Super bit mapping = SBM purpose was to give 20 bit quality to 16 bit data and could play in all CD players. among other things, noise molding was used. The interesting that the question is might be could be. How much can you compress hi-res but still make it sound better than uncompressed CD?
With FLAC and MQA it's not the compression, it's jitter and the reconstruction filter....
Dear Hans,
Is there any way to change in Qobuz that high res doesn't always come at the top of searches. My Audio Note dac actually prefers the original and not the remaster. It’s annoying to always scroll down, for the original versions which have most of the time more magic!
Sorry but I don’t use the Qobuz app, I play Qobuz music from the Roon app.
In summation, “If it sounds good it is good.”
Also
It can never sound better than what the mix sounded like when it left the studio
That's like kicking-in an open door, as the Dutch expression goes.
Here is where the vinyl guys confuse me. The don’t care, they want there vinyl filter.
Whatever makes them happy
When we talk about better quality we may also decide if we are talking about a blu-ray player or CD player that an average person buys or if we are talking about a machine that costs more than many can imagine spending. so the question might be. Sounds hi-res better on a $ 200 machine than a $ 200 standard CD player
I thought I just answered that…
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Then I probably did not hear it specifically
I have a Chord MScaler and DAVE and the difference between CD quality and hi res is negligible at best. One thing I have been trying to determine is what happens when a DSD file is sent to the MScaler. If I want to play DSD files. must I connect my source, an Auralic Aires G2 directly to the DAVE? The plan is to download some samples and copy the files to a USB flash drive inserted into the back of the Aires G2.
You can play DD files keeping the Mscaler in line. Works fine.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Many thanks, Hans.
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@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Looks like a USB connection is required for DSD My Aires G2 is connected to the Mscaler by a RCA to BNC cable. Connection from the Mscaler to the DAVE is via dual BNC cables.
Hans could it be the memory buffer needed for MQA that gives a better sound outcome?
Definitely no
A question: In “the wrap”you say that the higher the quality of the DAC, the less difference can be heard between CD quality and hi-res. Did you mean to say the opposite? It would seem that a better DAC would reveal differences instead of hiding the differences.
He said that in setups 2 and 3 more differences were heard between HiRes and 44.1/16, because those have clearly worse electronics than setup 1. For my part I think the same, the better your electronics the difference is less evident.
@@luisrodrigonunezolguin7038 Thank you for your response, but I’m still confused as to how that would be possible. For example, if I used lesser quality speakers, the differences upstream would be veiled. But higher quality speakers would likely make the differences more obvious. How would that be the opposite with DACs?
@@greenbeginner3353 it-s not that simple. Highly depends on DAC architecture (DSP, analog output stage, streaming board...). All starts with bringing in a quality source signal (Grimm MU1, Antipodes are at the top league) and than hand it over to the DAC in a high quality digital way (i2s, rca, aes/ebu), now it depends on DSP implementation and most important the analogue section. That why some people use DAC-only with external streamer. Of course like a Meitner MA3, Weiss DAC 50x do already a pretty job to combine both worlds, but it is a different story if you go up with dedicated music servers like mentioned... my 2 cents as an intermediate enthusiast..
@@gerihifi Thank you for your input. So, are you saying that a high quality DAC can be designed in such a way that a Red Book CD can be played with the right DSP so as to make it sound indistinguishable from a hi-res file?
What I said in the video in essence is that cheap DAC's distort CD quality files more than hires ones. And that high-end DAC's distort cd-quality files just as little as hires files.
I’m not too keen on delta sigma DACs. I prefer the R2R DACs instead. It’s personal and so is the choices of others. I have no problem with what others use, but I am a physical media person whether it is vinyl, CDs or tape. I am not a streamer so all this high res talk doesn’t apply to me. Let the people choose their own way of music enjoyment. I would like to see you review vinyl players and cartridges. is that possible?
I only do digital front-ends. Sorry.
Very interesting findings. It's very valuable to get these analyses from you. You confirms what many people says without doing the comprehensive testing as you have done. The most benefits of High Res is in the production chain. the DSD vs PCM finding that it depends on the recording is also very interesting since DSD is also very hyped by some.
I have a personal complementary finding regarding this moving up the ladder. While the difference between 16/44 and high res diminishes the difference between Spotify (ogg 320), MP3 and minidisc 💽 (all lossy high quality Digital) and loss less audio increases.
A very valid observation. Thanks for sharing.