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Topic: SACD Ripping (Read 61088 times) previous topic - next topic
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SACD Ripping

Reply #50
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When used in the real world increased sample rate should help when going from digital to analog, see:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=331846
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Yes, I'm aware of this. The point I was trying to address was that a low sampling rate doesn't hinder us to capture timed events correctly. You're right. D/A conversion gets easier when we only want a small portion of the spectrum to have a flat response. And by increasing the signal bandwidth that can be captured the band of interest (0-20 kHz) gets smaller in a relative sense. So, the advantages is directly related to the increased bandwidth. -- BTW: I actually used filters with very large transition bands for the [a href="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=37717&hl=]dsd2pcm converter[/url]. Only frequencies below 24 kHz have a flat response.

Sebi

SACD Ripping

Reply #51
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Since the DR of an orchestra is let us say 80 dB, there is no need to go beyond cd. However, the multichannel feature justifies the existance of dvd-a/sacd.
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From what I read, it's approximately 120 dB.
But if you really want to enjoy a full 120 dB dynamic range orchestra at home, you have to live alone in a castle or in a desert island (with electricity).
In my apartment I must use my headphone to really exploit current orchestral recordings despite of a compressed dynamic range (60...70 dB are extreme cases: there's just noise beyond that). Otherwise my neighbour would kill me.

I second you on the second point: multichannel is a great (but expensive) improvement.
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Dear guruboolez,
It depends where you measure the sound pressure. If you are very close to the instrument, it exceeds the 120 dB with ease. However, in practise if you are a listener in the concert hall, it will be in the order of 80 dB dynamic range. For a trumpet player this number will be larger, I guess.

regards,
Jacco
Logical reasoning brings you from a to b, imagination brings you everywhere.

SACD Ripping

Reply #52
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What I mean by the word "analog" is that is sounds more like the original master or real life. More bits so that less quantization is needed. In theory, doesn't analog sort of mean unlimited bits and bandwidth since the sound of somebody speaking to you for example doesnt have x samples per second. It is unlimited. All thats done with digital audio is making enough samples per second to make the digital audio sound as if it is the "analog" or real sound that was originally recorded.


Yes, analog may be thought as unlimited but your argument is a moot point because we can only hear frequencies up to 22khz (and sometimes even lower than that).


And finding transducers -- microphones and loudspeakers -- that are 'unlimited' could be a bit of a problem too.     

SACD Ripping

Reply #53
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More bits so that less quantization is needed.
The argument is whether the difference of data between 2 channel 16 bit/44khz CD audio and 24/192 really have an audible difference
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Here, you make a huge mistake. A properly dithered digital signal will be a perfect analog signal after (ideal) interpolation. There is a lot of theory about this subject. To my knowledge this theory is still valid.

Regards,
Jacco
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=331245"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Well what I was saying is that you don't need to interpolate(basically guess) as much when there is more data per second so there are less chances of interpolation errors. Still, let's ditch theory. Is there nobody that can say that DVD audio or SACD sounds better than conventional CD? Can anyone here hear the difference? If Not, then whats the point of SACD then? Is it just something that can cure some audiophiles paranoia that CD sound is not good enough?
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There are lots of *claims* of difference.  There's *no* evidence*  from well-conducted listening tests comparing the same recording in CD vs DSD or DVD-A formats -- not even from the main developers of DSD and MLP (Sony and Meridian respectively).  You'd think there would have been a JAES article by now, at least.  But the best you'll find is a long article ("The MLP Lossless Compression System for PCM Audio", JAES Volume 52 Number 3 pp. 243-260; March 2004*) by Bob Stuart , the head of Meridian, outlining why *in theory** DVD-A *could* sound better than CD.  And a few months later you'll find a letter from David Moran, Roy Allison and E. Brad Meyer, pointing out the Mr. Stuart hasn't actually presented any empirical evidence that it does.

(*some cite Oohashi et al. , but this is still quite controversial, and 'hearing' in the conventional sense doesn't seem to be what's going on there anyway)

(**whose main points are reiterated here
[a href="http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF]http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF[/url] )

SACD Ripping

Reply #54
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Well, DSD is a lousy format for mastering, processing and archiving. It's very inneficient for archiving, and very dificult to process. 24/192 PCM is better in every aspect, not to say that 24/96 PCM is most likely the best anyone could ever need.

Also, the problem with DSD is that it's a marketing-originated format. From a technical point of view, it has no sense.
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Heres' a nice page of complaints about adopting DSD in the studio:

[a href="http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/specsformats/currentrecordingtrendsP13.php]http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/specsf...ngtrendsP13.php[/url]

SACD Ripping

Reply #55
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The figures are better and it sounds better.


But better figures do not necessarily mean different (or better) sound, because our ears are not infinitely extensive or resolving.  There comes a point where we can measure 'improvements' that are simply inaudible.

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I don't expect to get into a long debate with people over this!


You should perhaps read the TOS then.  HA is something of an oasis of reason in a sea of audiophile magical thinking.

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It must offer more top end as, on older recordings, you can hear more tape hiss.


Only if you can hear above 22 kHz.    What makes you think you can?  And of course, you are assuming that the mastering of the CD vs SACD versions are the same.  That's certainly not true when comparing an old CD versus a new SACD, and not even always true when comparing the CD layer of an SACD, to the SACD layer.  So how do you know that 'more hiss' is due to the format?

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Whether or not this is a good thing is down to the listener, but I certainly never liked the sound of cassettes made from vinyl when Dolby 'B' was switched on - it cut off the hiss and a good deal of music too!


Usually an effect of poor Dolby calibration in the playback deck.

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What I can't say is whether SACD is better or worse than DVD-A...
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Based on your evidence, you can't even say for sure that 'SACD' sounds better than 'CD'. You haven't thoroughly considered the possible reasons why a given SACD release might sound different from its CD version.

SACD Ripping

Reply #56
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Since the DR of an orchestra is let us say 80 dB, there is no need to go beyond cd. However, the multichannel feature justifies the existance of dvd-a/sacd.
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From what I read, it's approximately 120 dB.

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Dear guruboolez,
It depends where you measure the sound pressure. If you are very close to the instrument, it exceeds the 120 dB with ease. However, in practise if you are a listener in the concert hall, it will be in the order of 80 dB dynamic range. For a trumpet player this number will be larger, I guess.


F. Alton Everest still cites Fiedler's 118 dB maximum figure, but I've seen it pretty vigorously debunked on RAHE as not being a real-world number:

[a href="http://groups.google.com/group/rec.audio.high-end/browse_frm/thread/5091ba7c083430e0/ddb02be563c07798?lnk=st&q=fiedler+%22dynamic+range%22+CD&rnum=1&hl=en#ddb02be563c07798]http://groups.google.com/group/rec.audio.h...db02be563c07798[/url]

SACD Ripping

Reply #57
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Since the DR of an orchestra is let us say 80 dB, there is no need to go beyond cd. However, the multichannel feature justifies the existance of dvd-a/sacd.
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From what I read, it's approximately 120 dB.

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Dear guruboolez,
It depends where you measure the sound pressure. If you are very close to the instrument, it exceeds the 120 dB with ease. However, in practise if you are a listener in the concert hall, it will be in the order of 80 dB dynamic range. For a trumpet player this number will be larger, I guess.


F. Alton Everest still cites Fiedler's 118 dB maximum figure, but I've seen it pretty vigorously debunked on RAHE as not being a real-world number:

[a href="http://groups.google.com/group/rec.audio.high-end/browse_frm/thread/5091ba7c083430e0/ddb02be563c07798?lnk=st&q=fiedler+%22dynamic+range%22+CD&rnum=1&hl=en#ddb02be563c07798]http://groups.google.com/group/rec.audio.h...db02be563c07798[/url]
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=333188"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


The 118 dB refers to a close miking method, as described by me earlier. At point 4) there is a nice "conclusion":

4) Despite the desperate attempts by Fiedler to come up with some
reason why we need hi-res replay formats (note that no one denies the
usefulness of 24-bits for *recording*, to allow room for accidental
mic overloads and EQ), there is no record of *any* real master tape of
an acoustic musical event (i.e. no synthesisers) which exceeds 80-85dB
dynamic range, and indeed most 'live' classical recordings have more
like 60-70dB range.

Regards,
Jacco
Logical reasoning brings you from a to b, imagination brings you everywhere.

SACD Ripping

Reply #58
I accept the criticism of my comparison of SACD and CD sound... which I wrote after finding very little comment from anyone who actually had an SACD (or DVD-A) player.

My remarks were just a comparison of playing the two layers of about 10 discs and stating which I preferred. In each case, I prefer the SACD layer. Whether this is due to the mix, or my player, I don't know.

I was not trying to suggest this was a scientific approach, and is just a reflection on how I would judge any piece of equipment/music - even if it is frowned on by the HA community.

I'm quite happy for people to do the research which will, ultimately, lead to progress in any field (and to me taking advantage of improved computers, hi-fi, hard drives and very good software like EAC and LAME).

However, I shall continue to play SACD layers (when available, of course), and to believe that my silver interconnects result in better sound than the giveaway cables which I started with, followed by those I knocked up myself from bits of speaker cable, and several others that I've tried over the years.

The only way you will exclude opinions like mine is if you restrict this site to people capable of carrying out research/development.

This might make it a little duller - people can agree to disagree, after all!

SACD Ripping

Reply #59
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I accept the criticism of my comparison of SACD and CD sound... which I wrote after finding very little comment from anyone who actually had an SACD (or DVD-A) player.


FWIW, I'm now on my second player.  I own about 30 SACDs/DVD-As.

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My remarks were just a comparison of playing the two layers of about 10 discs and stating which I preferred. In each case, I prefer the SACD layer. Whether this is due to the mix, or my player, I don't know.


Another possibility: unconscious bias towards formats marketed as being 'better'. 

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However, I shall continue to play SACD layers (when available, of course), and to believe that my silver interconnects result in better sound than the giveaway cables which I started with, followed by those I knocked up myself from bits of speaker cable, and several others that I've tried over the years.

The only way you will exclude opinions like mine is if you restrict this site to people capable of carrying out research/development.



That clearly hasn't been the case. It's possible to comment on what you hear, while remaining within TOS -- by acknowledging all reasonable causes, not just the one you want to be true.

SACD Ripping

Reply #60
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It's possible to comment on what you hear, while remaining within TOS -- by acknowledging all reasonable causes, not just the one you want to be true.
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Interesting idea. I'm not sure why I should desperately want more expensive equipment to be better... if it wasn't one could save the money and spend it on more discs, concerts, eating out, etc.

I tend to take the view that a £2,000 system is almost (I did qualify that with 'almost') certain to be better than a £1,000 system while I'd be far more cautious about a £20,000 system compared to a £10,000 one (which I'm not ever likely to be able to afford and would feel very guilty if I bought anyway, considering the amount of starving/suffering people in the world).

SACD hasn't been marketed very strongly in the UK and none of my friends seem remotely interested in it, so there's little for me to be gained by bragging about the fact that I have a 'better' system than them.

One of my friends had surround sound equipment lying around at his house for a year, still waiting to be connected up (mainly for films on DVD, I imagine).

I'm a bit puzzled, Krabapple, about why you would buy a second SACD player if you didn't think the format offered some improvement over conventional CD.

Be happy.

SACD Ripping

Reply #61
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It's possible to comment on what you hear, while remaining within TOS -- by acknowledging all reasonable causes, not just the one you want to be true.
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Interesting idea. I'm not sure why I should desperately want more expensive equipment to be better... if it wasn't one could save the money and spend it on more discs, concerts, eating out, etc.

I tend to take the view that a £2,000 system is almost (I did qualify that with 'almost') certain to be better than a £1,000 system


I would not, unless I knew how the money had been allocated.  Was the bulk of the difference spent on loudspeakers,  or on a CD player?  One is likely to make a signficant audible difference....the other, not.


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I'm a bit puzzled, Krabapple, about why you would buy a second SACD player if you didn't think the format offered some improvement over conventional CD.



I bought a second player (and sold the first) because it offered ilink connectivity, which greatly simplifies bass management and digital processing.
I bought the first player because an SACD/DVD-A release is pretty much always a *remastered* version, and *that*'s quite likely to mean an audible difference from (and hopefully an improvement on) a previous CD, since to tout the 'hi rez' sound, the makers often seek out the best sources, do careful mastering etc.  SACD's for example, can't be dynamically compressed during mastering, the way CDs (and DVD-A) can be. That's simply part of its Orange book spec.  (Though it's possible to simply transcode a compressed PCM master into DSD..no improvement there).  The surround remixes are another draw.

See what I mean about possibilities?  It wasn't the *format* that's the draw for me, it's the possibility of a better mastering, something that is NOT format-dependent.  I highly suspect that if the digital masters prepared for SACD and DVD-A two-channel release were simply downsampled and dithered properly to CD, you  or I would not be able to tell the difference.

SACD Ripping

Reply #62
Nitpick: Orange Book or Scarlet Book?

SACD Ripping

Reply #63
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Nitpick: Orange Book or Scarlet Book?
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Scarlet. Orange is for CD-R and CD-RW.

SACD Ripping

Reply #64
hm, what about bringing the discussion about dvd-a vs cdda to and end by listening by yourself?

i still have the the 24/96 file from this thread. someone with more experience could downsample it to 16/44, so that people, who a interested in this, can listen to themselves.

it seems as if the file is not hosted anymore. if there is enough demand, i'm willing to upload it somewhere or seed it with bittorrent.
member of the "i have a cat-avatar"-group ;)

SACD Ripping

Reply #65
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hm, what about bringing the discussion about dvd-a vs cdda to and end by listening by yourself?

i still have the the 24/96 file from this thread. someone with more experience could downsample it to 16/44, so that people, who a interested in this, can listen to themselves.

it seems as if the file is not hosted anymore. if there is enough demand, i'm willing to upload it somewhere or seed it with bittorrent.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=333411"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


This is a very dangerous field. You are trying to convert 96 kHz sample rated files down to 44k1. As far as I know, this cannot be done without loss. So, the outcome of this test must be: dvd-a is better than cdda. Which is not fair becase the conversion is not without flaws.

Regards,
Jacco
Logical reasoning brings you from a to b, imagination brings you everywhere.

SACD Ripping

Reply #66
I agree that a 96->44 conversion necessarily entails some loss (obviously in the lowpass but also in the choice of lowpass and resampling scheme, and requantization etc). But detecting a difference between 96 and 44 ought to be equivalent to detecting a difference between different downsampling schemes, since fundamentally you're listening to the same things (HF behavior mostly), which are varying between all of them.

SACD Ripping

Reply #67
where is the difference if we convert this file to 44.1 khz, or a studio?

in a studio the tracks are recorded in 24/96 or even 192. in the end they have to be converted to 44.1.
member of the "i have a cat-avatar"-group ;)

SACD Ripping

Reply #68
The only appropriate way to listen to the 24/96 file is with 24/96 equipment. You defeat the purpose of testing whether or not you can hear the difference above 16/44.1 by downsampling the file.

SACD Ripping

Reply #69
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Nitpick: Orange Book or Scarlet Book?
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oops -- Scarlet.  Orange is recordable CD.  My mistake.

SACD Ripping

Reply #70
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The only appropriate way to listen to the 24/96 file is with 24/96 equipment. You defeat the purpose of testing whether or not you can hear the difference above 16/44.1 by downsampling the file.
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I don't see how , since the object is to test 24/96 version to the 16/44 version for audible difference.

I believe my soundcard (M Audio 2496) supports both, so I could ABX them on my computer.

My AV receiver also supports both but I'm not sure how I'd feed it the data -- I suppose I could run a digital line out of the soundcard....but I'd have to do the listening at the computer anyway, in order to run the ABX software.  Maybe via USB from my laptop...


I'd be happy to give it a try either way.  I would downsample/dither the hi-rez file using Audition (triangular dither, not sure if noise shaping would be needed).  Only problem might be that Audition doesn't support 24 bit files -- I''llhave convert it to 32 bit upon import, then dither down to 16.

SACD Ripping

Reply #71
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hm, what about bringing the discussion about dvd-a vs cdda to and end by listening by yourself?

i still have the the 24/96 file from this thread. someone with more experience could downsample it to 16/44, so that people, who a interested in this, can listen to themselves.

it seems as if the file is not hosted anymore. if there is enough demand, i'm willing to upload it somewhere or seed it with bittorrent.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=333411"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


This is a very dangerous field. You are trying to convert 96 kHz sample rated files down to 44k1. As far as I know, this cannot be done without loss.


Of course -- but the question is whether what's lost is necessarily *audible*. 

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So, the outcome of this test must be: dvd-a is better than cdda.


Only if you can hear it.

SACD Ripping

Reply #72
Hi krabapple,

as you have similar equipment like me, 24/96 soundcard and capable amp/receiver, I can only recommend you, to connect the soundcard and the amp digitally via spdif, optical or electrical.
Good for normal listening,
and you can even carry out abx, if you want. Eg. with somebody, who helps you at the PC.

SACD Ripping

Reply #73
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where is the difference if we convert this file to 44.1 khz, or a studio?

in a studio the tracks are recorded in 24/96 or even 192. in the end they have to be converted to 44.1.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=333417"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


  It would have been smarter to record it in 44k1 in the first place, or a multiple of this.

Regards,
Jacco
Logical reasoning brings you from a to b, imagination brings you everywhere.

SACD Ripping

Reply #74
my webspace-provider is currently doing a server-maintenance. i don't know how long it will take, but i think i can upload it in the next days.

maybe someone has a more reliable webspace where i can upload the file
member of the "i have a cat-avatar"-group ;)