What is the preferred recording format, WAV or AIFF?

[stubbsonic]

Those are great points, FM. And some of them have been proven.

I don't think anyone will argue the quality difference between 16 bits and 24 bits. Though some might not be able to blind-test, it is heard in stereo field, reverb tails, and other qualities. When I've used a plug-in to change bit depth, the change is dramatic at lower bit depths and increasingly more subtle above 16 bits-- but that is also related to the quality of the conversion filter and dithering. As for sample rates, having worked with samplers quite a bit, I get to hear the results of higher rates in terms of what it permits. The fact that the quality of the sound continues to improve up to 44.1 and then subtly up to 48 and beyond-- brings me to my previous point-- a little overkill is a good thing.

The null test is a good one, but would have to be a post converter experiment, as an in-box null doesn't account for how converters, even good ones, might handle sample rates differently. I'm not making that argument, but one could.

The point you make about low frequencies is also interesting. Low vibrations that you don't hear as tones with your ears, you can still sense with your ears as pressure differences, and feel with your skin and other tissues. They are part of our experience of sound even if they don't register as such.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

If it sounds good, it is good. If it needs super high resolution to sound good, then the music itself is probably as interesting as watching the dials flip around...

[mikehalloran]

Dang, I forgot my cable elevators.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Dang, I forgot my cable elevators.

Oh man, I LOVE having my cables elevated. It doesn't sound better but it sure feels good.

[FMiguelez]

The null test is a good one, but would have to be a post converter experiment, as an in-box null doesn't account for how converters, even good ones, might handle sample rates differently. I'm not making that argument, but one could.

Totally agreed. It would have to be setup correctly. I would hire a trio of MIT and CalTech amazing technicians to set it up properly. A DOUBLE BLIND test.

For such test, besides being setup perfectly, we could offer 1 million dollars to whomever demonstrates this SR issue once and for all. But then, I bet we would experience something similar to what James Randy has seen (his 1,000,000 dollar ready-to-be-given check remains suspiciously unclaimed after years)...

The point you make about low frequencies is also interesting. Low vibrations that you don't hear as tones with your ears, you can still sense with your ears as pressure differences, and feel with your skin and other tissues. They are part of our experience of sound even if they don't register as such.

Exactly! Isn't that what a lot of people claim about those higher frequencies?
There may be a lot of interesting stuff all the way down there.

What is most amusing to me, is that, on one side, we're pressured to use these absurd high SRs, based on not much more than mere "feeling" or personal anecdotes... And these high SRs must be SR converted to something lower anyway at some point... Doesn't this introduce more artefacts than what was presumably gained in the first place? And, on the other hand, most people now buy their music in iTunes or download it from YouTube, to be played through their earbuds while they ride the subway...

How many people listen to music in, not a perfect environment, but at least somewhere decent, like in our own studios?

I predict Apple will start reselling their full catalogue at higher SRs in a few years (and probably non-lossy files too), once they have finished selling us their stuff in the current AAC format.
And people will probably buy it again... And they will TELL themselves they CAN HEAR big differences to justify their latest purchase to themselves... Ah,,, The brain... What a wonderful thing it is!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I guess it all comes down to your definition of music... (or lack thereof).

[FMiguelez]

I guess it all comes down to your definition of music... (or lack thereof).

Whatever it is, they will find a way to sell it, for sure

The point you make about low frequencies is also interesting. Low vibrations that you don't hear as tones with your ears, you can still sense with your ears as pressure differences, and feel with your skin and other tissues. They are part of our experience of sound even if they don't register as such.

I am thinking now that if nature made animals evolve in ways that they use their amazing hearing to have a better chance to survive, and they use ultra high or ultra low frequency information for this purpose (like some species of snakes do, for instance), then we have a great biological reason to suppose that, in principle, WE could also have that capability indeed...

So I suppose the better question would be:
Can human brains extract useful information from such high and weak frequencies?
Would we have BENEFITED from evolving such a feature?

I doubt it. In nature, everything has a cost, and I'm not clear as to how we would've benefited from hearing and using information from all the way up there (in such case, the LOW freq information would probably be more useful).
It would probably have to be at the expense of something else, and it doesn't seem worth it for our species.

How would hearing those high freqs help us (as opposed to other non-human animals) survive better? It seems that nature gave us a good-enough hearing sense, and it used its resources for more important things, such as bigger brains excelling at other things (or adequate enough for most every-day things).



I don't know... Let's just make the friggin' double blind test

And talking about non-biological cost-benefit... doesn't that also apply in a pure business sense as well?
At what point are we starting to throw money and resources away to gain such little supposed benefits, and how can we know the difference?
ARE there any REAL measurable advantages?

The market place (people who buy music and people who STEAL it ) seems to be saying NO WAY! Don't waste your money or resources on that...
Now, the other market, the one that caters to us musicians, "curiously" seems to be saying: "Yes of course! Give me your money because I claim great things".

Just saying.

Sorry about my rant, guys.
I do have a weird fascination with human bias. And I also did have 10 minutes to kill and couldn't help myself.

[/Rant over]

[Henry Robinett]

No one can demonstrate except for your OWN EARS. This is what drives me crazy about these debates. I couldn't care less what other people think. I'm not trying to assert or PROVE anything to anybody. The PROOF was in the pudding for me. I don't care who believes it or doesn't. Music is subjective. The experience of it is subjective. There isn't any kind of white paper that's going to prove or disprove anything for me.


All the best,
http://www.henryrobinett.com
Check out my latest CD on iTunes.
I Have Known Mountains by Henry Robinett
https://itun.es/us/pi6C_

[stubbsonic]

If it sounds good, it is good. If it needs super high resolution to sound good, then the music itself is probably as interesting as watching the dials flip around...

The quality of the music and the quality of the audio do go hand in hand, but as we all know, we can have incredible music with poor fidelity, and the best fidelity but not such great music. I say they go hand-in-hand, but they are separate challenges.

No one can demonstrate except for your OWN EARS. This is what drives me crazy about these debates. I couldn't care less what other people think. I'm not trying to assert or PROVE anything to anybody. The PROOF was in the pudding for me. I don't care who believes it or doesn't. Music is subjective. The experience of it is subjective. There isn't any kind of white paper that's going to prove or disprove anything for me.

It's not all about what I can hear. I have younger clients, and they have younger listeners; all of whom can hear higher tones than me. I'm not going to settle for a sample rate of 44.1 or LOWER just because my "OWN EARS" can't hear much of a difference. I know that's not the point you were making, but it could be turned around. Make the best sounding record you can, make better sounding archive masters if you can.

You wouldn't settle for a master that had a 24K tone banging away -- even if your own ears couldn't hear it. Someone might hear it, and that should be reason enough to fix it.

Disk space is relatively cheap. Archive with 96/24 masters if the project might be revisited in the future, or if the music & performances warrant treating them with a little respect.

[Henry Robinett]

But an audio engineer, composer? Musician HAS to rely on his own ears. You can't mix it if you can't hear it. You can use metering to help, input from others, but I have to use my own ears and my own taste. If I can no longer hear I've got to let someone else do it.


All the best,
www.henryrobinett.com
Check out my latest CD on iTunes.
I Have Known Mountains by Henry Robinett
https://itun.es/us/pi6C_

[bayswater]

Can we at least agree on cancelling? If 2 files cancel digitally, (everything else being equal), they are, by definition, IDENTICAL. No gremlins, no magic, no fairy dust. They are identical.

Cancelling wouldn't help us here. The listening is always done in analog, so there will be error in the signal, and you'll never get a zero result even if the source digital files are identical (which they aren't in the first place because they are recorded at different rates.) Cancelling doesn't convince everyone anyway. You'll still come across those who argue that identical files can produce different sounds.

We need repeatable, public, double blind tests with proper controls, listener sampling, randomized orders, etc. There also has to be a third "blind": you can't have all the listeners in the same room at the same time.

[FMiguelez]

No one can demonstrate except for your OWN EARS.

And that's exactly why we should not blindly trust our own ears in that respect (SRs).

Optics plays ALL kinds of tricks on our brains too. None of that is real, is simply an artefact for our much less-than-perfect senses. Same applies to most other things.

I, for one, REFUSE to cheat and trick myself. I always like to know what's REALLY going on despite human bias (selective and confirmation bias).

Who here hasn't tweaked a bypassed EQ and be happy, only to discover this little detail afterwards?


Some people SWEAR they've been kidnaped by aliens who probe their behinds. Some people swear they can hear big differences where there are none...

Everyone has the right to believe anything they want (up to a point, of course). But it won't make it true or real.
And if this doesn't matter to a person, then the conversation is essentially over, as one can not have a conversation with someone who doesn't value reality or facts and is content to shrug it off because they think they're special and hear special things because their ears tells them.
Schizophrenics also swear they hear voices in their heads, and they are as real to them as you are of your image on a mirror.
All this is measurable in principle, so it can't be that hard to know for sure, for those of us who want to know what's really going on.


I will ALWAYS challenge extraordinary unsubstantiated claims, where ever and whenever I find them, and I don't really care if that makes some people uncomfortable.

And no. I'm NOT saying you guys have schizophrenia.

[Henry Robinett]

Oh no. I do trust my own ears. I think it's a mistake to try and prove scientifically what your subjective sense knows. I think what tends to happen is one questions oneself. One doubts. One invalidates ones ability. In the arts this is death.


All the best,
www.henryrobinett.com
Check out my latest CD on iTunes.
I Have Known Mountains by Henry Robinett
https://itun.es/us/pi6C_

[FMiguelez]

Can we at least agree on cancelling? If 2 files cancel digitally, (everything else being equal), they are, by definition, IDENTICAL. No gremlins, no magic, no fairy dust. They are identical.

Cancelling wouldn't help us here. The listening is always done in analog, so there will be error in the signal, and you'll never get a zero result even if the source digital files are identical (which they aren't in the first place because they are recorded at different rates.) Cancelling doesn't convince everyone anyway. You'll still come across those who argue that identical files can produce different sounds.

We need repeatable, public, double blind tests with proper controls, listener sampling, randomized orders, etc. There also has to be a third "blind": you can't have all the listeners in the same room at the same time.

I'm confident someone could design a test miminizing the issues you pointed out... including what you recommended in your last paragraph.

It may not be a totally perfect test, but its results would still be totally valuable. Much weirder things would be true before these tiny analog issues would turn the test upside down, yes?

And I've heard people arguing they can still hear differences in cancelling files. Why should I believe them? The burden of proof is on them. And their arguments, the ones I've seen, are downright silly.

[FMiguelez]

Oh no. I do trust my own ears. I think it's a mistake to try and prove scientifically what your subjective sense knows. I think what tends to happen is one questions oneself. One doubts. One invalidates ones ability. In the arts this is death.

I'm not saying not to trust our ears. I'm saying not to BLINDLY trust them and assuming everything we perceive is real and accurate every time.

How many times have we spent hours tweaking some EQ, and love the results, only to wake up the next morning to find out it sounds like grosse scheisse?

I've read that what you JUST ATE for lunch may have an impact on the way you hear and perceive things, at least momentarily... So how do you know it's not your lunch, but a high SR, responsible for what you perceive to be different? Or changes in your blood pressure, which have an impact on our hearing mechanisms?

We must trust our ears because that's how we make decisions as musicians. But those decisions are not always the best or clear cut good. I think it's good to be aware of these things, and never take our senses too seriously.

Remember how easily we ALL can be confused and tricked by our own senses!