So your trying to tell me that you can take a music file that was converted to 320mbps MP3 from CD, Vinyl or whatever higher bitrate format it originally came from, and that you can then take that MP3 file and restore it back to it's original content (Be it CD or Vinyl or whatever other higher bit format it came from)?
It's a different medium. That's all there is to it. Makes no sense whatsoever to discuss it in a better / worse terms. In audiophile implementations it turns all rock bands into wedding bands. Old electronic music sounds surprisingly good on vinyl. More money you throw at vinyl more disappointing it becomes unless you throw a wagon on $$$ . So it's either cheap and joyously cheerful or bloody hell expensive and great. The medium area and those sorry idler toys is a looser field
So you think all levels of digital music are the same. Be they 128kbps, 256kbps, 320kpbs MP3 or CD or SACD or DVD-Audio or DSD?
I don't. I shouldn't have posted. It struck me as another discussion about the superiority of vinyl over digital . And yeah Mp3 is perfectly fine for 90% of music and the same amount of listeners. All the best
You've said several times that data is compressed on CD. Can you explain this? What kind of compression?
(to be fair and honest, I do NOT believe data is compressed on the standard "Red Book" CD.)
There is also a question of using lesser than $100k vinyl rig to do the transfers. It's not a digital where zero is zero and one is one ...🙂.
There is no data compression in the usual sense, but CD has bandwidth limitations (in the original sense of the word) and quantization effects. If I understand it correctly, that is what JcTcom means.
Ok let's put it this way. The same album on an SACD, DVD-A, or Blu-Ray Audio disc in PCM Format @ 24Bit / 96kHz will take up anywhere between 800MB to 1.5GB with an average of around 1.1GB. That is the true uncompressed version of the album. Some might even say that it is the 192kHz (1.5 to 3GB in size) or the DSD (2 to 6GB in size) that are the "Uncompressed" versions. These are the files sizes that are being worked with during recording, mastering, mixing etc..... In order to fit these final albums onto a CD they have to be shrunk (Compressed) down to 16Bit / 44.1kHz to fit onto a 700MB CD. The format was chosen in order to fit it onto the CD.
Oh. Is that a bad thing? I haven't actually looked at any other "Introduction" posts so not sure how they should go. Should I have started a different thread or something? Admittedly my introduction started a bit hot in the first place lol.
MP3 is what's called "lossy encoded," which refers to lossy data compression. In that case information is removed from the middle of the audio band and everywhere else they can. The idea is they hope you won't notice or won't care information is missing.
OTOH, CD is not lossy encoded. It is limited to a frequency range not exceeding 20kHz. It also is limited to 16-bits of dynamic range, however with proper dither the effective bit-depth can be closer to 18-bits (with the lower bits below the noise floor but still audible; not too unlike some vinyl playback noise except not as bad as vinyl). CD and other audio formats such hi-res digital, and vinyl for that matter, are subject to dynamics compression during mixing and mastering. Dynamics processing is extensively used in the artistic production of much of recorded music. A dynamics compressor can also be used to produce dynamics effects that sound more like expansion, such as to enhance transients.
Dynamics compression is not what is considered to be "lossy compression." So, CD is not like MP3.
Regarding the process of connecting the dots (the sample points containing audio signal amplitude values), there is no guessing. There is only one possible correct solution.
How dacs lose information that is encoded onto a CD is a complex and not uncontroversial subject better discussed in a dedicated thread.
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But the fact is that the final master of most albums will not fit natively onto a CD. They have to be reduced in size in order to make it fit. That is the definition of compression. Granted it is not as drastic as going to MP3 or other so called "Lossy Formats". But just because someone at some point deemed CD's as "Lossless" does not make it so.
If that were the case there would be no need for SACD's, DVD-A's, and Blu-Ray Audio (Granted with Blu-Ray audio you often get quite a lot of additional material including different versions of the album etc...).
Are there actually people here that have an original CD of an album and one of the high-res formats listed above of the same album and you don't hear a difference between them? You don't hear more detail and nuance? That detail and nuance was taken from the original masters and was removed in order to fit the music onto a CD. (Edit: I should add I guess in most cases. I have heard of some poorly mastered Hi-Def versions. But I haven't encountered them myself yet).
Some CDs played back on a really good dac sound better than the SACD rips of the same music. SACD is DSD64, BTW.
Also have some CD and 24/192 versions of the same music here. Yes, the 24/192 is slightly better in terms of bit depth. IOW, some very low level details are slightly better down around -90dBFS and lower. Also, dynamics processing used in mastering is a little different. That said, in most cases 24/192 does not have significantly more ultrasonic content coming out of the dac, since most dacs have a hardware filter after the dac chip output and that filter is set to work for CD audio.
Also, it may be possible before too long to playback SACD rips to sound as good as well recorded CDs. How can that even be possible that SACD is no better than CD, and CD can even be better?
Its all in the dac. The dac I am using now converts all PCM audio, including CD, to DSD256 or else to DSD512. (SACD is only DSD64.) The conversion is done in FPGA or in HQ Player software. As soon as we can get SACD resampled to DSD512 then it will probably sound better too. Lots of dacs are oversampling in some way, and this happens to be a very good way of doing it.
The catch is that dacs need two clocks, and DSD dacs tend to be sensitive to jitter. So, it happens that each of the clocks for this dac are not low cost.
Also have some CD and 24/192 versions of the same music here. Yes, the 24/192 is slightly better in terms of bit depth. IOW, some very low level details are slightly better down around -90dBFS and lower. Also, dynamics processing used in mastering is a little different. That said, in most cases 24/192 does not have significantly more ultrasonic content coming out of the dac, since most dacs have a hardware filter after the dac chip output and that filter is set to work for CD audio.
Also, it may be possible before too long to playback SACD rips to sound as good as well recorded CDs. How can that even be possible that SACD is no better than CD, and CD can even be better?
Its all in the dac. The dac I am using now converts all PCM audio, including CD, to DSD256 or else to DSD512. (SACD is only DSD64.) The conversion is done in FPGA or in HQ Player software. As soon as we can get SACD resampled to DSD512 then it will probably sound better too. Lots of dacs are oversampling in some way, and this happens to be a very good way of doing it.
The catch is that dacs need two clocks, and DSD dacs tend to be sensitive to jitter. So, it happens that each of the clocks for this dac are not low cost.
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I would like to add that the process of "Reducing them in size" is the conversion to 16Bit / 44.1kHz from their original and usually much higher master bitrates.
Not sure what you mean here? I already have everyone of my SACDs ripped to DSF files and play them back and they sound much better than the original CDs. Especially if I play them directly to my Yamaha RX-A2A DLNA via network and it receives them as DSD and then sends them to the speakers (Which I guess is converting them to Analog).
It doesn't matter what your DAC is upconverting them to. It can't add information that isn't there. You can't turn a standard resolution CD into a high resolution audio using the CD as the source. You have to go to the master recordings to get the missing information.
There is no "need" for high (as in higher than CD) definition formats. Hi-Fi brands are in the business of selling devices, which often involves convincing you that you have needs you didn't know you had and providing a fix in the form of taking your money in exchange for their shiny new thing. Not that they were very successful with those formats, mind you.