High resolution Audio discussion | 24 Bit | 32 Bit | DSD/CD/SACD/Blu ray audio

[alamakazim]

Speaking of mastering, there's an album which imho is very well mastered(reminds me alot of K2 mastered disc)


Olivia 2013 Audiophile Selection

this album got mix reviews

it seems like old veteran audiophile didn't like this remastered disc

 

[dqwong]

this album got mix reviews

it seems like old veteran audiophile didn't like this remastered disc

I loaded the original fly me to the moon and the remastered song on to a sound editor on my PC. Didn't look like they did any kind of normalization/dynamic compression.

As for subjective listening, I find the remaster sounds less edgy(more analog-ish), with a small hint of air. The difference is very subtle, you won't notice unless you listen critically.

 

[weng]

the so called remastered effect issit applicable to normal 16bit redbook playback or is on the hi-res layer?

 

[dqwong]

the so called remastered effect issit applicable to normal 16bit redbook playback or is on the hi-res layer?

1)All redbook standard compact disc has only 1 media(data) Layer.

SACD disc can have two different media(data) layers on the same surface.

Some SACD music albums are only "DSD only" which is only playable on SACD Players while some album offer a second media layer for normal CD Players to play back PCM Data.

SACD can be also dual sided(top and bottom) which allows you to flip them like old laser disc/cassette tape Side A and B.


2) Let me explain what CD audio remastering is, by using color/photography/photoshop file as analogy:

Remastering sound is like photography where you take the old raw kodak 35mm photo film, rescan the photo using the latest scanner "64bit color" technology then using photoshop in High Dynamic Range mode to edit photo(apply filters and effects) then in the end, using clever color dithering tricks to make the resulting 16bit color bitmap file look nicer rather than just saving the file via bit reduction.

Best example is black and white fax machine where you have only two colors to play with but how do you make images appear better? Use dithering tricks:

e.g. gif is limited to just 256colors, but with dithering, it looks pretty close to original source

In audio remastering, usually it means they(might) use better studio audio equipment to either recapture or retune/rework(remove noise or reduce bad microphones buzzing effect or increase volume) but the end result is still 16bit Linear PCM 44.1KHz format on your regular Philips Redbook Compact Disc. Remastered/Rereleased Mainstream albums usually sound worse than the original version since the so-called #%@% "audio engineers" usually just normalize/compress the loudness so it sound more "better"/"nicer" on regular joe's monster low-fi beats/earpods

as explained here:

There's also JVC XRCD which is a non-mainstream audio process(one disc cost about S$40-60), physical disc are of better quality(much heavier and better plastic):

JVC uses advanced dither algorithms (though without noise shaping) in their proprietary K2 technology to transfer the analog or digital source to physical disc. The company claims to have studied how inferior CD-remastering techniques degrade the master tape sound and strives to minimize this loss.

If analog, the source material is first converted to digital via JVC's patented K2 20-bit or 24-bit analog-to-digital converter.
The musical information is next encoded on a magneto-optical disk for transport to JVC's Yokohama manufacturing plant, where jitter reduction is applied. The musical signal on the disk is down-converted to 16-bit through a K2 "super-coding" process. This 16-bit signal is EFM-encoded before going through a proprietary "Extended Pit Cut" DVD K2 laser technology to produce a glass master. This optimizes the linear velocity of the glass master, giving precise pit lengths to eliminate time jitters, controlled by an extremely precise Rubidium clock. All CDs are finally stamped directly from this glass master.
XRCD2 and XRCD24 are improved versions of the original XRCD process. XRCD2 is the first to record to a magneto-optical disk via the digital K2 regenerator, while XRCD24 upgrades the original music signal's bit depth signal from 20 to 24 bits.

Extended Resolution Compact Disc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Whether you can hear a difference between (properly)remastered disc and original disc? The answer is: depends on the color of your ears(golden or not) and how "good" your equipment is.

 

[dqwong]

audio dithering explained:

 

[weng]

Thanks for the info. So this olivia cd is not a sacd?

 

[86technie]

I loaded the original fly me to the moon and the remastered song on to a sound editor on my PC. Didn't look like they did any kind of normalization/dynamic compression.

As for subjective listening, I find the remaster sounds less edgy(more analog-ish), with a small hint of air. The difference is very subtle, you won't notice unless you listen critically.

Olivia audiophile album also test the vocal strength of your headphone
or speaker.
Playing on my Sony MDR-1MK II vocal is clear and natural just like
the recording.
I don't own the original version so I can't compare is there any difference
but all I know it is re mastered closed to the original recording.

 

[86technie]

Thanks for the info. So this olivia cd is not a sacd?

Unfortunately no.

 

[86technie]

Blu ray audio CDs are slowly rolling out and I just brought
Maroon 5 V Blu ray.
Playing this on my Onkyo HTS system is much listening to
a live concert.
If I want to put on my Walkman I might as well buy the digital
from HDtracks instead of ripping as ripping isn't that simple
for blu ray.

 

[dqwong]

Check this out:

original:

audiophile mastered:

 

[koroshiya8]

The OPPO BDP-103D can play SACD... has anyone tried the audio from this blu ray player? Thinking of pairing with HA-1 for both movies and SACD...

 

[dqwong]

This site sells HD chinese audio:
Hifitrack.com

 

[86technie]

This site sells HD chinese audio:
Hifitrack.com

In my listening test, some tracks there the mastering isn't that
good as compare with HDtracks.
I brought Kay Tse album, some tracks are not pleasant to hear
as the mid are rather harsh.

 

[dqwong]

This is something technical and worth reading(if you have alot of time), it explains why DSD/SACD is sonically flawed vs PCM:

Digital System Wars(many pages):
Page Title

First, consider transient attack sounds, such as the instant that a triangle is first struck. This only occurs once, so a digital system must have good enough handling to track this single sharp curve in the road. DVD-A reproduces this triangle attack transient better than any other digital system, correctly and cleanly capturing the "t" sound at the beginning of the triangle's "tinggg". But DSD misses this "t" attack altogether (there's no repetition to average), and it thereby makes the triangle ting sound too soft, like a "dinggg" instead of the correct "tinggg". All DSD does capture well is the continuing and repeating after-ringing "inggg" sound of the triangle, after the attack transient has passed. Thus, from DVD-A, a triangle properly sounds like a "tinggg", but DSD-SACD softens this sound to a "dinggg".

Second, consider the individual transient spikes of noise that constitute a vocal sibilant. Each individual spike is separated from and is different from its neighbors. That's what makes a vocal sibilant sound real, like a jet of escaping steam (as discussed in the article above). Because each spike is different, it is not an identical repetition of its predecessor, so each is a non-repetitive transient that must be tracked individually, just as each curve in a mountain road is different from the previous curve and must be tracked individually. DVD-A does this superbly, and thus reproduces very realistic sounding vocals. But DSD-SACD, relying on averaging, treats all these individual spikes as if they were the same repeating sound, thereby making the vocal sibilant less real, more homogenized, more generic (everyone's sibilant sounds different, depending for example on their tooth pattern, but DSD-SACD erases these individual differences). Then, to make matters even worse, DSD-SACD fails to track the sharp curves of each separated spike in the musical waveform of the vocal sibilant. The averaging function, on which DSD-SACD relies, instead negotiates an averaged path, which fails to reach the apexes of each sharp curve, the peaks of each transient spike, and which, yet worse, fills in the valleys of relative intertransient silence between peak spikes. This relative intertransient silence is all that keeps the individual spikes separated from each other, so DSD-SACD blends the spikes together into a different mushy waveform, which sounds like "shshsh" instead of the original "ssssss".

Third, consider the individual transient spikes of a cymbal's sounds. Any musician can tell you that cymbals (both orchestral and jazz) have very complex sounds, so much so that each brand of cymbal and indeed each individual cymbal has a very distinct sonic personality, as distinct as human voices. Scientists since Lord Rayleigh have known that metal discs have very complex vibrational modes, thus producing very complex sounds. And each cymbal can produce a wide range of complex sounds, whether shimmering or crashing, or being struck (by various objects with various shapes and materials, from wire brushes to wooden drumsticks). The complex sounds of a cymbal arithmetically add at every instant, and even interact at every instant, to produce a musical waveform that is constantly changing and so complex that statistically it would never repeat itself. This is the musical opposite of a clarinet, which essentially produces a simple sine wave pattern that does nothing but repeat itself. Thus, a digital system that relies on averaging a repeating musical waveform cannot use this technique to capture the sound of cymbals accurately. That's why DVD-A, a PCM system, can capture the sound of cymbals so superbly, while DSD-SACD, relying on averaging, turns a cymbal sound into a mushy porridge of sound.

 

[FatalethaL]

24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded --- Head-Fi


Something worth spending a little time reading (10mins).