What's considered "Hi-Res"?

[twoengine]

I see a lot of audio products as of late that are advertised as "Hi-Res", DAC's, headphones, etc. What exactly is Hi-Res? Is there a universal standard that manufacturers adhere to? Or is Hi-Res more of a marketing ploy than a specific specification?

Does a product that has been branded as Hi-Res sound better than non-Hi-Res products?

Thanks in advance.

 

[KeninDC]

 

[DaveVoorhis]

I see a lot of audio products as of late that are advertised as "Hi-Res", DAC's, headphones, etc. What exactly is Hi-Res? Is there a universal standard that manufacturers adhere to? Or is Hi-Res more of a marketing ploy than a specific specification?

Depends on the context. If it's a digital device, "hi-res" usually means it's better than CD resolution of 16 bits at 44.1khz. If it's an analog device like headphones, it's just marketese.

 

[ev13wt]

If one wishes to see it as marketing, so people buy new gear and music, it is quite easy.

As an end user delivery format , the Nyquist-Shannon theorem shows us that "CD quality" 44.1/16 uncompressed is able to fully all reproduce / frequencies humans can hear. All humans.

As such, while there are valid uses in a studio for higher bit rates et cetera, any end user format "better" that CD is basically, well, useless.

But marketable. Very, very marketable.
Easy to understand stair step graphics, mixed with artists swearing they hear a difference, mixed with competency problem of most consumers to understand "high resolution" correctly -
they mix it up with HD marketing, to the usual expensive = better.

Happy companies that are doing pretty well.



Or, the studios could just skip all the crap and give users limited (eq, gain) access to an instance of the master mix and a button to fire the original sound engineer.

Because the recording is what makes the high fidelty, and the monkey mixing and usually mastering it. The end.
Vinyl, a format technically inferior to digital in every way, can totally outclass a digital rig ANY day of the week, depending on the quality of the recording itself.

If we got this far, and there is an artist willing to put up with it all and is actually good, we have great music.

From any delivery format.

 

[evsentry3]

One day EV13, your going to actually push the Play button on a good recording and find out just how foolish you look. All these times, like this, you try to show just how much smarter you are, that nothing more can be heard than Redbook has to offer and your just so wrong.

You need to, instead of mouthing these same words at every opporrunity, set down and listen. You could, if you wanted to, find out just how wrong you are. Are you up to it? Or do you want to just keep adding to your endless pile of misses?

Take a good quality recording of high rez and down sample it to your end all be all Redbook and then listen to both. It's easy and will tell the truth. If you want the truth.

There is so much more available than just average. Sure you can find material that extra depth, width and realness makes no difference on. But there is so much material out there that the extra information can add so much more to the experience. It's too bad you've been missing out on this for so long! But it's really sad when you spend so much time telling others that it isn't there, when it's right under your nose and available to enrich you with so much more. Why cling to getting less? Your missing out on so much dude.

I think I'll go enjoy some of it now. And from time to time set here reading you endlessly trying to tell others they can't hear what they enjoy so much! You enjoy that little bit less now...

EV3

 

[restorer-john]

It's an arbitrary line, drawn by, and moved by, marketers, manufacturers, the audio press and poor old audiophiles who fall for whatever the latest 'game changer' or 'paradigm shift' they have been told they must have. I don't subscribe to the term at all- it is BS.

The fact is, the microgroove was a massive increase in resolution over the 78 which was a massive increase in resolution over the wire recorder. Just as digital was a massive increase over analogue cassette/vinyl/open reel. Resolution is the ability to 'resolve' a waveform. Accurate resolution is another story altogether.

16/44 is not the line that divides High Resolution from Low Resolution and to suggest or believe something that simplistic, is plain uninformed and stupid. Compare it to a DSLR, with its sensor size in pixels- at what point does a DSLR go from low resolution to high resolution, considering there are many other factors at play other than the container size for the data?

CD can be high resolution, just as vinyl and tape can- it's all relative and dependent on way more than a simple sampling frequency/bit depth, line in the sand.


Think about it.

 

[E-Stat]

You cannot address any problem to be solved until you understand the true nature of the challenges presented.

Quoting Nyquist and the theoretical S/N of 16 bit content are two wonderful examples of common canards which illustrate my observation.

To answer the OPs question, I agree with the RIAAs definition.

 

[restorer-john]

...To answer the OPs question, I agree with the RIAAs definition....

"lossless audio capable of reproducing the full spectrum of sound from recordings which have been mastered from better than CD quality (48kHz/20-bit or higher) music sources which represent what the artists, producers and engineers originally intended."

Which basically says the master file should be 20/48 or higher. The distributed file could be of a lesser resolution than a master and still buy/wear the logo (ie they could downsample DSD or 24/196 to 20/48 or above and it gets the logo). It is a loose, poor definition that essentially means absolutely nothing. It is geared towards revenue raising in the form of license fees for logo use.

Consider any clown with a laptop and and a sound card can do 24/96 and above, in 2017. That definition makes pretty much all Garage Band creations High Res!

I know you know that is utter BS- there is WAY more to resolution than the bit depth and sampling rate.

 

[mfrench]

Compared to my 8-Ball AM radio, and, my mono cassette recordings of its speaker, trying to record my favorite songs of 1969,... the first time I heard stereo cassette, and dubs from line-level connections, that was high-resolution.
The first time that I heard DAT instead of my live concert cassette masters, that was high-resolution.
DAT was a grey market item at that time, and an expensive transport system, so the DAT masters were played back to VHS HiFi for playback. That was affordable high-resolution.
Then came the era of the pro-grade audio CD mastering decks, so we could run DAT to CD, and stay digital. That was high-resolution.
Then came 24bit PCM, and, Direct Stream Digital. Wow, that is high-resolution.

What next?

 

[Bodyblue]

can totally outclass a digital rig ANY day of the week

Ahhh the age old audio debate, but your statement is not very close to reality. Outclass in what way? Sound floor? No. Dynamic range? No. Surface noise?. It takes a seriously expensive and high end TT to even approach what CDs and hi res digital can do (most analog sounds better than MP3s etc to me). That is not to say that vinyl does not sound "better" to many people. I think it sounds fine when all the factors line up and I enjoy vinyl, but "outclass"? Not on your life.

 

[E-Stat]

Consider any clown with a laptop and and a sound card can do 24/96 and above, in 2017. That definition makes pretty much all Garage Band creations High Res!

Similarly, any clown could have recorded content on a Teac @ 15 ips. Obviously, there’s more to it in real professional circles.

By far the best digital recordings I’ve heard are all 24 bit of much higher sampling rate than the Jurassic era digital standard that predates the original IBM PC.

 

[restorer-john]

... than the Jurassic era digital standard that predates the original IBM PC....

I have to admit, that is funny. Nice one

 

[Alobar]

Another topic that spontaneously combusts every single time with mostly the same participants each acting like particular conditions for combustion.
Oh man, this popcorn is stale!

 

[DaveVoorhis]

By far the best digital recordings I’ve heard are all 24 bit of much higher sampling rate than the Jurassic era digital standard that predates the original IBM PC.

Is that definitively due strictly to the higher sample rate and bit count?

Or is it because recordings that happen to be delivered at a higher sample rate and bit count (than Red Book CD, i.e., 16bit/44.1khz) are generally more carefully recorded and mastered?

I'm curious: in general, what do people think is being captured -- and subsequently played back -- by relatively high (higher than Red Book CD) sampling rates and bit counts?

 

[restorer-john]

....I'm curious: in general, what do people think is being captured -- and subsequently played back -- by relatively high (higher than Red Book CD) sampling rates and bit counts?...

Clearly frequencies above 22.05KHz for a start. I see no issue with reasonable HF extension if you have the resources, equipment and storage to do it. There are clearly advantages for fast risetime waveforms with reproduced waveform integrity.

Greater bit depth however has clear limits as you descend into residual noise long before you run out of bits making anything more than 19/20bits pretty much pointless.

The issues occur when you are simply capturing HF noise with no link to the musical content and reproducing and amplifying spuriae that can cause amplifier instability and/or tweeter destruction all in the name of extended FR.

Numerous reviewed DSD machines produced prodigious amounts of high frequency noise- something I found to be certainly not analogous with extended range high fidelity equipment.

 

[robert_kc]

The following was an attempt at defining the provenance of recordings, but I don’t think it has been widely adopted:

------------------------

Master Quality Recording: A coding system devised by electronics and music industry trade groups to describe the provenance of digital music files for consumers, retailers and recording industry professionals. The four Master Quality categories include:


MQ-A: From an analog master source

MQ-C: From a CD master source (44.1-kHz/16-bit content)

MQ-D: From a DSD/DSF master source (typically 2.8- or 5.6-MHz/ 1-bit content). (DSF is a type of DSD master file.)

MQ-P: From a PCM master source 48-kHz/20 bit or higher (typically 96/24 or 192/24 content)

--------------------------

For example, a digital music file (e.g., FLAC download, or Pure Audio Blu-ray) that was recorded, mastered, and delivered at 192kHz/24bit would be regarded as "hi-res". A DSD / SACD would also be regarded as "hi-res". Only you can decide if you hear a difference between "hi-res" and a CD.

A playback device (e.g., Oppo UDP-205) that can play a 192kHz/24bit digital music file (and/or SACDs) might be described as being capable of "hi-res" audio.

IMO, describing an amp or speakers as "hi-res" would represent meaningless marketing puffery.

 

[DaveVoorhis]

Clearly frequencies above 22.05KHz for a start. I see no issue with reasonable HF extension if you have the resources, equipment and storage to do it.

There may indeed be sonic benefits to pushing the reconstruction filter's cut-off to well beyond CD's nominal 22.05khz, as it can be smoother and therefore less likely to affect audible frequencies.

There are clearly advantages for fast risetime waveforms with reproduced waveform integrity.

Are differences in waveform rise-time that are representative of frequencies beyond audible range going to be audible?

 

[ev13wt]

One day EV13, your going to actually push the Play button on a good recording and find out just how foolish you look. All these times, like this, you try to show just how much smarter you are, that nothing more can be heard than Redbook has to offer and your just so wrong.

You need to, instead of mouthing these same words at every opporrunity, set down and listen. You could, if you wanted to, find out just how wrong you are. Are you up to it? Or do you want to just keep adding to your endless pile of misses?

Take a good quality recording of high rez and down sample it to your end all be all Redbook and then listen to both. It's easy and will tell the truth. If you want the truth.

There is so much more available than just average. Sure you can find material that extra depth, width and realness makes no difference on. But there is so much material out there that the extra information can add so much more to the experience. It's too bad you've been missing out on this for so long! But it's really sad when you spend so much time telling others that it isn't there, when it's right under your nose and available to enrich you with so much more. Why cling to getting less? Your missing out on so much dude.

I think I'll go enjoy some of it now. And from time to time set here reading you endlessly trying to tell others they can't hear what they enjoy so much! You enjoy that little bit less now...

EV3

Yes. Thing is, I have pressed that button. In a Sony Music studio. In a broadcast room of Germanys biggest TV station. Various small studios. Studios that do dubs, commercals, etc. Worked in a studio. Worked in a high end audio store. I HAVE done DBTs, and posted the results. High res might be interesting for dogs, the end.

Chrome tips make cars go faster. Yup. Cold Air intakes boost HP everywhere. Big fat huge tailpipe always increase performance.

I really wish "high res" was anything else but a cute, expensive sticker.


Please note: I did say "end user delivery format".

 

[restorer-john]

...Are differences in waveform rise-time that are representative of frequencies beyond audible range going to be audible?...

I think you know my position on this , but I am not so set-in-stone that I wouldn't love to have the audible benefits demonstrated, in person- to me,

I do know it would take some phenomenally fast reproducers (loudspeakers), equally excellent gear and a fair with comparison source content.

Sadly, I don't know anyone around me with electrostatics or a real interest in pursuing reproduction free of overshoot or undershoot. My speaker gear is all dynamic apart from a bunch of leaf tweeters in various speakers and not representative of what can be achieved in a holistic, phase coherent system.

 

[ev13wt]

Ahhh the age old audio debate, but your statement is not very close to reality. Outclass in what way? Sound floor? No. Dynamic range? No. Surface noise?. It takes a seriously expensive and high end TT to even approach what CDs and hi res digital can do (most analog sounds better than MP3s etc to me). That is not to say that vinyl does not sound "better" to many people. I think it sounds fine when all the factors line up and I enjoy vinyl, but "outclass"? Not on your life.

Badly worded on my part:

A bad recording on a digital rig will sound worse than a great quality recording on a vinyl rig. I am trying to say its about the music, and both formats are capable of showing a bad recording from a good one - good enough for me.