Is Hi-Res a placebo?

[Beef Oven!]

I’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Can’t buy a download, where there’s a choice, without it.

Can anyone over the age of 27 claim to have ears that can tell the difference? People in blindfold tests can’t, it is reckoned.

There are some excellent sound-quality downloads available, but is it because of the Hi-Res aspect?

I listened to Haitink’s LPO RVW 9 this afternoon in a common-or-garden 16 Bit CD-rip on a FiiO Hi-Res player with RHA T-20 in-ear phones and thought it spectacular ('scuse the odd adjective).

Are we being had?

[Cockney Sparrow]

Been here before, surely. I'm away from home and I can't easily find the links to the blind tests etc. I can't hear the difference but that's me.
Meanwhile the golden eared angels of vengeance are circling ready to post and tell you why double blind tests prove nothing etc etc. It comes down to 'believe me, not them' IMO.

[richardfinegold]

I can tell a difference. I don't care what blind tests show.
It's possible that some people can't, and that there is something missing in their neuro anatomy that makes them this way.
I pity their poor luck but for those of us that can tell, it isn't a placebo.

[jayne lee wilson]

Iv'e said too much about the hi-res thing in the past***, so - tangentially - Beef, have you tried the new Radio 3 "Concert Sound" FLAC 16/48 stream over on firefox http://www.bbc.co.uk/taster/projects...concert-sound?
For me it's a musical revelation - like being let out into the fresh air after being stuck in a stuffy room - but I'd be interested to know your impressions of how it compares to the usual "HDs" at 320 kbps AAC via R3 Homepage...

***eg, in response to all those (many) web articles earnestly trying to prove the "invalidity" or "inaudibility" of hi-res: "If you stop trying to tell me I can't possibly hear a difference, I'll never start trying to tell you that you should...!"

[gurnemanz]

We went to the Wolfgang Tilmans show at Tate Modern yesterday, which includes, along with a fascinating selection of his photography, a state-of-the-art listening room for recorded music with a pair of B & W 800 D3 speakers. picture.

Tilmans explains it thus:

“There is a lack in the world of spaces for recorded music although there are lots of spaces for live music. I think people feel that recorded music is not expensive and so doesn’t deserve a room the way a big painting that costs a million pounds deserves a room. So for me, something like New Order’s Blue Monday is a perfect work of art and it deserves a room." (Quoted from here)

[Beef Oven!]

Iv'e said too much about the hi-res thing in the past***, so - tangentially - Beef, have you tried the new Radio 3 "Concert Sound" FLAC 16/48 stream over on firefox http://www.bbc.co.uk/taster/projects...concert-sound?
For me it's a musical revelation - like being let out into the fresh air after being stuck in a stuffy room - but I'd be interested to know your impressions of how it compares to the usual "HDs" at 320 kbps AAC via R3 Homepage...

***eg, in response to all those (many) web articles earnestly trying to prove the "invalidity" or "inaudibility" of hi-res: "If you stop trying to tell me I can't possibly hear a difference, I'll never start trying to tell you that you should...!"

I've downloaded Firefox and I'm all set to go, but haven't dipped my toe yet.

[Beresford]

We went to the Wolfgang Tilmans show at Tate Modern yesterday, which includes, along with a fascinating selection of his photography, a state-of-the-art listening room for recorded music with a pair of B & W 800 D3 speakers....

Pictures of hifi setups like this bring to mind an altar to technology (but of course it's really about music!).
I wonder if there is an alternative for say 4 or 5 boxes, plus a computer.

[Bryn]

I have a cunning plan. I will take a substantial extract (though not a whole 'track') from a recent BIS set of download (high definition, CD rate, and mp3) convert the lower definition versions to the higher resolution sample rate and quantization depth, and copy and paste the different source material to a continuous stream. I will then upload that to WeTransfer.com and make the relevant download URL available to those who PM me expressing an interest. I will do the same with the HD Sound and FLAC versions of a difficult to encode item from a Radio 3 programme (something with awkward transients and overtones - with a harpsichord in it, perhaps). I will keep a log of the changes in source quality. Let's see who can identify where the edits occur, and which quality level is which. Just a bit of fun.

[Beef Oven!]

I have a cunning plan. I will take a substantial extract (though not a whole 'track') from a recent BIS set of download (high definition, CD rate, and mp3) convert the lower definition versions to the higher resolution sample rate and quantization depth, and copy and paste the different source material to a continuous stream. I will then upload that to WeTransfer.com and make the relevant download URL available to those who PM me expressing an interest. I will do the same with the HD Sound and FLAC versions of a difficult to encode item from a Radio 3 programme (something with awkward transients and overtones - with a harpsichord in it, perhaps). I will keep a log of the changed in source quality. Let's see who can identify where the edits occur, and which quality level is which. Just a bit of fun.

An interesting and fun excercise!

[Richard Barrett]

I have a cunning plan. I will take a substantial extract (though not a whole 'track') from a recent BIS set of download (high definition, CD rate, and mp3) convert the lower definition versions to the higher resolution sample rate and quantization depth, and copy and paste the different source material to a continuous stream. I will then upload that to WeTransfer.com and make the relevant download URL available to those who PM me expressing an interest. I will do the same with the HD Sound and FLAC versions of a difficult to encode item from a Radio 3 programme (something with awkward transients and overtones - with a harpsichord in it, perhaps). I will keep a log of the changes in source quality. Let's see who can identify where the edits occur, and which quality level is which. Just a bit of fun.

Yes, that sounds very interesting indeed. Leaving aside the often rightly overriding aspect of musical/performance quality, and that of the quality of reproduction equipment, I would say that differences in recording technique/technology count for much more than the differences between say 16/44 and 24/96. I would defy anyone to hear the difference between 44.1kHz and 48kHz sampling rates, and I'm not convinced that twice these amounts really makes a difference either. On the other hand I think there's some kind of audible difference between 16- and 24-bit resolution (and, of course, if a recording is kept at 16-bit resolution from recording through postproduction to mastering there will be some reduction in resolution whatever the final result calls itself). Also, 320kbps MP3 is really not bad at all but it's the only kind of lossy encoding I don't mind the sound of.

(As I might have mentioned before, one of the items on my Negatives CD was an analogue recording and nobody has ever been able to guess which one it is.)

I shall now prepare to be made a fool of.

[jayne lee wilson]

As another fresh angle, when I wrote that piece on using Qobuz HiFi lossless streaming http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...ght=Qobuz+HiFi, I pointed out that (in my present system at least) it was relatively easy to hear the differences between the 16/44.1 FLAC stream itself, the natively-stored 16/44.1 download, and the CD, all of the same recording. The download and the CD were obviously superior in tonal and dynamic subtleties and overall refinement of sound (though again different from each other, if by less).

Has anyone else tried this? How would you account for it? (Maybe Bryn could try measuring this one too...)
These were among the more obvious differences I've heard between such things. It's certainly gives the lie (yet again) to the old "bits-are-bits...."

(Looking forward to hearing the Roussel Évocations from Symphony Hall B'Ham 19:30 tonight via Radio 3 Concert Sound...)

[Richard Barrett]

differences between the FLAC stream itself, the natively-stored download, and the CD, all of the same recording

When you say differences between the download and the CD are you playing both through the same D/A converters?

[Pianoman]

In answer to the original thread title - imo, yes ! I heard a hilarious radio interview a while back where one of the guys responsible for producing some Hi-res stuff, spouting the 'night and day', 'veils lifted' bla bla differences, couldn't reliably tell which were which in the studio when the interviewer 'surprised' him with a test. I have friends who swear by them, but they've invested a lot in the equipment, so of course they can hear it...) Me, I'm happy at 320 Spotify and 320 iTunes, and I have to say it was salutary to watch in one of the Wigwam Scalford rooms this year where none - and I mean none - of these long-standing hifi buffs could discern which files were being used when unseen. I'd sooner save the space and money for more music. As I type I have Angela Hewitt playing from a 24/192 file (courtesy of a friend) alongside the lossy version and the differences are.....so non-existent as to make me comfortable with my choices.

FWIW, a few of us Musicweb crowd took part in a 'file test' set up by Kirk McElhearn of Macworld, and no-one passed the test fully ie. it ended up as guesswork, and this was, believe it or not, just with files from 96 to lossless...

[jayne lee wilson]

When you say differences between the download and the CD are you playing both through the same D/A converters?

Yes, the system was the same one (my familiar one) for all the listening; the only further variables in the replay chain were the cables - USB (with filtering/regeneration) from Mac to Dac, and coax from Krell or Marantz transports to Dac.

It's worth adding that I really wanted the Qobuz stream to succeed - in being closer to the quality I get from download and CD. I hoped it might preclude the purchase of at least some music. A few months down the line it hasn't worked out that way. I keep it on as a means of exploring or trying out the new or unfamiliar (it's still way better than 320 kbps mp3/aac), but if anything, I'm more aware now of the SQ losses over CDs etc as I listen, simply through familiarity with how the Qobuz stream plays music.
The ear (or my ear(s) at least) always go on learning from longterm listening, which is of course one of the (many) problems of blind or abx testing - that they almost always involve rapid switching of short excerpts: a very unnatural and very pressuring way to listen to anything.

[Richard Barrett]

coax from Krell or Marantz transports to Dac.

Do we know whether and to what extent the CD players process the bits they're pulling off the disc? I certainly am aware that different computer programs sound different from one another.