Misc. technical issues - streaming, dynamic range, etc.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Exactly the same here...imagine working in such a place all day!

Most people couldn’t hear it.

[jayne lee wilson]

Is there still a 19khz pilot tone on FM broadcasts ? I remember I used to be able to hear the 16khz tone on 625 broadcasts . I wouldn’t have thought many on the forum can hear above 20khz .
The main problem with all recorded sound is not sampling frequency but the compression introduced at eVery stage of the recording And editing process even on so called lossless recordings .

Do you mean dynamic range compression? I don't find generally find that an audible problem with CD, SACD, lossless or hires streaming....

[Bryn]

Do you mean dynamic range compression? I don't find generally find that an audible problem with CD, SACD, lossless or hires streaming....

When it comes to modern 'classical' recordings, I would concur. However, with 'popular music' the situation is very different and Heldenleben's comment very much applies. When it comes to broadcasting, Radio 3 stands pretty much alone in avoiding dynamic compression for 'live' concerts. All other BBC channels use dynamic compression.

[Ein Heldenleben]

[QUOTE=jayne lee wilson;815507]Do you mean dynamic range compression? I don't find generally find that an audible problem with CD, SACD, lossless or hires streaming....[/QUOTE

There may be dynamic range compression : what there will certainly be is dynamic range control because no electronic reproduction system can cope with the range of sound the human ear can hear and what a symphony orchestra can produce : from solo triangle played ppp to full 120 piece orchestra with organ for example . There can be compression introduced at each stage of the process - particularly in CD’s . If you go from a recording cubicle to the studio believe me there is a difference ....

[Sir Velo]

Current Qobuz page......

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/music/streaming/offers

...always read the small print..... I stick with £15 pcm myself,..

Thanks for reminding me that I was spending £30 pa more than I needed to! Now changed to annual subscription (equivalent to £12.49 pcm).

Not stuttering but grinding to a halt at the same point every time the relevant 'track' is played. A frequent enough problem to be annoying.

For anyone worried about buffering on Qobuz with the hi res files, the desktop player allows you to import the music you are streaming, in effect the same as a download. All you need to do is manage the size of your cache - mine is currently set to 30GB, but you can alter this depending on available space on your hard drive; more than enough space for even the most protracted of listening sessions!

[Bryn]

There may be dynamic range compression : what there will certainly be is dynamic range control because no electronic reproduction system can cope with the range of sound the human ear can hear and what a symphony orchestra can produce : from solo triangle played ppp to full 120 piece orchestra with organ for example . There can be compression introduced at each stage of the process - particularly in CD’s . If you go from a recording cubicle to the studio believe me there is a difference ....

16-bit quantization offers a dynamic range of 96dB. Exploiting psychoacoustics and using dithering, this can effectively be extended to around 120dB, around 10dB short of the threshold of pain. So while a CD cannot directly reproduce the full range of human hearing, it can get pretty close. Of course, once we get to 24-bit, of course, the dynamic range extends to 144dB, some 14dB beyond the range of human hearing without severe pain.

[jayne lee wilson]

[QUOTE=Heldenleben;815516]

Do you mean dynamic range compression? I don't find generally find that an audible problem with CD, SACD, lossless or hires streaming....[/QUOTE

There may be dynamic range compression : what there will certainly be is dynamic range control because no electronic reproduction system can cope with the range of sound the human ear can hear and what a symphony orchestra can produce : from solo triangle played ppp to full 120 piece orchestra with organ for example . There can be compression introduced at each stage of the process - particularly in CD’s . If you go from a recording cubicle to the studio believe me there is a difference ....

Of course.... but surely what matters is the final product, and whether the engineering and production of it avoids unpleasantly audible artefacts at the point of domestic reproduction. At which point it becomes hard to generalise due to the variability of systems, rooms, ears etc.

I stopped attending live orchestral concerts largely because I found the higher levels becoming uncomfortable, especially in the left ear, often headache-inducing too after various health dramas.
At home I have a great deal of control over this, with volume setting of course but also various filter and integer choices in DAC and software. I tend to use a fairly steep roll-off in the DAC, and the warmer setting of Integer 2 in Audirvana. Very effective it is in allowing greater range to my listening - and the pleasure I find in it.

Not to mention an increasing preference for smaller orchestras or chamber and instrumental groups these days, where I've long felt the home listening experience can in many ways be better than live anyway.

[silvestrione]

Dear, dear , dear. Where was the referee? Definitely needed to brandish some yellow cards, if not red. This thread ruined.

[Lordgeous]

+1!

[Cockney Sparrow]

It could be split? And given an informative thread title......

[jayne lee wilson]

Just to make some sense here, my above post #27 was originally placed on the Beethoven BaL Op. 106 thread...so now it looks bizarrely out-of-place, makes no sense after 23-26 (which don't make much sense here either) and should be returned there.

..I really don't see why the brief SQ discussion was moved - keeping strictly on topic would be a sure way to reduce the richness and interest of our discussions....and lead me to lose interest rapidly and post less frequently if I feel a given post may be summarily excised. So I'm now confused as to what, exactly is allowable on a given page? Where is the line drawn? It can't be easily, can it?

Surely these forums should be in the manner of intelligent conversations about recorded music, with all the associative diversity that implies....so one can't generally discuss sound quality in a specific BaL thread? Oh come on now.

No more from me for a while.....!

[Richard Barrett]

16-bit quantization offers a dynamic range of 96dB. Exploiting psychoacoustics and using dithering, this can effectively be extended to around 120dB, around 10dB short of the threshold of pain. So while a CD cannot directly reproduce the full range of human hearing, it can get pretty close. Of course, once we get to 24-bit, of course, the dynamic range extends to 144dB, some 14dB beyond the range of human hearing without severe pain.

Yes but the point of greater bit depth really becomes musically meaningful at the other end of the dynamic spectrum, where the step between one bit and none can become quite audible at 16 bit resolution, especially if any dynamic compression with gain compensation has taken place at that resolution.

[gurnemanz]

I find it hard to believe that any serious music lover would prefer Spotify over Qobuz: the inferior audio quality notwithstanding, there is also the not so small matter of not providing booklets.

Moreover, pace Bryn, Qobuz offers bitrates up to 24/192, stratospherically in advance of its Swedish rival!

I must have recently become unserious after about 60 years of listening to music, I thought, seriously. Maybe I have developed septuagenarian cloth ears but I have had a Spotify sub for several months now and find the sound and availability to be very good. I was slightly influenced by my son his late 30s, another less than serious listener, it would seem, who made a Spotify playlist of his very large CD collection accumulated since he was a teenager, and sent them to a charity shop. I love my CDs - about 5000 of them, and would never do such a thing but in his non-serious way he seemed quite happy with the result.

I considered Quoboz and others. The online evidence was not totally persuasive. Not the word from on high, I realise, but WhatHifi gave Qobuz only 3 stars in March. I might still have gone for Qobuz since it does have enthusiastic adherents but my streamer/tuner zaps very painlessly into Spotify also my bedside Roberts radio. I could not figure out how to play Qobuz through my hifi amp without buying more kit.

[Ein Heldenleben]

[QUOTE=jayne lee wilson;815535]

Of course.... but surely what matters is the final product, and whether the engineering and production of it avoids unpleasantly audible artefacts at the point of domestic reproduction. At which point it becomes hard to generalise due to the variability of systems, rooms, ears etc.

I stopped attending live orchestral concerts largely because I found the higher levels becoming uncomfortable, especially in the left ear, often headache-inducing too after various health dramas.
At home I have a great deal of control over this, with volume setting of course but also various filter and integer choices in DAC and software. I tend to use a fairly steep roll-off in the DAC, and the warmer setting of Integer 2 in Audirvana. Very effective it is in allowing greater range to my listening - and the pleasure I find in it.

Not to mention an increasing preference for smaller orchestras or chamber and instrumental groups these days, where I've long felt the home listening experience can in many ways be better than live anyway.

I hesitated to reply to this as I noticed an earlier post had been (falsely ) flagged by me as final offpiste comment . Now that I am back on new freshly groomed piste :
I agree the dynamic range of a modern symphony orchestra can be ear - threateningly large. Particularly if like me you sit near the front because (for example ) the sound two thirds back at say the RFH and indeed the Barbican seems to lose the woodwinds. The thing is though modern recording with its frequent multi micing , innate compression/ dynamic range limitation , use of equalisation not to mention dozens of edits , post recording acoustic reworking is an ‘artefact’ from beginning to end . That doesn’t make it better or worse - just very different from the live experience with its inevitable wrong notes , odd balance and risk taking . I guess I just prefer live because the musos are on the edge and out there and that is how art should be....
On that note the Wigmore Hall lives are ace...
Final thought the difference between the Schnabel and Uchida Hammerklavier is that the former feels like a complete live performance - the Uchida doesn’t .

[jayne lee wilson]

Surely all recordings are artefacts to some degree in all the decisions they entail through the production process. There isn't an easy cut-off point between a Golden Age and a Modern Age is there? In many recordings from hallowed 1950s/60s sources such as Decca or Mercury the process and/or the original medium are all too obvious. Remastering to the rescue....!

Many very natural-sounding recordings are made today, from labels such as CPO, BIS, Alpha, Arcana etc etc....or which sound natural upon the ear - however the final result was arrived at.....