Are mp3 master recordings allowed @TTD???

I apologize for all the consecutive posts, but here is another one: Why did the highest standard for DVD-Audio have to be 24bit/192kHz? The bit depth affects the sound quality much more than the sampling rate, so why not make the standard 48bit/96kHz?

Let's see

48bit x 96kHz x 2 ch = 9.216 Mbps
24bit x 192kHz x 2 ch= 9.216 Mbps

Tapers amateur and pro could have been pulling some unbelievably mind blowing tapes for several years now. Same data rate=same amount of space on a disc. Hmmm, saving those higher bit depths for future incremental improvements?

[AAR.oner]

Originally Posted by Five

More discussion is necessary, but I'm thinking that we should have a cutoff date of 2008-01-01. Everything from '92-'07 is okay but new MD recodings in 2008 and beyond are banned. That gives everybody time to upgrade their decks, maybe drop some hints to loved ones what you want for Christmas 2007.

werd Five...i'd say thats a reasonable date, and i'm all for the idea...i'm assuming Hi-MD [wav] are excluded from the ban, just ATRAC-based recorders

Originally Posted by Tubular

A lot of people (including me) would be hard pressed to tell the difference. I just made a bunch of mp3's (Blade at 192 kbps) from my CD studio albums (mostly rock) for my bro (he's not an audiophile and has an iPod, so mp3's are fine for him) [Side note: would the mp3's I made have to be transcoded to Apple's lossy format, thus reducing quality further?] I could barely tell the difference between the extracted wav's and the encoded mp3's listening through my computer's analog out > $50 Sony headphones. The wavs were a tiny bit more robust. Maybe if I had compared the two on my decent home stereo I would have noticed a bigger difference.

the key thing to remember Tubular is just because you and some others can't tell the difference, doesnt mean everyone can't...like Five said, all you have to do is listen to the cymbals and it becomes painfully obvious...

in addition, you can't really expect to notice detail with an average soundcard > $50 cans...but even with a halfway decent pair of phones thru the same soundcard out, you'll begin to hear...bump that up to a halfway decent I/O and a pair of studio monitors and the world begins to change

[not trying to be an ass, just sayin bro]

[AAR.oner]

Originally Posted by Tubular

once people get past their teenage years they can't hear above 16 or 17kHz anyway.

no offense, but thats complete horse shit...do you have any links/documentation re: this? i'd be interested in reading more

[AAR.oner]

Originally Posted by Tubular

Did anyone listen to FM back in the 70's and early to mid 80's when they spun vinyl? If so, did it sound better back then than it does today?

you expect us to remember 20+ yrs ago?!?!

i can attest to the difference between CD and vinyl as broadcast via analog FM in the mid-90s...never did any sort of analysis per se, but to the ear, its what youy'd expect...a warmth/fullness to the vinyl that CD will never possess

for most of us its no surprise...the digital world brings a level convenience that, depending on who yer talking, either far out-ways or falls completely short in regards to the loss of presence and warmth that analogue provides...

I read that story about the teens and hearing on Comcast, I'll try to dig up a link. Does lossy compression affect the sound of AUD's (more diffuse, random sound) more than SBD's and studio recordings? I can definitely hear a big difference in the 24 bit shows I have heard vs. 16 bit. Also, I hear the biggest difference in sound quality when I listen to vinyl vs. CD, so I don't think it is my ears (I hope). I found a hearing test 20kHz tone FLAC file on the archive, listened to it and couldn't hear a thing listening through my cheap soundcard > $50 cans.

[AAR.oner]

a lot of "lower end" phones have a freq response that cuts off well below 20kHz, i'd guess thats the issue...and if you find a link to that article, i'd be very interested--cheers!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5434687

teens turn repeller into adult-proof ringtone

you can download the ringtone and test yourself HECK YEAH I HEARD IT and I'm in my early 30's

[AAR.oner]

i hear too, almost painfully so...sounds like my old TV thats goin out

test your hearing here
http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/hearingloss.html

"For most adults, hearing loss progressively clips off the higher frequencies starting at 18kHz-20kHz after the age of 19."

I could hear the 17Khz fine, 18kHz weakly, but I couldn't really hear the 19Khz one at all. Could be my cans and soundcard, but I doubt it. Guess it's about time for geritol, pants up to my chest and an oxygen tank.

[trustthex]

mmmmm that was fun... drove every animal in my house crazy, i could hear to 21000, i heard my speakers pop when i tried 22000, but couldnt hear anything...

[Five]

Originally Posted by Tubular

I'm not sure what kind of compression analog FM signals use, but they obviously don't sound as good as CD's (ignoring the freq. response differences). If you compared these:

#1) Cream "White Room" on Onkyo model #900 CD player > low pass and high pass filter to simulate FM's freq. response > Onkyo model #2500 receiver > Polk model #500 speakers

vs.

#2) Cream "White Room" on Onkyo model #900 CD player > analog FM transmitter > Onkyo model #2500 receiver w/good FM stereo reception > Polk model #500 speakers

#1 would always win. This indicates some type of lossy analog compression or signal loss to me. I doubt any radio station plays mp3's made from CD's as source material for their broadcasts. An exception may be made for voice clips, and one time about a year ago I heard a FM station broadcast a leaked-to-the-net track from GNR's upcoming Chinese Democracy (will it ever see the light of day?). I could tell the GNR track was a low bitrate mp3 because of all the wind-chime effects in the highs.

They're using a bandpass filter to cut the highs at around 15kHz and the lows not sure where, plus they compress the amplitude so that the low peaks to high peaks are much closer together. If you hear something like "the ocean" by zep on the radio there's a part where it goes super-quiet and it just sounds stupid pushed up to the same volume then hearing the compressor clamp down hard and awkwardly when the band comes in again at full volume. They also do some strange stuff I don't quite understand using the carrier and cramming two channels into one that can be decoded with some phase tricks maybe somebody here can explain it properly, a tech guy explained it to me last year and I couldn't quite make sense of it. but I digress... the newer broadcasts cut off abrupty at 15kHz unlike older radio broadcasts which kind fuzzed at the same frequency ... and of course the bandpass and dynamics compression then and now.

I'm wondering if the new digital stations will be free of dynamics compression yet tainted by the slurriness of some mp3ish codec or another.

Check out this thread (with screencaps):
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/...ead.php?t=9766

as for the other "the world is going to hell in a handbasket" stuff, I agree, although I think some of the links you've drawn in the conspiracy are a little far-fetched. I mean, within any company they'll pull these kinds of stunts and also use whatever info they have about how others are doing business to their advantage. I don't think there's star chamber meetings between the guys who make burners for computers and standalone dvd manufacturers

Originally Posted by Tubular

Did anyone listen to FM back in the 70's and early to mid 80's when they spun vinyl? If so, did it sound better back then than it does today?

yeah, I remember and have got tapes. It sounded like records, not as "crisp" (usually in a good way) and some crackles. Sometimes a record would start skipping and it would take the dj a minute to fix it

[AAR.oner]

Originally Posted by Five

yeah, I remember and have got tapes. It sounded like records, not as "crisp" (usually in a good way) and some crackles. Sometimes a record would start skipping and it would take the dj a minute to fix it

that was so much better than the dreaded digi-skip tho

Originally Posted by Five

as for the other "the world is going to hell in a handbasket" stuff, I agree, although I think some of the links you've drawn in the conspiracy are a little far-fetched. I mean, within any company they'll pull these kinds of stunts and also use whatever info they have about how others are doing business to their advantage. I don't think there's star chamber meetings between the guys who make burners for computers and standalone dvd manufacturers

Pioneer (and Sony too) makes some of the best DVD burners, and they also make great standalone players. I'm sure they were part of the consortium that decided upon the DVD-Video standards, such as the copy protection. The newer DVD's have implemented better, though still defeatable, copy protection. Now that the secret of just how easy it is to copy these things is out, and everybody and his brother has purchased a Pioneer DVD burner and Pioneer standalone and probably hundreds if not thousands of blanks, they are starting to lose profits from DVD movie sales. What came upon the scene soon after dual layer discs (which allowed you to fit the whole movie on one disc with no compression) started to become more affordable and commonplace? Blu-Ray and HD-DVD to the rescue!!! Yaaayyyy!!!! high def picture and sound!!! OMG HD!!! Sure people will still copy their friends' older DVDs, but for new releases/reissues a lot of people will want hi-definition. Classic and revered movies, especially. Who is going to want to watch a standard definition DVD copy of Star Wars or Raging Bull on their brand new 42" 1080p Samsung? Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have watermarking and very strong protection from what I hear. I'm not trying to be a jerk, just illustrating a point.

I can just picture the execs at Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Pioneer, and Samsung sitting around a boardroom table in like 1995 thinking, "we know high definition television is right around the corner, but if we can squeeze in a standard definition digital disc format between now and the advent of HDTV, perhaps even delay HDTV a little bit, we will all be swimming in our own Scrooge McDuck-style money bins, then we'll make all that money all over again when we launch Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Hell, we'll make even more money by bringing back a VHS vs. Betamax style format war!!!!!!! BWAHAHAHA"

Like junkies or drunks, we all need progressively stronger and stronger dope/more booze to get the same high. PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU, PLEASE, SELL ME AN UPGRADED VERSION OF THE SAME THING I BOUGHT FROM YOU THREE YEARS AGO. C'MON MAN I'LL SUCK YOUR _______.

I'm gonna wait a couple years until prices come down on HD sets (translation: SD sets are not manufactured anymore).