Conclusive "Proof" that higher resolution audio sounds different

[Tony Lauck]

I am suggesting you could demonstrate that your ethics are beyond question.

Do you put your pride above scientific discovery? Suppose you were to die tomorrow? A piece of knowledge would be lost to humanity.

I saw your offer.

Your suggestion that they should pay half your proposed considerable travel expenses is sufficient disincentive to suggest to me that the offer was not seen as being made in good faith. I wouldn't have considered it for a minute. Why do a test you know the result of when you can brush the guy off because he can be seen to be making unreasonable financial demands?

In any case, you cannot be seen to profit from the exercise in any way, shape or form. You cannot be said to have made an open offer with this financial entanglement, be it so trivial as half the price of a trip to Florida. Try asking to meet halfway. Ask a university or college for help. If the negotiation stalls again, come back and ask me for more suggestions, but not before exercising some of your own ingenuity, please.

You were also suggesting that you could use your own laptop AFAICS. Surely you understand that this is absolutely out of the question, to exclude the possibility of tampering.

When it comes right down to it, there are no "gentlemen's agreements" in such circumstances.

It's the implicit failure to recognize this, however, that redounds most to your discredit. Of course it's not going to be done with your equipment. That's the first thing any nay-sayers are going to question if you get a positive result. You should know that.

The whole point is to make it so that you can't cheat. Then there is no issue of trust.

So set it up without any financial penalties on the opposition and there's no arguing about the firmware. Jeez. Anybody'd think it was difficult to prove one way or the other, but if you spend your time arguing on the internet it'll go on for ever. If it goes on forever though, you'll be discredited by default.

The measures taken are for your protection too. They make the results less controversial and more likely to gain acceptance.

Why should I believe in your ethics? Isn't it rather brazen to accuse the founder of a web site, on his very own website, of being unethical? Are you a troll?

 

[NC Lee]

Is this a fair layman's take away: 'Some people can discern improvement in hi rez audio files but need to focus on specific bits to do so.' To me, this validates Redbook as being pretty damned close to hi rez, that any difference is exceedingly marginal.
Of course then comes the claim, while it may be difficult to A/B a difference in small samples, the broader outcome is more natural sounding music, which even the less discerning can appreciate.
Fair summary?

* BTW, I find it reprehensible to be challenging a man's credibility on a hobbyist site like this. Take all posts as you will and leave it at that.

 

[amirm]

That's fair. I would just add that there is really no more need to convert the bits to redbook CD spec as I have been mentioning. Let's get the original bits and then it doesn't matter if there is or there is not a difference. I like to have that choice for every piece of music I want to buy. As it is, we are going backward and I keep running into more and more music I like to buy that has gone directly to iTunes/Amazon compressed single! No album and of course no CD. We have to get our act together, create a meaningful market for stereo master distribution and not face a situation where most of what we want to buy is not available in any uncompressed format.

 

[jkeny]

Is this a fair layman's take away: 'Some people can discern improvement in hi rez audio files but need to focus on specific bits to do so.' To me, this validates Redbook as being pretty damned close to hi rez, that any difference is exceedingly marginal.
Of course then comes the claim, while it may be difficult to A/B a difference in small samples, the broader outcome is more natural sounding music, which even the less discerning can appreciate.
Fair summary?

* BTW, I find it reprehensible to be challenging a man's credibility on a hobbyist site like this. Take all posts as you will and leave it at that.

Yes, a fair summary, NC & I highlighted what I believe is a crucial point.

 

[Laz Baz]

I agree that the for any music, the original bits should be preserved. It is up to the player/listener to modify as he/she pleases to fit the playback/listening requirements. For the same reason full dynamics should be maintained and the user may modify to suit the listening environment.

 

[FrantzM]

That's fair. I would just add that there is really no more need to convert the bits to redbook CD spec as I have been mentioning. Let's get the original bits and then it doesn't matter if there is or there is not a difference. I like to have that choice for every piece of music I want to buy. As it is, we are going backward and I keep running into more and more music I like to buy that has gone directly to iTunes/Amazon compressed single! No album and of course no CD. We have to get our act together, create a meaningful market for stereo master distribution and not face a situation where most of what we want to buy is not available in any uncompressed format.

Fully agreed. Bits and bandwidth and storage are cheap, lets have the ability to get as close to the original as possible, there is no need to truncate down to cd anymore. Most real studios have several types of recording schemes, record them all and let us choose if we want dsd or cd or hi-rez or whatever. The backward fall is endemic of audio, we all know that the 33 1/3 LONG PLAY record was a step back as well, more music play time in less space,....it continues to this day....incredible, buy with only about what, 0.5 % of the music listeners being audiophiles, we got no pull, and the musicians, they as a group and I am saying this, don't care about their product as much as audiophiles do. Yeah, a few exceptions, but they turned over their art to an industry bent on maximizing profits not musical art.

I agree that the for any music, the original bits should be preserved. It is up to the player/listener to modify as he/she pleases to fit the playback/listening requirements. For the same reason full dynamics should be maintained and the user may modify to suit the listening environment.

+3

This is eminently feasible at close to no cost.

 

[microstrip]

+3

This is eminently feasible at close to no cost.

Frantz,

It is not the opinion of some music distributors, most of them charge more for higher resolution for more complex reasons. And they have the cheese and the knife in their hands, as we say here. IMHO WBF debates will not change it.

This raises a question - should we accept to pay more if we do not believe it is better sounding?

 

[amirm]

This raises a question - should we accept to pay more if we do not believe it is better sounding?

You should not. Question then is if your assessment matches everyone else's. And whether you change your mind in the future .

 

[Tony Lauck]

Frantz,

It is not the opinion of some music distributors, most of them charge more for higher resolution for more complex reasons. And they have the cheese and the knife in their hands, as we say here. IMHO WBF debates will not change it.

This raises a question - should we accept to pay more if we do not believe it is better sounding?

There are two valid justifications for charging higher prices for higher resolution content.

1. Additional costs (one time and on-going)

2. Business Related (charge the rich more than the poor and thereby make more money and bring marginal products to market that would be otherwise unprofitable).

Being a networking person and one who runs a web site that sells low volume specialty music (CD quality and MP3) I am aware of the costs involved in supporting additional formats. The big one-time cost is developing new masters, if these are not already available. (This cost will apply to reissues of classic analog recordings and some newer digital recordings, but not many new digital recordings.) There is a smaller one-time cost to add a new format to server web sites, price it, upload it, etc. This cost is minimal, in that it requires at most an hour or two of unskilled labor. There are ongoing server costs. These relate to storage (not a factor for high volume titles, but may be significant for low volume titles that sell less than one or two units a month). When it comes to unit costs, the biggest one is bank charges, especially for the smaller outfits that don't have a lot of financial leverage. Then there are server and bandwidth costs and these amount to about $0.10 per GB. This adds about 25 cents onto a typical hi-res download, and even if marked up 10x is still less than the premiums that are being charged.

My conclusion is that the high costs can not be justified by ongoing operations costs, at least if the web servers are set up and managed efficiently. High prices may be needed by pioneer businesses who have taken arrows in the back and high risk that "if we build it, no one will come".

The real issue, therefore is the business models. I find it reasonable to pay high premiums for remasters of old recordings that I know to be good. I do not find it reasonable to pay high premiums for new recordings, where I know that there are minimal costs involved in delivering already existing original resolution. I note that some of my favorite hi-res sites have a policy of putting all formats of new releases on sale at a fixed price for a short period. This strikes me as an excellent idea. At least one label has explained how they charge more for a download than an SACD. This relates to legacy distribution models and I believe that this will eventually change.

One cost I have left out is support costs. There is the possibility that supporting hi-res downloads will be more costly than supporting lower resolution, due to file sizes and download speeds. I have not found that it costs significantly more to support my MP3 customers than my FLAC, ALAC and WMAlossless customers. Over time the customer base will become more skilled and require less support.

 

[amirm]

As I think I explained earlier, the issue is not that these companies charge too much, but the fact that companies that sell mass market content charge too little! Music and Movies have always been loss leaders for major retailers. Because of high frequency of release, they pull the customer to the store to buy their next movie or music and while there, you can try to sell them something else that makes money. For that reason, new releases of movies and music are routinely sold below cost by retailers.

High-end music retailers have no other business to support so they can't sell music this cheap. As Tony also explained, they face other charges such as minimum guarantees on royalties, or higher royalties to the labels due to their far smaller volume.

Also, while labels/studios produce and ship their own CD and DVD/Blu-ray, for some strange reason, in digital distribution it has become the problem of the retailer, causing replication of cost everywhere. If I want to set up shop tomorrow to compete with HDTracks, I would have to go and pay to get my own high-resolution master. If I want to sell CDs, I don't have to do any of that as the one-time mastering of CD serves me just as well it does Amazon. Digital distribution has many broken components and we are stuck with it unfortunately.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Quote Originally Posted by tomelex View Post
Fully agreed. Bits and bandwidth and storage are cheap, lets have the ability to get as close to the original as possible, there is no need to truncate down to cd anymore. Most real studios have several types of recording schemes, record them all and let us choose if we want dsd or cd or hi-rez or whatever. The backward fall is endemic of audio, we all know that the 33 1/3 LONG PLAY record was a step back as well, more music play time in less space,....it continues to this day....incredible, buy with only about what, 0.5 % of the music listeners being audiophiles, we got no pull, and the musicians, they as a group and I am saying this, don't care about their product as much as audiophiles do. Yeah, a few exceptions, but they turned over their art to an industry bent on maximizing profits not musical art.

We agree on many things, Tom, but here we dramatically part company. Musicians care deeply about their product. But unlike too many audiophiles, they understand that the product is music, not audio.

Tim

 

[esldude]

There are two valid justifications for charging higher prices for higher resolution content.

1. Additional costs (one time and on-going)

2. Business Related (charge the rich more than the poor and thereby make more money and bring marginal products to market that would be otherwise unprofitable).

Being a networking person and one who runs a web site that sells low volume specialty music (CD quality and MP3) I am aware of the costs involved in supporting additional formats. The big one-time cost is developing new masters, if these are not already available. (This cost will apply to reissues of classic analog recordings and some newer digital recordings, but not many new digital recordings.) There is a smaller one-time cost to add a new format to server web sites, price it, upload it, etc. This cost is minimal, in that it requires at most an hour or two of unskilled labor. There are ongoing server costs. These relate to storage (not a factor for high volume titles, but may be significant for low volume titles that sell less than one or two units a month). When it comes to unit costs, the biggest one is bank charges, especially for the smaller outfits that don't have a lot of financial leverage. Then there are server and bandwidth costs and these amount to about $0.10 per GB. This adds about 25 cents onto a typical hi-res download, and even if marked up 10x is still less than the premiums that are being charged.

My conclusion is that the high costs can not be justified by ongoing operations costs, at least if the web servers are set up and managed efficiently. High prices may be needed by pioneer businesses who have taken arrows in the back and high risk that "if we build it, no one will come".

The real issue, therefore is the business models. I find it reasonable to pay high premiums for remasters of old recordings that I know to be good. I do not find it reasonable to pay high premiums for new recordings, where I know that there are minimal costs involved in delivering already existing original resolution. I note that some of my favorite hi-res sites have a policy of putting all formats of new releases on sale at a fixed price for a short period. This strikes me as an excellent idea. At least one label has explained how they charge more for a download than an SACD. This relates to legacy distribution models and I believe that this will eventually change.

One cost I have left out is support costs. There is the possibility that supporting hi-res downloads will be more costly than supporting lower resolution, due to file sizes and download speeds. I have not found that it costs significantly more to support my MP3 customers than my FLAC, ALAC and WMAlossless customers. Over time the customer base will become more skilled and require less support.

While true enough, I don't think any of this is the issue.

I think of Fluke, yes the multimeter company. For a good many years, they had something of the gold standard of MM's. Well over about a 400% price range, from their lowest priced model to their Cadillac, the devices were internally nearly the same. All had the full capabilities of the top model. Various traces were cut, resistors replaced with zero ohm jumpers etc. to disable various functions. So if you wanted the full function at full performance you had to pony up. Yet in essence they had to go to more trouble to disable functions in lower priced gear vs the top model. Why did they not offer the total capabilities of the best at a more modest price rather than disable and cheapen the price? It likely made more money for them. If rather than $450 for the top dawg, you could buy only one model from them, and it did everything for say $125 which they could have done, well they would make less money. And things being what they are, customers might not have believed it really as good.

So record something in 192/24 or 384/24 or whatever, how much can it cost to offer quality downsampled versions? Answer is the cost is nearly nothing. Or offer top quality for the same price? Hey get max quality someone has for $10 a album's worth, and for the same price get lower rez samples if you lack equipment for the top rates. You can't tell me the cost of doing that is significant at all. Plain and simple hirez costs more because the market will bear it, and money is left on the table if you don't charge for it. Anyone with a decent computer can do the various lower rate versions. Ridiculous pricing that surely only follows marketing needs.

 

[BlueFox]

I suspect one reason costs are high is to cover piracy since there is no copy protection on these files. We complained about copy protection, and it was discarded. However, the record companies still want every possible penny, so prices are high.

 

[esldude]

I suspect one reason costs are high is to cover piracy since there is no copy protection on these files. We complained about copy protection, and it was discarded. However, the record companies still want every possible penny, so prices are high.

So are you implying piracy is higher on hirez than normal rez files? I believe it would be the reverse actually.

 

[BlueFox]

I'm not implying anything. I am saying people want files without copy protection, and record companies want money.

 

[amirm]

By the way guys, there is strong precedence for higher fidelity format to cost more. Blu-ray discs for example are priced higher than DVD. They did a survey and found out people were willing to pay $5 more for Blu-ray than DVD. Now, that partially made Blu-ray fail to replace DVD and gave rise to so many people subscribing to Netflix and renting . But it is the logic content producers use. Surely many of us pay more for better quality/organic produce, than regular. No? We all get more value from high-resolution audio so we have to be prepared to pay some premium for it. And that premium needs to be some multiple of incremental cost, not just the differential.

 

[amirm]

By the way, as I just post, there is a one-time discount for purchasing music from HDTracks for WBF members: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...scount-Code-for-HDTracks!&p=328177#post328177

So if the high price is what is keeping you away from tasting what is there, that problem is solved for your first purchase.

 

[jkeny]

I wanted to draw attention to another datapoint in the audibility of higher resolution audio - another positive blind test result - this time from 20 listeners (& also another 21 should be included as significant) out of 140 listeners

As some of you know, Archimago did a blind test of audio files for download & listening. A total of 6 samples contained 3 files of 24bit audio & 3 files of 16bit audio, randomly distributed. Part 1 & part 2

Archimago's following statement was later referred to by Solderdude in the comments:

"?Looking at the individual responses, there were a total of 20 respondents who correctly identified the B-A-A selection of 24-bit samples, and 21 selected the opposite A-B-B. This too is in line with expectations that 17.5 would pick each of these patterns based on chance alone."

Just a question about this stated expectation being 17.5 out of 140 if all 140 respondents guessed randomly - I make it 3/6 X 2/5 X 1/4 or 6/120 or 6 correct trials out of 120 trials which is equivalent to 7 correct out of 140 trials. This is for one person doing the trials. What difference to the probability does it make if 140 different people do one trial each? Where does the 17.5 expectation come from - I know it's 140/8 but why 8? Amir?

Solderdude correctly stated in the comments:
"We will never know IF the people that gave the correct answers truly HEARD the differences or just guessed or analysed the files correctly. This could only be done in a controlled environment with those who answered correctly with a statistic more relevant blind test."

He also missed the possibility that the 21 results which were exactly wrong (A-B-B) was also statistically significant.

Anyway, Archimago did further analysis of these 20 results with more detail just for this subset - here - he didn't do a test in a more controlled environment as suggested.

He also missed another significant section of results - the 21 "exactly wrong" results - they consistently picked the 16bit files instead of the 24bit ones

 

[Orb]

By the way guys, there is strong precedence for higher fidelity format to cost more. Blu-ray discs for example are priced higher than DVD. They did a survey and found out people were willing to pay $5 more for Blu-ray than DVD. Now, that partially made Blu-ray fail to replace DVD and gave rise to so many people subscribing to Netflix and renting . But it is the logic content producers use. Surely many of us pay more for better quality/organic produce, than regular. No? We all get more value from high-resolution audio so we have to be prepared to pay some premium for it. And that premium needs to be some multiple of incremental cost, not just the differential.

Amir,
is there a Blu-ray license cost as well compared to DVD?
Cheers
Orb

 

[amirm]

Amir,
is there a Blu-ray license cost as well compared to DVD?
Cheers
Orb

There is. There is also incremental manufacturing cost.