What Do We Mean By "Resolution"?

[Carlos269]

I joined Ron's Audiophile Cafe last night where he and member Al M. were co-hosting a discussion about this very topic of "resolution" in the context of audio. There was a recording engineer, a musician, and some other technically oriented guests. The first interesting comments were that most of the participants would not use the term "resolution" to discuss or describe the music listening experience from an audio system.
They also seemed to avoid the analogy with video/print resolution with their pixel count, dots per square inch, specifications. There was some chat about digital resolution with bits and sample rate, but most agreed that higher specifications do not necessarily correspond with more musical information or satisfaction. There was also a comment about just how much can we perceive with our ears and/or eyes. What is possible technically, may not be what we actually experience. Perception seemed to matter relative to degree of resolution.

Most of the participants seemed to equate the concept of audio resolution, or resolution in general, with measurements. Ron asked a very interesting question about how a listener would determine which system in two different rooms has higher resolution. I suggested that the listener simply go into each room, listen to each system, and compare what he hears from each system with his memory of what live music sounds like. The system that sounds more like live music in a defined space is the one that has higher resolution. What seems rather obvious to me seemed somewhat lost on the other participants. They were more focused on and wanted to discussed room measurements, system deviation from flat frequency response, measured noise levels relative to signal, etc.

This is when I realized that people really think differently about this stuff, both about resolution specifically, and audio in general. Some approach it from a top down perspective. For me and them, music is a holistic experience, a gestalt, an emotion. Musicians produce energy from their instruments that flows outward and impacts the listener. The meaning of a term like "natural" sound is clear. Others seem to want to break things down, analyze them, assign values and attributes, break apart music into bits and pieces and think the term "natural" is too vague and therefore meaningless.

It all makes for some rather spirited discussions, but after about an hour, I left that audio chat room to set up an old cartridge on a second tonearm while listening to music as my guide as I made adjustments. At one point, everything clicked, the music grabbed my attention because it suddenly sounded natural. I knew and cartridge/arm was set up. I spent the rest of the evening enjoying some records played by a wonderful old cartridge.

Peter, I get your point that you make about “Natural Sound” snapping into focus when you hear it. This to me is no different to positioning speakers and knowing that you have reached optimal placement when the sound snaps into focus at the listening position.

I do agree with Ron that resolution and “Natural Sound” although not musically or mutually exclusive are not interchangeable and as others have mentioned there are varying degrees of resolution within the realms of both “Natural Sound” and “Hi-Fi Sound”.

Rightfully or wrongly, one is often lead to believe that the more resolved the high frequency reproduction of a system is, the more detail retrieval it can achieve and the higher the resolution that it can present. This may be the case but it will not correlate, in my experience with “Natural Sound”. The reason for that I think that in nature, many fine details get absorbed or diffused, while in a recording environment these fine details get captured by microphones at close range and then amplified and embedded in the recordings. And although these fine details are real, they do not make it to our auditory systems with the same amplitude and “resolution” in real life as when reproduced by a high-end audio system.

The quote above about high-end systems serving as a magnifying glass is very accurate and because of distance to the source and real world environments, we can often hear sounds with our stereo systems that we would be hard pressed to hear at the venue or site of the recording standing in the typical audience locations. In other words, in some cases our systems can sound more detailed and resolved than real life and this is the antithesis of what you and others refer to as “”Natural Sound”.

I go back to my observation that a system with a high frequency extension and contour from 14 to 16 KHz will exhibit more of a “Natural Sound” than a modern Hi-Fi system with a high frequency extension and contour out to 20 KHz and beyond.

Below the 16 KHz high frequency extension/contour threshold, to me the resolution of a “ Natural” sounding system manifest itself by articulation and delineation of details. This resolution requires both speed and clarity to flesh out fine details and to clearly articulate complex passages in the music or musical sounds.

Regarding room or in-room measurements, I’m not quite sure how those would correlate to resolution specifically.

 

[PeterA]

I do agree with Ron that resolution and “Natural Sound” although not musically or mutually exclusive are not interchangeable and as others have mentioned there are varying degrees of resolution within the realms of both “Natural Sound” and “Hi-Fi Sound”.

I agree with Ron also that the terms are not interchangeable. Do you agree with him that “resolution” when referring to audio replay is an objective quality? I do not. I think it is completely subjective and the listener should recognize it when he hears it if he references the sound of real music.

 

[Carlos269]

I agree with Ron also that the terms are not interchangeable. Do you agree with him that “resolution” when referring to audio replay is an objective quality? I do not. I think it is completely subjective and the loser knows it when he hears it if he references the sound of real music.

I’m afraid that there is no good answer to this one or the answer is both. Let me expand. I love articulate bass notes and I can achieve them by manipulating the system’s response with one of my mastering parametric equalizers. On the surface listening to jazz or music with bass patterns the system would sound detailed and high resolution, but there is no free lunch, in order to achieve this spotlighting of the bass notes something else will suffer, most typically the high frequencies will sound attenuated by comparison. So while it can be an objective analysis in the excerpt/song/type of music/snippet being analyzed, the overall assessment of a system‘s resolution quality as a whole, to me is subjective, based on one’s sonic priorities.

 

[Tim Link]

This has been an interesting thread. The word "resolution" as an adjective has been borrowed from the visual world, where it has a specific technical meaning. There is a term "high resolution audio" that has been put in use and it refers to high bit rate and high bit depth. It's not subjective. To use the term "resolution" in reference to a subjective experience with musical playback seems reasonable but possibly confusing to most people. You may have to explain yourself frequently until this use of the word has been sufficiently championed.

 

[microstrip]

Freq response accuracy should be mandatory for the prices you pay in " high end audio "

Why? And what are you calling exactly "Freq response accuracy"?

I appreciate both speakers with excellent measurements such as the Quad ESL63 as others such as the Soundlab's that are very inaccurate.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Why? And what are you calling exactly "Freq response accuracy"?

You should know micro being that long in the bizz

I appreciate both speakers with excellent measurements such as the Quad ESL63 as others such as the Soundlab's that are very inaccurate.

Good for you

 

[spiritofmusic]

Does the system that reproduces John Bonham's Ludwig SpeedKing bass drum pedal squeak count as higher resolution than one that doesn't?

 

[Tim Link]

Does the system that reproduces John Bonham's Ludwig SpeedKing bass drum pedal squeak count as higher resolution than one that doesn't?

Are you asking about subjective resolution or objective resolution?

 

[microstrip]

This has been an interesting thread. The word "resolution" as an adjective has been borrowed from the visual world, where it has a specific technical meaning. There is a term "high resolution audio" that has been put in use and it refers to high bit rate and high bit depth. It's not subjective. To use the term "resolution" in reference to a subjective experience with musical playback seems reasonable but possibly confusing to most people. You may have to explain yourself frequently until this use of the word has been sufficiently championed.

Yes, it is why someone wanting to use it in audio made the effort to write an audio glossary. High-resolution audio just uses the video objective meaning - people can use tools to check is the files are true high resolution or fake high-resolution.

IMHO adding "natural" to "resolution" makes it even more personnel.
But we know that stereo is essentially an individual experience ...

 

[spiritofmusic]

Are you asking about subjective resolution or objective resolution?

I thought this thread was about resolution? Now we have categories?

 

[Zero000]

Another factor I think is very relevant is the large radiating area on big planars.

Or the flare and therefore magnifying effect of horns.

The first format certainly magnifies size / bigs things up. Just like zooming in with a microscope to get better apparent resolution as far as the human eye perceives it.

The second starts with a relatively small driver surface area but bigs it up with the flare of the horn. Same effect as far as the human ear perceives it in some ways.

Another way is conventional multi-way dynamic drivers or indeed hybrids in physically large enclosures, again with large radiating areas relative to the front baffle.

In all cases, large radiating areas big things up like a magnifying glass.

All are difficult to implement well. But in the year 2021 it ain't that hard.

T'aint rocket science. It's pretty obvious. Well, I reckon so but what do I know?

 

[the sound of Tao]

I thought this thread was about resolution? Now we have categories?

Actually more like scattergories Marc.

Semantics clean up team to aisle 6… there’s been a spill

 

[andromedaaudio]

I thought this thread was about resolution? Now we have categories?

SubjectiveIy spoken there is a high possibilty that objectively seen i have a high rez system .

 

[spiritofmusic]

Actually more like scattergories Marc.

Semantics clean up team to aisle 6… there’s been a spill

We've already had "natural resolution" scuppered, resolution alone being the term under discussion.

 

[Zero000]

We've already had "natural resolution" scuppered, resolution alone being the term under discussion.

Wise guys know that anything beyond physics and maths is absolute bollocks.

At least they did yesterday. Not sure about today

 

[the sound of Tao]

We've already had "natural resolution" scuppered, resolution alone being the term under discussion.

Or did you mean dissection…

We do have a habit of taking fairly simple ideas and seemingly strangling the life out of them at times.

But it is valuable to explore these concepts as separate notions but it would be good to also then begin to develop a framework for understanding the experience better by seeing the relationship between all the parts and how they are then synthesised back into the whole of experience. Not an easy task… but it would be nice to venture out of Groundhog Day at some point.

 

[PeterA]

We've already had "natural resolution" scuppered, resolution alone being the term under discussion.

Marc, If one hears Bonzo's kick drum or Louis Armstrong's voice from a bug's perspective in his living room (IOW HUGE), it may be resolution, but it is certainly not natural sounding. YMMV

 

[Cellcbern]

I agree with Ron also that the terms are not interchangeable. Do you agree with him that “resolution” when referring to audio replay is an objective quality? I do not. I think it is completely subjective and the listener should recognize it when he hears it if he references the sound of real music.

I also agree with Ron that "resolution" and "natural sound" are not interchangeable although they can coexist. I have always viewed resolution narrowly as mining all of the information/detail available in a recording format, which can be achieved without the electronically reproduced music sounding completely "natural", e.q., because of electronic artifacts, resonances and other phenomena which can overlay the sound, altering timber/tonality. You can also have electronically reproduced sound with completely "natural" sounding timbres but the source is not reading and/or some downstream component is dropping or obscuring some of the musical information in the recording. Ideally you want all of the information embedded in the recording/format reproduced in a musically natural sounding way, but if I had to choose I would give up a little resolution for more "natural" sound.

 

[KostasP.]

I agree with Ron also that the terms are not interchangeable. Do you agree with him that “resolution” when referring to audio replay is an objective quality? I do not. I think it is completely subjective and the listener should recognize it when he hears it if he references the sound of real music.

Hello Peter,

".....If he references the sound of real music", then he should NOT be using electro-mechanical devices, i.e an audio system, because a system attempts to replicate \ reproduce a RECORDED event, not a real event per se, despite our self-deluding expectations.

As an aspirational "naturalist", your noble sonic pursuits are to be admired and should be an inspiration to many although there are equally as many synergistic combinations to achieve our self-perceived sonic\ musical outcomes. In your passion, you often tend to conflate \ confuse certain unavoidable sonic truths. You often ask if one hears certain aspects of a recording, such as etched and pronounced images \ hyper detail, exaggerated leading edges, etc. ( which you disapprove of ) in a concert hall. Depending where you are in the hall, the answer is degrees of yes and no.

A more pertinent question is to ask if one can hear if the RECORDED event sounds on one's system as closely as it was captured. Given how recordings are made ( see post #87 ), if the above attributes that you dislike, ARE present on the recording ( either by musical and\or technical choices of the producer \ recording engineer ) then they should be reproduced. Leave the "real music" analogy out, unless the sound was captured by microphones RIGHT next to where you were sitting and even then we are talking about degrees of approximation to the real event. Instead of asking the WBF listeners, it will be more relevant to ask the producer \ recording engineer and ....the microphones (!!!) what they hear!

However, the more transparent, highly-resolving and detail-retrieving the system is, the closer the reproduction of the original RECORDED event. So in my view, a system must have these attributes in order to "decode" the embedded event with deviating degrees of naturalness of the REAL event, depending on the quality of the recording.

Imagine for a minute someone with impaired hearing attempting to decipher a real sonic event and the information he misses out on, as opposed to someone with excellent hearing! Do you want a system of the former hearing resolution or the latter? You painstakingly set up your system ( cartridge alignments, speaker positioning, resonance suppression , even VTA adjustments ) in order to extract and hopefully hear as much as possible of the recorded music. Transparency and resolution ( the tween sisters ) are your friends! Do you want a system of lesser reproduction resolution?

If a recording sounds natural to you ( and you often mention a few ), and the system is not highly transparent \ resolving, then the naturalness of the recording will not be rendered to it's fullest ( the impaired hearing analogy cited above ). Systemic neutrality is my goal but does not have to be everybody's goal. This is why choosing components judiciously is vital, in order to complement their individual attributes successfully, not to mention a listening space conducive to high quality sound.

Real music in a concert hall is psycho-acoustically, viscerally and visually entirely different than our illusion-creating ( and often delusion ) stereophonically processed unsighted sound. I have learnt to transcend this dichotomy; having a transparent \ resolving system allows me to enjoy recorded music and it is, more often than not, preferable to the real thing ( see post#94 ).

Resolution, as an abstract noun, may be semantically open to subjective interpretations but we all, more or less, know what it is. It is "objective" in the sense that, as an "object" it is a much-needed quality to have in a system!

Excuse my verbosity; no offence intended. I am not, it seems, "addicted" to one-liners!!!
Cheers and be well, Kostas.

 

[tima]

I agree with Ron also that the terms are not interchangeable. Do you agree with him that “resolution” when referring to audio replay is an objective quality? I do not. I think it is completely subjective and the listener should recognize it when he hears it if he references the sound of real music.

This has been an interesting thread. The word "resolution" as an adjective has been borrowed from the visual world, where it has a specific technical meaning. There is a term "high resolution audio" that has been put in use and it refers to high bit rate and high bit depth. It's not subjective. To use the term "resolution" in reference to a subjective experience with musical playback seems reasonable but possibly confusing to most people. You may have to explain yourself frequently until this use of the word has been sufficiently championed.

Are you asking about subjective resolution or objective resolution?

A couple of points here:

'Bit' is computer terminology (or digital terminology if you prefer) - a bit is a binary digit, the smallest or most basic unit of information that digital technology works with - and there are only two of them: 0 or 1. If you can write machine code or assembler, you can work with bits. (I did this for a while, way back.)

Let's sllightly modify @Tim Link 's notion that "high resolution audio" refers to high bit rate and high bit depth to remove the relative assessment of 'high', then we have bit rate and bit depth. Bit rate (or bitrate) is the number of bits transmitted across some measure of time. EG. Kbps is kilobits per second. Bit depth comes from the conversion of analog information to digital, the number of values captured or available in some period of time - parsing analog information into pieces (samples) where each sample gets a value that represents the amplitude of the sample such that bit depth defines the dynamic range of (what is now) digitized analog. (Correct or refine this as you please.)

The claim that resolution is objective (because there are measurable or countable bit rates and depths) requires digitization - taking samples. The word 'resolution' is only useable in the context of sampling. Analog is infinite in resolution, and we can only say that upon presumption of the concept of sampling it, of grinding it into the smallest unit of information for a system designed to work with zeroes and ones. Can I say resolution is a function of a process applied to the world - the making of information, putting the world into a form not of it.

Now, we come to @PeterA 's question: "Do you agree with him [Ron] that “resolution” when referring to audio replay is an objective quality?"

The slippery part here is limiting objectivity to obtain only under conditions of audio replay.

Sound is sound independent of its source. The sound made by a digital audio system and a toaster share fundamental characteristics across our description of them: mechanical vibrations transmitted through a medium at 331 meters per second, or the sensation produced by vibrating small hairs in our ears.

Why should one limit the notion of resolution - the very existence of this supposedly objective quality - to audio replay (or images) ? Why? Because the objective existence of resolution is concocted - it comes into existence through the application of a process (analog to digital conversion) and discussion of it presumes that process.

What is the resolution (the "objective property") of the primary instrument played live in a performance of Aaron Copland's 'Clarinet Concerto'?

When musicians talk about sound they don't talk about 'resolution'. The original meaning of 'resolution' comes from the Latin term 'solvere' - to loosen, break into parts, the process of reduing things into simpler forms. (cf. here)

Resolution as an objective property or attribute only exists for digital audio or digital imaging. The word can be taken from that domain and applied backword to the analog world, but qua objective attribute it does not exist in the analog world (the real world?).