[LAU] newbie to Linux audio

Kevin Cosgrove kevinc at doink.com
Wed Jul 18 02:17:41 EDT 2007


On 18 July 2007 at 7:43, Fons Adriaensen <fons at kokkinizita.net> wrote:

> There's little discussion about the merits of 24 bits over 16.
> Same for 48 kHz vs. 44.1.
>
> As to 96 kHz vs. 48, unless you have the very best converters
> the only difference you will hear is that _your hardware_
> performs better at 96 Khz. This doesn't mean that the higher
> rate is better by itself. If you can hear a difference when
> using e.g. Apogees please report and then I'll challenge you
> for a blind test. :-)

There's a DVD-A of a thing called "The Resolution Project", and I
got a copy of that from Minnetonka Audio.  At one time this link
worked.

http://www.mtechmarketing.com/SMT_081705_ResolutionProject.html

I don't have the hardware required to listen to that, but a
friend of mine does.  The disc has two songs on it, a jazz trio
(piano, upright bass & drums) and a string quartet.  Each song
was simultaneously recorded at three different PCM resolutions:
16-bit/44.1kHz, 24-bit/96kHz, and 24-bit/192kHz.  Subsequent to
that they recoded the recordings into MP3, WMA, and AAC.  My
friend and I listened to the recordings in order from expected
worst sound to expected best sound.  MP3 sounded just OK.  WMA
was slightly better to us, and AAC was again noticeably better.
The jump from AAC to 16-bit/44.1kHz was dramatic, as was the next
jump to 24-bit/96kHz.  Going up to 24-bit/192kHz was also better
yet, but not as dramatic.  After that we went back and listened
to MP3 again and it sounded as if it was being played through a
distortion pedal for an electric guitar by comparison.

The DVD-A didn't answer the question as to whether it was 16-bit
versus 24-bit that made for better sound, or whether it was
44.1kHz versus 96kHz that made for better sound.  Certainly
something did.

An issue of "Recording" magazine, which I read sometime within
the last year, focused on mastering.  The mastering engineer who
wrote one of the articles encouraged folks to always record at
the greatest bit depth available, but suggested that sample rate
increases aren't really needed.

My next recording will be at 24-bit depth and 44.1kHz.

Cheers....

--
Kevin





More information about the Linux-audio-user mailing list