I wrote this a couple of months ago for some of my musician friends and the audio community at large, thought I'd reprint it here.


Yesterday, a musician friend sent an audiophile friend an article which put forth the argument that given the current state of and trends in contemporary music along with modern recording techniques it was impossible to hear the difference between 8 bit and 16 bit recordings, and the article went on to provide a couple of short samples to prove the author's point. The implication of the article being that audiophile recordings made in 24/192 KHz or DSD are simply a rip off and of no value (you will not see me use the term Hi-Rez audio in this article, because Hi-Rez has now been “officially” defined to mean uncompressed 16/44 KHz, which the majority of us think of as Standard-Rez audio). Of course this left the audiophile pulling his hair out and the musician smiling and nodding contentedly believing that High-end audio is simply a load of “snake oil”.

To be fair, if your total music listening experience consists of listening to amplified music in clubs with a background noise floor of 75 db, or if you are a pop musician* who knows that any noise he makes below 100 db will not be heard by his audience, the argument against high bit depth (as opposed to high bit rates, which is a different thing entirely) has very strong merits. In fact, most DJs (and teenagers) would probably benefit from converting their music to uncompressed 8 bit files over most higher bit depth compression schemes (smaller files, with minimal processing overhead, while eliminating the sonic artifacts that come along with most compression schemes).

I should also point out that I came to high-end music reproduction as a musician (although a primarily acoustic one, piano being my core instrument), and I don't really consider myself an audiophile, but more of a music lover (case in point, I now own more music than I will be able to listen to in the span of my lifetime at my current rate of consumption, but continue to collect more), though the more accurate the reproduction, the more enjoyable the experience is for me.

And that brings me to what I really want to talk about. For audio skeptics (AES engineers and their ilk),  or half deaf drummers to say that there is no difference between Mid-fi (Standard Resolution Audio) and Hi-Fi (Audiophile Quality Audio) is equivalent to saying  that there is no difference between a $2.00 bottle of wine and a $500.00 bottle of wine, or that there is no difference between a MacDonald's hamburger and five star Cordon Bleu cuisine. To a biologist, food is food, alcohol is alcohol, sound is sound, but to the refined palate, quality fare is a small piece of heaven.

Yes, like wine connoisseurs and epicureans, only a very small percentage of the people are able to fully appreciate audiophile quality sound. And like other sensory experiences, some of it can be taught, and some of it is innate ability.

Obviously, ones musical tastes is a factor, amplified music is by its nature of limited fidelity. Musical instrument amplification is chosen for its ability to create sound, rather than re-create sound, accuracy and dynamic range are rarely considerations in their selection. As noted before, music with an inherently high noise floor lacks dynamic range, which can also mask detail. Electronically generated music has no “real world” acoustic baseline from which to draw comparison, so fidelity becomes almost a moot point.

Experience is the most important factor, if you have never heard “live” music, then it is impossible to determine what is correct sound, and are left with what sounds good (to you), whi ch drops you into the realm of Mid-fi. Along with a large mental database of “live”, preferably acoustical music performance from which to draw comparison, goes training. Almost every audiophile has had at one time a mentor to explain what to listen for.
Of course the most important factors are desire and ability. To be a connoisseur of anything, takes a certain investment of time, attention, and effort, and requires a willingness to release ones preconceptions, and rely on ones senses, which is where ability comes in, if you are incapable of hearing a difference due to physical limitations, no amount of training or experience will overcome that.

Which is a long way to return to my initial statement that audio connoisseurs are a rare breed. And though the majority of people can't hear the difference, those who can, do so consistently. Just like there are wine tasters who can identify the “terroir” of a given bottle of wine, there are audiophiles who can identify specific audio components in blind tests. And though the AES considers them to be statistically insignificant, there numbers are great enough to be the backbone of an entire industry. But, that industry will die, if the producers of the source material, decide to only cater to the mass market, providing the minimum necessary quality.

Why 24 bit? To be honest, for those of us who are fans of old analog recordings (pre-digital), we would be better served by 16/384 KHz than 24/96 KHz, but that being said, for new recordings of acoustical instruments, especially large orchestral sections, the 140 db dynamic range (even though it exceeds current amplification technologies) of 24 bit is necessary to provide truly “realistic” reproduction.

It is important to remember that a recording engineer has a secondary role as historian, and it is their duty to provide as accurate a record as current technology will allow. It is of little doubt, that technology will eventually exceed current limitations and be able to fully embrace the dynamics of 24 bit recordings.

Which brings us to sample rate. Why high sample rates if people can't hear over 25 KHz? The answer is both simple and complex. The simple answer is that the human ear doesn't work like a microphone. A microphone takes all the soundwaves that hit it and convert it to a single complex electronic signal (wave). A single note on a piano, produces hundreds of soundwaves, all well within the human range of hearing, but when these soundwaves hit the microphone, it must convert them to a single electronic signal, with harmonic overtones in excess of a MegaHertz. The human ear is more like a thousand microphones each able to process the soundwaves separately producing a much more accurate picture of the original sound, and able to sum up the harmonic overtones.

So the question becomes, how much detail can the human ear hear? A friend, who I have great confidence in, did some experiments back in the 80's listening to digitized signal from an analog Master Tape (compared to a direct feed) claimed the point at which he stopped hearing a difference was 400 KHz (though it is possible that some of this may be due to the quality of DACs at the time), others have argued that the high frequency roll off of magnetic tape is to great for this to be true, but I'm will to stick to that number, especially for live recording, where the limitations are the roll off of the microphones and electronics.

So is it “snake oil”, clearly not, that is not to say that there isn't a lot of “snake oil” out there, nothing should be taken at face value, always test it for yourself, but if you can't perceive the difference, don't be so arrogant as to believe yourself to be the ultimate authority, it doesn't work for you, move on, don't  recommend it, but don't tell people who can hear a difference that they are either being conned or lying. Do all recordings need to be audiophile quality, no, should they, yes , if we are to truly respect the art being created by the musicians, especially when considering the future historical value of master recordings, I believe we should be mastering at 24/384 KHz or DSD256 (Quad DSD).


*This is why I am skeptical of people who pick their equipment based on what is popular among pop musicians, recording engineers are a different matter (as long as you understand the reasoning behind their choices), though they rarely operate to the same exacting standard as your true audiophile or your classical musician (who in my experience have been the most exacting in their audio reproduction, if they haven't given up entirely assuming quality reproduction is impossible).