Ripping CD's : PCM vs. Hi-SP vs. LP2

[1kyle]

This may have been covered before but visiting this again --considering the normal quality of a lot of CD's I really would be hard pushed to tell the difference between playing the CD on a decent CD player and playing the ripped tracs from SS using ATRAC3+ @ 256 (On the computer with SS).

Now when transferring to MD I find HI-SP and LP2 also pretty indisinguishable also from the original CD.

Recording your own music is a different ball game but for typical CD's IMO using PCM is just wasting Disk space.

Now DVD's seem to be a lot better -- CD's I know use 44,100 @ 16 bit but there are a lot of CD's made using AAD / ADD (older re-masterings from tape / Vinyl).

Even some of the early DDD types weren't that great soundwise either.

Does the DVD sound use a higher bit rate or do they actually take more care with the recordings.

Ripping DVD's might make the use of PCM much more worthwhile but even at HI-SP they sound pretty good (still copied to MD from SS using ATRAC3+ @ 256).

Apart from your own recordings is PCM really worth using.

In my case I'm not so sure anymore.

Cheers

-K

[bug80]

I assume you mean "normal" DVD's, not DVD-audio? The audio on a typical DVD is sampled at 48 kHz instead of 44.1 kHz (CD), which may add more clarity. At least I personally think I notice a difference and I like the sound of DVD better. It may also be 24 bit instead of 16 bit, but I'm not sure.

Ironically, audio on a DVD (movie/concert) is compressed most of the times (PCM tracks are rare), mostly at a 192 kbs bitrate.

[greenmachine]

I wish i could hear that difference between a sample rate of 44.1 kHz (which highest theoretically possible upper frequency would be 22.05 kHz) and a higher sample rate, but most of the time i struggle even to detect a 17-18 kHz lowpass in real music. I don't think i can hear a difference between different bit depths either except for increased noise at lower bith depths. Maybe i'm just too old (or people suffer from the placebo effect).

[bug80]

(or people suffer from the placebo effect). 

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Exactly, that's why I was a little cautious with my statements. I should do an ABX test someday, comparing the audio from a DVD with its CD equivalent.

[greenmachine]

On the other hand, i once imagined to hear bat calls

[1kyle]

On the other hand, i once imagined to hear bat calls

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I'm sure then it's to do with the quality of the original CD recordings -- I have some quite old CD's which are AAD (mastered from old Analog / Analog / Digital) and these definitely don't sound as crisp as DVD sound ripped from some movies (Not DVD-Audio discs --just "Bog standard DVD movie sound tracks").

so to all intents and purposes 16 bit @ 44.1 kbs is as good as you are likely to need (or hear) on non sprofessional studio class equipment.

Thanks

-K

Edited June 22, 2005 by 1kyle

[greenmachine]

Nono, not through speakers, i mean outside in real life. I thought bats would call significantly above 20 kHz?

Edited June 22, 2005 by greenmachine

[dex Otaku]

so to all intents and purposes 16 bit @ 44.1 kbs is as good as you are likely to need (or hear) on non sprofessional studio class equipment.

In reality it's pretty ironic that laypeople are concerning themselves with high-resolution audio; their playback systems are generally not even capable of reproducing 96/24 audio with full fidelity, though many [including myself] would argue that the higher resolution in the normal audio band is more important than reproducing ultrasonics.

The plain truth is that 16-bit playback systems aren't even properly exploited, capability-wise - especially considering the fact that most CDs these days have a total dynamic range of about 6dB [exaggeration].

Properly-mastered 16-bit/44.1kHz recordings have the potential to be vastly better than most of the shite mastering that's now considered industry-standard.

[dex Otaku]

Now DVD's seem to be a lot better -- CD's I know use 44,100 @ 16 bit but there are a lot of CD's made using AAD / ADD  (older re-masterings from tape / Vinyl).

Even some of the early DDD types weren't that great soundwise either.

Does the DVD sound use a higher bit rate or do they actually take more care with the recordings.

←

AAD / ADD recordings are generally as good as the master they originate from.

DDD recordings have mostly been made, since the beginning of digital audio in studio use, with DASH recorders that use linear A/D convertors which can still kick the sh*t out of much of the equipment around now. The DASH systems I've seen [made by Sony], like older analogue multitracks that used cards to upgrade noise reduction, can also still be updated in terms of their A/D, D/A and so on, if I'm not mistaken.

The earliest DDD recordings I've listened to [including Sting's first album, others by Peter Gabriel, Dire Straits, &c.] still sound better than 90% of what is produced now, to my ears.

Mind you, production and engineering style, console-type [consoles back then were all analogue, now they can be fully digital], the kind of mic preamps and mics used, effects processing, &c. all have their impact on the chain. The first digital studio I ever saw [at the school I briefly attended in Vancouver, BC] used a Sony DASH 24-track which was the only digital element in the entire recording chain; everything else, from the automated 56-channel console to all the effects-processing [including reverb and delay, compression, gating, et al] were analogue.

DDD / ADD / AAD were really misleading terms, in other words.

DVD sound is generally from movie soundtracks. Sound for film is heavily standardised [compared to the music industry, where there basically are no standards at all], from measured standard monitoring levels to the frequency response curves of playback equipment, amplifier headroom, and a number of other things. From the beginning to the end of the chain, attention is paid to level and overall sound, which is pretty ironic considering that most soundtracks end up in Dolby Digital [AC3] which tends to make them sound absolutely grating when things get busy in all the channels.

AC3 itself carries [or can carry] in its bitstream information about the type of monitoring used, what levels should be used for each channel on mixdown to stereo, preferred mixdown method [stereo vs. dolby surround], and a number of other things meant to help in maintaining standards from the beginning of the recording chain to the end - playback in a movie house or your own home.

DVD soundtracks are noticeably different from music recordings, yes. Part of the answer why is because of the effort to keep the recording chain standardised from end-to-end. Another part of why is because film sound engineers are doing a vastly different job from their counterparts in the music industry - music doesn't have to follow the action on a screen, or maintain distinct separation between channels for full effect, or enhance specific sounds for added impact.

[1kyle]

Thanks for your post -- very interesting

I don't do any professional recording but do professional photography and can see a parallel -- some of the Hype over 5, 6 and 7 Mega Pixel consumer grade point and shoot cameras really makes me laugh - especially when I hear a salesman saying --look this Canon tiny pocket size Ixus or Canon S70 has almost the same nr of pixels as 3,500 GBP professional 8MP camera (Canon 1D Mk 2) therefore should be almost as good at 1/10 the price --- absolute twaddle !"!!!!!.

Pro gear of any sort is usually an order of magnitude above consumer stuff so I'm glad you described how good some of the older analog stuff was.

I agree a lot of the older CD's have a sort of "indefinable" sound quality about them compared to more recent recordings.

Some of the original Moody Blues albums for example (these guys actually PLAYED instruments --didn't let the Computer do all the work) had as much care in the Sound Engineering as full blown Classical symphony orchestra recordings.

A lot of modern stuff is probably "Dumbned Down" to accomodate typical Ipod / crap-pod MP3 rates for the "MTV" generation.

Maybe there was something after all in people who said they actually preferred Vinyl (never went that far myself).

Cheers

-K

Edited June 23, 2005 by 1kyle

[dex Otaku]

I don't do any professional recording but do professional photography and can see a parallel -- some of the Hype over 5, 6 and 7 Mega Pixel consumer grade point and shoot cameras really makes me laugh  - especially when I hear a salesman saying --look this Canon tiny pocket size Ixus or Canon S70 has almost the same nr of pixels as 3,500 GBP professional 8MP camera (Canon 1D Mk 2) therefore should be almost as good at 1/10 the price --- absolute twaddle !"!!!!!.

I've been a photographer for a number of years as well, and have noted to people asking me about digicams how the pro models with fewer Mp will usually do a far better job than whatever consumer camera they're looking at. I tend to think of consumer digicams as the equivalent of those $25 plastic 35mm jobs you still find at department stores.

People are frequently annoyed by my pointing out than my now-ancient Elan II can shoot 2.5fps with accurate exposure and focus where their 2 or 4Mp digital takes 6 seconds to take and store a single shot, and doesn't even support a raw/uncompressed storage mode.

I personally find digis very frustrating, having been used to the whole "press the button and the photo is taken that instant" mentality of film.

I still use film for important things, but the lower cost ratio has me shooting with borrowed digitals most of the time for things like simple documentary work and anything that ends up on the web.

My own "specialty" was long-exposure night photography, which digitals simply won't do. [Try and get a CCD camera to take a 10 minute exposure. Oh? You mean, there's no 'bulb' mode? Oh? You mean, 'bulb' mode isn't even possible with CCD or hybrid sensors? Shame.]

Pro gear of any sort is usually an order of magnitude above consumer stuff so I'm glad you described how good some of the older analog stuff was.

I didn't really say anything about how good older analogue stuff was, but okay.

I agree a lot of the older CD's have a sort of "indefinable" sound quality about them compared to more recent recordings.

It's probably because they were mastered by people who cared about more than having a fast turnaround, or having their CD play louder on the cheapest possible hifi set imaginable than their competition's does.

I have no issues with analogue mastering. I have even seen all-digital studios that keep Dolby SR analogue equipment around to run their mix through before it hits the digital master, to give that "analogue sound" [i.e. light saturation].

Some of the original Moody Blues albums for example (these guys actually PLAYED instruments --didn't let the Computer do all the work) had as much care in the Sound Engineering as full blown Classical symphony orchestra recordings.

Sort of ironic that you say this, since most of the better classical recordings are pretty much straight from the mics to the recorder, with no engineering involved at all.

A lot of modern stuff is probably "Dumbed Down" to accomodate typical Ipod  / crap-pod MP3 rates for the "MTV" generation.

Bit-pushing is the current trend, which basically raises the overall volume of tracks by pushing them into [mostly inaudible] distortion. It also destroys whatever dynamic range the recording may have once had. On the other hand, it makes your $15 boombox or sh*tty car stereo sound that much louder, and doesn't even need to be compressed [in the dynamic range sense, not the data reduction sense] for playback on the radio, which is the bottom line for many producers.

They seem to ignore things like listening fatigue, which bothers me. I dislike the fact that listening to an entire Radiohead album from beginning to end is like going to a concert without earplugs - you end up partially deaf and with a headache, unable to listen to anything else for a while after.

Maybe there was something after all in people who said they actually preferred Vinyl (never went that far myself).

Despite being fragile, vinyl had/has its merits. I have a small collection of about 40 albums that I only listen to now in order to transcribe them to CD or HiMD.

I think the real benefit of vinyl was its tactile quality. You had this big flat object that you could watch spinning, and huge magnificent cover art. It gave people a sense of connectedness to the music that I honestly think all modern formats lack. Music purchased online technically doesn't even have a physical carrier; there's no tangible cover art, and no object to put in your hands that says, "this is mine, I bought this music." The next generation of music lovers won't even know what they're missing.

My most recent revisitings in terms of listening? Boomtown Rats' "The Fine Art of Surfacing" [1978] and Talking Heads' "Fear of Music" [1980], both copied from my vinyl collection.

[genghisbunny]

Some of the original Moody Blues albums for example (these guys actually PLAYED instruments --didn't let the Computer do all the work) had as much care in the Sound Engineering as full blown Classical symphony orchestra recordings.

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OFF-TOPIC WARNING!

Sorry, Kyle, but I don't agree with you AT ALL here. Was Robert Schumann less of a composer when he was no longer able to play the piano?

Computers are a tool - like musical instruments are a tool. You can use them badly, just like you can use musical instruments badly (cough - nirvana - cough), but at the end of the day the computer is another tool at the disposal of composers. Whether the music is any good or not has nothing to do with what tool is used.

Put a top-end Warwick bass in the hands of Duff Kegan (from Guns and Roses, probably the worst bassist in rock) and he'll still play crap. But it's a "real instrument".

Simply put, quality is NEVER determined by the tools used, but by the skills with which the user handles them.

(by the way, Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed - one of my favourite albums ) Way back in the '60s and '70s people were complaining that producers were doing more of the creative work than the musicians. Some things never change.

END OFF-TOPIC RANT

ON-TOPIC: In my experience, a lot of material on DVD sounds better simply because it's "dumbed down" through compression and volume raising to suit TV or moviehouse playback. Music in a film only has to suit a scene, so it swells at unnatural places and because it's reinforced (and interpreted) by the visuals people get swept away and it "works", creating an impression of "great sound" because the SITUATION in which it is housed is ideal for the audio.

It's very hard for a CD to be put on in the ideal situation. Take a favourite moody album and put it on at midday, in the car. It won't take you places. At night, in a dim house, it can drag you where you want it to. In a moviehouse this is even more true, because the situation is controlled. And you generally put on a movie in a situation which is more like a movie-house (dim, no distractions) than CD listening is often afforded.

Music often sounds great in TV commercials, but people find it doesn't have the same edge on album. The album version is higher quality, but requires decent equipment (and decent ears!) to distinguish the quality. Dumbed down audio has an immediate payback.

I agree with dex about the tired ears I too experience listening to over-compressed loud music. I can put on heavy metal for hours and because the dynamics are more natural your ears have the required time to rest WITHIN the music. Kind of like the tired eyes I get looking at the new "starwars" films (though I don't consider them part of the series at all). Too much compression in low-quality CGI wears out my eyes. Strangely, I didn't get this effect with Sin City, which had even more CGI, possibly because the black and white had more natural tonal variation than the loud colours Geo. Lucas likes to shove into his movies these days.

I am speaking here without tech specs of DVD-video in front of me, by the way, so this is purely experiential and speculative.

Cheers!

Edited August 26, 2005 by kurisu

[qwagmire]

I assume you mean "normal" DVD's, not DVD-audio? The audio on a typical DVD is sampled at 48 kHz instead of 44.1 kHz (CD), which may add more clarity. At least I personally think I notice a difference and I like the sound of DVD better. It may also be 24 bit instead of 16 bit, but I'm not sure.

Ironically, audio on a DVD (movie/concert) is compressed most of the times (PCM tracks are rare), mostly at a 192 kbs bitrate.

←

I've never been clear on that.

Nyquist theorem IIRC states that the sampling frequency has to be at least twice the source analog frequency for true sound reproduction. Typical frequency response of home sound equipment is 20Hz-22kHz (correct me here if I'm wrong). According to theory, 44.1kHz sampling frequency should be adequate, especially considering the limits of human hearing and audio equipment.

So, if the sampling frequency is set higher that 2x ( in the case of DVD, 48kHz), then the accurracy of the reproduction is even more assured, right?

Help me out here, my physics is a little rusty...

[Antoni]

Hi-SP Sounds very well. Sense PCM therefore is lost. But there is one practical application PCM. Hi-MD reproduces not all MP3 files. In some cases arises CANNOT PLAY. On a computer I convert to WAV also write a track in PCM a format. PCM good application for problem cases.

(DVD allows to make recording 96/24)

(Ripping CD - Not the best variant. More precisely also it is qualitatively possible to make recording through optical input MD.)

Edited August 26, 2005 by Antoni

[sebastianbf]

Exactly, that's why I was a little cautious with my statements. I should do an ABX test someday, comparing the audio from a DVD with its CD equivalent.

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What is the ABX test? How i can do that?

Thanks

[greenmachine]

http://www.kikeg.arrakis.es/winabx/readme.txt

[genghisbunny]

http://www.kikeg.arrakis.es/winabx/readme.txt

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You rule with the bonus info GreenMachine. Also love your info about stealth recording - I love to laugh at the pictures.

And I feel silly not having guessed what A/B/X testing is myself.

Great link.

[Sparky191]

I find that alot of CD's are poor quality. On such recordings, theres little difference between PCM, HiSP and LP2. But with a good CD the difference noticeable. Though on a portable device (for listening) the difference between PCM and HiSP is very little. I go asfar to say that PCM is really only appropriate for recording. However I definately hear a difference between LP2 and HiSP. I never liked LP2 though.

[Guest NRen2k5]

[....]I like the sound of DVD better. It may also be 24 bit instead of 16 bit, but I'm not sure.

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AC3 works somewhat like MP3 and ATRAC3, and as such, it doesn't have an actual bit depth.

[Deanage]

Hey Quagmire, have you ever heard of SACD/DVD-A? These can be sampled up to 192Khz for a 96Khz reproduction, usually at 24-bit. You're probably thinking that it's pointless going beyond current 16/48Kz CD because the theoretical limits of human hearing is 20Khz. However, music played above 20Khz interacts with the music played within the range of human hearing (i.e. a 35Khz signal will influence the audible frequencies), so if you have a 25Khz signal and a 20Khz signal you *should* hear a difference between the CD 5Khz signal and the 5Khz SACD/DVD-A signal. You'll need a keen ear and HIGH-grade audio components to hear the difference but when you notice it it will stick out like a sore thumb (like when you notice a background instrument for the first time in a song you can't stop listening to).

Hope that helps.

[Deanage]

Hey 1Kyle,

I would assume from your question that you don't have a decent det of headphones. Go buy a decent pair of headphones then you'll never ask if PCM is worth using again.

Compression is best left to iPod owners who are basically too braindead to appreciate high-fidelity audio.

[Deanage]

Simply put, quality is NEVER determined by the tools used, but by the skills with which the user handles them.

AMEN! A good singer will always sound better with a $1,000 setup than an idol contestant with a $1,000,000 setup. Try telling metalheads that computers are useful though...