The 24-bit challenge

Does anyone know enough about CDRW's to make a recommendation on what's a good, inexpensive one for burning music files to? From what I understand there are certain manufacturers who gear their CDRW's for music by burning a deeper grove. My old Acer 4X4 is like most CDRW's in that it was made for burning data really. Sure I can burn wave files to it but it only takes a hundred or so plays before it starts to skip a bit. The CDRW's that burn a deeper grove supposedly won't do that.

Any suggestions? I think Yamaha, Phillips, and Sony all make models better suited for music files but I really don't know one from the other. I would assume for instance that any Yamaha would burn good music files but I'm not sure.
 
I think it's funny how recording engineers, etc will spend loads and loads of money on equipment to give them the best possible sound quality for recording...only to have the end result be played in a cheapo car or home stereo.
 
The reason they do so is that the end product will sound good on those cheap ass systems. Nothing really funny about it. Sad that so many have been convinced that a boom box sounds good :(

Slackmaster 2000
 
Slackmaster2K said:
The reason they do so is that the end product will sound good on those cheap ass systems. Nothing really funny about it. Sad that so many have been convinced that a boom box sounds good :(

Slackmaster 2000
Click to expand...

yeah, true to that. Probably the same people that think Britney Spears and Nsync are the most talented artists out there now.
 
"I think it's funny how recording engineers, etc will spend loads and loads of money on equipment to give them the best possible sound quality for recording...only to have the end result be played in a cheapo car or home stereo."

Actually I've even heard Roger Nichols admit once that the difference between 16 and 24 bit is inconsenquential. But guys like that have money to burn so it's not as big a deal for them to spend a few bucks for the latest gear as it is for most of us for whom music is a part-time job/hobby and for whom our CD's are going to sell in the dozens rather than the thousands.

But also I think that if you run a big-time studio in Nashville or LA etc, you're expected to have the best of everything money can buy. Heck, most of the furniture in their lounge areas probably came from Ethan Allen. I guess if you can afford to blow 2 grand on a couch then 24 bit recording isn't much of a big expense.

Some of us however have makeshift studios in an attic with used rugs on the walls and pcv pipe to hang track lighting from. :) But I bet we still have as much fun as the Beatles. Just without the groupies....(sigh)
 
Slack,

> Let's say that your realistic noise floor is at -70db. That means you can damn near toss off 4 of your least significant bits unless the noise you're recording is desirable. <

Yes, though when there are fewer bits the distortion rises too. An 8-bit Wave file is not only noisier than a 16-bit equivalent, it's also grittier sounding.

> You know what I thought the big clincher would be? The fact that you've got 8 MILLION voltage levels to choose from between 0 and -6db in a 24 bit system. <

But that doesn't really matter because even with 16 bits the distortion is negligible. Further, consider that those tiny steps in voltage are sent to a loudspeaker, where they are translated to tiny steps in the speaker cone's position. If a tweeter has a maximum throw of 1/4 inch (and most are probably much less than that), you're talking about micron sized displacements! I don't know how many loudspeakers can be positioned that accurately.

> After a certain amount of resolution, it's probably the clock and the accuracy of the sampler that has the biggest impact on sound quality. <

That too is not the problem so many people seem to think it is. If a clock source has discrepancies that occur in the MHz. range, then the only affect is MHz. components. Which are filtered out in the D/A conversion but would be inaudible even if they weren't.

> The difference between the two mixdowns was extremely minimal. In fact I used wavelab to create a "difference" file, and the only differences were WAY down like -80db. <

My main point exactly.

--Ethan
 
Dennis,

> Isn't there another piece of this missing....as far as the mathmatical precision of the recalculations during the processing. Maintaining the highest bit rate until the very last second. <

You'd think so, but it's all just a matter of distortion even though it can be cumulative. So what do you get when you add 0.0001% distortion 25 times? Still not very much distortion! And compared to the amount of distortion in every loudspeaker ever made, 16-bit digital's distortion is several orders of magnitude (factors of 10) lower.

--Ethan
 
"So what do you get when you add 0.0001% distortion 25 times? Still not very much distortion! And compared to the amount of distortion in every loudspeaker ever made, 16-bit digital's distortion is several orders of magnitude (factors of 10) lower."

I had a similar discussion with a real nice guy a while back when he expressed some concern over a Hoontech card that he said he had seen in a review of several low-cost soundcards. They had rated its THD as the worst of the bunch. Thing is, even the worst THD in terms of digital audio recording is inaudible. It's a useless rating anymore. Even cassette decks have great THD values now and have for 10 years. They might as well turn the THD spec out to pasture.... You're right, speakers have the worst distortion characteristics but they aren't too bad either really. The last thing I'm looking at when pricing new gear is the THD rating. There's no point in even looking at it.
 
I'm confused - i don't really understand binary at all...but..for example...all of these 'volume' examples...

take

1011 0001 1000 0001

and "turn it down 20db" (this isn't the real numbers..i have no clue what I am doing)

1010 0001 1000 0000

someone said something like that earlier...slack i believe.

So, I am lowering my volume...hmm...well, if all of that crap is volume - then how does digital (binary)make a violin sound like the violin? Or drums sound like drums....seems like all of the changes in 1 and 0 would have to be a lot more precise on the SOUND itself than on the volume.

Someone, explain..explain :)
 
Its a straight forward challenge download trust your ears and reply!! simple, why are you all so frightened!!

Hippo
 
point made

Ethan: The fact that so few are even willing to participate and risk being dead wrong by stating their opinions means you've clearly made your point. Hardly anyone can discern these audio files. I certainly won't try. I would suggest simplifying the challenge. Asking what are the best and worst sounding of the lot (subjective of course) would be easier than trying to guess at all the intermediate levels.

the lesson of the day: 24 bit depth is nice for peeing away CPU throughput and consuming storage space, but just doesn't appear to be necessary. thanks for elucidating us.
 
Wes, each sample (those long binary numbers we were writing out) represents the voltage level of our audio sampled at some specific time. Typically we string 44,100 of these samples together per second to represent somewhat closely the original analog voltage waveform. Lowering the level of each sample (subracting from) is the equivalent of "turning down".

When we were talking above we were simply dealing with one sample at a time to make things simple. If we lower the volume in our audio application, we subract some constant value from EACH sample in the stream (44,000 per second or more!).

Slackmaster 2000
 
Re: point made

pchorman said:
the lesson of the day: 24 bit depth is nice for peeing away CPU throughput and consuming storage space, but just doesn't appear to be necessary. thanks for elucidating us.
Click to expand...

With 1.6 GHZ CPUs and 60GB hard drives selling for about $120 each, 24 bit depth no longer presents a power or a storage problem.

Besides, in a couple of years, this whole 16 bit vs. 24 bit debate will be moot because all cards will be 24 bit (at least).

16 bit is going...going...gone.
 
windowman,

> Even cassette decks have great THD values now and have for 10 years. <

Except when you have a 4- or 8-track cassette multi-tracker (first generation) and you mix to a stereo cassette deck (second generation), and then from that you make other cassettes (third generation) to distribute. That initial 1% distortion is now a lot higher. But you are correct that THD per se is not much of an issue these days, especially with digital systems. It's the IM that will get you every time, because that's what makes music sound gritty.

--Ethan
 
Wes,

> if all of that crap is volume - then how does digital (binary)make a violin sound like the violin? Or drums sound like drums. <

Those numbers represent the voltages generated by the microphone. Which represent the changes in air pressure when the musical instrument or voice was recorded.

When a microphone is connected to an amplifier which is in turn connected to a loudspeaker, the loudspeaker reproduces the same air movements the microphone captured originally. In an analog system, the voltage from the microphone is amplified and sent to the loudspeakers. In a digital system, the voltage from the microphone is measured 44.1 thousand times per second, and converted to equivalent numbers. In a 16-bit system these numbers can range from -32767 to +32768, which can represent a lot of tiny differences in the displacement of the loudspeaker cone.

Does this help?

--Ethan
 
Re: point made

PC,

> The fact that so few are even willing to participate and risk being dead wrong by stating their opinions means you've clearly made your point. <

So far 16 people have responded, listing which file they think is which. Considering the test requires downloading 11+ MB that's probably not too bad.

I'll be posting the results here soon.

--Ethan
 
I sort of half joke about comparing 16 bit to 24 at -60 or 80. But once I heard the difference, that being one swamped with noise and the other nearly pristine except for some mild analog hiss, how could a gear-slut like myself NOT want this!
I want to admit that (a) I hate doing a/b testing- it's generally a pain in the ass:), time comsuming, ect, and I'd rather do my 'listening' recording and mixing, comparing multiple versions of the same take when allowable and (b) I still have a lot to learn about the mechanics of the digi-conversion process, and (c) the differences are often so small as to be meaningless (different but not better and/or it's the SONG! not the gear).
That being said, I learned something recently on this subject over on RAP (thank you Arny and others) that helped me fill in a blank.
Your noise level exactly defines your maximum resolution. This applys wether digi or analog. The rule is, as I understand it is, take your noise level (in mili-volts for example) and that defines the smallest analog voltage you can resolve in that system.
There has to be some point where reducing distortion/increasing resolution is no longer helpfull (I assume).
But don't you see, once I heard the noise fall into the great black abiss, I was sold. Can't help myself.
:)
Wayne


"...I'm with Ashley. We nuke'm from orbit.
It's the only way to be sure..."
 
Wayne,

You're probably the third person I've seen mentioning this "noise" thing. Frankly I just don't get it. We don't record a lot of tracks and we have a Hoontech card now but we used to use an SB Live all the time (I still do at home) and record maybe 10 or 12 tracks. It's probably the worst SNR of any soundcard out there that's good enough to record with and even it had a 93 db SNR. I don't understand how anybody on the planet could think that's enough noise to worry about or even to mention. Hell, the noise you're picking up from your computer HD and monitor RF interference is going to be worse than that unless you have a booth for recording. And then there's electric guitar amp noise, console noise from the mics, air conditioning/heating ducts. Any of those will more than mask that piddly 93 db you'd get from an SB live and going to a card with a 100 db SNR won't help you in the noise department for those very same reasons. Good gosh we use to record 24 tracks on tape w/ a 72 db SNR or thereabouts all the time. Everybody did for 20 years or so. No one complained about the noise. The common consensus was that any improvement beyond 75 db didn't amount to anything. Myself and countless others have recorded on an SB Live without any noise issues. 93 db is practically dead silent unless use boost the volume incredibly high during silent passages and I don't care how many tracks you have. And for the record, the new Audigy cards still record at 16 bit (but w/ 24 bit converters) and now claim a SNR of 100 db so how would going to 24 bit recording change anything in this case?
 
Re: point made

pchorman said:
Ethan: The fact that so few are even willing to participate and risk being dead wrong by stating their opinions means you've clearly made your point. Hardly anyone can discern these audio files. I certainly won't try.
Click to expand...


Did you ever consider the fact that some of us are on a old modem? and cant DL those files?
If Ethan would mail me a cd I would gladly participate.

Hardly made a point........
 
mixsit said:
Your noise level exactly defines your maximum resolution. This applys wether digi or analog. The rule is, as I understand it is, take your noise level (in mili-volts for example) and that defines the smallest analog voltage you can resolve in that system.
Click to expand...

This is not true. There are absolutely nothing preventing you from transfering information below the noise level. On the contrary, the noise helps to increase the resoution. If there was no noise it would be impossible to detect differences of less than 1/2 LSB; but with noise the voltage resolution can be better than the resolution of the A/D converter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top