Is there a place where I could sell a 24 bit wav file of my song?

  • Thread starter Thread starter cosmodan
  • Start date Start date
Basically, no. Maybe the Pono player can do 24-bit digital files but I think it uses FLAC and not WAV. Even Tidal uses 44.1 kHz 16-bit files. So does every CD you've ever listened to.

Why the desire to use 24-bit WAV? That's a giant file. No digital distribution system is going to be willing to host a file of that size as a norm.
 
cosmodan said:
It's 1/3 bigger and it sounds much better.
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The noise floor is lower, that's all. That's helpful during production, but for delivery it's not necessary. In what way does it sound better to you?
 
Render 2 files, one at 16 bit, the other at 24 bit; if you can't hear the difference in quality, either you have a bad sound card or bad ears. When I render at 24 bit it sounds much more natural and effortless, at 16 bit the energy is different, as if the file would have been converted using a freeware. I thought that debate was over, 24 bit sounds better than 16 bit, it's going to 32 that makes no difference.
 
How EXACTLY are you listening to it? What interface ar eyou using, what monitors? What DAW are you using?
 
rendered in Reaper
Windows Media Player
E-MU 0404 interface
Shure SRH 440 headphones
 
I've just noticed something, Reaper doesn't render the files exactly the same every time... maybe my laptop is too slow, or maybe it's Reaper? My laptop is an Asus x44h and I paid $300 for it new 3 years ago. I rendered a few times the instruments and vocals separately, picked the best and rendered again and I got something good at 16 bit, but still something slightly better at 24 bit. The exaggerated difference was really due to rendering.
 
cosmodan said:
Render 2 files, one at 16 bit, the other at 24 bit; if you can't hear the difference in quality, either you have a bad sound card or bad ears. When I render at 24 bit it sounds much more natural and effortless, at 16 bit the energy is different, as if the file would have been converted using a freeware. I thought that debate was over, 24 bit sounds better than 16 bit, it's going to 32 that makes no difference.
Click to expand...

Placebo effect.
 
Rendering at 16 and rendering at 24 then comparing the two yourself is not a reliable test. The best way of determining if there is a difference is to conduct a double-blind test, so that neither you nor the tester know which is which until after you've compared them. If you don't conduct a blind test, confirmation bias kicks in big time.

Also, to say that someone else is 'deaf'if they can't hear a difference is not a very good counter-argument. It is really just an attempt to shut down the opposition.
 
I tend to take all these discussions as a bit pointless. I've been doing this kind of thing for a very long time now, and I'd like to think I can recognise a good recording and a bad one. As soon as it's in the good category, then the differences are just differences, which we like or not. I rather like the compression and change in 'tone' that the minidisc system introduces. I like the sound of it. My mixer can play wav files but only in certain formats, 'downgrading' from my recording format make very little difference. Sure - some of the data wrangling changes the sound, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst - but it stays in the good camp. A 320K, or even 256K mp3 can sound pretty good on some tracks. I can't subscribe to the fuss and bother around the merits of ultimate quality. Cosmodan has discovered his system renders differently sometimes. I cannot quite reconcile this fact, unless there is a fault somewhere. If the data is contiguous, and intact, then the rendering is a mathematical process and should be bit for bit identical. If it is not, then it is faulty. The notion that a supposedly identical file sounds different makes no sense at all. Certainly, all the output files I produce without changing any parameters have identical file sizes. If it sounds different, it will not be the same, and a file comparison program should find a difference?

On my system, which is built around Cubase, I have projects going back to the 90s. These are mainly 44.1K 16 bit using wavs, but later ones are 32 bit with even a few at double the sampling rate, and quality wise, I really don't notice. I've recently been working on a few which appear to have some tracks as mp3s? No idea why, but they don't sound bad.

I simply choose to believe that some of my own material sounds better than others, but in general this 'better' relates to performance and the track itself rather than any technical specification. I can load up a track and say good or bad quality very, very simply! I do NOT need to check the file specs.
 
I agree with everything you said, except the file size thing. And wav file of a specific sample rate, bit depth and length will be the exact same file size. Of course mp3's will be different sizes depending on content.
 
I love psycho-acoustics. Marketing departments make a ton of money with it.
 
Pinky said:
Placebo effect.
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In addition to the placebo effect and confirmation bias, there is a human tendency that has been labeled the backfire effect that describes how people confronted with evidence contrary to their belief tend to hold to their original position even more strongly.

Or they just call other people deaf.
 
cosmodan said:
I've just noticed something, Reaper doesn't render the files exactly the same every time... maybe my laptop is too slow, or maybe it's Reaper? My laptop is an Asus x44h and I paid $300 for it new 3 years ago. I rendered a few times the instruments and vocals separately, picked the best and rendered again and I got something good at 16 bit, but still something slightly better at 24 bit. The exaggerated difference was really due to rendering.
Click to expand...

Why would you render the individual tracks first, then mix those, and render the mix? Are you rendering 24-bit tracks to 16 bit, then mixing and rendieng to 16 bit, or 24 to 24 to 16? What plug-ins do you have on the tracks - could some of them be 16 bit?
 
JMac52 said:
In addition to the placebo effect and confirmation bias, there is a human tendency that has been labeled the backfire effect that describes how people confronted with evidence contrary to their belief tend to hold to their original position even more strongly.

Or they just call other people deaf.
Click to expand...

Notice how they completely avoided addressing anything in the next post that rips their contentions to shreds.
 
Chili said:
I love psycho-acoustics. Marketing departments make a ton of money with it.
Click to expand...

There's an entire industry built on the premise of someone *thinking* there's a difference betwen X and Y, while the entire time they're listening to Z like everyone else. haha

I gave up on "audiophile" forums a long time ago, too many koolaid drinkers and it gets tiring correcting almost every single friggin thing posted. And I'm not even an audio engineer! It just shows how little many self proclaimed experts actually know who make the grandest claims (and usually have the deepest wallets), when a poor slob like me knows better.
 
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