Bass Quality

Professional recording engineers Barry Diament and Paul Stubblebine both claim to have independently noticed that bass quality is better with 192khz audio than with 44.1 or 96. Yes, bass. No one has been able to even come up with a theory as to why that might be true.

Paul Stubblebine wrote:

" Barry has mentioned that he hears a qualitative difference between the 2X rates (88 and 96) and the 4X rates (176 and 192) and I hear it pretty much the way he describes it. As we go up from 16 to 24 bits, and as we go up from the 1X rates to the 2X rates, I hear a number of specific improvements. When we get to the 4X rates done well (and here I agree again with Barry--easier said than done) it's more of a feeling that we have turned a corner and we are almost dealing with a musical experience rather than a facsimile of a musical experience. And I'll confirm that Keith Johnson has said something similar in several conversations.

I'll go further: Those of us who work in digital audio understand the relationships of sample rate to frequency response, and bit depth to dynamic range. Theory says that higher sample rates allow us to record higher frequencies, and in practice that's true. But here's something that the theory doesn't account for: every time we double the sample rate (up to 4X) the bass gets better. Much better. More dimensionality, more texture, more clarity, better decay, lots of things. I'm just trying to make the point that digital audio is more complicated, and more subtle, than the first-level theory that we all learned. "

 

I can't say I notice bass getting better with 88.2/96, but everything seems to sound more realistic across the spectrum. Bass, mids, treble. I agree that 88.2/96 tends to sound more believable and realistic which in the past I've always chaulked up to the digitial filter being less obtrusive on the audio band. However, 192k and the like tends to sound worse to me. More grainy and hazy, almost like a DSD effect.

 

Ahh, the magic words. Not just prols, like the rest of us eh?

Well, if these people really are professionals, they'll be technicians at heart, and,, unlike the rest of us, to whom subjective listening is mostly enough, I expect they'll have their proper investigations results, eg blind tests and stuff, handy. right? Because they are professionals and all that...

 

This is certainly a perplexing topic. I have gone the upsampling route and used it for some time. Now I never use it.

Here is an interesting synopsis of a few in the industry who are not that hepped up on super high sampling rates.

http://www.trustmeimascientist.com/...rates-when-higher-is-better-and-when-it-isnt/

An interesting note is that the author seems to feel that one should not compare how something sounds at a higher sampling rate on one converter but rather across converters. The point made is that some converters sound better at higher rates than at 44.1k.

So I guess, my experience with upsampling and one converter is just that!

 

Recording engineers are in the studio control room, while musicians are performing. Their job is to adjust the recording controls in real-time while the recording is on-going. The most well-known adjustment is to raise and lower relative levels ("fader").

Their career is entirely dependent on trusting their hearing 100%. They spend all day every day making critical listening judgements.

A musician does the same thing while performing, of course.

To tell these people "you cannot trust your hearing, it is ____ bias" is insanity. It is like telling a surgeon not to trust his eyesight, or telling a winemaker not to trust his taste.

 

Even so, with enough practice you can become good and accurate at what you do. Is that not how professionals are often trained?

Thing is, between the 1940ties and 1970ties being the sound engineer meant being a jack of all trades at the venue and in the studio. You got it right and the recording sounded great, clear and detailed. You got it wrong and well, nothing. Since the 1970ties stereo became the norm and that changed a lot. Technology and computers changed even more.

I know a sound engineer and he loves the artist Spinvis for his sound. That little detail tells me enough.

 

Getting back on topic, I happen to have a pretty sweet A/D D/A converter that I use for recording and such. I can set the Line In and Line Out to equal levels, and then monitor the signal through an amp that can switch from 2 inputs (Input 1 direct from source, Input 2 from Line Out). At our last vinyl rip sesh, we did such a test with a super high quality SE 2A3 headphone amp. I was surprised at the great results we were able to get. Input 2 was quite "transparent" (for lack of a better term) to what was going on on Input 1. For reference, I think most audiophiles using their reference rigs (amp + headphone) would be absolutely oblivious to the difference.

For kicks, we were able to sample the signal at different rates, 44.1 and 96. A certain belligerent one was able to tell the difference between the two, although it was admittedly a single blind test and I don't have the best poker face in the world.

My point being, I don't think a single A/D/A loop is the worse thing in the world, provided you have a top-notch converter and dial things in for optimum performance. The theory and the hardware behind the conversion process has gotten to the point where things are pretty damn refined and you hear all the music and its nuances. The real issue is you bring in software processes which destroy your signal. Simply going from a direct hardware loop (hardware monitoring) to a software loopback just isn't as transparent. All manner of software EQ, compression, resampling, etc. that are done on the digital side of processing. Absolutely yuck. This is where analog wins for me. I've heard the best processing plugins and the best analog processing and the difference is clear. And I still couldn't tell you why, bits are bits, perfect sound forever, blah blah blah...but that's where I think digital audio goes awry, and why I think folks like Marv will prefer their LPs from the golden era.

 

OJ, I think you are in the wrong thread ?

 

You're right in that I'm drawing from and responding to things that have been posted outside this thread but it looks like I'm not the only one doing so.

Is this thread about bass quality of 44 vs 96, the woes of digital audio, expectation bias and DBTs, or all/none of the above?