Ask S&V

...is that the difference between hires music files and 44.1/16 CD, WAV, FLAC, etc. is not as demonstrably dramatic as the difference between DVD resolution and 1080P, or probably more apt, 4K, resolution. When I look at 1080P and 4k, I can immediately SEE the difference in quality. I don't have to spend 4 1/2 hours analyzing whether the hi-res files DO sound better.
The difference between hi-res and standard audio should be as apparent as the difference between mono and 7.1 channel surround, but it just isn't there.

I couldn't improve on the wisdom and clarity what Al has written. I would add one thing, though. There is a benefit to ripping CDs in a lossless format (like FLAC or ALAC) as opposed to a lossy one (like MP3 or AAC or WMA). The lossless formats save a little storage space but reproduce the original content precisely. The lossy formats are still more efficient but don't sound as good, especially at lower encoding rates. If you must use MP3, encode at the highest rate, 320 kbps, which approaches CD quality.

I still have a hard time getting people to understand that you can't improve the sound quality of a recording beyond the fidelity of the original recording. Been trying for 50 years. A friend recently SWORE to me that the CDs he copied in hi-rez FLAC format sounded way better than the original CDs. I couldn't convince him otherwise, quit trying when he got huffy with me.

I've done ABC testing with high res files a few times. A being Apple store or 320k files; B being 16/44 or a CD rip; C being a newly purchased high res version of the same music. With my first DAC and streamers, (years ago...) the differences weren't really big. Compressed vs CD was usually easy to appreciate the difference, but as the article says, not on an awful lot of rock/alternative/electronica. That popular music all suffers from the "loudness wars" problems where the recording and production pushed everything up to the highest volume possible, and compressed the range between the lowest volume and highest volume on an album. True even today. I love the Alabama Shakes, but their music sounds no better at 16/44 than it does Apple Store compressed. Just the nature of their sound.

Each new DAC or streamer, I re-do the check. With my current gear, I can tell a 24/48 from a 24/96 from a 24/192 (although that last jump is really marginal improvement.) But what is even more apparent now that we've had HD music coming out is that a lot of older stuff needs to be re-mastered and re-produced to take full advantage of HD. For example, in jazz - Don Was at BlueNote has been re-issuing a lot of stuff recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. I own a lot of it on CDs. It's smack you in the face obvious that when BlueNote did the HD files, they went back to the recording masters (not the burning masters) and fixed a lot of things - let the dynamics get way wider for example, and fixed some not very artful panning of instruments hard left or hard right. Led Zeppelin also went back to the production studio for their HD releases, and WOW it shows.

The differences really are striking. My wife swore for years she couldn't tell the difference from better speakers, blah blah... even though she commented on how much better our system sounded after some upgrades. But the latest DAC and HD... she calls it "spooky" because the musicians kind of materialize in the room. Even our dogs... the first few days with the new DAC and really well done HD music, every once in a while all three of them would race into the family room and wander around in between the speakers, check the corners of the room, look behind the couch. Not every album, but the best ones had them convinced someone got in the house without them noticing.

I'm very careful about trying to decide what resolution to buy for any given album. I love a lot of really head banging music, and getting a CD is the highest definition I'll go, because it just doesn't matter. But jazz, bluegrass, classical, some of the 1960s and 70s bands like Grateful Dead and King Crimson, and Zepp have done a magnificent job of re-doing their albums to take advantage of the additional sonic quality of HD.

So - I could take a bunch of music you like that won't show the difference HD makes and convince you it's snake oil, by picking only stuff that wasn't really re-mastered for the new medium. But if it's been re-done for HD properly, you'll hear it. (And BTW, downsampling some of that 24/192 or 24/96 to 16/44, it does lose quite a bit of the improved sound, but not all, which is why remastering is important.)

The esteemed Audio Engineering Society has proven in double blind testing that there is no audible difference between so-called Hi Res and CD quality. Save your money and don't believe the baloney sites like Sound and Vison, et al, try to sell you. They are trying to sell you new equipment to keep their advertisers happy. I doubt if there is one in a million people that could genuinely detect any difference, and it is pretty uncertain which way that would go anyway!

Hi-Res is a moot point anyway, because vinyl - you know, all you people out there who grew up with it, with the pressings that looked like they were made from the used asphalt from the highways being repaved and the only way to get a good LP was by spending 4-5 times over the retail price of a regular LP for a MFSL limited-edition pressing on virgin vinyl - is so much more "warm-sounding" and "natural". Oh, and the feeling of removing the disc from the jacket and placing the vinyl disc on the turntable platter is so much more "satisfyingly tactile".
But I WILL defend the double-LP gatefold jacket, though: it was GREAT for cleaning the seeds and stems from my stash. Can't do that on a CD case! LOL!

I have listened to a couple of CD vs Hi-Res downloads thru an Emotiva DAC (borrowed) and I couldn't hear the difference. Maybe it's my hearing or maybe it's my equipment. It really doesn't matter. It may be that there is no discernible difference or my equipment isn't revealing enough., but if I can't hear a difference I'm not paying for it. If you can hear the difference then you can pay for it. That's the only test that matters. My guess is that the reason the Hi-Res market remains vanishingly small is that those that can't hear a difference don't care and the majority of music buyers (read young) listen to music thru inexpensive headphone/earbuds and really don't care.

>> While the sound cards on many computers can handle high-rez, computers add noise to signals, and most have cheap built-in DACs that reduce sound quality by adding jitter to the data stream.

Weak. Any data on this? You do know that jitter IS noise, and only that, right? --- there is no such thing as "timing" information.

>> basic computer speakers and Apple EarPods aren’t likely to deliver any sonic benefits that exist with HRA. Even your Bose SoundTrue headphones might not be up to the task. There are good reasons why most (but certainly not all!) high-end audio components such as the $1000 HiFiMan Edition X headphones that Sound & Vision used in its test of the DragonFly Black cost more: they are designed to reveal a higher level of sonic transparency and detail, and are carefully manufactured using premium parts.

Even weaker. Of course anyone listening to any good source via computer should have good speakers, Flat, clean, wideband and of uniform dispersion, or equivalent headphones. But

>> designed to reveal a higher level of sonic transparency and detail,

what does that even mean? Seriously. How would it do that? Better treble via better tweeters? Okay. Otherwise, I bet a nickel that even you in shill mode know that this is bunk, and worse than bunk. It's 2017, guy.

>> and are carefully manufactured using premium parts.

ooooh.

This is all perniciously weak. You should be ashamed trying to Trump the answer of this schnook.

I was a member of a wine society in Sydney Australia where, to become a highest level member, you had to be able to taste 10 randomly selected wines and say what year, what grapes, which regions, and for bonus points, which vineyard - and nail all 10. There were a good hundred people who'd done that, and I watched several tests where 20-30 people nailed 10 of 10. And at the same time 100 to 150 didn't make it.

When people say "there's no high res difference" it makes me laugh. I'm good enough with wines that I can't go to dinner with friends or customers and avoid being who they want to order wines. But my best outcome at the wine society would have been 0 of 10. However. I spend a decade being trained in music theory, performance on six different instruments, music criticism. I could tell you, listening to a good recording, what kind of metal was being used by individual members of the trumpet and trombone sections. Made me crazy when they didn't all go with consistent metals.

I can hear the HD difference. My wife, who listens to books on tape for 80% of her life, can tell. Dinner guests can tell - get up in the middle of the main course to go stand in our family room swaying back and forth and pointing at where the musicians are.

I'll admit I might be a more skilled listener. A ton of time was spent developing listening skills. Do you think that doesn't matter? Do you know what a silver belled C trumpet sounds like compared to a yellow brass bell? To me it sounds like discord... if the production and bit depth is right.

People who say there's no difference assume that the entire planet hears the way they do. That's like saying we all play tennis the same. Go ahead, take on one of the Williams sisters. Or that everyone could tell a fake Renoir from a real one. Or that with a little practice we could smoke Usain Bolt.

Training matters. However... I can tell you that in a dinner playlist that has some tracks at 24/96 or higher, people get up and leave to go in the room with the audio system at the highest definition tracks. For awhile I thought I could hear the differences because of training. But a few dozen dinner guests, most of whom are engineers, coders, or research scientists, have been moved by HD tracks but not others.

More than nine years later and Sound & Vision has _still_ not attempted to replicate the Meyer and Moran ABX tests and make the results public. Why? What is preventing Sound & Vision from doing this? http://drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf

I completely and totally agree with the original poster as I went throught a very similar experience, although spending more for a top-shelf Bryton DAC. I connected it to a high end McIntosh Intergrated and top of the line Paradigm speakers. I used my MacBook Pro as the source with Audiovarna (sp?) software. Files compared were CD quality vs. HDTracks. Conclusion: Not worth it. And I think I have pretty good ears and thousands of listening hours with the content.

Here's why: Variability in source material. Yes, "remastered" CD files sounded better than 1980-era files. But I chaulked this up to 80s CD tech at the time, not "hi-rez." But the difference from there on up (to HD Tracks level stuff) was just not there.

I have no doubt that material which begins its life in the digital domain and stays there will probably show very noticeable differences but right now, the provenance of the "HRA" files available just arent worth the risk of investment.

Just my two cents,
Scott

“Why would you expect another entity to perform the same test?”

Only if that entity makes an unusual claim.

“Why rely on a another [sic] entity at all? Why not just conduct the tests for yourself, on your own equipment, and in your own listening room?”

Are you perhaps suggesting that everyone should try to replicate the Meyer and Moran ABX tests? Did you read the PDF that I linked to? Do you know what an ABX test is? Do you know why ABX tests are done?

Why are we arguing about testing? Werent we discusing HRA?

I completely agree that the (re)mastering makes a huge difference.
Hotel California - original CD versus HRA - no difference
Studio Series - Hotel California - CD versus HRA - big difference.
Rumours - original CD versus HRA - big difference, it's like a curtain was lifted, really
IOW, some HRA are disappointing while others are not. It's a bit of a crap shoot.

I just upgraded my system. I got an Anthem P5 amplifier and an Anthem AV60 pre amp. The first time using balanced in and outs. I bave fairly flat speakers ADS L1290/2s all reconditioned and up to spec, thanks to Rich So. I set everything up manually first and then used the ARC system. I was humbled to see how much better of a job ARC did in crossing over the sub. I now think some of my favorite rock cds sound very compressed. Listening to a good recording like Anreas Vollenweider I can now hear information I couldn't hear before. It all starts with the recording. Then the set up and quality of the playback equipment, and last but not least the room. We can only hear so much improvement because human hearing is limited in bandwith. The noise or lack of is certainly going to be obvious. It is not bull.... If done right the difference can be enjoyed by all.

I spent 2 years trying to hear the difference between 16/44 and 24/192 pure audio blu-ray on a high quality system. I could hear no improvement in sound quality. I think those who say they can are experiencing one of two things;
1-placebo effect
2-the hi-res recording was mastered better and with more attention to sound quality when it was recorded.
I have well mastered CD's that sound better than some of the 24/192 blu-rays. And I have 2 of the hi-res discs that sound absolutely awful. The bottom line is that the mastering and recording quality eclipses completely any theoretical,and miniscule, audible improvement in SQ that hi-res might provide. My system is Marantz reference integrated amp, Marantz UD7007 disc player, Martin Logan electrostatic speakers, and a B&W powered sub. I've been an audiophile for forty years,and I've wasted a lot of money chasing better sound quality. Hi-res is nonsense. By the way, the best SQ I've ever heard in my house is a vinyl LP of Eric Clapton's "Unplugged". It blows away the hi-res blu-rays.