[nickspicks]

Curious...

how many folks here listen to 24bit digital audio?
either in DVD-A format, or just raw files downloaded from archive.org or any of the other sources for live music ???

[CornellAlum]

ME

[Dan Driscoll]

Me too. 

Most DVD-A disks also have a hi-rez stereo mix, either 24/48 or 24/96, and I often listen to that instead of the MC mix. I also have some DAD and HDAD disks, which are basically 2 channel DVD-As. My DAC accepts inputs up to 24/96 and that sounds better than 24/192 (HDAD) directly from my universal player's analog outputs.

[nathanm]

I'll listen to 24, sometimes even 23 or 25-bit, whatever it takes.  What do you mean by "raw files from archive.org" out of curiosity?

[nickspicks]

raw, as in unprocessed master recordings in place of studio releases.
they are available in .FLAC format.  if you search for 24bit, you'll find oodles.

[lazydays]

raw, as in unprocessed master recordings in place of studio releases.
they are available in .FLAC format.  if you search for 24bit, you'll find oodles.

if you ever tried to listen to a raw music file you'd probably die! It's that bad if not worse! That's why they are not sold.
gary

[Rob Babcock]

I listen to a lot of DVD-A stuff.

[ekovalsky]

Anticipating the arrival of a Transporter, I've started archiving my ~1,000 CDs and concert DVD-Vs onto a hard drive array.  I used Easy CD DA Extractor to rip to native 16 bit / 44.1khz .wav files.  Since my Meridian G98DH transport is based on a DVD drive, I took some of my favorite Redbook music and, using Sony Sound Forge, increased bit depth from 16 to 24 then resampled at 96khz.  I then saved these files and subsequently burned them onto DVD+R using "Audio DVD Creator" software.

Result is surprisingly good, a fairly significant sonic upgrade compared with the the original CD spinning in the transport.  The sound is smoother and somewhat more emotionally involving.  Even with the larger 24/96 files, DVD can hold several times as much music as Redbook CD.  For instance, you can take three or four CDs from your favorite artist and have them all on one disc, set up to either play continuously (like a CD with 40-50 tracks) or divided into separate titles for each disk, with each song being a chapter within the title.

I'm not sure everyone would get such good results.  The Meridian G98DH is capable of 24/96 output over S/PDIF, not all DVD players may be able to do this.  [It can also output DVD-A i.e. 24/192 but this is only available on a proprietary digital output for use with the Meridian processors].  And rather than a conventional DAC and preamp, the transport directly feeds a TacT 2.2X which will accept incoming digital up to 24/192.  TacT equipment uses 24/96khz internally, so by feeding it files with that bit depth and sample rate I avoid any internal "on-the-fly" upsampling.  And as the Meridian is based on a DVD transport, it may do a better job of pulling data off the DVD+R disks I burn than mass produced CDs. 

If this interests you, and you only have a CD player or transport, or a consumer DVD with only Toslink digital out, the very inexpensive Oppo units may be worth checking out. 

This all makes me wonder why DVD-V never really developed as a media for music.  Compared with CD there are a lot of advantages, and none of the disadvantages of SACD and DVD-A.

[nickspicks]

raw, as in unprocessed master recordings in place of studio releases.
they are available in .FLAC format.  if you search for 24bit, you'll find oodles.

if you ever tried to listen to a raw music file you'd probably die! It's that bad if not worse! That's why they are not sold.
gary

Perhaps you misunderstood me.
raw, unprocessed *live* recordings, not unprocessed studio stuff.

[nickspicks]

If this interests you, and you only have a CD player or transport, or a consumer DVD with only Toslink digital out, the very inexpensive Oppo units may be worth checking out. 

indeed!
the Oppo is a slick transport, let alone UDP

[jkelly]

Can you help me with this?  I have the Oppo 971 and 981 players here.
Can I download 24 bit files and burn them in some format to play on these players?

Jeff

[navi]

Hey Nickspicks

Thanks for introducing me to archive.org- There's a lot of stuff on the site for me to go through.

[Dan Driscoll]

I'm not sure everyone would get such good results.  The Meridian G98DH is capable of 24/96 output over S/PDIF, not all DVD players may be able to do this.  [It can also output DVD-A i.e. 24/192 but this is only available on a proprietary digital output for use with the Meridian processors].  And rather than a conventional DAC and preamp, the transport directly feeds a TacT 2.2X which will accept incoming digital up to 24/192.  TacT equipment uses 24/96khz internally, so by feeding it files with that bit depth and sample rate I avoid any internal "on-the-fly" upsampling.  And as the Meridian is based on a DVD transport, it may do a better job of pulling data off the DVD+R disks I burn than mass produced CDs.

Interesting. My Newcastle SD-860 outputs 24/96 and my DAC 62 can accept it as an input. I'm already listening to DAD this way, I might have to try the your software processing to see how it works with redbook.

[ekovalsky]

Can you help me with this?  I have the Oppo 971 and 981 players here.
Can I download 24 bit files and burn them in some format to play on these players?

Jeff

Not sure what format these 24 bit files are in, but it should be pretty easy to convert them if needed.  I used http://www.audio-dvd-creator.com/ to create the music DVDs. 

By the way Sony Sound Forge 9.0a can be downloaded for free as a 30 day trial.  Besides the aforementioned uses, it can also normalize based on peak or average levels, and perform a slew of other manipulations.  These is also noise reduction if that is an issue with some of the 24 bit files.

After the 30 day trial expires, you you can purchase a registration code for it.  Not that I recommend it, but there are patch files you can get from the torrent sites that will let you keep using it indefinitely 

[Double Ugly]

...it can also normalize based on peak or average levels, and perform a slew of other manipulations. 

What does that mean, Eric?  I'm not positive, but I believe Anthony said the Memory Player sounds as good as it does in part because it normalizes. 

Thanks.

-Jim

[ekovalsky]

Hey Jim

Basically with Sound Forge or similar software, you scan all the samples in the audio file and find the peak and average dB levels.  There are a lot of recordings that max out at 0dB.  While you would think 0dB level with digital is okay, it may not be -- remember these are samples and the DAC uses them to interpolate/generate an analog signal.  If there are adjacent samples at 0dB, a clipped analog waveform may be generated resulting in distortion.  If you have a TacT RCS and see the red light flashing during playback, this is the cause.  What Anthony may have referred to, is that some recordings can sound better with a little bit of digital attenuation (presumably for this same reason, hard to think of any other improvement from digital attenuation).

Normalizing means you can reset the reference level of the recording.  So if you scan a file that peaks at 0dB, and normalize it to a -1dB peak, all the samples are reduced in magnitude by 1dB.  You can also normalize from the average (RMS) value but that will not be useful for the audiophile.

On all the discs I've archived, I've made sure to have the max somewhere between -1 and -2dB.  I figure this gives near maximum dynamic range with enough headroom to eliminate any possibility of clipping during D>A conversion, whether in a line level DAC or a high level DAC (like the TacT amps).  Since doing this I have not seen the red light on the RCS 2.2X come on.

[nickspicks]

another way to enjoy these files...
dvd-audiofile
you can download it here: http://24bit.turtleside.com/
also, some good reading in there too.


drag FLAC files in, it spits out a .ISO image of a DVD-A, which you can then burn w/any software that can handle disc images (and most can).
nothing fancy needed.

as far as normalizing the files go, many of the tapers do that in post when they track out the files..etc.