I'm not surprised DVD-Audio and co failed. Their quality is indistinguishable from CDs despite what audiophiles would have you believe, and by the time they came out MP3 was clearly the future.
> Their quality is indistinguishable from CDs despite what audiophiles would have you believe
Well I blame the system. You needed upgraded headphones or speakers. I have $2000 studio monitors when I was an audio engineer and well I can 100% tell you in a blind test I can tell the difference.
95% of the reason why is people don't care about quality audio. It's something about human brains. MP3 sound horrible compared to a FLAC and good equipment. Instead people wear Beats Bluetooth Headphones listening to streamed Audio.
I also blame myself. I use $15 in ear bluetooth ear piece (Looks like a hearing aid) Inovate G10. I listen almost exclusively to podcasts or YouTube videos. The convenience is so much more needed than sound quality. I listen to music at home (When my kids aren't around because all they do is complain). I need to get a good pair of headphones.
> MP3 sound horrible compared to a FLAC and good equipment. Instead people wear Beats Bluetooth Headphones listening to streamed Audio.
A 1000 times this.
High bit rate (FLAC/DVD-Audio/etc.) sounds way better than standard CD Audio, even on mid-range ($3k) kit. Of course you DO need to listen to proper music on it, that uses real instruments[2], instead of all that bump-n-grind poplet-R&B stuff that kids like these days[1].
Modern 'pop' music is also mastered for MP3/Streaming nowadays anyway, so high bit rates of that stuff will never sound good no matter what you play it on.
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[1] Get off my lawn.
[2] No I don't just mean Classical, but good Rock/Metal also.
> Well I blame the system. You needed upgraded headphones or speakers. I have $2000 studio monitors when I was an audio engineer and well I can 100% tell you in a blind test I can tell the difference.
Do you have an explanation of how that is possible? On the face of it, CD seems to have more SNR and frequency response than necessary. I've got intelligent friends on both sides of the debate, but I've never heard a plausible explanation from the "I promise I can tell the difference" friends. I tend to believe Monty Montgomery (of Ogg Vorbis fame). After watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qFjdQP7Ep0 there's little obvious room for doing better than CD. The best explanation I've heard is that CD mastering is generally aimed at mainstream equipment, and therefore isn't optimal for good equipment.
I can explain. On stereo you will be hard pressed by most people. The issue is where and how is everything done from recording all the way to mastering.
Technically here is how it works. CDs are at 44.1khz sample rate and you record at 96khz back in 2000s, similar how video recordings are 8k for 4k or 1080p. Then when you exported your mix to be mastered it would get knocked down to 44.1khz not very noticeable in the least unless you listened to stuff all day everyday and had to train your ear to hear everything.
If you compare the two 96khz and 44.1khz there is a distinct difference BUT it is not something that people would care about because their equipment only gives a clarity of less than 44.1khz. My system from recording all the way to audio output and DAC were 96khz and cost my thousands and thousands of dollars.
I do believe that you can tell when you hear the two. Kind of like how FLAC and MP3 sound different on my LG V20 phone.
But the question remains. Given Nyquist theorem and an upper limit to human ear response, what is the advantage of going over ~40kHZ? I understand you can encode more information, but decoding to higher frequencies than we can hear doesn't seem (to the novice) to be beneficial. Do we somehow 'detect' harmonics above what we can hear? Or is the extra information used to process something else differently, like the relative volumes of two slightly different instruments making a note at the same pitch? It's an interesting question IMO.
EDIT: upper ear response is presumably limited to ~20 kHz
I can tell the difference with my now-old ears, if it is a good recording of real-world instruments in a common space.
That is a lot of qualifiers, but on playback you can ‘feel’ that other space.
I believe that it is because of the way that the higher frequency components of the sound interact with the environment and effectively down-transpose and affect the rest of the signal before they hit the listener’s ear.
I use a Rowkin Mini for the same sort of stuff, most often while commuting. For spoken content it renders intelligibly, and it is tiny and comfortable to use. It also lasts a few hours on a charge and lives on my keyring. Devices like this exist in a local optimum of convenience, as long as they and their audio sources both do Bluetooth right. (I tried a bunch of the cheap ones off Amazon before settling on the Rowkin. It really is a lot better!)
Yup. They have a new line out, so are probably clearing old stock with the discount. That link is the exact model I have, though, and it's been awesome; I might pick up a couple of spares just to have them against need.
even if you don’t believe in very high quality audio like me, the fact is we’re listening to stereo music, but viewing movies on 5.1 systems. This would have been different with dvd-a. I would have loved to listen to a live concert cd with surround sound.
>5.1 systems. This would have been different with dvd-a. I would have loved to listen to a live concert cd with surround sound.
As to your specific DVD-Audio example, I think it didn't widely catch on because most music is consumed (1) with earphones (2) in the car (3) as incidental background while multitasking. The scenario of "purposeful" music listening by sitting in the center sweet spot of a 5.1 setup is very rare.
There's also a long history of technology that's "superior" but isn't accepted by the masses. There's a "law of diminishing returns" and/or other dimensions of utility (such as convenience) have higher priority than quality. Examples:
- quadrophonic sound[1] is more immersive than 2-channel stereo but people didn't buy it
- satellite radio is higher quality sound than FM radio but Sirius XM remains a niche and won't penetrate the market like FM did. Yes, FM had higher fidelity than AM and listeners switched but the same didn't happen for satellite.
- 24bit-96kHz or 192kHz audio did not take over 16bit-44kHz (1411kbps). Instead, the opposite happened and more listeners consumed lower quality 128kbps mp3 and AAC files. Lower quality was driven by Napster + iPod + Spotify. Convenience trumped highest fidelity.
- Bluray discs : more customers pay for digital streaming (often with lower resolution than 1080p) than upgrading the old DVDs to Bluray. There was more market penetration with VHS to DVD.
- large 3D tv screens : the explosive growth is smaller screens on mobile phones playing Youtube rather than 3D content like Avatar. 3D is now seen as a gimmick fad.
History has shown that we always overestimate how technical "quality" drives consumer adoption.
I agree with almost all of your examples... except for 3d. While almost everybody I know would say they prefer seeing a movie on a big screen (even though the phone/tablet is sometimes more convenient), I don't know _anybody_ that prefers 3d movies. They're utter garbage.
+1. Even if they could be distinguished, it would be only in top HiFi setups. Most people (me included) listened with shitty car stereos, portable players with terrible DACs and cheap headphones.
As someone who use to have a SMALL Recording studio. We are in the best music business times for small indie bands. More people can support themselves through kickstarter like programs. Two of my bands traveled the world and were on MTV (Back when they played videos). The most one band made was $7,000 per person and they traveled to Europe and Australia/NZ. I never made a dime. They posted on Kickstarter 6 years after they stopped touring and got $50,000 in one week and $65,000 by the time it was done. Their album was awesome because they all just took breaks from their jobs and got it done.
Well I will say that this is the first time since the traveling poets of ancient times that people can make money on their own with music. I think the issue is people think an artist should make millions. The only place losing music jobs is label employed musicians. We cut out the middle man they can make a good living. One of my friends just plays Acoustic Guitar and travels the world for competitions and makes a decent living. He isn't what you would call rich but he is paying the bills and has a family. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo9kGHYn_bI
"...things are actually much better for independent musicians than in the past, just as we would expect. In fact, there's been an astounding 510% increase in independent musicians making their full time living from music in just the past decade."
