Hello.
Is there any audio codec that can convert audio to 24bit and 96khz ?
Is there will be any difference if I rip my Audio CD to 24bit/96khz ?
And whose media are in 24bit / 96khz quality ?

I am asking because I have bought one of Creative Audio Cards and I want to hear the real power of 24bit sound.

Greetings!

Responses by question:
FLAC.
No.
Some DVD-Audio discs have 24/96 content.

How do I realize that my DVD-Audio have 24bit/96khz content ?
I mean: Will be there any signs on box / cover ?

Sorry for my 'noob' questions, but I am beginner :-)

Thanks for reply

And just so you know, there seems to be no definitive proof that there is an audible difference between 24/96 and 16/44.1, other than the artificial differences produced by different mastering.

So maybe there will be difference between 24/192khz and 16/44,1 ?

Why do you think there are no audible difference between 24/96 and 16/44,1? Did you tested that on proffessioinal hi-fi audio?

Greetings!

Only if you are young and dont't visit loud discoteques or rock concerts regularly, you might be able to hear an isolated tone up to 19 or 20 kHz. The older you get and the more you torture your hearing,the lower the upper limit will be.
So a sample rate of 44.1 khz will be enough.

And a properly mastered and dithered CD will offer a dynamic range of ca. 100 dB which is far more than what can be practically achieved at home. As pdq wrote, there are examples for intentionally bad mastered CD layers on SACD hybrid disks, one is "Dark Side of the Moon"

Do you mean that this intentionally bad mastered SACD layers have lower dynamic range than CD Audio/. If so, bad mastered SACD have worse quality than properly mastered CD?

I was talking about the CD layer of hybrid CD/SACD disks.

This thread may be of interest, in which the merits of higher-res audio are discussed:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=40134

FLAC, WMA Lossless (and probably Apple Lossless?)

No, because an audio CD is 16bit/44.1kHz. There is nothing to gain from upping the resolution or bit depth.

Theoretically yes (if you have superhuman hearing and/or play the music at jet-engine volume), and with disk space cheap as it is, I would not downsample any 24/96 material I have. But ripping the 24/96 material on a DVD-A/SACD is not easy (unlike audio CDs, the DVD-A and SACD layers are copyprotected).

What kind of "power" would there be to hear? 24 bit audio isn't something that will magically bring sparkly visions and fuzzy feelings, it just gives you, if you're producing music, a bit more headroom for mixing and processing multiple tracks without worrying about raising the noise floor into audible territory.

Wikipedia explains why SACD DSD audio suffers less from (intentional) severe dynamic compression because of technical restrictions in the SACD format (with good reasons). DSD does not have a defined clipping level like PCM. 0dB DSD is defined as 50% modulation index (100% modulation index means a constant '1' or '0' output signal).
I don't think that the CD layer on SACD discs is intentionally "badly mastered". It's usually highly compressed like most modern CD's. DSD can't handle loud signals like this. Making a "less loud" cd-version is an option but is usually not acceptable (to the producer, artist, record company, consumer etc.). Therefore the mastering engineer is forced to make separate versions for the CD and DSD (SACD) layer.

I'm using winamp now, because the latest foobar2000 have broken ASIO.

I have some problems with Otachan ASIO in foobar 0.8.3
INFO (foo_output_asio(exe)) : open : 44100 Hz, LINEAR PCM, 16 bits, 2 channels
INFO (foo_output_asio(exe)) : ASIO device type [channel 0] : Int32LSB
INFO (foo_output_asio(exe)) : ASIO device type [channel 1] : Int32LSB
ERROR (foo_output_asio(exe)) : unsupported output data format.

How to force using 24-bit output ? I have x-fi card.

You must up-convert to 32bit, since this is the only bitdepth supported by your driver's ASIO pipe (same here, E-MU0404).

On the lossy side, Windows Media Audio 10 Professional matches these requirements as well.

Thanks for many replies.

I have another question:
Whose resampler is better ? SSRC or PPH5 ?

It's PPHS, not PPH5
Read more about PPHS vs SSRC here: Is SSRC deprecated since 0.9 b14?

Ok, I have done some testing.

I listened to mp3 song at 44.1khz.
Then I listened to the same song resampled (SSRC) to 96khz.
And difference is noticeable . At 96khz the tone is more warmer!

I don't know what do that? It is effect of resampler or x-fi card just sounds better in 96khz mode (because of specification)?

EDIT:
I've done this test in Audio-Creation mode, bit-perfect playback on.

You should perfom an ABX testing to be sure the impression you've got isn't placebo.

Read this:

QUOTE

All members that put forth a statement concerning subjective sound quality, must -- to the best of their ability -- provide objective support for their claims. Acceptable means of support are double blind listening tests (ABX or ABC/HR) demonstrating that the member can discern a difference perceptually, together with a test sample to allow others to reproduce their findings. Graphs, non-blind listening tests, waveform difference comparisons, and so on, are not acceptable means of providing support.

and go to here.

Whether or not you actually hear a difference should only depend on your sound card, assuming that your resampling was of the highest quality. Even if your card is in bit-perfect mode, there could still be differences, like what is the cutoff frequency of the analog filtering after the D/A.

Unfortunately all of this makes it very difficult to perform a true ABX test where the only difference is the resampling to 96khz. I will leave it to others to suggest a way to do this.

Note that the expected outcome, all else being equal, is that the resampled song should not sound "better" (i.e. truer to the original), and if you hear any difference at all then it is due to shortcomings in your playback setup.

... or maybe this card simply plays better sound in 96khz ASIO mode?

Use the ABX tool in foobar to find out.

Maybe the sound card is doing sample rate conversion - from 44.1 to 48. If you up-sample to 96 first, you *might* get a better sounding re-sample going back down to 48

Or the sound card may be doing some funky 16 bit dithering, in which case up sampling to 24 bits before the card dithers down to 16 could make a difference.

The specs on the X-Fi suggest that it upsamples to 192khz before outputting (or 96khz for multichannel sound). I can ABX the creative resampler (not sure if it's kmixer or creative's own, though). See my http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....mp;#entry451270 for an example (I was unable to repeat the results when upsampling back to 96khz with SSRC)

edit: added link

Yes, but they may not be accurate.

But many modern players/receivers will display the real output/input data information.

In any case you won't be able to rip DVD-Audio digitally without some, um,
rare software. DVD-A (and SACD) are highly copy-protected. You could
digitally re-record the analog output at 24/96 but you'd have to do it in real time.
The benefits of doing it at such data rates are dubious.






Well, that simply moves the blame up a level in the production hierarchy. WHo 'forces' CDs to be that dynamically compressed in the first place? It's all a sad example of an industry chasing its own tail.

And while I don't doubt the above info about DSD is correct, I wouldn't take that particular wiki article as gospel. It's seriously in need of some qualification and correction, and wouldn't pass HA muster as is, e.g.,



It remains to be demonstrated that such music audibly benefits from dynamic range extended beyond what Redbook CD offers. The author also uses 'oversampling' when he/she means 'intersample overs', and quotes David Chesky -- who produces and sells SACDs -- as a reference for SACD sound quality.