24/32 bit and Hz

[Kasenumi]

Hi everyone
What is the best quality audio mode headphones can offer?
Settings allow 32 bit 192000 Hz  but is it the best quality for consumer use? Switching these modes and comparing how it sounds during a song I dont really hear any difference 

[Tigerleon]

1 minute ago, Kasenumi said:

Hi everyone
What is the best quality audio mode headphones can offer?
Settings allow 32 bit 192000 Hz  but is it the best quality for consumer use? Switching these modes and comparing how it sounds during a song I dont really hear any difference 

You can't hear a difference. The max best audio setting is 24 bit 48khz. Not saying it is the best but you can't really hear over that

[Tigerleon]

Maybe some hz can stand out more tho. Not sure.

[rice guru]

1 minute ago, Kasenumi said:

Hi everyone
What is the best quality audio mode headphones can offer?
Settings allow 32 bit 192000 Hz  but is it the best quality for consumer use? Switching these modes and comparing how it sounds during a song I dont really hear any difference 

heeadphones are analog devices 24 and 32 bit settings dont affect your music its the file that does if you somehow have a file that is 32 bit @ 192000 hz then it can make a difference other wise set your dac to the max bitrate and frequency that you have in your music library. flacs are normally 44.1khz @16 or 24 bit 

[Tigerleon]

Also having a higher frequency than the actual like recording or file you listen to will automatically be downgraded and sound worse than it should. This is what I've read anyways.

[svmlegacy]

5 minutes ago, Kasenumi said:

Hi everyone
What is the best quality audio mode headphones can offer?
Settings allow 32 bit 192000 Hz  but is it the best quality for consumer use? Switching these modes and comparing how it sounds during a song I dont really hear any difference 

 

3 minutes ago, Tigerleon said:

You can't hear a difference. The max best audio setting is 24 bit 48khz. Not saying it is the best but you can't really hear over that

 

Just now, Tigerleon said:

Maybe some hz can stand out more tho. Not sure.

Yes, you get diminishing returns by raising the bits and sample rate.

32-bit 192 kHz is more for editing than listening. High frequency sounds benefit the most from this. For example: a 12 kHz sine wave will be sampled into by an entire 4 points in 48 kHz, while 192 will be able to sample it 16 times. 4 points gets you a triangle wave. 16 can start to look like a sine. Listen to cymbals to pick out the difference.

 

1 minute ago, Tigerleon said:

Also having a higher frequency than the actual like recording or file you listen to will automatically be downgraded and sound worse than it should. This is what I've read anyways.

I don't know how true this is. It's kind of like playing a DVD on an HDTV. Regardless, no matter what media, it's only as good as the worst sampled part. LMG records at much higher than 4K for a reason.

[an actual squirrel]

The bit depth and sampling frequency can lower the inherent noise in the digital format. Once you are working with 24 bit audio, for playback, the bottleneck won't be the format, the bottleneck will be the dac quality, since no dac actually has an effective 24 bit resolution (the best dacs are going to be around 21 bits).

 

It is more useful for post work, since you can boost something low in the recording, and you don't have to worry as much about noise. It is similar to the example brought up about recording in more than 4k, so you can zoom in without as much quality loss.

[rice guru]

1 minute ago, an actual squirrel said:

The bit depth and sampling frequency can lower the inherent noise in the digital recording. Once you are working with 24 bit audio, during playback, the bottleneck won't be the format, the bottleneck will be the dac quality, since no dac actually has an effective 24 bit resolution (the best dacs are going to be around 21 bits).

 

It is more useful for post work, since you can boost something low in the recording, and you don't have to worry as much about noise. It is similar to the example brought up about recording in more than 4k, so you can zoom in without as much quality loss.

His dac is actually pretty good so it's not really too much of a concern. He runs a geshelli enog 2 pro I believe.

[an actual squirrel]

32 minutes ago, rice guru said:

His dac is actually pretty good so it's not really too much of a concern. He runs a geshelli enog 2 pro I believe.

Between the format and the dac, the dac will always be the bottleneck at 24 bit. There aren't dacs you can buy with 24 bit performance (144db dynamic range), it is like an engineering impossibility. According to audiosciencereview, that dac has 115db dynamic range, or around 19 bits of resolution.

[HumdrumPenguin]

Aside from what the squirrel has been saying, if you select the highest settings on Windows, you'll get the Windows algorithm to play tricks on your sound whenever you're not playing a file at the selected resolution. It's better to have the Windows output set at 16/44.1 and let the dac oversample whenever necessary.

 

There's likely no music that truly exceeds 20 bit.

[Derkoli]

15 hours ago, Kasenumi said:

Hi everyone
What is the best quality audio mode headphones can offer?
Settings allow 32 bit 192000 Hz  but is it the best quality for consumer use? Switching these modes and comparing how it sounds during a song I dont really hear any difference 

Well, the 32 bit indicates the maximum dynamic range. 32 bit has a dynamic range of 1528dB~ (so not actually creatable in our atmosphere, sound becomes a shockwave at 194dB~, depending on conditions). Also not creatable by a DAC. The best DAC's are limited to 21~ bit's of dynamic range. However certain DAC chips can achieve 140dB of dynamic range, which is just below 24 bit's of Dynamic Range.

 

The Frequency (Hz) is what we call Sampling Frequency, pretty much the higher the frequency of the sampling rate, the more times per second the sound is captured and stored. So a higher Sampling Frequency tends to sound better, up to a certain point.

 

Remember, bit rate and sampling frequency only applies to PCM sources, such as FLAC, WAV, ALAC etc.

 

Some formats don't actually have a bit rate and sampling frequency as per such, formats like these are called Non-PCM, so they are just given a bit rate, MP3 tends to be between 96 to roughly 320 Kbps, so quite low.

 

Some formats are also just 1 bit, not 32 or 16 etc. Such as DSD, which has sampling frequencies of up to 24,576,000 Hz, compared to the the common sampling frequency of FLAC, which is 192,000 Hz or 96,000 Hz

 

DSD is useful to only a few, as SACD's use it, and it can afford you a tiny bit more dynamic range over FLAC or similar formats. But it's quite new, and quite rare.

[HumdrumPenguin]

17 minutes ago, Derkoli said:

32 bit has a dynamic range of 1528dB~ (so not actually creatable in our atmosphere, sound becomes a shockwave at 194dB~, depending on conditions).

Translating to simple Penguin words: If you were to be exposed to a REAL 32 bit encoded sound, that would be the very last thing you'd do in your life. Yes, you'd drop dead instantly.

[Derkoli]

3 minutes ago, HumdrumPenguin said:

Translating to simple Penguin words: If you were to be exposed to a REAL 32 bit encoded sound, that would be the very last thing you'd do in your life. Yes, you'd drop dead instantly.

Yeah, 1500dB is stupidly loud. 200dB generally is the threshold for death, Hence why submarines only use active sonar when no one is around. Sonar is 235dB~ and can hemorrhage your brain from miles away. Not fun.

 

 

Active sonar is silly loud.