12th February 2020, 11:10 AM
So I've been hearing lots of people asking why we haven't started distributing our music using higher bitrates and sample frequencies. "HD Sound", so to speak.
In answer to this, mathematically there's no room for improvement. We reached the pinnacle of sound quality (at least in respect to bit rate and sampling frequency) when CDs arrived on the scene. There is nothing further to be gained there. The limit isn't in the tech, of course we can go further in bit rate and frequency, but in biology and physics. Our ears are the limiter. We can only hear in a range that caps at 20000. The typical 41000 is over double that, which according to a mathematical proof that cannot be challenged (literally, it's a mathematical proof, there is no overthrowing it) is all you need to perfectly capture all audio data in a band limited audio stream. The bit rate can be 2 and it will still handle that. The only thing increasing the bit rate does is reduce the noise floor. 16 bit is enough to reduce it to nearly imperceptible for the vast majority of people. 24 bit will reduce it even more, but it's a diminishing return. My own sound card even manages 32 bit sound sampling. I can't even pick up the difference using my own equipment honestly.
There are SOME ways to improve audio left to explore, but all improving the bit rate and sampling rate could ever do is make all our files take up way more space. If we're going to do that, I'd rather advocate using FLAC files instead of MP3. Not only is flac an open source codec, it's lossless and allows for more than two audio streams. That's a better way to use up more drive space. (Because it's lossless, it necessarily doesn't compress as tightly as MP3, but in this case I think it's worth the tradeoff.)
https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
In answer to this, mathematically there's no room for improvement. We reached the pinnacle of sound quality (at least in respect to bit rate and sampling frequency) when CDs arrived on the scene. There is nothing further to be gained there. The limit isn't in the tech, of course we can go further in bit rate and frequency, but in biology and physics. Our ears are the limiter. We can only hear in a range that caps at 20000. The typical 41000 is over double that, which according to a mathematical proof that cannot be challenged (literally, it's a mathematical proof, there is no overthrowing it) is all you need to perfectly capture all audio data in a band limited audio stream. The bit rate can be 2 and it will still handle that. The only thing increasing the bit rate does is reduce the noise floor. 16 bit is enough to reduce it to nearly imperceptible for the vast majority of people. 24 bit will reduce it even more, but it's a diminishing return. My own sound card even manages 32 bit sound sampling. I can't even pick up the difference using my own equipment honestly.
There are SOME ways to improve audio left to explore, but all improving the bit rate and sampling rate could ever do is make all our files take up way more space. If we're going to do that, I'd rather advocate using FLAC files instead of MP3. Not only is flac an open source codec, it's lossless and allows for more than two audio streams. That's a better way to use up more drive space. (Because it's lossless, it necessarily doesn't compress as tightly as MP3, but in this case I think it's worth the tradeoff.)
https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
