Re: Why bother with lossy encoding?

Steve the Fiddle <[email protected]> Wed, 15 Mar 2017 11:44:16 +0000
Newsgroups gmane.comp.audio.audacity.general
Message-ID <CABp83eAB8CsBOJd-b+VgwvUYhT2HO=hpLOmyw5vQSPbF0Xq0mw@mail.gmail.com>
On 15 March 2017 at 11:22, Clyde Lyman <[email protected]> wrote:
> Did analog recording or broadcast go up beyond 20,000 cps? My stereo's HF
> horns go from 2,000 to 25,000. On the other edn, I'm learning mixing &
> mastering and have learned that anything below 40 cps is just "rumble" and,
> musically, should be treated with the HP filter rolling 40 and below off

Usually "just rumble", though in some cases that "rumble" may be part
of the music. For example, the fundamental frequency of the lowest
string of an orchestral (4 string) double bass is 41 Hz (about 33 Hz
for a 5 string bass with a "low C"), and a large organ pipe can go as
staggeringly low as 8 Hz!
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardwalk_Hall_Auditorium_Organ#64-foot_Diaphone-Dulzian)

Steve

>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Steve the Fiddle <[email protected]>
> To: Discussion list for Audacity users
> <[email protected]>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 6:30 AM
> Subject: Re: [Audacity-users] Why bother with lossy encoding?
>
> Just a quick technical point: Increasing the sample rate of
> ("upsampling") a recording, does not and can not improved the quality
> of the encoded sound. Once the sound has been recorded in digital
> format, that is "it", that data contains specific audio information,
> and any subtle musical nuances that are missing are gone forever. It
> is physically impossible to magically restore audio information that
> is missing from the original.
>
> The difference that sample rate makes, is that it limits the maximum
> frequency that can be represented by the data. Uncompressed PCM data
> has an absolute limit to the frequencies that it can represent. The
> limit is half the sample rate (known as the "Nyquist frequency"). So
> for audio CDs, (sample rate 44100 Hz), audio frequencies must be below
> 22050 Hz. The only difference that a higher sample rate makes is that
> it could theoretically represent frequencies above 22050 Hz, but if
> the original recording is on CD, then there are no audio frequencies
> above 22050 Hz, and upsampling cannot change that, (other than by
> adding distortion).
>
> Steve
>
> On 15 March 2017 at 07:16, Stephane Ascoet
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Le 14/03/2017 18:11, Roger a écrit :
>>>
>>> Ditto here, as I consider myself to have good ears for classical music.
>>>
>>> Extracted all of my CD's into PCM WAV avoiding the lossy compression
>>> codecs,
>>> but still noticing the metallic/tin type sound reminiscent of CD grade
>>> audio,
>>> even with a 5.1 home stereo grade DAC.  I seem to prefer the 24-bit 48kHz
>>> sampling, but am no where near being rich to upgrade my entire music
>>> collection.  Can still recall the days of Tape and LP, where music was
>>> less
>>> tinny sounding.  But then that's also getting back to the days where
>>> tubes were
>>> also more common.
>>>
>>> I've also tried upsampling the CD audio to 24-bit 48kHz sampling, while
>>> using
>>> an ALSA LP filter, helps but not significantly enough.  Shrugs, maybe my
>>> ears
>>> are just getting too old and too tired.
>>>
>> Hi, I've got a Sony 3000 ES expanding them to 96 khz at playing, results
>> are incredibly impressive with some CDs. With some others, that has been
>> very poorly engineered, there's no difference, the sound remains tiny.
>>
>> --
>> Sincerely, Stephane Ascoet
>>
>>
>>
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When asking for help on this list, please include the following information, so we can 
help you properly: 

* What operating system you are using (for example, Windows XP or Mac OS X 10.5.1)   

* Exactly what three digit version number of Audacity you are using (Help > About 
   Audacity, or Audacity >  About Audacity on a Mac computer)   

* If this is a recording problem, what equipment you are recording with, and how is it 
   connected to the computer?

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