The definitive guide to 24-bit FLAC
High resolution downloads are changing the way we enjoy music, opening up possibilities undreamed of back in digital’s early days…
It’s hard to understate the impact that Compact Disc made, upon its introduction back in 1982. At the time, the music world was very different, with vinyl regarded as the only serious way to play music. Found everywhere from broadcast studios to the local youth club, LPs were the world’s favourite music format. Still, at over thirty years old, black plastic was knocking on and sales were on the wane, down 40% from its 1975 high watermark. The scene was set for the brave new world of digital audio…
What music lovers needed now was a small, convenient, high quality music carrier, and CD was it. Hailed as a miracle of modernity, it fused two technologies – a digital audio coding system developed by Sony, and a laser optical disc storage system developed by Philips.
Legend has it that Sony had wanted the new ‘Digital Audio Disc’ to be 12 inches wide, just like an LP, as they were worried that album artwork wouldn’t look good on Philips’ proposed 5″ disc. Philips had wanted cardboard sleeves, just like LPs, but Sony insisted on a plastic ‘jewel case’ to give the product a more tangible feel. So when CD finally emerged, it was full of compromises limited by the technology and what the big companies thought the public wanted.
SOUND AFFECTS
Given that the average early eighties turntable could scarcely spin at the right speed, the new digital disc was a revelation. Sonically CD was was streets ahead of most people’s vinyl experience – and had the added benefit of being immune from surface noise, static crackle and disc wear too. There were some golden eared hi-fi hacks around who didn’t like its sound, describing it as a little stark and two dimensional. But by and large, CD was a quantum leap forward…
Despite Philips’ famous description of it as giving “pure, perfect sound forever”, people soon started noticing problems however. Compared to analogue, early 16-bit digital could sound spiky and hard, giving cymbals and female vocals a coldness that just didn’t seem right. Lab measurements showed that whilst CD’s 16-bit digital system gave very low distortion on the loudest parts of the music, it distorted heavily on the quieter bits – the exact opposite to how analogue LP behaved. Worse still, the digital system was prone to distorting most in the upper midband and treble, just where the ear is most sensitive…
This was down to the way digital audio encodes the analogue musical waveform, and it applies to every format that uses the Pulse Code Modulation digital system, such as CD, MP3, AAC and FLAC. With PCM, the two basic factors that determine the sound quality are bit depth (which determines the quality with which the analogue signal is digitised), and the sampling frequency (which is the number of times per second that the analogue signal is digitised). CD is a 16bit, 44.1kHz system, giving a frequency response of 5-22,000Hz and 96dB dynamic range.
To understand this more clearly, it’s helpful to imagine taking a digital photo of a squiggly line. The more megapixels the camera that you use has, the higher resolution the snapshot will be and the smoother the squiggle will look. This is the visual equivalent of bit depth. Then try and imagine photographing that squiggle thousands of times a second.
The more snapshots you take per second, the more accurately you can track the way the line moves, kind of like seeing a flicker-free TV picture on a top television. Liken this to the sampling frequency, and you can see how the musical waveform (squiggly line) is captured digitally.
So the more bits you use, the more natural the music sounds, and the faster the samples, the wider the frequency range. CD’s 16/44.1 digital system was state of the art in 1982, but it didn’t take long for it to get past its sell-by date.
Malcolm Hawksford, Professor of Psychoacoustics at Essex University, reckons that, “CD’s digital specification was almost good enough for audiophile music reproduction. It was near the limit, but in my view probably a bit marginal. Ideally, at least 20-bit resolution at 60 kHz sampling frequency would have been better”.
BIT BETTER
Compact Disc became a technological time trap for audiophiles. Its almost-good-enough digital specification put the development of digital in suspended animation, locking us in to an outdated nineteen eighties way of digitising music. No surprise then that in recent years, many hi-fi purists have been turning back to vinyl which – being analogue – offers almost infinite levels of resolution. “Analogue audio systems are limited not by digital bits, but atoms,” argues Hi-Fi World magazine’s Paul Rigby. “Where LP record playback fails is in the mechanical tolerances of the playback equipment, such as bearing friction and so on, rather than the resolution of the format itself. With digital though, it can only be so good and no better.
Happily, DVD-Audio and Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) arrived at the end of the nineties to save the day, offering far superior sound to CD. With the former offering true 24bit resolution, it came over as punchy and powerful with tremendous detail, plus a wonderfully smooth low distortion sound right across the audio band.
“I have seen some really good recordings over the last decade where 16-bit was just not enough to hold all the information,” says B&W digital research engineer Albert Yong., “and given the opportunity to then listen to those recordings in 24-bits, they just blew the 16bit version out of the water”.
Although 24-bit DVD-A sounded superb, it never got off the ground commercially. It was expensive, you needed a special type of DVD player and most importantly of all, retailers simply didn’t want to sell it. With DVD video discs making the stores a mint (at the time), there was no reason to devote shelf space to less commercial audiophile music releases. DVD-Audo’s life was over just a couple of years after its inception, and no one missed it except a select bunch of audiophiles who’d heard 24-bit digital and couldn’t go back. But, whilst the disc went the way of the Dodo, its coding system would live on…
Just as DVD-A’s sun was setting, so digital file downloads began making great inroads into the music marketplace. The MP3 format was no great shakes sonically but it was only the first wave; it might have sounded bad, but it ushered in a new way of obtaining music that no longer had any limits. Whereas CD was frozen in time and space, committed to its dated 16-bit, 44.1kHz flavour, internet distributed music could arrive in a way that suits the artist, label and listener.
Enter Free Lossless Audio Codec in 2001 – which was an altogether more intelligent way of encoding music. Rather than the compressed system that MP3 used which reduces file sizes by about 80% by cutting out most of the music you can’t hear (and some that you can), FLAC used a clever ‘lossless’ packing system that doesn’t remove any music at all, and saves about 30% to 50% of space. “It’s a problem-free system,” says Professor Hawksford, “if the arithmetic is performed correctly and the compressed files are not corrupted then there are no errors in the reconstructed output.”
Whilst we’ve seen a number of lossless systems, from Apple Lossless (ALAC) to Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMA Lossless), the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) has emerged triumphant for music-loving hi-fi buffs. The spirtual successor to MP3, it’s an open-source system that’s not tied to any one manufacturer, which explains it success. Better still, it comes in more than one resolution. Whilst you can encode your CDs to FLAC keeping their 16-bit, 44.1kHz resolution, FLAC can also come in 24-bit form too. “The system is so flexible that it can take anything from 4 to 32 bits and sample rates up to 655350Hz in 1 Hz steps – it can certainly replace 24/96 DVD-Audio”, says Albert Yong.
BETTER THAN CD
Compared to the mastertape, CD gives a decent but unsophisticated facsimile. Its 16/44.1 specification boasts a dynamic range of around 96dB, which is ample for most music work. The trouble is though, the quieter the signal is, the more the system distorts using the PCM digital system, which effectively sucks out the atmosphere – all the subtle ambient details – of a piece of music. In a direct A-B comparison with the mastertape, “16-bit sounds slightly vague,” says Paul Rigby, “like a primitive digital camera it simply loses the subtlety and fine detail; it’s less easy to live with than hi res digital”.
By comparison, Portico Quartet’s ‘November’ via 24bit FLAC showcases the superior dynamics of the hi res file. A supremely atmospheric track, permeated with gently ringing kettle drums right through, it’s a far more engaging and arresting experience. “Most people tend to think wider dynamic range simply means a louder, punchier sound”, says Paul Rigby, “but in a sense it’s closer to the reverse. Basically, it means all those quiet subtle sounds are far better resolved; there’s a far greater sense of space and atmosphere, and the contrast between a gentle tap of cymbal and a smash of a snare drum is more faithfully rendered. The music just sounds more organic, and less like hi-fi”.
Theoretically, 24-bit digital has a resolution of 144dB, which is more than enough (130dB is the threshold of pain for the human ear), but the problem is, as Professor Hawksford notes, of actually finding studios capable of recording at anywhere near this resolution. “Not many recordings fully exploit the capabilities of CD, let alone higher resolution formats”, he notes…
Bowers &Wilkin’s Albert Yong agrees that we’re a good way away from achieving true 24-bit masters, but still we can do much better than old fashioned 16-bit, and people can easily hear the difference.
“We have seen some extremely good recordings lately, when the entire recording chain is done right. We can potentially get up to around 20 to 22 bits at the moment, and they do sound a lot better. The difference is in the detail. Sounds generally are more open, and there is an extra level to airyness to the music. Voice and instruments sounds closer to live, and more dynamic as well”.
THE MECHANICS
Like any other music file, you can either ‘rip’ FLAC copies of your existing CDs, or download load them from music sites such as Society of Sound. We’ve structured our site to make downloading FLAC a breeze. After you’ve logged in, you will be taken to the ‘Your Music’ section and you’ll see a menu of everything available. It’s then simply a case of choosing an album and downloading the format you want. On Windows PCs, you can right-click on the link to save it to your desktop; with Macs, when you click on the download link it will go direct to the Downloads folder. Then you can simply copy-and-paste the file to where you want to keep it. We suggest having a folder labelled ‘FLAC24′ or suchlike, so you know where your hi-res music has gone.
If you’re looking to build up a FLAC library of your existing CD collection, then a good starting point for ripping is Exact Audio CopydBpowerAMP . which is a freely downloadable application for Windows, commonly thought to be one of the best sounding and most bug-free. Another much loved Windows FLAC tool is Mac Users can try running this via crossoverMac or downloading MacFlac .
Once you’ve downloaded your FLAC music, or ripped it from CD using the aforementioned applications, you’ll need to play it. Currently, neither Microsoft’s Windows Media Player or Apple’s iTunes support FLAC without modifications.
If you wish to import FLAC files to iTunes on MacOS we recommend you try a program known as Max for MacOS X 10, which can convert and rip PCM files and import them to your iTunes library. For more information please see here.
Both have their own equivalent (WMA Lossless and Apple Lossless) but these are tied to the operating system providers, whereas FLAC is of course a free, open source system like MP3. So for Windows-based systems, we recommend you download Winamp which is a highly flexible media player that also supports burning 16-bit formats to CD. There are other media players you may wish to try such as SongbirdMedia Monkey and Foobar2000 generally agreed to be the best sounding on the Windows platform. When you start up your music player, it should automatically search for all your digital music and add it to the library. SongBird will even go online and look for the artwork too, just like iTunes or WMP. which is a slick player for both Windows and Mac, with a nice clean interface. There are many other FLAC players, with
Through their bundled music players, both Microsoft and Apple have chosen to support certain file formats (WMA and AAC respectively). Whilst these players offer some flexibility (they both play MP3, for example), they’re both committed to their own Lossless formats. so FLAC is excluded. However, there are now ‘bolt on’ FLAC players for iTunes emerging. Fluke is freeware that works as ‘plug in’ for iTunes (Mac platform), but it is buggy and so can’t be universally recommended yet. The forthcoming version Amarra Mini by Sonic Studio is a more sophisticated system that piggybacks on to iTunes, replacing much of its audio code with a superior sounding and more flexible system. It is expensive though at $395 US, and only works on Mac OS, so most users will choose to stay with a freely download separate player like SongBird.
It’s easy to burn 16-bit FLAC files on to a CD-R for playback in a conventional hi-fi or car CD player. Winamp is a free player which also supports burning FLAC16 files to CD. If you wish to use a proper CD authoring software, then Roxio RecordNow MusicLab 10 (Windows, $29.99) or Roxio Toast Titanium (Mac. $99.95) are worth considering because the standard Windows or Mac music players won’t handle FLAC, either 16 or 24-bit.
However, burning 24-bit FLAC is a more involved process, not helped by the fact that some popular software will appear to burn it to disc but actually down-samples it to 16-bit.
Once you’ve got your 24-bit FLAC files and FLAC player; now it’s time to get the music out to your ears. There are several ways of doing this:
- The simplest is to take an analogue line output from your computer soundcard. This is likely to have a 3.5mm mini-jack plug; we recommend a high quality bespoke cable such as Chord’s iChord for around £30. Although it will give a decent sound, particularly if you have a good quality soundcard, it is not ideal because computers are electrically ‘noisy’ environments, and it is best if at all possible to pipe out the digital signal away from the PC or Mac.
- A good external soundcard like M-Audio’s Transit will always be a better sounding solution. This is a full 24/96 capable card, powered by USB. This provides a high quality S/PDIF optical digital output. It has an electrical coaxial digital output too, but it is always preferable to use the optical to eliminate computer-borne electrical noise. Run a good quality optical lead into a modern DAC such as a Cambridge Audio DAC Magic and you have a proper, high quality 24-bit FLAC playout system, that will give superior sound to almost any CD player. It’s important to note here that Windows users should download the latest ASIO drivers; these provide a ‘source direct’ function, ensuring the digital datastream goes direct from the FLAC software player to the USB digital output. Some of the latest DACs, like the Cambridge DAC Magic, also have USB inputs that can be driven directly from computers, but it’s always preferable to isolate the electrically noisy computer from the hi-fi by using an optical digital link.
- Wireless streaming is the third, and for many the preferred option. Logitech’s Squeezebox Touch ,£259, is one of the most inexpensive and convenient ways of getting full 24-bit FLAC replay at up to 96kHz sampling rate. It comes with bespoke playback software that lets your computer control it via your home wireless network, giving an iTunes-style user interface. Generally, these work very well and are an excellent way of giving multiform functionality. Although it has built-in line level analogue outputs which are ideal for use in a second system, again audiophiles should use its digital output into a hi-fi DAC, such as the aforementioned Cambridge Audio DAC Magic.
You can also check our recent 24-bit blog post to see how fellow audiophiles listen to 24-bit FLAC
THE EDGE
There’s an old maxim in the hi-fi industry, borrowed from the early days of the computer pioneers – “garbage in, garbage out”. Any speaker can only be as good as the system driving it, and any system is limited by the quality of the original source material. That’s why B&W, as a manufacturer of premium, leading edge loudspeakers, takes FLAC very seriously. In 24-bit form it’s the modern day incarnation of digital’s finest hour, DVD-Audio, but even better because it’s almost inflnitely upgradeable and future-proof. Professior Hawksford gives it the nod. “FLAC has a place in the future for high quality audio. It is good for transporting files on the Internet as it typically halves download time. It is unlikely that for lossless compression there will be significant improvements”, Hawksford believes.
The ease with which it can be delivered to a computer means that anyone who’s capable of sending their friend a digital photo can now download and play high resolution FLAC files, and the benefits are clear for all to hear.
“FLAC is as good as it can get for now. I think what it brings is not limited to quality of audio, but the added convenience as well”, says B&W’s Albert Yong. The only drawback is the sheer scarcity of quality recorded music in 24-bit FLAC format, and that’s where B&W’s Society of Sound comes in.
Meticulous attention to detail across the whole recording process with the latest high resolution digital recording systems, makes for music of unalloyed purity. That’s why we’re so keen for you to experience 24-bit for yourself; once you’ve got the habit you’ll never look back.
Download Portico Quartet’s ‘November’ as a 24-bit FLAC file and hear the difference.
DIGITAL TIMELINE
1841 Augustin-Louis Cauchy first proposed sampling theory.
1928 Harry Nyquist presents sampling theory to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers
1937 Reeves proposed pulse code wave modulation (PCM) as a way of storing audio1948 John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain’s bipolar junction transistor, which made compact digital circuitry a reality.1958 C.H. Townes and A.L. Shawlow invented the laser.
1960 I.S. Reed and G. Solomon’s work on error correction codes gave us the technology that would be directly applied to Compact Disc twenty two years later
1967 Japan’s NHK Technical Research Institute publicly demonstrates a digital audio recorder running 12bit resolution and a 30kHz sampling rate.
1969 Physicist Klaas Compaan uses a glass disc to store black and white holographic images using frequency modulation at Philips Laboratories.
1977 Sony, Mitsubishi and Hitachi demonstrate digital audio discs
1980 Sony signs up to Philips ‘Red Book’ laser disc; Compact Disc is born.
1982 Sony and Philips launch first commercial CD players.
1987 Sony launches Digital Audio Tape (DAT) with 16bit, 48kHz digital PCM system.
1994 MP3 (MPEG 1 Audio Layer 3) finalised. A compressed, lossy 16/44.1 format using approximately 20% of the space of a WAV file, it ushers in online music distribution.
1999 Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) launched, offering high resolution digital sound using the Direct Stream Digital (DSD) system, with effective 20-bit resolution.
2000 DVD-Audio is launched from the DVD-Forum; offering up to 24bit, 96kHz resolution from a DVD.
2001 Josh Coulson finalises Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) v1.0.
The Definitive Guide to 24-bit FLAC | Bowers & Wilkins News says:
[...] response to this confusion we have decided to produce the Definitive Guide to 24-bit FLAC. We take an interesting look at the history of digital recording, from the CD up to the present [...]
Posted: Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Chris Connaker says:
Nice article Susanna. It’s wonderful to see B&W talking about 24 bit FLAC.
Posted: Thursday, 26 November 2009
The Creole Choir of Cuba - undiscovered voices of the Caribbean | Society of Sound Music says:
[...] this album demands dedicated listening. Available in three formats including super high-quality 24-bit FLAC, please do let us know what you [...]
Posted: Thursday, 26 November 2009
Markus says:
In the article you were saying:
“it’s always preferable to isolate the electrically noisy computer from the hi-fi by using an optical digital link.”
Does this mean you recommend connecting for example a Sonos ZP90 Networkplayer to a Naim SuperNait rather via the optical link rather the digital cable?
Posted: Saturday, 28 November 2009
B&W empfiehlt optische Verbindung?! - audio says:
[...] verwundert als ich gerade bei B&W im Artikel "The definitive guide to 24-bit FLAC" The definitive guide to 24-bit FLAC | Bowers & Wilkins Lab gelesen habe: "it is always preferable to use the optical to eliminate computer-borne [...]
Posted: Saturday, 28 November 2009
Mike says:
Can someone please tell me if the Zeppelin can accept 24-bit using the optical inlet?
I’m using my computer with the M-Audio transit and can send flac files to the Zeppelin. I’d like to buy some 24-bit recordings and want to know if Zeppelin’s internal DAC can process them.
I can’t seem to get B&W customer support to respond.
Posted: Monday, 30 November 2009
Shaun: B&W says:
Hello Mike
Thanks for your interest in 24-bit. As you are probably aware our Society of Sound offers a wide selection of albums in 24-bit.
As for your Zeppelin question, unfortunately the Zeppelin doesn’t support 24-bit.
Regards
Shaun
Posted: Monday, 30 November 2009
Sam (UnRated NYC) says:
Hi there. I just wanted to tell you that this article is truly incredible. I’m the editor-in-chief of unrated nyc and I plan on sharing this piece with all my readers. Great work!
_Sam
Posted: Monday, 30 November 2009
Andrew Levine says:
I was irritated when I failed to find any information on FLAC’s developer, then discovered his name is “Josh Coalson” (not Coulson). Other than that I found your article quite interesting. I am not sure I agree with the universal need for >16 bit audio though.
As a sonophile audio professional I always record at and work with 24 bit audio, frequently at higher sample rates than 44.1, but when I carefully dither my final mixes down to 16 bit (using iZotope’s MBIT+ algorithm or one of the fine Airwindows dithers) I have always been very happy with the results.
Certainly it’s preferable to leave the material in the original resolution, especially when dealing with the extreme dynamic range and subtleties of classical and avant garde music performed in “real” venues, but for most consumers of the music I produce the dithered version will be way superior than many other off-the-shelf recordings.
It might boil down to the care you take in training your ears, selecting your gear, preparing for and then recording the acoustic event in the first place, as well as the purity of the processing chain. And let’s not forget that it all begins with good music, performed by inspired musicians. Many thanks to them!
Regards,
blumlein records – Andrew Levine
Posted: Saturday, 12 December 2009
Don Baragar says:
Great article but it does not talk about the effect of amps and speakers on the result. If the frequency response of speaker id 25 hz to 20khz will you notice a difference in 16/44 and 24/96 sound?
Posted: Sunday, 13 December 2009
Andrew Levine says:
Do we need 24 bit audio for sonic nirvana?
http://radio.blumlein.net/2009/12/do-we-need-24-bit-audio-for-sonic.html
Posted: Sunday, 13 December 2009
SusannaGrant says:
Hi Andrew,
Many thanks for your comments – I have amended Josh’s name and apologise for that.
I thought your last point is particularly salient and is one of the cornerstones of Society of Sound.
Kind regards,
Susanna
Posted: Monday, 14 December 2009
Vereecken says:
I would highly welcome 96 kHz / 24 bit downloads on the B&W music site.
Posted: Tuesday, 29 December 2009
digifish says:
This is worth a read. I have been producing music for 15 years and concurrently worked in human factors research in the medical device industry, so I am data driven…
http://mixonline.com/recording/mixing/audio_emperors_new_sampling/
16 bit 44.1 kHz is indistinguishable from higher sample rates and bit depths. That you prefer SACD or some other high-end format is likely that it was produced better in the first place.
digifish
Posted: Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Paul Dzwonowski says:
Years ago I was doing the usual browsing at a music shop and stumbled on at the time – for me – an unusual cardboard mini lp CD import from Japan – Charlie Rouse – remastered in 24 bit. At the time I had no idea what 24 bit was – I was just entering the digital world from analog 12” LPS. The CD, however, had a mystique about it compared to all the other “ordinary” plastic jewel cased CDs in the store, and I decided to purchase it and give it a listen. Ever since then I have been an absolute believer in 24 bit recordings and have been collecting the majority of music in 24 bit; never did cross over to SACD format. A few years back I started noticing alot of remastered music coming from Japan in 20 bit format after 24 bit had started. The 20 bit recordings sounded awesome but it puzzled me. The whole process and the art of remastering recordings has since really puzzled me; however aside from the inherit individual preferences in remastering music, why would one remaster a recording in 20 bit instead of 24 bit? Aside from 20 bit vs 24 bit I’d sure like to see a book published to both celebrate and discuss the whole art of remastering recordings!
Posted: Tuesday, 29 December 2009
John Clayton says:
How do I get from MPEG-4 Audio File Format (.m4a)to Flac so I can play the B&W tracks on my winamp
Posted: Saturday, 2 January 2010
digifish says:
I’m back, Ethan Winer of RealTraps (makers of sound control solutions for studios) just uploaded a fantastic video relevant to this topic from the 2009 Audio Engineering Society.
Audio Myths Workshop.
Ethan & co-presenters cover such issues as placebo effects in audio, loudness vs quality, ‘scam’ equipment, dithering, expensive vs cheap A/D D/A converters and more.
Start at 41m:15s to cover D/A A/D converters and then bit-depth sections. If you have time
I would encourage you all to watch the whole thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ
Posted: Friday, 5 February 2010
Matt Jones's Electronic Journal » Blog Archive » Definitive guide to 24 bit FLA… says:
[...] guide to 24 bit FLAC http://blog.bowers-wilkins.com/sound/formats/the-definitive-guide-to-24-bit-flac/ Posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 5:45 pm in Tweets. This work is licensed under a [...]
Posted: Friday, 5 February 2010
Excellent Read - Society of Sound - AudioAficionado.org says:
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Posted: Monday, 8 February 2010
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Posted: Monday, 8 February 2010
Brad Jensen says:
This is exactly what I have been waiting for!!
FLAC is the best method for storing and listening to music, in my opinion. It’s a free codec, it compresses very well, it decodes well, and it’s lossless. It even holds multi-channel sound.
If a better version of FLAC ever comes out, it’s easy to just convert those old lossless files to the newer version, without losing any quality!
I have all of my CDs ripped to FLAC files and mirrored on another hard drive as a backup. :)
Now, if only we can get mastering engineers / record labels to quit the loudness war and to start master old albums to the best quality they can be, and have those albums released like these 24 bit FLAC files..
Posted: Friday, 19 February 2010
Paul Stanwix says:
Dear Audiophiles.
Music is for listening to, wherever you are. You don’t need to worry about wether you are not hearing all the information. Just listen and enjoy. Even the cheapest CD player from your nearest supermarket does the job, just fine. I started recording my favourite music on a Phillips portable cassette recorder and progressed to a dansette record player when I was a kid. I wasn’t worried about what I wasn’t hearing, I just enjoyed , what was for me, a life changing experience.
Sorry about that rant! But can any one help me with this problem? I have downloaded the 24 bit version of Peter gabriel’s CD. I want to place it in my i tunes libary. I have downloaded Max as I have a mac, running 10.5.8. What do I have to change the flac file into, to then drag and drop it into my i tunes libary.
Thanks.
Paul.
Posted: Friday, 5 March 2010
mackie says:
Good article. I enjoyed reading it:)
One note: MP3 is not open source format as Flac is. It’s proprietary and you have to pay for it if you want to use it. As a user you probably don’t pay for it directly ‘couse the company which software/hardware you use payed for it and charged you when you bought their stuff.
This is also why most Linux distributions did not play MP3 files out of the box. Right now it may changed. Dunno ‘couse don’t use it any more.
Posted: Saturday, 6 March 2010
thewelltemperedcomputer.com says:
whereas FLAC is of course a free, open source system like MP3
As far as I know, MP3 is not open source, you have to pay a license to Thomson
Posted: Sunday, 7 March 2010
Mick says:
I wish someone would take the trouble to give this article, with its misplaced links and trailing sentences, a decent edit so it’s actually readable. It would then reflect much better on its host B&W.
Thanks for the SoS though. I’m enjoying my trial membership.
Posted: Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Joe Lubow says:
Paul Stanwix says:
“I have downloaded Max as I have a mac, running 10.5.8. What do I have to change the flac file into, to then drag and drop it into my i tunes libary.”
Paul, Max can convert FLAC 24-bit files directly to Apple Lossless and send them straight to iTunes. In Max Preferences go to the “Formats” pane. Choose “Apple MPEG-4 Audio.” In the “Output” pane choose “Same as Source file” or choose some other place. In the iTunes pane check “use iTunes compatability mode” and “Add output fies to iTunes library.”
Max will preserve the bit rate and sampling rate, and the Apple Lossless files will be identical in quality to the downloaded flac files. Since iTunes copies the files into your iTunes library, once the tracks show up in iTunes you can delete the Apple lossless files from the output folder, (I have Max set to put them in the same folder as the FLAC files). You could also delete the original flac files, since you could always convert the Apple Lossless files back to flac if you wanted to. I’m superstitous though, and even though they are not only theoretically and practically (to my ears through a Linn system) the same, I back up the flac files to an external drive before deleting them. Since Time Machine backs up iTunes, this is unnecessary, but it just feels weird to me to delete the original files.
The only catch is that older iPods won’t play 24-bit files. I have an iPhone 3GS, and it plays 24-bit files beautifully, especially hooked up to a good rig, but it won’t play files with a sampling rate over 48k. Scratch My Back, like most of the Society of Sound recordings, is 48k, so you should have no problem; but for recordings with higher sampling rates, you’ll need to downsample. Max can’t do that but XLD is freeware that can. So if you ever find yourself with files sampled faster than 48k and want a version that will play on your iPhone, use XLD to downsample. But save the original higher sample’d file to play through iTunes.
Depending on why you want them in iTunes, you could also forego iTunes and play the FLAC files directly in Cog or Songbird. But if you want to transfer them into an iPod or iPhone, you’ll need to use iTunes.
I hope that helped…
Posted: Friday, 2 April 2010
David says:
I have downloaded many of the SoS albums and mostly they sound great. However the first track on the Daby Touré & Skip McDonald album (Diaguanu) sounds awful to me. Is there a problem with it? Is the problem my end? The rest of the tracks seem to be OK.
Thanks
Posted: Friday, 2 April 2010
David says:
Sorry – I should have said, it is the 24-bit FLAC version that I have.
Posted: Friday, 2 April 2010
Matt says:
Besides the Transporter from Slim (now Logitech) Olive seems to develop a 24-bit music server (www.olive.us) …
Posted: Friday, 2 April 2010
Josh says:
Flac shmac … it is still a PCM format. I have been quite impressed with some 96 kHz/24 bit recordings, but the most impressive recordings are pure DSD recordings on SACD. The article also seems to place an undue emphasis on bit rates –> it seems to me that the real gains in removing digital artifacts comes from high sampling rates … not from high bit rates. There is also vastly more hi-rez content out there on SACD (over 6000 titles now) than in FLAC (which is currently in the low hundreds).
Posted: Saturday, 3 April 2010
Paul C says:
Thank you for this excellent article B&W, and the useful advice it contains.
I have to say that to my ears, the difference between 16bit/44 and 24bit/88 is enourmous. I am sitting here listening to a previously downloaded 24bit wma sampler including music which I would never normally listen to and it is like disovering music for the first time.
This is the first time that the sound coming out of my speakers from a digital source is genuinely enjoyable.
Posted: Monday, 12 April 2010
Paul L says:
I hope some people find this link interesting
http://www.soundfountain.com/amb/cd25years.html
24/88, 96 sounds to me more natural especially on live music recorded in places with certain acoustical character. Hi-End should about preserving the perfomance at the time and space I took as faithfully as possible, but there is always a limit to technology we use, …what is real, anyway.
Posted: Sunday, 16 May 2010
Graham W says:
Does anyone know if the MM-1 speakers have a 24 bit DAC. The only information I have found suggests that the DAC is 16 bit only.
Posted: Saturday, 22 May 2010
Andrew Henry says:
Aren’t HiRes fans in a bit of a conundrum at the moment? If we didn’t have cheap computer based music servers to connect to our hifi systems, we’d all have SACD or DVD-Audio players, but these days, downloadable content and music servers are all the rage, and what’s better than ripping your entire music collection to a computer so you don’t have to buy an expensive CD changer or keep swapping discs??
But you can’t rip SACD!! Is it worth the purcahse if you want a computer based music library? You can rip DVD-Audio… just… with a moderate splattering of hassle (even multi channel). But it’s certainly not as “accessible” to rip HiRes music discs as it is to rip standard CD’s. Isn’t the “best” option, the most “future-proof” one, to download HiRes FLACs where available?
I have a Pioneer DVD player that’s nearly 10 yrs old that can play DVD-A and SACD, and I’ve just started buying HiRes discs (1-2 DVD-A’s and a few more SACD’s, but I know I can never have these in my digital music collection, so it puts me off buying more physical discs.
Anyone else have this problem?
Posted: Thursday, 10 June 2010
SusannaGrant says:
Hi Graham,
The MM-1s do have a 16-bit DAC.
Susanna
Posted: Thursday, 10 June 2010
SusannaGrant says:
Hi Graham,
You’re correct, the MM-1s do have a 16-bit DAC.
Susanna
Posted: Thursday, 10 June 2010
Jan says:
@ Andrew Henry
Hello Andy, I am convinced that there should be no problem to record your hi-res albs to your computer collection. Your CD/SACD certainly has a digital output has it? If so you can easily connect the player with pc using some audio card such as M-AUDIO to grab your hi-res signal.
Jan
Posted: Sunday, 25 July 2010
Seb says:
@Jan : Sony forbids SACD players from offering any hi-res digital output (IIRC, they’re limited to 16/44.1).
Posted: Monday, 26 July 2010
Matt says:
Is it worth recording vinyl music to a 24bit digital flac file as oppose to 16bit? If it is can you explain why?
The reason i ask is because i thought vinyl has a depth of around 12bit??
Look forward to your comments :-)
Posted: Thursday, 29 July 2010
Kyle W says:
Why do the MM-1s have a 16-bit DAC? Maybe I should return mine! I assume that the internal DAC is 16-bit and that for everything except the couple 24-bit titles I have there is no difference. However, I got the MM-1s for their quality and also as a better DAC for my P5s! I guess I should have done some more research. So if I’m listening to the 2009 Beatles 24 bit FLACs and comparing them to the 16 bits does that mean that they will be the same or just almost the same? I assume the downconversion won’t end up with the same 16bits.
I have been most impressed with the quality of B&W products. I trust them as a brand and company that anything I buy from them will be of the highest quality. More than that, very competitive on price. Comparing a B&W product to the others on the market for instance the Zeppelin and the Bose sound docks makes the Bose look like a complete rip off.
Posted: Thursday, 29 July 2010
Andysor says:
The way 24 bit vs. 16 bit is presented here is simply not true or, dare I say, honest.
The sample point analogy shown in the graphic is completely misleading. Mathematically it is PROVABLE that ANY analogue waveform below the Nyquist limit for the frequency can be reproduced PERFECTLY! I’ll say that again: PERFECTLY!
Bit depth only becomes relevant when discussing signal to noise ratio, also known as the noise floor. Through the process of dithering all quantisation noise, the inaccuracies introduced as a result of the sampling, are ELIMINATED and merely raise the noise floor.
In other words the ONLY benefit of 24 bit is the increased dynamic range. 16 bit has a dynamic range after dithering of at least 96dB which can be increased using “noise shaped” dither. But this is irrelevant as no master recording in existence has a dynamic range of more than 70dB! Even in the most quiet of settings background noise is at least 30dB meaning that even with the dynamic range of 16 bit you would expose yourself to 126dB of SPL! That will make you deaf quite quickly.
The only reason to use 24 bit for playback (this does not apply to recording) is if you need to subject yourself to more than 126dB of SPL.
For a more in-depth explanation go to http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded
Posted: Friday, 30 July 2010