SHN, hi-res FLAC support?

[coyote2]

Originally Posted by Lagoo56

Some people simply prefer CDs,which is what FLAC is the equivalent of,why is that such a big topic?

To be fair, high-res FLACs contain more information than standard CDs, and the quantification of their alleged superiority to CDs is not established.

[CrowdAds]

[WalkGood]

Misinformation and superstition only serves the charlatans, so buy on someones always happy you do
Nuff said from me ...

[Lagoo56]

Originally Posted by coyote2

To be fair, high-res FLACs contain more information than standard CDs, and the quantification of their alleged superiority to CDs is not established.

How exactly is that possible? CDs have the most information and FLAC files are just a digital copy of the physical CD,which means a FLAC file cannot surpass the original CD.

[coyote2]

Originally Posted by Lagoo56

How exactly is that possible? CDs have the most information and FLAC files are just a digital copy of the physical CD,which means a FLAC file cannot surpass the original CD.

CDs are not the only source of music. They are also released in higher-resolution formats such as SACD, DVD-A, BluRay, etc.

Because they can be (and usually are) recorded in higher resolutions; the audio I work with is now often recorded in 24-bits (CDs have 16 bits).

[coyote2]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

Misinformation and superstition only serves the charlatans, so buy on someones always happy you do
Nuff said from me ...

Wait. Can I please ask: if you had Bill Gates' money, how much you would consider spending on a home audio system?

[sideways]

If I had his kind of money I would be talking professionally built home theater room with special consideration given to room acoustics and what not. I don't think his portable music reality is anything like what people here have either. Think sound proof vehicles with premium audio gear and personal jets.

Shiiit I bet he could just hire the artists for personal performances.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by coyote2

Wait. Can I please ask: if you had Bill Gates' money, how much you would consider spending on a home audio system?

Not much more than I spend now other than upgrading speakers and my turntable. Besides who would have the time to sit around and listen to music, I'd be on the go more than ever. My portable stuff would get lots of use while out on my 50' sail boat, flying around the world in my private jet and visiting all the countries that I haven't made it to yet. I'd be gifting large sums to the poor that deserve a better life. One thing I can say for sure is that I wouldn't spend a penny on SACD or DVD-A. Although my movie BluRay collection would certainly increase along with all my portable gadgets

Oh BTW then abi would be looking for a new mod

[robdean]

There are cases for the use of hi-res audio in music production. In that situation it allows for repeated compex digital processing of the audio (e.g. EQ, dynamics, reverb, flexible down sampling) without the noticeable generation of digital artefacts.

In theory, high sampling frequencies, were they available, might bring very peripheral benefits to i9 users who are not HiFi purists and who pile on the enhancement effects and EQ, but I'd be brutally sceptical of any real benefit without seeing blind-test proof.
Much though I love my i9, I think its output stage lacks lacks the extreme finesse and fabulous SNR required to make even theoretically worthwhile use of hi-res bit depth.

In reality, the main contribution that such audio formats could make to a player like the i9, beyond the placebo effect, would be to add vastly to power consumption as the DSP chewed on ever more data per second encompassing ever higher frequencies beyond human hearing.

I worked for many years as a tour sound engineer and many more as a BBC radio producer. I have ears good enough to do those jobs, but not golden enough even to reliably tell whether I am listening to v0 lame mp3 or to 44.1kHz 16 bit WAV (when I've been blind tested). Note: the testing must be blind: it's no good to play the mp3 then play a WAV and reflect on whether it sounds better. There's too much room for fooling yourself. Rather, have someone play two recordings and ask you to spot which is the higher fidelity! If you can do much better than 50/50 over a whole series of tries, then that's meaningful...

[skip252]

Having a friend play different formats as a test won't have the same reliability as double blind testing. There's any number of ways the tests can go wrong like that. The Clever Hans effect is just one of them. As long as anyone involved knows which file is being played it's possible for that information to be transmitted. The tip off may be absolutely unconscious for all parties involved but it's possible for them to occur.

Double blind testing such as ABX is designed to level the playing field so that there's no way for you to be informed as to which file is being played until the test results are revealed. By hiding the identity of the files, fast switching, level matching the volumes and time syncing you will only be hearing the files themselves with no clues as to which is which. I've known several people that performed ABX testing according to the standards and were surprised that what they thought was a night and day difference was caused by some other factor than the format of the file itself.

You may want to read this article on the audible value of hi-res playback. 24/192 Music Downloads...and why they make no sense I think you may also find A Digital Media Primer for Geeks interesting. There's a section in there as to the value of higher resolutions during production.

[coyote2]

First, regardless of benefit, in my work I have SHN (my question about which no one has yet responded to) and high-res FLAC files, and I'd like my player to be able to play them.

I respect where y'all are coming from. People who've spent $$$$$$$$ on audio systems will naturally have a bias in judging their sound. But people who value putting as many songs as possible on a device will also naturally have a bias against considerations against doing so; and I'm sad that long after storage space concerns disappear, everyone may be stuck with the compression the majority of people feel comfortable with now.

I appreciate the need to ask for objective proof of judgements of sound quality. But likewise, this response...

Originally Posted by Enigmatic

There is no effort involved from the mind. Lossy formats were created, because information can be discarded and still have little or no effect on sound quality. So one’s mind does not do any replacing of any lost information. So there is no detraction from one’s enjoyment if one cannot hear a difference. If, however, you do ABX tests and are able to hear differences, then you might experience detraction from enjoyment because you can hear compression artefacts.

lacks objective foundation. Even if one cannot judge something sounds better, that doesn't mean (and you haven't provided any proof) that one won't enjoy it more.

The work I alluded to by the brain (the word I should have used, sorry, instead of "mind"), is for example filling in the intermediate samples lost when the sampling rate is reduced. Not being consciously aware the brain is doing so, doesn't prove one's enjoyment is unaffected by it. I'm suggesting that a bias towards having as many songs as possible on one's storage space, might cause one to not ask for proof that if one doesn't know it sounds better, one isn't enjoying it more. The fact that the later might be impossible to quantify, isn't objective proof that it's not real.

[sideways]

Originally Posted by coyote2

*snip* The fact that the later might be impossible to quantify, isn't objective proof that it's not real.

Generally the burden of proof lies with the one claiming something exists, not the other way around.

Anyway, jokes aside I thought your question was answered on the first page...

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

If you mean the 24-bit 96khz stuff, then no, they won't play them.

[coyote2]

Originally Posted by sideways

"Generally the burden of proof lies with the one claiming something exists, not the other way around."

The burden of proof for someone inviting compression upon posterity, according to the precautionary principle, should be on those claiming it is cost-free.

"Anyway, jokes aside"

This is not the most polite place.

"I thought your question was answered on the first page..."

SHN files are not 24/96 (they are 16/44.1 like CDs), so no, still no one has addressed my question about the potential for SHN support in the Cowon line.

[robdean]

SHN support was never all that widespread, though it was certainly more common at one time, maybe 10 years ago. I'd be be astonished if any hardware manufacturer started supporting it at this stage, given that I don't believe its foundation codec is even maintained/supported any longer!

Given that it is a lossless format, you at least have the option of converting your SHN files to an equivalent contemporary format such as FLAC without loss of fidelity. That will not only get you up and running on hardware players, but give you a lot more options regarding choice of software player, and ensure your audio files are in a more future-proof format.

[Enigmatic]

Originally Posted by coyote2

But likewise, this response...

There is no effort involved from the mind. Lossy formats were created, because information can be discarded and still have little or no effect on sound quality. So one’s mind does not do any replacing of any lost information. So there is no detraction from one’s enjoyment if one cannot hear a difference. If, however, you do ABX tests and are able to hear differences, then you might experience detraction from enjoyment because you can hear compression artefacts.

lacks objective foundation.

You claimed that “perhaps the effort the mind would put out replacing the missing bits that algorithms throw out because ‘people can't hear them,’ would detract from one's enjoyment.” Where is your objective foundation for this? I claimed that lossy formats were created, because information can be discarded and still have little or no effect on sound quality. This can be confirmed with an ABX test.

Is Karlheinz Brandenburg an objective enough foundation? http://telos-systems.com/techtalk/ho...rg_mp3_aac.pdf, PDF page 2:

The technique to do this is called perceptual encoding and uses knowledge from psychoacoustics to reach the target of efficient but inaudible compression. Perceptual encoding is a lossy compression technique, i.e. the decoded file is not a bit-exact replica of the original digital audio data.

[saratoga]

Originally Posted by robdean

There are cases for the use of hi-res audio in music production.

I agree, but:

Originally Posted by robdean

In that situation it allows for repeated compex digital processing of the audio (e.g. EQ, dynamics, reverb, flexible down sampling) without the noticeable generation of digital artefacts.

This is not one of them. Such effects are implemented at the machine precision, not the input precision. So if you're got a 32 bit ARM processor, all effects are done on 32 bit sample precision, even if the input is 8, 16, 24, 64 bit. So the input format really doesn't matter compared to the quality of the actual recording and the implementation of the hardware.

I flipped through some of the older Cowon DSP code ages ago (from the D2 IIRC). Mostly they used the ARMv4 32x32=64 multiplier and some 32x32=32 bit stuff. So the internal precision was always much higher then the input precision.

Originally Posted by robdean

Much though I love my i9, I think its output stage lacks lacks the extreme finesse and fabulous SNR required to make even theoretically worthwhile use of hi-res bit depth.

I think its actually about as good as it needs to be. Unless you're listening in an anechoic chamber, and are really good at ignoring the sound of your heart beat, the noise floor on the i9 isn't likely to be the limit.

Originally Posted by robdean

In reality, the main contribution that such audio formats could make to a player like the i9, beyond the placebo effect, would be to add vastly to power consumption as the DSP chewed on ever more data per second encompassing ever higher frequencies beyond human hearing.

Agree 100%. Doubling the amount of work the CPU must do for no reason is not a good idea on battery powered devices.

[robdean]

Excellent point from Saratoga that modern processing routinely uses a greater internal bit-depth for the math, so for practical purposes my comment was ill-considered in the examples I gave. I guess work-in-progress dynamic headroom is the main practical benefit, but I'm sure Saratoga and others here could explain ramifications of bit depth far better than I ever could, and probably have done so already endless times elsewhere on this site!

And sure, the noise floor of the i9 isn't the limit at all: in practice I'm certain 16 bit is everything required for hifi playback to satisfy me on any equipment. In the previous post I was being a bit 'dry', trying (but evidently failing!) to suggest that the i9, wonderful as it is, is flattered by the suggestion that it stretches the limits of 16 bit fidelity let alone anything greater.

BTW, Skip252's links above re. hi-res audio leads to some really clearly written expert exposition which is well worth reading by those who are still on the fence, including a convincing technical case for 24/192 potentially sounding *worse* than 44.1/16 in many real world implementations!

[WalkGood]

I believe that no one has mentioned that the i9:

• Does not have an expansion slot.
• Has limited space - available in 8 and 16GB, yes I know they also made a 4GB model but I’ve not seen that for sale in a long time and now that it’s discontinued I’d guess it’s even harder to find.

Ok the i9 does play FLAC and I’ve tested it on mine, but knowing the facts I’ve just mentioned it’s crazy to use large file sizes on such limited space.

[robdean]

I don't know, WalkGood...

...maybe some folks only own one album, and that's why they are so concerned for it to sound really Really REALLY good?


;-)

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by robdean

I don't know, WalkGood ... maybe some folks only own one album, and that's why they are so concerned for it to sound really Really REALLY good?

Doubtful but funny ... I figure I'd mention because I see it (i9) mentioned in post #1, 28 and 36. I wouldn't bother using FLAC on such limited space.

[robdean]

WalkGood, I roll with -v0 myself, but I was just guessing that at a little over 40 minutes, 'Dark Side of the Moon' would maybe come in around 3Gb as a 24/192 wave file... and you know, more is, like, better and stuff... So wow! Hit me with those ticking clocks, Man... Wait for the chimes... Woahhhh!!!