Blu-Ray Audiophile Sound Quality

[philip2005]

There have been plenty of discussions about Blu-Ray discs replacing cd's and mp3's for music, and the basic argument is that you can fit loads more on to one, obviously an mp3 is only a few mb and blu ray is 50Gb. Well being an audiophile its "Quality not Quantity" that matters. To be hones mp3 is an appauling music format, in terms of what it sounds like. Sound is analogue and the closer to an analogue media you can produce the better the sound will be, thus Vinyl is still far superior sound to CD or mp3. However with Blu-Ray comes an opportunity. Audio DVD is sampled at 192Khz in 24bit. Thats quite good, but it's not that much better than a CD. Bluray could be sampled at as much as 1Mhz, possibly in 32 or 64 bit. Now that would be good! All i can hope is that if audio Blu-Ray does become a big thing the developers realise that it is "quality not quantity" that matters.

[Rob]

Depends. At home quality, for a portable player quantity is more important. The only problem I see with high quality audio formats, is that you need high quality and expensive equipment to really hear the benefits. And probably a room with the correct acoustics etc.

[zombie]

Well being an audiophile its "Quality not Quantity" that matters.

You got that right! I say death to mp3, bring on lossless audio on BD!!

[philip2005]

I accept that argument, but with MD and other formats, CD size discs aren't even considered portable anymore, so a blu-ray audio disc would probably be for home use. I totally agree that expensive speakers and amps are essential to harness hig quailty music media formats, but at least if you have a high quality format you have the choice of buying cheaper equipment if you aren't bothered.

[James Morrow]

Before the launch of DVD, I suggested applying DVD technology to minidisc to achieve 1GB (single layer-single-sided) and hence support recording/playback of over ninety minutes of true CD quality audio (or around three hours using lossless compression, or around an hour of lossless 96kHz/24bit audio.)

A couple of years ago I suggested applying blu-ray technology to minidisc to achieve 6GB (single-layer, single-sided), 12GB (dl, ss), 24GB (dl, ds), 48GB (ql, ds), etc.. A 24GB minidisc could support over two hours of lossless six channel 384kHz/24bit audio using entropic compression, or around ninety minutes of lower fidelity 6/192/24 audio with accompanying high definition video. :P

Whilst it is true that a high fidelity source will sound its best through a high quality audio system, the improvement in fidelity over lower bitrate sources should still be obvious through any well-engineered hi-fi system. Even with low quality music systems a difference is normally discernable, and over time the listener tends to become better at discerning the improvement wrought (this is hardly the ideal situation, of course). :?

[erdega79]

I want high definition audio even more so than video. Some will say there is no difference between cd quality 44khz/16bits but I disagree. Music is about the experience and feel and when you clip it and compress it and then play it you lose the feel and just get the generic music experience that is far from fullfilling. Anyway I think blu ray is a perfect medium for audio to finally replace deprecated cd. The storage is big and so is bitrate to sustain the highest bitrates so it's logical to go for the highest quality possible. If you read this tech doc you can see various possibilities available for audio at page 17
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/do...0305-12955.pdf

[Gorkab]

Yeah that could be far better than the "Superbit" DVD (DTS 768 Kbps)

[seenitdoneit]

Of course audio is analog. Do you think digits are coming out of your speakers when you hear a CD? It's been proven over and over again that 44.1kHz is sufficient bandwidth to reproduce anything audible, and is actually beyond the Nyquist sampling requirement of 40kHz which will reproduce any sound detectable by the human ear. Virtually all music produced is recorded in 24-bit, 48kHz for film (for increased headroom) and 16-bit 44.1kHz for CD. The only thing you gain with higher bit rates and larger data samples is more noise and bigger storage requirements. Save the bandwidth for video, which needs it much more.

[Blu-Wave]

Perhaps you should consider having a good look at Claude Shannon's theory and comparing the CD specification to its minimum requirements ... :wink:

Whilst you're at that you might also want to spend some time listening to and comparing a range of recordings at SACD and CD quality (using hybrid SACDs and a high quality replay system) - I'm sure that a local specialist dealer would be happy to help you out here ...

... but have you ever listenedtoit? ...

[Gorkab]

Originally Posted by seenitdoneit

Of course audio is analog. Do you think digits are coming out of your speakers when you hear a CD? It's been proven over and over again that 44.1kHz is sufficient bandwidth to reproduce anything audible, and is actually beyond the Nyquist sampling requirement of 40kHz which will reproduce any sound detectable by the human ear. Virtually all music produced is recorded in 24-bit, 48kHz for film (for increased headroom) and 16-bit 44.1kHz for CD. The only thing you gain with higher bit rates and larger data samples is more noise and bigger storage requirements. Save the bandwidth for video, which needs it much more.

No. Simply no. On the Blu-Ray disc, video will have 3 times more bandwith than the DVD (8/24 Mbps), the audio just needs 1.5 Mbps to be better than the DVD which is actually at 384/448 Kbps and 768 Kbps for the Superbit.

But maybe you don't hear any difference between a MP3 @ 128 Kbps and a WAV @ 1411 Kbps ? If it's the case, you can see a VCD then... :x

[Blu-Wave]

For high quality audio purposes lossless standards with high sample rates and sample depths are to be expected. CD's 44.1kHz/16bit uncompressed two-channel stereo runs at around 1.4Mbps, but it could typically be compressed to around 700kbps without loss. :|

In contrast, six channel 96/24 audio probably requires around 5Mbps using MLP or similar, whilst 6/192/24 might need 10Mbps. As for 6/384/24, 6/768/24, 12/384/24, etc. I think you'll find that 1.5Mbps will not quite cover it ... :shock:

[philip2005]

It's been proven over and over again that 44.1kHz is sufficient bandwidth to reproduce anything audible

That's simply not true, 44.1Khz is sufficient to reproduce a 20Khz sine wave which is the upper limit of human hearing. But very rarely is music a simple sine wave. Even a single note played on a guitar or a piano, is far more complex, and it's an average of the pattern of changes in frequency that produce the timbre of the sound, and that change is constant and can't be captured with 44 100 samples a second. When it comes to an ensemble of instruments that change in the wave frequency and magnitude is much more spiradic and complex, and if you can ever see how detailed it is, then see that wave a cd produces there is a lot of detail missing.

[Gorkab]

Originally Posted by Blu-Wave

For high quality audio purposes lossless standards with high sample rates and sample depths are to be expected. CD's 44.1kHz/16bit uncompressed two-channel stereo runs at around 1.4Mbps, but it could typically be compressed to around 700kbps without loss. :|

In contrast, six channel 96/24 audio probably requires around 5Mbps using MLP or similar, whilst 6/192/24 might need 10Mbps. As for 6/384/24, 6/768/24, 12/384/24, etc. I think you'll find that 1.5Mbps will not quite cover it ... :shock:

I just said that to prove him that the audio needs very less bitrate to perform a very good quality instead of leaving it to the video...

But you're right, it will not cover it at all :wink: