Resolution Revolution

Are you wasting money on high-end audio equipment?

In the April edition of MIX magazine, Paul Lehrman reported on a double-blind study published in the AES journal which compared the sonic resolution of high-end SACDs, DVD-As, and the lowly CD.  The 60 subjects were recording professionals, audiophiles, and college students in an audio recording program.  In 554 trials, there was no statistical difference between “high-resolution” audio and the standard CD 44.1kHz/16 bit format.

So why should I spend more money for equipment w/ astronomically high sample rates/depth capacity?  The answer seems to be that I shouldn’t.   Read another way, it seems that spending lots of money for the high end stuff doesn’t equal a relative increase in the quality of your recordings (or Live sound system, for that matter).

Lehrman says …”something is causing people to say they are hearing differences” and offers a theory by Ethan Winer (RealTraps manufacturer) that could be one answer.  Ethan says “I am convinced that comb filtering is at the root of people reporting a change in the sound of cables and electronics, even when no significant change is likely.  If someone listens to their system using one pair of cables and gets up and switches cables and sits down again, the frequency response heard is sure to be very different because it’s impossible to sit down again in exactly the same place.  So the sound really did change, but probably not because the cables sound different.” 

I’m digging this Gospel, so I went on Winer’s site and started reading.  From an article in a 2005 edition of Skeptic magazine, I found this gem:

Among devoted audiophiles, one of the most hotly debated topics is the notion that ultrasonic frequencies are necessary for high fidelity reproduction. Put aside for a moment that no human can hear much past 20 KHz. Few microphones respond to frequencies beyond that, and even fewer loudspeakers can reproduce that high. If maintaining an extended frequency response were free, I’d have little objection. But in this digital age, storing frequencies higher than necessary wastes memory, media space, and bandwidth. Even sillier is the way audio is handled on DVD soundtracks. DVDs accommodate frequencies up to 96 KHz, but then lossy* data compression, which is audible is often needed to make it fit! Record companies and equipment manufacturers just love that millions of people replaced all their old LPs and cassettes with CDs. They’re trying very hard to get us to buy all the same titles, and new gear to play them, yet again with the false promise of fidelity that exceeds CDs. 

 So if much of what we perceive as improvements in quality are due to our listening environment (changes in head position), are there any things that seem to make a difference?

Years ago I bought a BBE Sonic Maximizer because I heard a big difference in my PA system when I added it in the loop.  Now I don’t have any inside knowledge about what these guys are actually doing to the signal, but it sounds like it’s doing something!  I can peel away mud and adjust bass with a simple twist of the knob,  but it’s still “magic” to me;  - it’s some sort of smart eq/phase cancellation black box.  Why can’t I do the same thing with an EQ and maybe a spatial enhancing plugin within Protools?  Hopefully if I can get a free moment this week, I’ll try to create an audio shootout between the BBE box and my plugins.  It should be interesting…