Qualcomm S5 Sound Platform can play CD-quality lossless audio wirelessly

Better...
But who still listen at this poor quality?
Wire still have great days ahead...

 

Eh? 16bit 44.1khz is poor quality? You know humans can't tell any difference between standard CD quality and hires formats?
http://archimago.blogspot.com/2014/06/24-bit-vs-16-bit-audio-test-part-ii.html

 

you and this article couldn't be more wrong if you tried.
i know this not just from personal anecdotal experience i know this from professional experience.

i was "that guy" for a major electronics manufacturer who had to go train brick & mortar staff (the only outlets at the time) on digital audio when CD's and DAT came out.

even older people with hearing loss can tell the difference, especially the dynamic range difference.

hearing losses are common enough especially in men and even more so in men who drink - but even they can tell the difference in dynamic range.

i will not bet money on frequency response with other people's hearing even though all formats are 20Hz - 20kHz.
that is where that silly blog gets off.

 

The article is wrong? It was just presenting the outcome of a very controlled test. It can't be wrong. How you interpret the data is up to you, but the results are pretty clear.

16bit has more than enough dynamic range for human hearing.

https://www.soundguys.com/audio-bit-depth-explained-23706/
"The dynamic nature of the ear and listening material makes it hard to give a precise number, but the real dynamic range of your hearing is likely in the region of 70dB in an average environment, down to just 40dB in very loud environments. A bit depth of just 12 bits would probably have most people covered, so 16-bit CDs give us plenty of headroom."

"On balance, 16 bits (96dB of dynamic range or 120dB with dithering applied) accommodates a wide range of audio types, as well as the limits of human hearing and typical listening environments. The perceptual increases in 24-bit quality are highly debatable if not simply a placebo, as I hope I’ve demonstrated."

Show me some double blind tests that prove people can hear improvements.

 

the facts are not in question, the interpretation and conclusions are wrong.
dynamic range is the difference between soft and loud, in this case in the human hearing range.

16/44 will always have louder softs and quieter louds VS any hi/res audio format. this is incredibly audible on any digital recording. an analog master will not have the same range (as it uses analog compression just like LP records).

so any playback @ 16/44 is not equal to hi/res and anyone can hear it casually.

in other words - CD audio is more lifelike than analog, and hi/res is the first time the dynamics of a LIVE performance is available for playback

 

Yes we know 16 bit has less dynamic range than 24bit. The point is you wont hear any difference because 16bit is already more than enough.

I suggest you read, and do the example down the bottom for yourself.
https://www.soundguys.com/high-bitrate-audio-is-overkill-cd-quality-is-still-great-16518/

 

Meanwhile I am sitting here with my Bluetooth taotronics bh21 and I am like .... These sound awesome! But I said a lot of times I am a sound pleb . At least is cheap to be a happy sound pleb !

 

fyi

AGAIN, WRONG

you are not understanding the usage of dynamic range.
for example - an audio cassette (20Hz - 17kHz) has audibility. audibility IS NOT EQUAL to suitability or capability.

these folks @ "soundguys" are idiots and NOT sound guys. I am a sound guy.

they are telling you "good enough" when "good enough" was never the question.
you said no-one can tell the difference between 16/44 and higher res. you are categorically wrong.

 

Then show me some evidence. You arguing with nothing to back it up is not going to change my mind.

Do the example on the page I linked. Get a 24bit file, invert a 16bit downsampled version and subtract it. Show me the file that has audible differences.
Hi-Res audio is the biggest scam going.

 

let's get a few facts under our belts shall we?

the Decibel dB, in this case spl (sound pressure level) is the unit of measurement used. in human hearing 3dB doubles the sound intensity while 6dB is the level of perception required to feel twice as loud.

the cd has up to 96dB of dynamic range which is better than the past. a 24/196 system has a dynamic range of 144dB

AND AGAIN, 6dB are perceived as twice as loud.

the ONLY metric where people can say 16/44 is "good enough" is when they don't care in the first place.
for those who do care there is no going back.
cheap people can make excuses (i.e drive space or expense) but do not come around with rationalizations.

 

While I agree with @Richard Nutman that 16 bit 44.1KHz is not at all poor quality (as far as human hearing capabilities are concerned), a trained ear in specific kinds of recordings with a highly optimized system can hear the difference, but that's like having a professional wine taster identify the ingredients and how long the fermentation was in a blind test - sure, the difference is noticed, but that doesn't mean the difference is desirable or even matters at all. Not all subtle differences are noteworthy.

As far as I'm concerned, a higher bit depth and sample rate really only matters (or in fact, is necessary) when recording or editing audio. For anything else, going higher is pointless, even where the differences can be noticed by untrained ears. I don't care who I offend when I say this: a consumer spending 200%+ more for the <1% of times where you actually can tell the difference is burnt money. This is exacerbated when you consider that such differences practically never matter to published content. So what if a pin drop in the background got picked up, or that a dog whistle can be heard without aliasing or distortion? I don't think it's worth bragging when your sound system can play a frequency range triple what you can hear (especially if there are poor mids) or when you have to crank up the volume so high to hear the subtle differences that the experience is annoying.

I want to hear what I was meant to hear. If I need to spend $700+ just so I can hear a specific instrument, that is poor sound design. If I can hear the cameraman breathing, that's detracting from my experience. Anything that can't be heard by a 16-bit 44.1KHz system but should be audible is either a niche case or a poorly engineered track.

I don't see any problem in going 24-bit 96KHz, because nowadays, you don't need high-end hardware to do that, so if the quality can be improved with little to no sacrifices then I'm all for it. But for someone to stick their nose up at CD quality for a wireless interface is just elitism as far as I'm concerned.

EDIT:
For what it's worth, I have a 24-bit 96KHz 5.1 channel system. I don't regret getting it but I wouldn't make the same purchase twice.

 

For recording @schmidtbag, yes 24bit makes a lot of sense I agree.

More bits have nothing to do with loudness. A 1 bit file can be as loud as a 24bit file. The difference is the noise floor. With 96db of range, the noise floor is already below human hearing.

You certainly aren't going to notice it with wireless earbuds or wireless headphones regarding this news announcement that's for sure.

 

i understand your point but you're wrong. 100 out of 100 times the same track in different formats can be told apart given the right (but not expensive) equipment.
as the only person on this blog who has been a manufacturer in the electronics industry what i'm saying is true and verifiable - a pair of $100 speakers can play the difference and you would hear it.
AND you wouldn't need an anechoic chamber (where we make measurements).
i can pick any track AT RANDOM and you'd hear it. i've done this literally thousands of times and never has anyone been wrong or stumped at what sounds better.
there once was a format named DAT (24 bit varying sampling rates) that my company made and sold. and i was one of the guys who had to go and teach features and benefits. i would take "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits and blind play the dat vs CD
every single time folks picked out the DAT and thought it was the CD (which they thought was better) and were shocked that something sounded better. and this wasn't in ideal circumstances this was in conference rooms and auditoriums.
it was the high price of the tape plus RIAA cock-blocking that doomed the DAT to a niche market (field recordings and concert bootlegging).

 

Yes you can tell them apart because the mastering engineer made the 24bit track sound different deliberately. Perhaps reduced the amount of dynamic compression in the track, to make it sound more like music did in the olden days.
That is a very real difference, but it's nothing to do with increased bit-depth.

Your anecdotes are meaningless. Perhaps the DAC copy was just slightly louder. That's a great trick to convince people music sounds better. Show me a double blind study that proves it.

 

If my point is wrong then you didn't understand my point:
Where the subtle differences can be heard, they often don't matter.
While I'm not calling you a liar, anecdotes are not evidence. If every track can so obviously be distinguished by the average person, something about the transcoding methods seems really questionable to me. In situations where the differences require studio quality equipment to be heard, then the difference is moot, because only a select few people can justify such a system.

Again: even where a difference can be heard, that doesn't mean the difference is desirable or justifiable. It is possible for something to be different and not better or worse. Sometimes I want chocolate, sometimes I want vanilla. With my sound system, I have been able to hear a difference in some cases, but I genuinely don't care. For those who do, great, you do you. Sometimes, I actually prefer the lower bit-depth, because the dynamic range can be annoying at times when voices are too quiet and explosions are too loud.

 

i will if you can accept facts like a 48dB greater dynamic range is clearly audible if you have hearing.
AND you are wrong AGAIN as the Mastering Engineer on Dire Straits "Walk of Life" made ONE digital master (at the time).
it was the exact same recording at different bit rate and depth which was exactly why the corporation paid royalties to Dire Straits even though they're on our Japanese record label.

 

CLEARLY, you are not a fan of classical music were the soft passages are just as important as the loud.
AND btw... this is NOT about elitism - you'd hear the differences on a good boombox.

the most important thing is that you're not a big music fan and so don't care.

the goal of the recording industry from the days of Thomas Edison to now is to recreate the live experience.
the only format(s) that do are high/res with the dynamic range of life as we live it.

 

It's audible if you're listening at a volume which will burst your ear-drums. No-one listens to music that loud in order to hear differences in 24bit audio.
The audio might be the same format, but what about the pre-amplified level out the hardware? Was that identical? Amps, receivers, DAC's all have different output levels that can make the amplifier give a louder signal. This is perhaps what they heard.

 

the arguments people have been making are fallacious.

this is exactly like saying an i-3 can do the same work as an i-9, which it can - to an extent.
but the people who actually use the computer for more than web browsing and online shopping know there's a huge difference in capability.