Do we really need anything greater than 24/96? Opinions?

Yes, it’s simply a scam (or ongoing business model if you prefer). I have decades of experience to prove it.
If the recording industry cared, really cared about sound quality, they’d make sure it was recorded and mastered properly right off the bat.

As it is, no one in the industry gives a toss save the odd artist like Mark Knofler, Steely Dan and of course Pink Floyd. Most don’t give a stuff and simply trust the producer to futz it up any way they want, ie anyway they think it will sell. Often it’s just a question of following the current, often moronic knob twiddling fashion of the day.

Neil Young is one of the very few to ever speak about sound quality (but that’s another story). Before you go shelling out for any remasters just consider that last detail.

@beetlemania,

"In blind testing with foobar "comparator", I could reliably distinguish 24/44 from 16/44 but not 24/44 from either 24/96 or 24/192. So, I am a fan of 24-bit files!’


If you’re attempting to generalise then that’s a hugely iconoclastic statement to make. I’d say it’s amazing even - given that some of us struggle to hear the difference between (like for like) 192 kbps and 320 kbps files!

Since it’s easy enough to rip the same track to 128/192/320kbps comparisons are easy whether via headphone playback or burning to CD. Certainly worth a go before investing in High-res downloads.

Of course if you prefer the mastering which may be unique to high-res files then that’s a different matter, but if you’re saying you prefer Hi-res to standard red book then surely you would have to compare like with like.

As far as we know it’s not humanly possible to ’reliably distinguish’ distinguish anything above Red Book CD.

Or is it?

@brianlucey, 

Thanks for the input! Great to have someone with hands on experience chime in here.

"1. Mastering and production are most of it. You’re playing in the margins for subjective enjoyment NOT for better quality with SRC" (sample rate converters)

"5.  The NATIVE SAMPLE RATE of the mastering session is the BEST quality.

Everything else is marketing and ego. Period."

Hopefully these anti-business model comments wont get you thrown out of the mastering union.

Just joking. Great website. Wow!

http://magicgardenmastering.com/

@optimize, "But most of us thinks that more is better.
A analogy is when you parallel parking your car. The car is the whole recorded music and the space you want to park your car is the format.
If you have a big space it is easier to park but if the space is 10 m long your car (music) is still 4 m and there is 6 m of unused space. You don’t have a longer car because the space is longer.. :)"


A great analogy, and one's that easy to understand. 

The OP is correct when he says,

"Plus, I really think the recording (studio-mastering) means more to sound quality than the actual output format/resolution. I've heard excellent recorded/mastered recordings sound killer on iTunes streaming and CD." 

If you are looking for genuine sonic improvement over Redbook then remastering is where that dog is (sometimes) buried.

Masterings can and do vary considerably in end result, and this does nothing to clarify matters. For example if you were to buy Bob Dylan's Street Legal album you would be faced with a number of buying decisions before you could be sure you had the best sonic copy as this quote from Wiki makes clear. 

"The original 1978 LP credits mastering to Stan Kalina at CBS Recording Studios NY; the album was produced by Don DeVito. In 1999, Street-Legal received a special remixing and remastering job from DeVito. The newer version boasted richer sound, correcting numerous issues with the original production. The new mix was also used in a 2003 SACD reissue of Street-Legal. However the original 1978 mix was reinstated for The Complete Album Collection Vol. 1."

It all depends upon who did it, what with, and why?

For what it's worth I'd take the 1999/2003 issue over any of the others.

@atdavid, "Has anyone ever noticed that it is mainly old people that complain about CDs and digital. Young people don't experience listening fatigue with it. Maybe old brains just get information overload listening to digital?"

This made me think of how little impact we audiophiles have on the actual delivery of music. Almost zero.

It's always been a business always driven by the chase for profits - and very little little else.

My dad listened to music via radio, valve amp driven vinyl and home recordings he made on his portable reel to reel deck.

I listened to music via transistors powering vinyl, cassette, minidisc, CD, radio, MP3 and streaming.

My children have only known music delivered in a digital format, usually via CD, MP3, YouTube and streaming.

The industry is only ever interested in delivering formats to the large consumer dog, and not its tiny audiophile tail. 

So it's understandable that each generation may have little experience of the way the previous one listened to music.

The general consumer driven assumption that products keep getting better is, as many audiophiles know, not always true.
There are even some who believe that for the pure reproduction of the spoken voice, things have hardly progressed since the days of the wax cylinder!

Let's also remember that the anachronistic current vinyl resurgence was primarily influenced by club culture experience, not by any wish for better sound quality. The record industry was not slow in cashing in. 

So far it remains the only format that came back to any significant extent. 

Redbook CD is more or less dead, so naturally enough the industry looks for other means to generate income. If 24/96 is deemed profitable then that's where it will go. 

Whether audiophiles actually need it is more or less irrelevant.

@aberyclark,

"If one were to make one final version of a master tape and store away that Master for many years. What method would capture everything the tape had to offer so future engineers could use that new source as the master?"


Perhaps you would use metal (or gold plated) LPs like L Ron Hubbard was supposed to have done with his collected works.

Apparently he stored them away inside some mountain for some future civilisation to find in case our current one ends up destroying itself.

He might have used M Disc had it been available in his lifetime, given that it has a purported lifetime of 1000 years. However it is unlikely to be as easy to play back as metal LP might be.

Neither digital or tape would have much chance of surviving a holocaust.

Digital on tape is particularly vulnerable. Apparently thousands of digital recordings became useless very quickly after becoming prone to dropouts.

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Data storage lifespans: How long will media really last?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.storagecraft.com/data-storage-lifespan/amp/