Stan wrote:

Another way to phrase this is, if only those who have achieved an uncommon competence can hear something, then one must conclude that it is also imperceptible to the common. 

Regardless, people are always free to listen to whatever they want.  IMHO, any criticism in this thread is directed at the audio industry that promotes "hi rez" music formats as "amazingly wonderful", yet maybe, as admitted here, only uncommonly competent people can actually hear a difference. 

Regardless of the audibility of such "hi rez" files, what really gets to me is the dishonesty. There are a lot of "hi rez" music files out there marketed as uber audiophile which are either sourced from analog tape or just a CD quality digital file that's been upconverted and then sold as a hi rez file. Not to mention the remastering that often goes on so that no kidding, the hi rez sample will sound different, but that's not due to the resolution of the transport medium. I know if I were hawking online hi rez and CD quality music I'd make sure the hi rez one was about a third to a half a db hotter than the CD quality one so it would sound better in one on one comparisons with no level matching. It's not dishonesty, it's marketing!

I tried to discern the difference between different sample rates from a link on another thread on the forum somewhere, but the main point is that as mentioned above - it depends on how you listen to music. Are you trying to dissect the arrangement to hear each musician's contribution? Are you trying to find the sweet spot in order to obtain the best aural image of the recording intent? Are you just jammin' to the tunes you love? These are all valid listening modes, so if you, like I could really only hear the difference from very low bit rate (sub 128kbps) and everything else, consider yourself freed from the near to "chase rabbits" - freedom, I say! Now just find the music you like in a format you can enjoy.

p.s. - not to start up another controversy, but I wonder how the "Yanny" / "Laurel" effect comes into play with people's perception and music enjoyment?   

Agreed, its pretty easy to hear the improvement from low bit rates to higher ones.

Where people draw the line, that depends on many things, including how sensitive ones ears are.

My comments above are less to do with HiRez - I have little to no experience - but more to defend (a bit) that while chasing rabbits is a silly distraction, there are those who probably quiet rightly prefer (for example) Deezer Hifi to Deezer regular. Of course, the average Joe probably wont care, but t wouldn't deride those who do.

DMacri wrote:

I tried to discern the difference between different sample rates from a link on another thread on the forum somewhere, but the main point is that as mentioned above - it depends on how you listen to music. Are you trying to dissect the arrangement to hear each musician's contribution? Are you trying to find the sweet spot in order to obtain the best aural image of the recording intent? Are you just jammin' to the tunes you love? These are all valid listening modes, so if you, like I could really only hear the difference from very low bit rate (sub 128kbps) and everything else, consider yourself freed from the near to "chase rabbits" - freedom, I say! Now just find the music you like in a format you can enjoy.

p.s. - not to start up another controversy, but I wonder how the "Yanny" / "Laurel" effect comes into play with people's perception and music enjoyment?   

For anyone interested, a new review on the Node 2i.

I don't think you can hear any difference. 

Interesting. I switched out a Node 2i with a Core in my set up. In my case, I preferred the Core + Eclipse remote connected to BL 11/6000 because of both aesthetics and audio (mainly aesthetics). Audio quality wise I could not tell the difference between the Node 2i and Airport Express 2, but then my speakers aren’t audiophile level either 🙂

Generally, when presented with two files to compare, you have no knowledge of their provenance - they may well not be from the same mix or master or even the same rms volume, so to arrive at a definitive conclusion based upon their encoded rate or number of bits alone is meaningless without knowing their origin. 

Also, someone like Tidal has a vested interest in you being able to hear a difference between std and hires! (I remember when sky introduced HD - on the new HD boxes the quality of SD was noticeably inferior to the quality of the same channels on the previous sky+ boxes, why would that be?).

A simple sanity check, if you're half way competent, is to get a Hires file and re-encode it yourself to CD std or what ever else you want to compare it to. You then need some software to swap between files without you knowing which is which (or a friend, its said that some people here do have them)! to be entirely sure you genuinely can hear a difference.

Puncher wrote:

You then need some software to swap between files without you knowing which is which (or a friend, its said that some people here do have them)! to be entirely sure you genuinely can hear a difference.

Ban boring signatures!

Mikipidia wrote:

Puncher wrote:

 

You then need some software to swap between files without you knowing which is which (or a friend, its said that some people here do have them)! to be entirely sure you genuinely can hear a difference.

 

 

Ban boring signatures!

 

 

 

Is this an admission we also lack significant others and/or significant others that are capable of doing it for us too? 😎😁

Oh I've got lots of friends - the question you should've asked is are they real or only in my head!😜