Hi, it's HandyAndy Tech Tips here, and today I'm going to be giving you the truth on high-res
audio files. You know, those files which are very expensive, which are supposedly better-than-CD
quality, and which pop up on many websites, including the store for Neil Young's infamous
Toblerone-shaped Pono player. Now, if you've got a good eye for detail, you might notice
that, throughout this video, little numbers will pop up in the corner of your screen - like
this one! So, if you want any more info on any of the topics that I talk about, just
go to the area in the description that begins with the number! There, you'll find links
and additional info. Now, back to the most important question - are high-res files any
better? Well, to understand this, first we need to know about these two numbers here.
What you see on the screen now is CD-quality audio - 16-bit, 44.1kHz. But if you're buying
high-res tracks, you're likely to see 24-bit as the first number, and the last number might
be something like 96kHz or 192kHz. So, what do these things mean? The first one, 16-bit,
is what we call the "bit depth" of the recording, and essentially what it controls is the dynamic
range - that is, the loudest and quietest possible sounds that can be reproduced. Examples
of high dynamic range music include classical recordings, which have a large difference
between the loud and quiet sections, which probably makes them annoying to listen to
in the car. Now, the important thing to know is that CD, or 16-bit audio, can support up
to 96 decibels of dynamic range. Whereas 24-bit, high-res files can support 144 decibels. So,
can you notice the difference? No. Now, 96 decibels of dynamics is more than enough.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that even the most dynamic classical music recordings still wouldn't
use all of that range. And neither would any pop or rock albums released during the past
20 years. Because, over that time, a phenomenon called the "loudness war" has taken over the
music industry. The idea is that the louder a single or an album is mastered, the more
copies it will sell, so music producers have been bumping up the volume. But the problem
is that that results in a loss of dynamics. In fact, most pop albums today use less than
1/10th of the potential dynamic range on a 16-bit recording. So, there's not really much
point going to 24-bit if even 16-bit's potential is being wasted. So that's the bit depth covered,
but what about the other number? Well, that's called the sampling rate, and it tells you
the highest possible frequency that can be represented. You might know that other animals
are capable of hearing far higher frequencies than us humans can. For example, most bats
are capable of detecting frequencies up to 80kHz, but unfortunately, humans don't quite
go that far, we can only hear up to 20kHz. But what about at the other end of the frequency
spectrum, the really low bass? Well, around 15 or 20Hz is probably the limit of our hearing
there. So, with these two figures in mind, it makes perfect sense that a CD-quality audio
file is sampled at 44.1kHz. Why? Well, there's something called the Nyquist theorem. You
don't need to worry about it too much, but essentially what it says is that the maximum
reproducible frequency - eg. the highest frequency you can possibly record - is half of the
sampling rate. So, if we have 44.1kHz, and divide that in half, the maximum frequency
is 22.05kHz. And look at that, the frequency range that's covered is almost exactly the
same as the range of human hearing. Now, think about it, if 44.1kHz covers the entire audible
frequency spectrum, then why would we need any higher sampling rates, like 96k or 192?
The answer? We don't. And, with that, I think we've just disproven all of the so-called
benefits of high-res audio. The improvement in the dynamic range is not necessary, the
improvement in the frequency range is not necessary. And honestly, unless an album is
released with completely different mastering than its CD equivalent, it will sound - wait
for this - exactly the same! Anyway, I'm HandyAndy and I hope you enjoyed this video! If you
did like it, then please subscribe to my channel and leave a comment below.