BBC "Click" @ CES on High Res Audio

It didn't really say a lot did it Mike?!

It threw a couple of good points into the mix such as hearing the difference would depend on the recording, the person, the equipment it is replayed on and the environments it is played in - all points which have been made on here over recent years.

For me having got a bit ofna feel for it, it's mainly down to the recording. there's good and bad recordings on Vinyl, CD and now Studio Master download. If you get a bad one, it's going to be bad whichever format you listen on. But if you get a good one, the Hi Res can sound exquisite through good equipment.

But I guess the positive is that it's an article that would have been seen by a larger audience and thegeneral public slowly become aware that there is potentially something better out there.

Agreed it didn't say a lot Chris,  but it was BBC "Click" and is never going deep diving at anytime as its set to target the masses rather than those it the know.

Apart from the bits you mention - recording, person, equipment & environment - they did a pretty good job of confusing the hell out of the uninformed over the differences between "CD quality .wav" compared to those huge space gobbling monster .flac files.  

I thought the forum might be interested in the little bit on MQA

So it wasn't just me.

Dave

Spencer did seem to say "extremely huge files" more than was really necessary. Also no mention of bit word sizes.

I am sure I tunes and low end streaming will be happy and there is a huge market for this music

its certainly not for me - I like my FLAC files and the results they deliver to be honest, and in less than a year I have been converted to my NDX over my old CDX2  -

the debate will go on but I am certainly on this side of the fence

Spenser seemed to be making a few subliminal points - bad monster file sizes & you can't hear (or was it can't see) any difference (MQA visualization)  

It sort of reminded me of the days when Auntie Beeb (that's BBC for our overseas readers) was extolling the virtues of DAB - CD quality, no interference, perfect music forever - Say it often enough & you will fool some of the people all of the time.  

The way I interpreted it was that he was intimating there wasn't much difference between MP3 and the other 'monster sized' file types, including CD quality, or did I get it wrong?

I'm not sure about that Steve.

Spencer used the example with the film with data taken out and I took that to illustrate that mp3 was like the pixelated section of the screen, but then there wasn't muchdifference between the CD quality and the 'monster' file size hi-res in the other 2 sections of the screen.

I think in the end it didn't leave the viewer with any conclusion and did seem to jump about a bit not really driving at anything.

Im not sure the Paul McCartney part added anything for me either!

I thought the McCartney bit was easily the best.

Fancy going in to record a session without a composed set [of songs] ready to play to the microphones. Aimless rambling of sewn together bits sums up modern pop recording as a result.

Rubbish that will never be remembered, unlike the great compositions of the past.

ATB from George

Dear Mr Tyler,

There are two sorts of music. The classic and the shyte!

Now I have re-posted what I deleted six months ago, but it is true!

Very best wishes from George

PS: In my humble opinion McCartney is nearing the point where his work may be accurately listened to as classic, if not actually classical.

Dear Mr T,

You know - as I do - that we have to look below the commercial radar of pop/crap/rap to get to some really fine creations. I am sure that Siir Paul M would be proud, but it is not on the radio. We live a queer times.

Real modern music is just as stood on as anything original in our horrible new world ...

Very best wishes from George

I'm just glad I don't have  one of those ginormous FLAC files of shyte, all my shyte is thankfully in  WAV files of much more manageable proportions.

 SJB

Okay this programme didn't mention anything I wasn't aware of. Like in the fairly recent Guardian article on Neil Young's Pono, the journalist does seem a bit sceptical.

More importantantly, it's rare to hear a discussion of hi-fi on the TV. The 'man in the street' may not have heard of WAV files or DAC's. Large consumer electronics manufacturers such as Sony producing 24 bit capable equipment will hopefully increase the size of the market and make people realise that they don't have to listen to music via, e.g. a smartphone with Spotify.

By far the biggest misrepresentation of the hi-res situation in the Click piece, is the implication that the FLAC file format itself represents hi-res audio.  This will no doubt lead to a number of arguments in the pub between the educated on the topic, and the 'it's true, they said so on the telly' brigade, the latter being marginally less dangerous than the 'it's true, I read it on Wikipedia' brigade.  Sir Paul makes some good points though.