The 2012 Vinyl Re-Issues Were From 44.1khz Source

[Lord Reith]

The stumbling block with 60s pop music and hirez for me is the equipment used to record it. As an old analogue guy, the specification "20-20,000hz +/-3db" in the back of the manual of every piece of analogue equipment is burned into my brain. That doesn't mean the analogue equipment didn't pass signals above that range, it just means that no manufacturer ever bothered paying any care to that part of the audio spectrum. So some equipment would have passed those very high frequencies above 20khz, but some would not have (or at least seriously attenuated them). A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so all it takes is one piece of circuitry (amongst the myriad of microphones, pre-amps, mixers, effects sends, echo chambers, and other circuits in between The Beatles in the studio and the finished lps) to fall down and you're out of luck. Having a background in audio electronics I know that there are low pass filters (filters that block high frequencies) all over the place in old analogue equipment. The amount of signal routing that goes on inside even a primitive 1960s mixing console is massive. And that's before it even gets to the tape recorder. I really struggle with the concept that there is any meaningful audio above 20khz in Beatles music.

[zaval80]

It seems LPs, which according to some seem to have certain natural sonic benefits over digital options, cannot by their nature contain hi-res audio.

I always thought that was pretty obvious from the very description of the LP mastering process, where the mastering engineer had to limit and/or tweak the sound so the needle wouldn't jump out; also from the information about the advisable duration of an album side.

IMO it makes sense to preserve LP rips in hi-rez when the vinyl is clear - for the archival purposes. Otherwise, if the sound is good, the rip will be enjoyable in Redbook, and if not, hi-rez won't turn it around.

[alphabeatles]

...I really struggle with the concept that there is any meaningful audio above 20khz in Beatles music.

Would going directly from the '60s session multitracks directly to download (ie, bypassing the mixing desk and any type of physical media) help this matter?

I'm going to guess no, since the sounds captured on the tape came through the desk and its chain of components in the first place.

So what exactly are we being offered in terms of hi-res Beatles music, especially on Bluray?

[20YearsAgo]

...I really struggle with the concept that there is any meaningful audio above 20khz in Beatles music.

Would going directly from the '60s session multitracks directly to download (ie, bypassing the mixing desk and any type of physical media) help this matter?

I'm going to guess no, since the sounds captured on the tape came through the desk and its chain of components in the first place.

So what exactly are we being offered in terms of hi-res Beatles music, especially on Bluray?

Dang good question... even putting aside the question of how our hearing ebbs as we age, is any hi rez worth keeping?

When I first started paying attention to hi rez needledrops, I tended to listen to the material more intently. I felt obligated to give them my full attention as a listener. As a consequence, I tended to consciously notice a few things about the recordings that previously passed me by. Even at the time though, I wondered whether it was the quality of the needledrop or the extra attention that I'd devote to the material that caused me to note something special or new about the recordings.

[Lord Reith]

IMO it makes sense to preserve LP rips in hi-rez when the vinyl is clear - for the archival purposes. Otherwise, if the sound is good, the rip will be enjoyable in Redbook, and if not, hi-rez won't turn it around.

My view is that if you're going to rip an lp, it's going to degrade ever so slightly during that pass. So rip it in 32 bit (in case it goes over 0db during capture) and 96khz and then normalize to 0db afterwards and convert to 24 bit (which has no effect whatsoever other than throwing away the extra headroom on 32 bit, which is not being used). Then you've got a professional grade copy of the irreplaceable original. If you want to swap your rip with other people then they probably would not want it unless it were in hirez. If you intend to convert from 96 to 48 after ripping, it makes more sense to capture in 48 and avoid that step. If I personally were ripping an lp I would use 32/48 and then save as 24/48.

But does it actually make any difference to the sound? Probably not. So if you've got a hard drive full of these massive needle drop files and only use them for listening, you're not going to lose anything by converting them to redbook. They will sound the same. If you want to hedge your bets, keep them 24 bit and halve the sampling frequency from 96khz to 48khz, which will halve the file sizes and still retain audio up to 24khz.

So what exactly are we being offered in terms of hi-res Beatles music, especially on Bluray?

I'm not sure. Someone rip their blurays and do an analysis. I would think it would vary from track to track. Some tracks might have some +20khz content, some might not. The recent Apple remixes have massive treble boost down around 5-10khz which is like putting sugar on your cornflakes or msg on your noodles. It's that stuff that makes people think they sound better. And those frequencies are so in your face on those remixes that I'm sure they would mask any high frequency content two octaves up at 20-40khz.

[Tex]

No one over a certain age can ever hear above 16k or even less.

Paul and Ringo can't even hear the Beatles recordings the way they heard them in the day a lot of the treble is rolled off to their ears

[paul62]

This is an interesting point that has come to mind and something to think about (that I thought I'd throw into this thread) -
The presence of subsonic frequencies can be felt by the body. Supersonic/ultrasonic frequencies may not be consciously heard, but the brain might somehow register their presence in ways that are not known or fully understood (yet).

[20YearsAgo]

This is an interesting point that has come to mind and something to think about (that I thought I'd throw into this thread) -
The presence of subsonic frequencies can be felt by the body. Supersonic/ultrasonic frequencies may not be consciously heard, but the brain might somehow register their presence in ways that are not known or fully understood (yet).

Reminds me of something I'd read once about a deaf person who loved to go to concerts because of the sound vibrations.

Edit: actually, I was just thinking about the live club shows I'd been to. Ages ago, actually. But I used to like how the music would thump right through me. The tactile feel of it.

[Lord Reith]

I just did a makeshift hearing test in Audacity. You can try this if you want, not to test your hearing so much as acquaint yourself with what different frequencies sound like.

- start with a blank project, and in the extreme bottom left corner change the project rate to 96000.

- under the GENERATE tab, choose "Silence" and set it to 1min duration.

- under the GENERATE tab, choose "Tone" and set it to 1min duration (don't close the window)

- still in "Tone", set the frequency to 1000 and press PREVIEW. You will hear a 1khz tone. Set it at a fairly quiet volume. Don't have it too loud, it'll hurt.

- press stop and change to 5000 and hit preview. This is where engineers boost frequencies to give music an edge.

- change to 10,000. This is the region most people think of as treble.

- now go up progressively to 11 000, 12 000, 13 000, 14 000, 15 000. This range, even though it seems like they are big numbers, is only roughly half an octave, or the difference between 6 consecutive notes on a piano.

- 13, 14 and 15000 hz sounds like a "tickling" of the ears. You may well not be able to hear these tones, depending on the state of your hearing. For me, 15000 is the highest tone I can hear at a normal level. It is a very high note.

- try going up to 20,000. I can't hear this high, though if I boosted it greatly in volume I might "sense" there was something there (DON'T DO THIS IT CAN CAUSE IRREPARABLE DAMAGE). At 17,000 with a slight 3db boost in volume I can just make out something at the edge of perception.

Even if you can hear these very high tones, they don't occur at anything like this volume in music. They are vastly softer. But at least if you do have exemplary hearing, you may now have an idea of what very high musical content sounds like.

I tried 22,000 but can't hear a thing. I'm not sure the circuitry in my laptop passes anything higher than that.

[alphabeatles]

I should add before going further, although nobody has said anything to me, all due respect to the needledroppers and vinyl collectors among us. I am only asking technical questions about real-world issues, not making judgments. What I do with my collection is to satisfy me only (ie, like LR suggested, I recently brought all hi-res down to 24/48 and recovered 200 gigs).

A fun fact for Mac users: In order to listen in 24/96, you actually have to change the default output setting in Audio MIDI Setup (Utilities folder). For the longest time I didn't know that and hi-res was really lost on me... !

A FWIW link from 2014: hxxps://www.vox.com/2014/4/19/5626058/vinyls-gr ... r-than-cds

In terms of those extreme frequencies, in vinyl itself they can't be present regardless, but of course more modern recordings delivered on Bluray or via direct download can take advantage of the full bandwidth to rock our bones.

In my recent travels on the web I also read about people experimenting with low frequencies as a treatment for Alzheimers. See also music therapy (with iPods) in nursing homes.