CD versus DVD – Redbook versus Hi-Rez – Big gains versus small ones

[bigburner]

Last night I put on the bonus DVD that accompanies the Neil Young “Prairie Wind” CD. On the main menu I noticed a high resolution audio option. It’s an audio-only 24-bit 96 kHz recording of the whole of the “Prairie Wind” album. The quality of this recording was so good that I listened to this audio track rather than watching the film (which I learnt afterwards has a 24-bit 48 kHz soundtrack).

This morning I compared and contrasted the “Prairie Wind” CD to the DVD, just to make sure that the wine wasn’t responsible for my revelation. I switched backwards and forwards between my two players – the CD in my Rotel RCD-855 and the DVD in my Oppo 971 + LFD DAC3 external DAC. The difference in sound quality between the two recordings was dramatic. Basically the DVD recording was much richer. I also played the two discs sequentially in the DVD player to make sure that the differences in the sound quality weren’t due to differences in the sound of the equipment. They weren’t.

In summary, I concluded that a 24-bit 96 kHz recording is significantly superior to the Redbook Standard of 16-bit 44.1 kHz.

This discovery adds weight to a suspicion that I’ve had for a while. Namely, if you want to improve the quality of your sound system the major gains are achieved by:
• using better source material, e.g. 24-bit 96 kHz recordings or CDs from a quality studio, or
• getting better speakers, or
• improving the acoustics in your room, or
• implementing a combination of all three.

Far smaller gains are achieved through upgrading CD/DVD players, DACS, preamps, amps, and cables. For example, the differences between a 24-bit 96 kHz recording and a 16-bit 44.1 kHz recording are far greater than the differences between the DAC in my Oppo or my LFD DAC3 or the Benchmark DAC1 which I auditioned a while ago.

Nigel.

[Briz vegas]

Your conclusions are logical to a point but there is always a niggling doubt as the whether you are comparing apples with apples.

- Is the 96/24 DVD from the same mix as the CD and is the quality of the master the same.
- Was the DVD done to a higher quality on purpose
- Is the CD one of those hot recordings so common these days

I have DTS 96/24 and a HDCD capable CD player. The best quality sound probably comes from my HDCDs but a well mastered redbook CD can sound great as well. DTS 96/24 can't compete because its from my receivers DAC and uses my receiver as a pre-amp.

Our audio club spent an afternoon comparing formats based on home recordings (CD and high res) from a vinyl master. The vinyl won by a nose but losses due to the copying process and weakness in the CD/DVD playback influenced the results. (Some months later the guy who ran the session demoed how much better his digital was sounding through improved isolation of the player - with the improvements even CD sounded fabulous).

All things being equal I think you are probably correct about the importance of various upgrades, although we rarely have choice in audio formats. I spent about 4 times the price on my 2 channel CD gear because that is the bulk of my "software". My room and speakers are both pretty good (always room for improvement :rofl: ).

Fortunately/unfortunately when looking for that next upgrade we still need to experiment to see where the greatest weakess lies (in my case that is speaker cable at this point)