High-resolution audio is a term for audio files with greater than 44.1 kHz sample rate or higher than 16-bit audio bit depth. It commonly refers to 96 or ... I have an understanding of those videos you refer too. If you take the song as a whole then fine for you. I take each instrument, each sound and I understand how they have a meaning. Master's in engineering such as Alan Parsons are like a DiVinci painting in that there is no paint waisted. When you move to Hi-Res you can here more detail, more emotion. Not one blended bowl of oatmeal. It's the ingredients, the flavors of the wine. I would feel sorry for those who will never hear these wonderful Hi-Res songs the way the musician / engineer created them, instead of the CD that doesn't carry enough bits at 44.1 to express it.
Parsons has said "Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.". He also said that the room's acoustics are more important than audiophile gear.
That said, my question for Parsons- "What was the point in making the effort to achieve the mix for the recordings you're known for of it isn't sound quality?" Crap equipment can never sound as good, but I can say from personal experience in audio sales that a huge number of listeners of Dark Side of The Moon and Alan Parsons Project recordings used bad equipment.
Also, what is the high frequency limit of YOUR hearing? If you have worked/lived in high SPL environments and didn't use hearing protection, you're probably fooling yourself into believing that what you hear is real. The recording community and industry use many tricks to create illusions in sound. Marketing does the rest.
WRT your "I would feel sorry for those who will never hear these wonderful Hi-Res songs the way the musician / engineer created them", you need to realize that most pop/rock musicians blew out their ears a long time ago, so any comments about hearing fine details and high frequencies are BS. They hear what they can, but most recordings are mixed and mastered by people who know how to achieve 'their sound' because they have done it for so long.
Also, recordings can't sound the way they heard it in the control room because the acoustics and equipment are very different. Unless you have exactly teh same equipment, room, environmental conditions, etc, you will never hear anything created in a studio as they heard it.
Read interviews with mastering engineers- they usually comment on their hearing damage. Anyone who has spent much time near drums and especially cymbals without hearing protection is lying if they say their hearing is good and it's total BS if they say their hearing is perfect. NOBODY who's past childhood has perfect hearing- the sounds we're exposed to throughout our lives makes that impossible.
In an interesting interview at CEPro, Alan Parsons, the man who engineered Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and yes, had his own Project, says that room acoustics are far more important than audiophile gear. In fact, the interview led one Slashdot commenter to post this fine quip: "Audiophiles...
www.hifianswers.com
