What music formats do you listen to via your A/V receiver?

[3rdeye]

I am buying my first AV receiver and I am considering spending up to $1,500.00 for it. My music library consists of MP3s and CDs.

1. Irrespective of the receiver I choose or the speakers I buy, what is the optimal source format of music to take full advantage of the listening experience that my system will be able to provide?

2. Is high res audio considered to be largely legitimate or gimmicky? I ask because I've read claims that there is added value to it over other formats, but I've also read that there isn't any meaningful differences or differences at all...and that this is due to our ears' listening limitations and that you can't improve the sound quality of a recording beyond the fidelity of the original recording. I also noticed some receiver have the high res audio sticker, and if there is clear beneficial value to this format, that would play a role in the receiver I choose.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I would just stick to CD. Yes, our hearing has limitations contrary to some belief systems.

Yes, hi res is just another gimmick.

Don't forget, your speakers and room acoustics is at the top to get best fidelity, along with the recording.
And, there is the rub. Where do you find it in the area you are interested in. All about mastering.

 

[lovinthehd]

It's nice if your avr can handle whatever format you throw at it....and many can.

As to high res, if you have a true high res recording and you can hear the difference, perhaps. Personally cd is quite excellent, as can be high bitrate mp3s. Might want to test yourself as to how much of a difference it makes to your ears...try the info offered here.

 

[KenM10759]

My NAD T758 (upgraded with VM130 4K video module) is hooked up to an playing from my Bluesound Vault 2 (digital CD storage and Tidal Hi-Fi streaming), my turntable, my Sony CD changer (very rarely used), and my BluRay player. Though it has an AM/FM radio tuner, I don't have a good enough antennae to use it. My receiver also has the BlueOS module so can handle those duties as well as the Vault 2 while displaying the CD artwork on the TV, I don't need it but it was free.

I'll add that the bulk of my listening is Tidal Hi-Fi streaming, including many titles in MQA format. All my CD's were ripped either as native or FLAC format. I have bought just a handful of 24/96 FLAC files, don't notice a whole lotta difference over "CD" quality, if any. The MQA files streamed, however, can be significantly better than the same title from my CD library.

 

[2channel lover]

Hi Res...my take...taking an original analog recording and remastering it for hi res reveal slight details in the hi res medium...not enough to get excited about unless you simply want everything (details) in the recording.

If the same analog recording is remastered for hi res, multi channel...you can get a nice improvement often times by simply using the .1 channel.

As LTHD mentioned...a DSD recording mastered for SACD is a more noticeable improvement over CD quality....kind of like 4k content on a 4k TV.

Rather than allowing a positive or negative viewpoint here to sway you, I would say try it was well on your system and see for yourself...IIRC you can purchase 24/192 files by the song.

 

[lovinthehd]

As LTHD mentioned...a DSD recording mastered for SACD is a more noticeable improvement over CD quality....kind of like 4k content on a 4k TV.
.

Didn't say that. SACD can be nice for the multi-ch mixes, tho.

 

[3rdeye]

Hi Res...my take...taking an original analog recording and remastering it for hi res reveal slight details in the hi res medium...not enough to get excited about unless you simply want everything (details) in the recording.

If the same analog recording is remastered for hi res, multi channel...you can get a nice improvement often times by simply using the .1 channel.

As LTHD mentioned...a DSD recording mastered for SACD is a more noticeable improvement over CD quality....kind of like 4k content on a 4k TV.

Rather than allowing a positive or negative viewpoint here to sway you, I would say try it was well on your system and see for yourself...IIRC you can purchase 24/192 files by the song.

I have no system. I am in the process of locking in on an AVR and some speakers. I am just trying to calibrate how I use it with science and not quackery.

What bitrate or format is considered to be the optimal source for listening purposes? I guess that's the money question for me, because when I do get done, I want to make sure that the music I play is the best available according to how science says we can hear sounds.

 

[2channel lover]

Didn't say that. SACD can be nice for the multi-ch mixes, tho.

Misread what you wrote...thx for the correction.

 

[Pogre]

Either cd's or cd's ripped to WAV files. To me that's about as good as it gets, though I haven't dipped my toe into SACD yet. That very well could me my next step in the audio journey. Of course then I'm gonna need an SACD player...

 

[2channel lover]

I have no system. I am in the process of locking in on an AVR and some speakers. I am just trying to calibrate how I use it with science and not quackery.

What bitrate or format is considered to be the optimal source for listening purposes? I guess that's the money question for me, because when I do get done, I want to make sure that the music I play is the best available according to how science says we can hear sounds.

Got it.

Too subjective to answer...trial and error.

 

[lovinthehd]

Rather than concentrate on the avr, concentrate on the speakers first, that's where your audio quality is for the most part (as well as your room)....and your amp needs will somewhat depend on those speakers as well as your listening preferences and levels needed. Also determine what your needs are for video as well as audio purposes in terms of the avr; I have no 4k/HDR set so those capabilities didn't mean anything to me on my last avr.

 

[Mikado463]

is your system going to be just for two channel music ? If so, as others have said concentrate on your speaker selection first and then receiver or integrated amp to match the speakers demand second.

As for music formats with my AVR, just digital. My two channel rig digital and analog.

 

[cpp]

CD's and FLAC or course the OPPO does duty with SACD's and some streaming

 

[yepimonfire]

I am buying my first AV receiver and I am considering spending up to $1,500.00 for it. My music library consists of MP3s and CDs.

1. Irrespective of the receiver I choose or the speakers I buy, what is the optimal source format of music to take full advantage of the listening experience that my system will be able to provide?

2. Is high res audio considered to be largely legitimate or gimmicky? I ask because I've read claims that there is added value to it over other formats, but I've also read that there isn't any meaningful differences or differences at all...and that this is due to our ears' listening limitations and that you can't improve the sound quality of a recording beyond the fidelity of the original recording. I also noticed some receiver have the high res audio sticker, and if there is clear beneficial value to this format, that would play a role in the receiver I choose.

It's mostly a gimmick. I say mostly because a few peer reviewed studies have demonstrated humans being able to discriminate between high sample rates and 44.1khz, though the difference is incredibly small. See https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257068631_Sampling_Rate_Discrimination_441_kHz_vs_882_kHz
And http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18296

Personally, I can't hear a difference, except when listening to MQA via tidal, and even then its extremely subtle. I think it has more to do with impulse response and transient smearing at lower sample rates, vs extra HF content. I don't think the argument for high res audio is really settled. I can say for a fact that 24bit vs 16 bit is useless except in film. 16 bit offers 96dB of dynamic range. 24 bit offers 140 iirc. Film has a dynamic range of up to 115dB, which is why 24bit is used.

To answer your original question, I mostly use Spotify. There's really no need for lossless, mp3 at or above 256kbps, AAC at or above 256kbps, or vorbis at or above 192kbps (Spotify premiums max is 320kbps) is virtually indistinguishable from lossless.

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[KenM10759]

With the Tidal Hi-Fi "Masters" (MQA) files the difference can be subtle, profound, or not really noticeable. There are a lot of factors in how the technology, or where in the whole scheme of things, is implemented. When it's employed from the beginning as part of the original mastering, it can be unreal. When it's applied to an older recording with no re-mastering, it's pretty much a pointless exercise.

 

[mtrycrafts]

It's mostly a gimmick. I say mostly because a few peer reviewed studies have demonstrated humans being able to discriminate between high sample rates and 44.1khz, though the difference is incredibly small. See https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257068631_Sampling_Rate_Discrimination_441_kHz_vs_882_kHz
And http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18296

...

Thanks for the links.
The first showed that 3 of the 16 significantly picked the wrong answer. What does that mean?
The others were random.

The 2nd paper was, if I remember correctly, well discussed at AVS. None of the subject papers by themselves showed detection. Only when all the raw data was combined there was something.
So, I would think that too didn't really show detection and perhaps with the summation of the data they should have used a much lower p than 0.05, perhaps 0.01?

 

[little wing]

Your new receiver, whichever one it will be , most certainly will have streaming capabilities. I stream mostly wav files (ripped CDs) from my PC, directly to the receiver. The sound, to my ear is indestinguishable from CD. I wouldn't put too much stock in "hi res". Like most people here say, the speakers will have the most impact on your system. I do play some SACDs via my Blu-ray player, but I can't say they sound head and shoulders above Redbook CD.

 

[sterling shoote]

If your receiver has an HDMI input you can enjoy multi-channel SACD from a Blu-ray player which streams that format. SACD and multi-channel SACD are still the state-of-the-art music formats. I would suggest a receiver which also has Airplay. This will permit you to wirelessly play music you have in your iTunes collection, whether that collection is on your computer, iPhone, or iPad. Having these capabilities from your receiver plus the ones which get you surround sound I think would satisfy the most critical buyer in the market for a receiver.

 

[yepimonfire]

Thanks for the links.
The first showed that 3 of the 16 significantly picked the wrong answer. What does that mean?
The others were random.

The 2nd paper was, if I remember correctly, well discussed at AVS. None of the subject papers by themselves showed detection. Only when all the raw data was combined there was something.
So, I would think that too didn't really show detection and perhaps with the summation of the data they should have used a much lower p than 0.05, perhaps 0.01?

I'm not sure. I do know just by looking at the impulse response between 96khz and 44.1khz it's obvious 44.1khz causes severe temporal smearing. Human hearing is significantly more sensitive in the time domain vs the frequency domain, being able to detect difference as small as 8 microseconds. It's rare to hear a large difference between hi res and Redbook audio, but some recordings make it very obvious. Coldplay's clocks, for example have much tighter transients on the snare and cymbals, and it's one of the few songs I've been able to ABX. 24 bit is probably unnecessary for music. There's not much more than a 40dB range even with classical.

Film is another story. In a properly calibrated system, average volume of dialogue is 85dB. You've got 20dB of headroom, so the maximum is 105dB. You could argue that the average home has a noise floor of 40dBa, concluding anything below this level will be lost, but its not that simple. I've done a few experiments myself, and can easily hear 1khz at a level of 10dB, and 4khz at 5dB with a 40dBa noise floor. Considering the majority of sound power is concentrated in the midrange, this gives us a perceivable dynamic range of 100dB. 16 bit audio has a theoretical dithered dynamic range of 96dB, but this is a best case scenario, and that only works for pure sine waves, noise shaping does not give a true 120dB dynamic range, it only ensures that sounds below the noise floor aren't lost, making them louder.

Keep In mind that 5dB sound is rms, the rise and fall off the wave will cross over below -100dB. A -95dB rms signal (10dB in a calibrated system) in 16bit audio will likely suffer quantization errors for this reason.

It's also worth noting that every time you double the sample rate, you gain an additional 3dB of dynamic range, which is why DSD gets away using 1bit. If you use a sampling rate of 176.4khz, for example, with a 16 bit bitdepth you'd actually have about 102dB of dynamic range, at 196khz about 104dB.


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[panteragstk]

I think too much thought is put into what format the recording is in and not whether or not the mix and engineering is good.

I've got multiple recordings of Dark Side of the Moon and some sound good, others do not. My DVD-A isn't very good at all. Lots of hiss. My DTS recording sounds good, but can sound a bit over-boosted in the bass. My regular CD sounds great. Probably the best recording I have for that album.

I also have a Led Zeppelin album on 8 track (yup) and CD. They sound very different and it's not the medium that makes them sound different. The 8 track doesn't have some of the fade outs that the CD does. It's been too long since I've listened to the 8 track, but there were other differences.