103 AES Convention 1997, New York
I just finished reading this paper. Its conclusions are interesting to me, so I thought that I would share the summary.
Conclusions
TWO experiments have been presented to investigate into "localization blur" as a function of the sampling rate of the stimuli. The first experiment which was concerned with localization of partially coherent signals did not reveal data exact enough for a quantitative evaluation. The second
experiment to estimate MAA's in a standard stereophonic loudspeaker layout gave results stable enough for evaluation.
Analyses of the data showed that the hypothesis that localization accuracy improves with higher sampling rates above the professional 48 kHz standard has to be rejected. Nonetheless, in a subsequent experiment, a task considered to be more difficult than the conventional ABX-test, one subject proved to be able to discern HDDA from 48 kHz @ 16 bit with a reliability not expected in such a difficult task. Two futher subjects were able to discern 96 kHz @ 16 bit from 48 kHz 16 bit at more than 90 % confidence.
The differences in sound quality between the two standards as noticed by the subjects, suggest that further experiments conducted in this area should focus on the finer structures of music. Dynamic shadings (contrast), ambience retrieval and distance perception seem to be good predictors worth further research.
We can conclude by saying that the movement towards higher resolution in digital audio, at least at the recording studio level, is justified especially if we wish to prevent the finer nuances of contemporary music from being lost for future generations.
I just finished reading this paper. Its conclusions are interesting to me, so I thought that I would share the summary.
Conclusions
TWO experiments have been presented to investigate into "localization blur" as a function of the sampling rate of the stimuli. The first experiment which was concerned with localization of partially coherent signals did not reveal data exact enough for a quantitative evaluation. The second
experiment to estimate MAA's in a standard stereophonic loudspeaker layout gave results stable enough for evaluation.
Analyses of the data showed that the hypothesis that localization accuracy improves with higher sampling rates above the professional 48 kHz standard has to be rejected. Nonetheless, in a subsequent experiment, a task considered to be more difficult than the conventional ABX-test, one subject proved to be able to discern HDDA from 48 kHz @ 16 bit with a reliability not expected in such a difficult task. Two futher subjects were able to discern 96 kHz @ 16 bit from 48 kHz 16 bit at more than 90 % confidence.
The differences in sound quality between the two standards as noticed by the subjects, suggest that further experiments conducted in this area should focus on the finer structures of music. Dynamic shadings (contrast), ambience retrieval and distance perception seem to be good predictors worth further research.
We can conclude by saying that the movement towards higher resolution in digital audio, at least at the recording studio level, is justified especially if we wish to prevent the finer nuances of contemporary music from being lost for future generations.