HELP! is this true?

False.

No, it's not true.

Higher than 44.1khz/16bits has been available for a long time. DCC had 48khz, not sure if it did better than 16 bits though. SACD should be better than 44.1/16, but I am not sure how to translate 1 bit audio to PCM specs. DTS supports higher than 44khz, and I believe better than 16 bits of resolution. Blu-ray/HD DVD soundtracks are usually better than 44.1/16 (and usually use 24bits of resolution.)

That should suffice to disprove this person.

Cooper0103,

Go back and talk with this guy when he's sober. Listening to him while he's drunk is a waste of your time.

16bits per sample LPCM means that for each of the 44100 (44.1kHz) samples upto 16bits can be used to represent its signal strength, giving you an effective bit rate of 689kbps per channel. Upping the bitrate will produce a higher bandwidth signal which, depending on encoding, can sound better to some people.

Realize that at the end of the day what you're trying to do is represent an analog signal in digital. Unfortunately, use of zeros and ones make it impossible to reproduce any given signal exactly, so we have to approximate the sound the best way we can. A higher sampling rate should, at least in theory, produce a better approximation, but unless you have lossless encoding, much if not all of that difference will get compressed away. And that's even before we start talking about mastering of a record or a sound track.

Bottom line, HD audio means lossless encoding at a higher average bit rate. This should - and in my opinion does - produce a better sound compared to compressed audio like Dolby Digital or DTS.

Any chance that guy works at Best Buy.

That is, if all things are equal, I guess.

I've been kinda going thru the same thought process. Currently, I am using a Lexicon MC-1 pre pro that cannot take advantage of any of the new codecs. I have heard from others who have had the MC-1 and then tried out an Onkyo/Integra pre-pro with all the new codecs, that it sounded inferior to the MC-1 outputing Logic 7, DD and DTS.

Totally False!

My receiver will playback DTS 96kHz/24bit. One of the BEST sounding HD DVDs I've heard from my sound system is the Queen Rock Montreal & Live Aid HD DVD compared to any CD 44.1kHz/16bit.

...Angelo

would those be digital speakers?

A fair amount of High End folks feel the same way. (highend dd/dts v. non-high end HD audio). I know for a fact with non-high end gear the is a real diff between HD audio and non-HD audio. I don't play with high end movie gear. I hear more detail and the sound stage is larger. It is not like I can't stand no HD audio it is just that it can sound really good.

Maybe folks just like Logic 7 in your onkyo v. lexicon debate? It is a special feature.

Generally high end and non-high end products don't get compared in useful ways, there is to much money involved. I suspect when high end adds HDMI audio everyone in that port of the world will start raving about it.

Point of fact there is just more data in HD audio.

Have fun and do what your ears tell you

Yeah. You're probably right.

After hearing all these great things about these HD codecs, I'm really tempted to make a switch, but 80% of my viewing is HD Sat, and I would really miss the Logic 7 processing on that source.

These days CDs are recorded and mastered at 20 bits, even 24 bits. And of course CDs are not compressed, so they are truly "lossless." Many DACs will upconvert 16 bit CD to 24 bits and theoretically recover some of the original resolution, though I am not sure that is technically possible. Nyquist theory says humans cannot discern audio resolution higher than 16 bit but not everyone agrees. A higher bit rate does offer a greater dynamic range, but most music is compressed at the mastering stage so it hardly matters except on a few truly hi-fidelity recordings and maybe some DTS CDs - which use "lossy" compression (so there we are back to "lossy!").

What it really comes down to is the quallity of the master. Garbage in, Garbage out.

Yeah, but what it REALLY comes down to is how well replicated IS that garbage

That's what I meant...thanks