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High-resolution audio

High-resolution audio (high-definition audio or HD 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 192 kHz sample rates. However, 44.1 kHz/24-bit, 48 kHz/24-bit and 88.2 kHz/24-bit recordings also exist that are labeled HD Audio.

"High definition audio" redirects here. For the Intel specification for personal computer audio, see Intel High Definition Audio.

Research into high-resolution audio began in the late 1980s and high-resolution audio recordings started to become available on the consumer market in 1996.[1]

Streaming services[edit]

As of 2021, some music streaming services such as Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music, and Apple Music have options to enable the playback of high-resolution audio files.[12]

"The DSD process used for producing SACDs captures more of the nuances from a performance and reproduces them with a clarity and transparency not possible with CD."—The Mariinsky record label of the Mariinsky Ballet (formerly Kirov Ballet), St. Petersburg, Russia, that sells Super Audio CDs (SACDs)

[13]

"The claimed main-benefit of high-resolution audio files is superior sound quality [...] 24-bit/96 kHz or 24-bit/192 kHz files should, therefore, more closely replicate the sound quality that the musicians and engineers were working with in the studio."—[5]

What Hi-Fi?

"...music professionals with access to first generation data have widely reported subjectively better sound, and a meta-analysis of previously published listening tests comparing high resolution to CD found a clear, though small, audible difference that significantly increased when the listening tests included standard training (i.e., with experience in listening)."—Journal of the , Volume 67, Issue 5[1]

Audio Engineering Society

Whether there is any benefit to high-resolution audio over CD-DA is controversial, with some sources claiming sonic superiority:


...and with other opinions ranging from skeptical to highly critical:


Business magazine Bloomberg Businessweek suggests that caution is in order with regard to high-resolution audio: "There is reason to be wary, given consumer electronics companies' history of pushing advancements whose main virtue is to require everyone to buy new gadgets."[16]


High-resolution files that are downloaded from niche websites that cater to audiophile listeners often include different mastering in the release – thus many comparisons of CD to these releases are evaluating differences in mastering, rather than bit depth.[17]


Most early papers using blind listening tests concluded that differences are not audible by the sample of listeners taking the test.[18] Blind tests have shown that musicians and composers are unable to distinguish higher resolutions from 16-bit audio at 48 kHz.[19] One 2014 paper showed that dithering using outdated methods[a] produces audible artifacts in blind listening tests.[20]


Joshua Reiss performed a meta-analysis on 20 of published tests, saying that trained listeners could distinguish between hi-resolution recordings and their CD equivalents under blind conditions.[21] Hiroshi Nittono pointed out that the results in Reiss's paper showed that the ability to distinguish hi resolution audio from CD quality audio "was only slightly better than chance".[22] However for perspective, the same is true of blind tests between lossy compression (mp3 or equivalent) and lossless CD quality audio, which are widely accepted as audibly different but dependent upon the playback equipment and listening skill (training) of the participants.[23]


Some technical explanations for sonic superiority cite the improved time domain impulse response of the anti-aliasing filter allowed by higher sample rates. This reduces the energy spread in time from transient signals such as plucking a string or striking a cymbal. [24][25]

High fidelity

Loudness war