Engadget goes behind the Dolby logo
By Steven Kim 
posted Jul 8th 2009 1:28PM
posted Jul 8th 2009 1:28PM
To get a look behind the familiar logo, we spent a day at Dolby's lab in San Francisco. During our time there we talked about TrueHD, Digital Plus, Dolby Volume, the new Pro Logic IIz, and even got a short peek at some current research efforts. It was a fast run over a lot of ground, for sure!
One theme that consistently popped up during our visit was the concept of fidelity. A lot of the folks at Dolby have music backgrounds, and it shows in subtle but significant ways. While the engineering that goes on at Dolby is certainly advanced, and the company makes its name on technology, a strong theme of not messing with the intent of the original artist runs throughout the company's DNA. While this approach of doing "just enough" may not make for the most mindblowing demos, it's the approach our ears prefer. Recreating a whole cathedral within the confines of your closet may be impressive, but trust us, it won't age well. Dolby's restraint and insistence on technology serving the content, and not vice versa keeps this kind of bloated excess from fouling up the listening experience.
Another trend we picked up on was room treatment. As you'd expect from a professional setup, there was a goodly amount of acoustic foam in every room we auditioned, and every room sounded way more controlled than any conventional home setting we've experienced. Going along with the acoustic foam was a large presence of active monitors -- again consistent with pro setups -- and wouldn't you know it, every setup showed lots of dynamic headroom with gobs of detail.
But as you would expect from a technology solution provider, we didn't spend much time talking about gear. Dolby wants as many CE companies as possible to license its solutions, and based on the volume of gear that carries one Dolby logo or another, the company has been quite successful in its efforts!
Dolby TrueHD
Since our visit was prompted by our post about using Dolby TrueHD with a PS3, we'll start with the lossless format. Specifically, we received several field reports about sonic differences between decoding the TrueHD track in the player (sending LPCM to the receiver) versus bitstreaming the TrueHD to the receiver for decoding. Well, you can take off your tinfoil hats -- Dolby TrueHD is not only encoded as lossless, but it also has a built in CRC (cyclic redundancy check) that ensures that the decoding process is lossless as well. Additionally, Dolby does do testing of components to ensure, for example, that the amplifiers are accurate.
That said, the amount of signal processing in modern AVRs can introduce some wrinkles that, quite frankly, are beyond Dolby's control. For example, on a PS3 it is important to disable Dynamic Range Control to ensure that the decoded TrueHD bits aren't being subjected to additional gain stages before being passed into your receiver. Also common are signal processing steps in the receiver that depend on the source data -- for example, some receivers apply room EQ to LPCM, but not Dolby TrueHD. At the end of the day, it's up to you to make sure that the signal processing chain you set loose on your Dolby TrueHD signal is under control before making comparisons.
A few readers commented about stacking up TrueHD against DTS-HD MA. Dolby's staff was way too professional to get into a name-calling contest, but quite honestly, we liked their pragmatic answer -- having access to a choice of two lossless formats is an embarrassment of riches, so pick whichever sounds best to you. In its own testing, people we asked said that in head-to-head testing, audible differences between the two lossless formats were on par with codecs rounding a value up or down. Quite honestly, the biggest technical advantage we can pick out for DTS-HD MA is the way it "scales back" to a DTS core track, whereas TrueHD is an entirely standalone codec that doesn't fall back at all. That said, we do appreciate the fact that Dolby's standalone approach on TrueHD versus the lossy codecs was taken to avoid any possible coder unmasking artifacts. We'd be eager to get a demo of coder unmasking artifacts, especially with respect to actual content and not specialized test tones.
If you're a "belt and suspenders" kind of person who needs to know you're getting all the bits, rest assured -- as much as possible, Dolby is making sure you're getting the bits and has no plans to back away from TrueHD.
Dolby Digital Plus
Which brings us to Dolby Digital Plus. Even knowing we were big into audio, Dolby dedicated a lot of our visit to technologies besides TrueHD. Now we know that Digital Plus isn't exactly new to the scene, but we'll spill some ink over it because to simply lump it in with other lossy codecs would be a great disservice.
Digital Plus is a major part of Dolby's strategy going forward, and it's easy to understand why. Digital Plus is clearly designed for expansion, with support to as many as 15.1-channels at 6Mbps (limited to 7.1-channel, 4.7Mbps on Blu-ray), with mixing of additional content -- like Bonus View and BD-Live tracks -- on the fly, Dolby Digital Plus is future-ready, both on physical media and downloaded/streamed content. Even as implemented on Blu-ray, the Dolby Digital Plus track carries 9.1-channels of information that is used to deliver either the 5.1-channel Dolby Digital "core" or a 7.1-channel mix without any rematrixing.
Oh yeah, and it sounds awesome. We didn't put our ears to a TrueHD vs. Digital Plus blind test, but after an afternoon of not being able to tell the difference in demo loops, we're won over -- if it's good enough for our ears in Dolby's labs, it's good enough for our home.
Dolby Volume
We first saw Dolby Volume on devices at this year's CES, but the convention floor is no place to get a demo. After spending lots of time, effort and money on the audio side of our HT setup, we're not keen on doing any sort of compression, but we do have to admit that during non-critical viewing, having to fiddle with the volume is a real pain.
For night-time listening, channel surfing, or times when you're victim of commercials (rare in a DVR household, but it still does happen), Dolby Volume can keep you from dashing to and from the volume control. Dolby showed us the feature as built in on a Toshiba REGZA TV, and we have to admit that it did a fine job of balancing the volume between two programs with very different levels -- the effect was instant switching in both directions, and within a given program didn't exhibit any "pumping" artifacts.
Again, in our DVR-centric household, we tend to soak up a single program at a time and skip over commercials, so the volume is pretty easy to regulate. But, it would be interesting to live with Dolby Volume for about a month -- perhaps switching it on when some of the house is asleep -- and then weigh in on whether we'd be willing to give it up. We've got a feeling it might find a place in even our audiophile hearts as something that can move casual viewing a little closer to critical quality.
Dolby Pro Logic IIz
Dolby Pro Logic IIz has received its share of attention since it rolled out, and not all of it has been glowing. After taking in Dolby's own demo of the technology, however, we're won over. Here's the deal -- Dolby agreed that 5.1-channels is a kind of "sweet spot" for surround audio, and we would guess that most multichannel surround setups are sticking to that channel count. If an additional two channels are thrown in, however, there's a choice between putting them in the rear surround positions or, in the case of Pro Logic IIz, the front height positions. Common sense would tell you that your highly evolved ear-brain combo is more attuned to spatial cues delivered in front of you than from behind, and you'd be correct in that assumption. Market forces and standards being what they are, however, there's no point in wishing that 7.1-channel audio would have made provisions for discrete front-channel height signals -- that ship sailed long ago. But Dolby's Pro Logic IIz is a matrix decoder technology that attempts to extract front height audio cues from traditional multi-channel audio (we demoed sources ranging from stereo to 7.1-channel).
Essentially, the Pro Logic IIz decoder analyzes the audio signal in real-time and attempts to extract as many audio height cues as safely possible. So, for stereo recordings, the effect tends to be quite mild; at the other extreme, audio can be engineered to maximize the amount of height-specific audio content.
We came away from our demo of Pro Logic IIz very impressed. Knowing full well that we were being treated to a very controlled setup and demo, we'd go as far as to say that if and when we ever move from our 5.1-channel setup to 7.1-channels, we'll put those two additional channels up front, above the primary L/R speakers. In our demo, we were able to switch between 5.1, 7.1, 5.1 + Pro Logic IIz, and 7.1 + Pro Logic IIz decoding of various content, and in every case we preferred the presentation of the 5.1 + Pro Logic IIz over the 7.1 decoding. To our ears, in this setup, the additional imaging solidity those two height channels gave Pro Logic IIz the nod.
Equally impressive to what Pro Logic IIz did was what it didn't do. Keeping in mind that Pro Logic IIz is a real-time signal processing technique that does not rely on discretely encoded channels, we were impressed that we never experienced dialog floating upwards or spatial cues discontinuously flying around the room. This is the kind of effect that, unlike overblown DSP surround modes, will not tire you out over the span of a two-hour movie. If you're interested in more solid imaging and have the room for two more speakers about 4-feet above your primary L/R channels, you might be interested in checking out Pro Logic IIz -- even if it doesn't work out for you, you'll still be able to enjoy conventional 7.1-channel surround sound.
The Sandbox
As we said, Dolby itself feels that 5.1-channels are a sweet spot for surround audio. But the limits of what can be done with surround audio are being tested in what Dolby calls its "Sandbox." There are 24 speakers in this room -- 16 at ear level encircling the listener, a smaller ring of 6 above that, a single "voice of God" speaker is on the ceiling directly above the listener, and a subwoofer. Simply put, the goal of this setup is to be able to create sound anywhere in the upper hemisphere within a theater. The speakers are not perfectly arranged, to better mimic the varying speaker-listener interactions across a theater setting.
After doing some white noise pans, we were convinced that this array of 24 speakers can create a much more spatially continuous soundfield than a conventional 5.1 or 7.1-channel setup. Not a big surprise, right?
But here's the interesting part -- the Sandbox uses 5.1-channel encoding to upmix (expand) to 24-channels, and the results are stunning. The implications for this are pretty exciting -- a 5.1-channel mix that is compatible with everyone's existing surround sound setup can be upmixed to as many as 24-channels for dramatically better surround performance. As with our Pro Logic IIz demo, we didn't notice any ill effects, even when the original material was sourced from a 2-channel vinyl record -- and we believe our host's claims that improper 24-channel upmixing can make the listener seasick, change the tonality, or collapse the soundfield. Thankfully, we didn't lose our lunch, and we heard a dramatically improved sense of ambiance while the tonality of the sound made it immediately recognizable as the original 2-channel stereo recording.
Sure, finding room for 24 speakers is daunting at best and would push even our nonexistent sense of decor to the limits, but it's good to know that with some clever technology like that Dolby showed us in its Sandbox, we won't have to carry around audio files containing 24 discrete channels to create a holographic soundstage. And hey, with the onslaught of in-wall speakers, maybe this kind of sound will be possible in the living room one day. Until then, we'll be eager to see this technology find its way into the cinema space.
Conclusion
As you can probably tell, spending a day at Dolby was like a run through a theme park for us. It was incredibly fun to dedicate an entire day to audio, and yet we feel we only scratched the surface. There's a reason that Dolby has managed to put its technology into so much of our media experiences -- simply put, the company develops great technology that enhances the end-user experience and avoids wandering into "gimmick" territory.
On several fronts, Dolby has more competition now than ever. DTS-HD MA has more titles under its column than TrueHD, Audyssey's Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume as well as THX's Loudness Plus are aiming for the same sonic goals as Dolby Volume, and Audyssey DSX is squared off against Pro Logic IIz. However, we're confident that Dolby is up to the challenge. With its deep roots in the cinema space, technical chops, pragmatic approach, and sheer brand familiarity, we've got no doubt that it will continue to impact the audio (and with Dolby HDR, video as well) landscape for years to come.
Although many decry the death of high-end audio, after our whirlwind tour and extensive demos, we'd say it's a great time to be into audio. There's a lot of great technology being thrown at every aspect of the home entertainment experience that not only makes things more convenient, but just plain better. Besides that, the fact that the tech is coming from a variety of companies ensures that the innovation won't stop and will make its way to us consumers faster.
We'd like to thank Dolby for letting us get a glimpse into its inner workings, and hope to stay appraised of more good things to come from that familiar logo.
Steven,
Just so I'm clear, does this meant that decoding Dolby TruHD, whether in the player or the AVR will yield the same result in terms of the ones and zeros? But once you get into hardware quality, such as D/A converters, and post processing, the digital signal will vary depending on those factors?
I'm still debating on upgrading my Denon 3805 rather than continuing to use the 7.1 inputs and have the Samsung 2500 decode the signal...
Thanks Dude
Sounds like you nailed it on the head to me. Just by chance, I'm looking at a Denon receiver as well -- that 4310 is calling me...
Funny, I'm looking at that too but it seems a little steep at $2000, considering it's pretty close with the Denon 3808 ($1000 on amazon), minus the DSX or Anchor Bay upscaler. However, the 4308 can be had right now for around $1600 (add $100 for the Audassy EQ and Dynamic Volume upgrade so really $1700 but I expect that price to drop a couple hunderd more once the 4310 really hits the market), and has some extra beef in the amplifier and AL24 on all channels than the 4310 (AL24 on front L&R only) Let us know what you go with, I have yet to see a review for the 4310, but if it's as future proof as it looks I could see going with it over the 3808 or 4308.
Steven Kim,
I just picked up a 4310 from Magnolia at Bestbuy for $1750 I didn't have a hard time getting them to offer me that price. So far I have been VERY impressed with the unit. It was a bit more then I wanted to spend especially considering I was looking at a 3808 as well. The Multi EQ XT does a great job. I am currently 5.1 but I think I am going to fill in the front heights and use PL IIz since I don't have space behind the viewing area for a 7.1
Justin,
I would recommend that you keep your existing 3805 and invest in a better blu ray player. I have several denon receivers and have found that it's always not the best to change receivers just because there are new codecs etc.
I would recommend the pioneer bdp51d or the 05d or the elite series in that range. Their onboard decoding capabilities are second to none. You can use your existing analog inputs on the receiver. I also find that the Wolfson DAC also does a very respectable job for playing audio cd's as well - in fact, i would go far enough to say that these players do a job at par with the $1500 plus range of cd players. Bass management is possible as well.
All the best.
Sub,
The video processing in most receivers is a little behind. I for instance didn't really care too much about that since all of my content will coming in at 720 or 1080 already.. However, the room correction stuff such as Muti EQ XT is a sizable step up from even the regular Mutli EQ. All off the Audacity stuff is also a big help.
Does anyone know of any great (sub $400-500) Blu-ray players that allow you to balance the speakers, base management, and set distance? If so, I could see buying one of these in lieu of purchasing a new receiver... But spending more than $500 bucks makes me think that a receiver would offer me more value than my 3805...
Thanks!
Looking forward to reading this.
Great writeup, Steve! Look forward to hearing more about it in the EHD Podcast.
What about dolby Headphone?
C
Sorry, Cory -- it didn't make the cut for this visit. It was a jam-packed day, and we left out a lot of technologies we're interested in -- Headphone, HDR (high dynamic range), Digital Cinema, 3D, Audistry... Hopefully we'll be able to get to some of these other technologies in the future.
Steve, did you see any Dolby HDR? I know the trip was mostly about audio but from what I've seen of Dolby HDR, all other display technologies should be scared.
Here is a post I read a long time back, ( circa 2005) about Brightside before they were bought by Dolby
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/10/04/brightside_hdr_edr/1
Isn't this the same thing as the local dimming LED back light the Samsung was using in it's first gen LED backlit LCD TV's? It on-the-fly reads the video signal and adjust the back light in specific areas to make the contrast really pop.
Well according to this post here:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2007/02/27/dolby_buys_brightside_technologies_hdr_lcd/1
Brightside/Dolby hold all the patent rights for local dynamic adjustment of backlighting. So essential they are the same I guess.
IseWise -- HDR was a technology we tried to get lined up for our day, but unfortunately it couldn't be arranged. Hopefully, this won't be our last trip to Dolby and we'll be able to check out some other technologies in the future, including HDR.
That was an excellent write-up.
If I had some cash now, the first thing I'd think about doing would be buying a new receiver and some speakers. Having better knowledge of what some of these Dolby terms mean is very helpful. Till then, I'll keep rocking out with my crappy (in comparrison) $200 Sony 5.1 system in a box.
Nice write up Stephen. Sounds like a fun time at the Dolby Studios. Why isn't 7.1ch more prevalent, in any of it's various forms?
Zillion.1 setups suck and are lame, I wish they die soon (though I know it's not happening).
All this "surround" stuff is a huge bunch of FAIL, just like it's predecessor Quad. If you ever want to meet a real surround technology, look up Ambisonics. It's not new, but it's way superior to anything (yes, anything) in both the consumer and pro markets now.
Granted, you can use Ambisonics on pretty much any speaker array and the z.1 ones are no exceptions (given that you have the correct decoding matrix, and this is better than anything Dolby could ever come up with), but native Ambisonics setups will always sound better, and they have a huge sweetspot too. The effect is even noticeable from outside the speaker ring. Just try someday an Ambisonics hexagon, or even better, an Ambisonics cube (that's full-sphere surround). You'll hate non-Ambisonics setups for the rest of your life :-)
Sorry for the rant, but this topic makes me upset... The consumer audio market is currently so full of BS..
It's funny you mention Ambisonics -- it came up during my Sandbox audition. From what I've read (never had an Ambisonics demo), Ambisonics is a great way to do surround audio, but unfortunately it's never gained large-scale commercial traction. As so many times in the marketplace, the "best" technology might not win; and the vast majority of consumers buy gear based on what's readily available and supported.
We can cry over the fact that a certain format does or doesn't succeed and refuse to hop on the bandwagon out of principal, or we can take the route that offers improvement -- even if it's non-ideal or technically the "best". I'd never begrudge someone their choice, and I admire when consumers "vote with their dollars," but I choose to take the improvements as they come. Works for me; may not work for you -- and that's cool!
Ambisonics is great.. I am self-funding a surround audio software/hardware company with a goal of getting an open source / low cost DSP box out for Ambisonics, surround production, home theaters and live music/venues. I just finished my demo room / R&D facility late last year and it's a couple of blocks from the Dolby office in SF.. Those guys are cool especially some of the researchers, but they are held back by marketing and mainstream market forces. Anything they describe or you heard in the sandbox audition can be done with free technologies created in the 70s; 1970s. Dolby can't patent or buy patents to Ambisonics so their marketing/management won't support it even though a fair amount of researchers there know it's a formidable technology. I need to update my company site (as I've been doing long term 3rd party contracting past 4 years), but here is a link to the open studio I held for Ambisonics / surround audio that has some picts of my facility and full info on setup. http://research.egrsoftware.com/conferences/2008/aes2008/
So after I pay down some more short/mid term loans for building out my facility here is to crossing my fingers that I can finally attract some funding.. Let me just say that trying to do a surround audio start up takes patience..
Also make a small distinction. Ambisonics as a recorded format is not prevalent due to a chicken before the egg situation. It starts at tools for music producers and the content creation chain let alone end consumer tech that is available for setting up sound arrays to appreciate content. Think about this though if you were a producer or record company. Wouldn't you want to mix your catalog and music to a format that is future proof? Why hard mix your music to 5.1 or other discrete format. Enough reason there to use it as it's easy to make a discrete mix from Ambisonic sources. Of course save the multitrack!
Ambisonics as a projection technology can use any current discrete format recording from mono, stereo, quad, 5.1, 7.1, X.N, and project it into an array of any number of speakers. "synthetic Ambisonics" is an underdeveloped area of research and there is tons of applications to games / real 3D audio; not this fake crap Creative Labs marketing stuffed down everyones throats for the past 15 years... So, there is a whole lot more usefulness behind the scenes than just a recorded format.
Err.. Want an Ambisonic demo on a 24.8 setup? I've got a Quake 3 class game engine using it for audio; plus some music/movie projection. Lots more soon enough.. :)
@Michael: Funny that you mention synthetic Ambisonics, that's one of the many things I'm working on.. Right now I'm alone, but I have plans to eventually bring up a company too. I can also demo you some stuff that will blow your mind away :-)
And Steven, "vote with their dollars" is not really valid in this specific case.. Ambisonics never got fair play, the consumers didn't vote for it because they didn't even have the option
It's such a shame that the best technology doesn't always win the market..
Good article. I'd love to see more stuff like this on here in the future.
Nice
The album, it was done in Doubly.
not to ignite the pissing match or anything, but I've been fully convinced for years that DTS anything just crushes dolby. Louder, more full, more "ungh". it's a rare Dolby soundtrack that makes my ears stand up. the difference is so pronounced, especially when it comes to bass, that for dts i choose to turn off the loudness circuit on the receiver because its HEAVY. I turn it on for the dolby stuff, because it allows it to make the cut. But that's just me.
the thing that caught my eye in the article is that Dolby HD does not scale down...ok, i need some clarification on that one. When playing a boo-ray through my optical connect, and the movie has a dolby HD track, so what am i hearing? what am i missing? If it's not scaling then exactly what is coming through the speakers, because i dont see a regular dolby 5.1 option on any of those boorays.
anyones?
boomsilent,
DTS masters their tracks about 4 dB higher than Dolby does. That is what makes it perceptually louder and more bass heavy. If you play them back at the exact same amplitude you might have a hard time telling one from another.
That's why some receiver manufacturers have a circuit built in the knocks that 4 dB out of the DTS signal, it is jiggery-pokery and not sound audio engineering.
I'm sure it has to be more than that, sorry but that just sounds too simple.
DTS tracks dont just sound 'louder'- they are exponentially more FULL. Again, it's rare that a Dolby track- like transformer booray- sounds extremely good. Turning up the volume doent turn it into the same thing.
I've tested the codecs against each other MANY times with dvds that have dual encodes..its not even a comparison. But to each is own..as long as I see DTS-MA all over the place i am a happy camper. And I'm dude for a receiver upgrade...oh baby!!! Sorry neighbors!
Are there any readers out there who, like me, couldn't care less about this surround?
Admitted, I'm much more of a video nut than an audio one, but to me, sound coming from the rear, left, right and what not seems unnatural. I like my sound to come from the direction of my screen, I couldn't even be bothered with stereo.
Just wondering if I'm alone in this...
I was going to respond to your comment with something really snide like "yes, you are," and then I paused. While I can't understand your viewpoint at all, I've resigned myself to having to at least respect it after running into more people who share it.
For one thing, I've tried to get my mom into HT for years. She gets video - she sees the value in a nice HD set and can tell a good signal from a crappy one. But for years I've argued over the necessity of a good surround setup to no avail. Then it dawned on me - she's partially deaf in one ear. She can barely tell if someone's talking on her left or her right, let alone pick out a discreet set of channels with panning and all the wizardry in modern surround audio processing.
So there's a clinical reason for you, and then I've run into plenty of people who just flat-out don't like surround. I guess you're one. Me, I'm an audiophile and a videophile, so I've got the full package. But if you're happy to just have those tin can things embedded in the side of your HDTV, then that's fine too.
This topic is seldom bought up, but once a friend and me did some "research", and concluded that there are two different kinds of people:
The ones who think of multimedia as "they are here" (ie. the TV brings the movies to your living room, the music player brings the music to the house). In this case, yes, the natural thing is for all sound to come from the screen. This people chooses their equipment according to what is appropriate for the room.
And the ones who see multimedia as "I am there" (ie. "I'm not in my living room, I want the experience to be comparable to being there in real life", "The musicians are not here, I'm in a concert hall"). In this case, the natural thing is for sound to come from everywhere.This is the people that builds the room according to what is appropriate for the equipment, and the fact that the display does not cover the whole horizon is a flaw, not a feature.
Not that this is all there is to it, but if you are one of the former, it might just be the reason you don't care about sound..
PS. There's also the third kind... Those who only extract the information and don't care about how it's presented. They're those who couldn't tell the difference between QVGA and 1080p if their life depended on it... But I suspect there aren't many of them on EngadgetHD :-P
Does anyone out there realize that Dolby did not invent TrueHD and that it was formerly known as a lossless codec developed by Meridian.
my concern really is what brand of speakers the Dolby lab is using on their set-up?
The speakers that I recognize are:
Mackie HR824s in the top setup with some smaller monitors I'm also going to assume are also Mackie.
Below that is some kind of full JBL pro monitor setup.
And below that looks to be some Event 20/20bas, the speakers I use with my computer.
I've listened to two of the three pictured, and these types of pro studio monitors are extremely revealing, very tight, less emotional, and don't hide defects in the source material. So good recordings sound good, and bad recordings sound horrible, which is the whole point of studio monitors, to make the final mix sound good on any system.
I thought Dolby TrueHD DID "fall back" to a standard Dolby bitstream? That's what it does on my PS3 (unless the PS3 is just re-encoding it...)
Interesting they have a combination of mac and windows on their setup, i wonder why that is.
Sweepstake: How many meters of monster cable does Dolby use?
Prize, a free bottle of Monster Wifi-Enhancing air freshener.
I reckon they use zero meters of monster cable
I wan't to see what you so called "audio philes" have to say about this. It is physically impossible to tell the difference between 92 kbps and 320kbps
It's possible that *your* ears may be unable to differentiate between 92 kbps and 320, but that doesn't mean the ears of anyone else can't. The difference is noticeable on any complex audio track, esp. on high notes.
That said, it's not terribly noticeable, and outside a home theater or the like, 92 kbps works fine.
Nothing could be more far from correct. In order to reproduce a frequency range you need at least a sampling rate 2x the full bandwidth of that range. The human hearing range is 18hz-22khz. That represents an approximate bandwidth of 22,000 hz. To reproduce this you need a sampling frequency of 44 khz. To get a reasonable resolution you want at least 16-bit samples, preferably 24-bit samples. This translates to a data stream of 1.4-2.1 mbps. CDs are straight up PCM at 16-bit 44.1 khz. When you start compressing using a lossy codec the lower the bitrate for a given sample size the more information you have to "lose" or toss out to stay at that bitrate. Given this, a 92 kbps stereo MP3 will NEVER sound like a 320 kbps MP3. The same applies to any lossy codec - AAC, etc. If you honestly believe you hear no difference between 92 kbps and 320 kbps compressed material you need to get your hearing checked.
When I read your message it looks to me like you've confused bitrate with sample rate...
PS3!!!
@ asoccer345
I'm not even close to an audiophile. My ears have been ruined by years of power tool usage. But I can tell the difference between 92kbps and 256kbps quite easily on some music. The thing is that MP3 and others are very good at reproducing sound that is easily broken down in to repeatable forms. Guitar, piano, even the human voice compress and uncompress well enough at 96kbps to please most people. But when you get to sounds that are not so easily broken down it all fails at lower bit rates. For me it's most noticeable in percussion and other "white noise" sounds. Try listening to rainfall at 96kbps and you'll likely hear it.
"Dolby's staff was way too professional"
Was they?
Cobra
I am aware of the video capabilities. I was talking with respect to sound. I have never used Audacity or the Multi EQ because i am used to doing my eq via my ears. Congratulations on the 4310.
Justin,
I highly recommend that you check out the pioneers. Or if you are really up for it, go for the denon blu ray players -- they are better than the sub-par quality that one gets with brands like samsung, lg etc.
If u watch live sports, Dolby Volume is gonna be huge!
So all these techniques are some sort of interpolation?
Hey! Did you note what brand of speakers they use? :)
Yes, I'd like to know too.
For those contemplating Denon...take a good look at Integra's DTR 9.9. It's a better receiver for less $$$$.
We need one codec to rule them all...
So many standards creates consumer confusion. I get it, but trying to explain it to "everyone else" has become tiresome. They never stop calling... NO I WILL NOT FIX YOUR HOME THEATER.
DolbyAutoHD FTW