Next logical step is analdig.Funny name,i know,but get used to it,we will have to live with it for the next 500 years,just ask Slate,he already secured the rights.

 

I'm waiting for Digilogue, I've heard it will be a far superior technology

 

And they wouldn't necessarily need be small. In fact, the instruments would, could and should be real lifesize, as well as the performers as they would need to play the instruments in order to sound...real. They would be solid projections coming into consciousness and synthesized like a living memory. There would be people who's actual memories will be recorded to be "played back" by someone else. We will need ever greater and greater and faster and faster medium of storage to hold and to record, a mega memory depository where all of the accumulated memories of every performance will be banked.

 

I know that was a joke, but:

If anyone remembers the humble audio cassette in the last of its glory days (1990s) then they might be familiar with Digalog already. It was a technique that supplied PWM data to analog tape recording heads during duplication. Kind of like copying a CD/DAT master to a cassette but bypassing the DAC, in a way.

 

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Hope they have awesome limiters as well to block those lovely kids breaking our eardrums at an even higher level. ;) Mine screamed into my ear when she was a toddler. *ring*

 

You could just listen live. Maybe?

 

I just hope we have some decent bloody music and artists to fit the criteria!!!

 

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Well I would agree to a point because I can listen to the likes of Radiohead or Roger Waters and feel blissful whilst the music itself can be pretty dark and brooding. If I feel somber at the time then I might just identify with those emotions and be lifted by the experience.

 

I've analyzed DIgital HR downloads. (click)


Most are 96/24, some 48k/192k. About half are from 2010+. And 90% of them aren't worth 96k. If you aren't recording in 96/24 in 2010, you aren's recording in 192k in 2020. Studios are only STARTING to mix/record/master in 96k.

It's mostly silly to store anything as WAV anymore as FLAC or WAVPACK etc can losslessly compress that with 10-50% gains. In fact, the HR stores that sells the above HR upscales are mostly able deliver in FLAC.

I'd say 192kps MP3 and 160kps AAC is mostly transparent. If you're not satisfied, there's this new hipster Opus format.

Surround music DVDs/SACDs have existed since the 2000s, and it hasn't really taken off for the home. Just like '3d printing' was touted to revolutionize the home, but still hsan't.

Most home cinemas are 5.1, which <20% of households have. Most big studios mixing for The 7.1 (back layout) introduced in 2007 with BD are mostly mixing in 3D surround now. So we're left with 5.1 + anything else.

I've been mixing in 5.1/7.1 aka 5.0/7.0 since 2012.

3D surround (or being marketed as 'immersive surround') implementations exist, which are hereby names as Dolby Atmos, Auro3D, DTS:X, MPEG-H, and ambisonics. (along with 7.1 (height), 22.2, 10.2, etc)

If i do want to mix in 3D surround, I'll need to go matrixed height, guess how it works, to be upsclaed with DTSNEOX/DTSX/Auro/Atmos.

Or mix in 14.2 as an intermediatary (2 layers of 7.1)

I can't mix in 22.2 because the channel orders wikipedia vs the japanese PDFs differ.

To deliver actually discrete 3D surround requires expensive, proprietary software, which I can't afford. DTSX/MDA touts
'open-standard'. Where's my free software?

Stream-based conventional surround has capped out to 22.2. Any claims of atmos being 62.2 are for theatrical installations, and that's decoded, not the bitstream. The bitstream is closer to 10ch.

Some games may use 4/5oA ambisonics (that's 32/64ch), but you'll never hear them directly. You'll hear however many speakers your PC is setup for, which is capped to 8 in my case with 4x 3.5" out.

Atmos & DTSX you can theoretically pan any sound, anywhere in a sphere, and place speakers anywhere, because they're object-based. But there have been several 'standardized' layouts such as http://dolbyatmos.onkyousa.com/#speaker-placement-video

With Ambisonics, same applies (but stream based), but not many commercial companies are intrested in it. It's not proprietary, so it's not profitable.

See also (click)

"Everything you know about digital is wrong"

https://wiki.xiph.org/Videos/Digital_Show_and_Tell

Did you really think a soot paper recording from the 1880s is better than digital because it's anlogue? Or even an LP/Tape? Because audioable generation loss occurs. Yes it does still happen with digital, but far less.

 

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As long as people are arguing with storage media, there's no need to say anything about it...

 

The question goes astray, for digital being not an attribute of quality.

 

The question was in 50-100 years, and the exerpts you have taken from my quote dont take into account the increase and cheapness in size for storage mediums. Half of what you said doesnt make sense if you have fast read and write speeds and a big ssd/hard disk of some form. Size increases are still being made regardless, obviously software and codecs will change, and like you said there are compression methods like flac and wavpack that retain quality but reduce file size. Along the years there has been miniturization of DACs too. Maybe we will see 600ohm good quality portable DACs that are part of your phone for example.

I honestly hear a loss in sheen/quality for 160kbps and 192kbps, ive worked with them extensively in the past for both AAC and mp3, only a few songs at mp3 320 was i able to tell there was even some loss of quality, which i could tell apart with a HQ version (flac/wav).

Half of the technological changes to come in the future will be a gamble for its adoptablility to consumers, the same argument for having no surround sound is like saying vr wont take off because we already have big screens (VR could fail too). Once the physical listening medium becomes cheap enough and the technology is possible along with the decoding algo's and source material is there i could easily see it being used/adapted. This is 50-100 years we are talking about... And also what about ear implants or the like. Possibly in the future we could hear sound in a different way completely. If you told someone that an ear implant was available in the 1800's to improve hearing, you would get laughed at. Look where we are now.

The majority of this is obviously speculation based on the question posed, basing information of trends we have seen in the past 10-20 years. Also i acknowledge that we are fast approaching the limit with moore's law and we currently have no knowledge of ear hair regenerative therapy or a digital implants that improve hearing yet, but i would be quite shocked if there was nothing listed above that progressed or changed in the next 50-100 years.

Obviously no ill will harboured, this is just discussion.

 

Stepping backwards to build upon my futuristic and complicated meanderings, the professional dreaming candidate (henceforth related to as TPDC) the individual whose actual memory will be recorded, not only be will be tested to ensure that they of coarse have exceptional hearing, ie tinnitus free and full human spectrum capable, but also and even perhaps more importantly, the ability of the chemical process of their thoughts to be recorded sharply. Psycholgical aspects too need come into play as enjoyment of a piece listened to affects memory. Filters must be devised to filter out or perhaps attenuate certain bits of the process. This might be the easy part, and as is the case in the digital world we find ourselves at the present time, the tougher and therefore most critical aspect is one of translating back to the analogue, from AD>DA, in this case, superimpose the memory of another to another! I need to think about this bit, and as I am not an acoustic physicist, it just might take some time, or maybe, WHAM, it will just come at me like a surprise pie in the face. Anybody out there a genius or even a sub-genius and can push this solution forward?

 

This is with recent LAME, right? If it's anything but a very recent LAME OR reencoding, it's a no-show.

I listened to a 128kps LAME encode of a CD a few years gao. Honestly, I was expecting it to sound crap, but I was honestly surprised that it was very close to a FLAC. That's the purpose of psychoacoustic decoders - to make stuff sound good at low bitrates.

Both for surround sound & VR, there are obstacles to adoption besides cost.

For example

1. Hassle of getting additional hardware (receiver + speakers)
   
2. Existing Hardware doesn't support it
3. Room too small to fit additional hardware/speakers
4. They may not see the benefit of surround
5. They may not know about surround

I know people that would get it, except 1) & 3).

For VR, there's

1. Problems with spectacles
2. VR is headache/eyeache-inducing
3. Hassle of upgrading hardware (phones/PC/TV etc)
4. no perceived benefit
5. don't know about VR/3D

I personally have #1-3. If i install a better gfx card for my PC, i'll get more electrical noise on my mobo, which affects my music and other workflows. Hence, no 3D/VR.

Even if you can afford the $500 a pop for a receiver + speakers for a home cinema, what if you don't have enough space? WH

 

I used lame 3.9.8+ onwards from 2008 onwards. Its mostly the highs and a very small amount of stereo information that i noticed when comparing.

In the future it could be possible that there is an all in one ITB tool (for want of a better word) for VR, or the form factor changes is such as way, via an implant (i.e. non instrusive as a physical medium). The knowledge on the potential benefits/differences of VR/surround (point 5) will always be a thing with technology, i mean we already have a distinction between audiophiles and non audiophiles right now. Thats just an issue with consumerism.

I do agree about the limitations of viability of surround sound though with the speakers. It isnt known yet of ways to emulate or minaturize big speaker setups for different environments, without some form of psycho-acoustics. I mean there is the subpac i guess which reduces form factor.

There is big improvements being made to cooling solutions/ increases in graphics card powers/cloud technologies. Maybe the whole thing could be offloaded to quantum cloud computers and streamed back for VR. There are a lot of possibilities.

 

Binaural/HTRF/surround over 2ch headphones does exists (did you imply?) but it's not without its issues https://docs.google.com/document/d/...KSPD9H-7kKhgLD6aE/edit#heading=h.qkty8llffes1

2 Big problems with that.

• Quantum computers aren't faster at everything than classical computers. They're only faster at 'a certain class of things'. And it tuens out that 'certain class of things' is a simulation of itself. WOW. Who would've thought?
  
• Fast Internet access, telecom monopolies, etc. This is a whole can of worms that I'm not going to discuss, as many people already know about this.

BTW, Thanks for being a good sport & debating sensibly.

 

Hi guys its me 50 years from now,we invented a time machine in 2060.
Thought i would chime in from the future
Man this site looks ancient to todays standards.
Anyways,i just printed this with my 3D printer,not bad for 5.000 gold euros which is equivalent to todays 0.50 US $ cents.

 

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Unlike our vision, we humans have very poor hearing capabilities. So I doubt bit/ sample rates will increase much in the future.

 

I think the same, actually If I had an vote in it I would vote against increasing the bit/sample rates.

 

And how else would you store/transmit any signal except through some sort of medium? I don't know why you resist this line of thinking and yet have no rebuttal to the assertion.

If your point is that digital is inherently inferior because it's only some second-rate imitation of the "magically full reality" of analog then that's a false idea. Why? Because any time you transfer a signal from one domain to another then it's by definition a copy. It doesn't matter if that's analog to analog or analog to digital.

Guess what? Recording vibrations in air onto vinyl is still just an approximation of the original signal and not the original signal. Yes, it will be free from jitter/aliasing and any other potential deficits that ADC can present, but it will still contain noise, time/pitch, amplitude, phase, and/or spectral differences from the original signal.

An analog medium is continuous by definition, but that doesn't automatically translate to perfectly reproduced content or "infinite" resolution as such. Each medium and reproduction system has its own deficits, regardless of whether that's digital, analog or a hybrid of both.

Edit: One more thing, even the so-called perfection of "live listening" (air to ear) is imperfect. It still colors the original vibrations of the sound producing object(s). Temperature and humidity affect the behavior of sound, so unless you've got contact mics stuck to everything then you're "not listening to the true sound, man.... it's only like... an inferior reproduction of the real deal, dude! You gotta get down to the atomic level to really groove with the music and feel it in your soul, you dig?"

 

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