So I decided to create this topic because I’m unfamiliar with this bit rate and am curious onore information on how this is properly done or what formats are needed to obtain for this. Is it possible if I have the standard CD of a release would I be able to rip in this format using a high quality CD ripper? Let me know.
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If the source of a release is a physical CD, the best quality you’ll get is 16-bit 44.1 kHz. Technically, you may be able to rip it in a higher format, but the output files won’t sound better than the CD quality. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I’m aware it’s possible to rip in 24-bit 48khz lossless. I’ve seen it done of vkei releases before just not sure how it’s done or would it require a record or other formats or is it selective based on release like cd wise maybe some CDs have this available or maybe some do not.
There are indeed 24-bit 48 kHz and 96 kHz VK releases out there, but the source isn’t a physical CD. They’re digital releases.
Yeah true just wondering if it’s possible to do it on a CD version of a release. Would they sound the same or something or do some CD’s include 24-bit but we just don’t know. Hypothetically since getting the 24-bit is already possible by other means
You literally cannot.
Audio CDs always contain uncompressed PCM stereo audio at 44,100 Hz sample rate, 16-bit sample format. This is in accordance with the Red Book standard.
Red Book is the standard for audio CDs (Compact Disc Digital Audio system, or CD-DA) an audio content medium digitized at 44,100 samples per second (44.1KHz) and in a range of 65,536 possible values or 16 bits. It allowed up to 79.57 minutes of digital audio on one disc or 99 tracks.
The Red Book specifies the physical parameters and properties of the CD, the optical parameters, deviations and error rate, modulation system, and error correction facility, and the eight subcode channels. These parameters are common to all compact discs and used by all logical formats. Strictly speaking, if you do not follow this standard, then what is created is not a CD.
There have been CDs that have violated the standard before, such as those which included Copy Control/XCP and the DualDisc format that was a CD + DVD combo and pressed at .9mm, smaller than the 1.1mm standard specified by the Red Book. Nonstandard or corrupted table of content records are also abused as a form of CD/DVD copy protection.
The audio contained in a CD consists of two-channel little-endian interleaved stream signed 16-bit LPCM sampled at 44,100 Hz where the left channel comes first. The sampling rate defined by the spec stems from an earlier method of recording digital audio using a PCM adapter.
The audio data stream in an audio CD is continuous and divided into three parts. The main portion, which is further divided into playable audio tracks, is the program area. This section is preceded by a lead-in track and followed by a lead-out track, which encodes only silent audio. All three sections contain subcode data streams.
The lead-in’s subcode contains repeated copies of the disc’s Table of Contents, which provides an index of the start positions of the tracks in the program area and lead-out. This is analogous to a partition table on hard drives. These positions are referenced by timecode using minutes, seconds, and frames. Frames are fractional seconds. Each frame is one seventy-fifth of a second, and corresponds to a block of 98 channel-data frames, which adds up to a block of 588 pairs of left and right audio samples. The reading device matches the timecode data in the table of contents with the timecode data in subchannel data in order to skip directly to the beginning of songs.
Finally, the amount of data which can be fit onto a CD is a function of its size, not only length and width but also depth. CD’s can hold around 74 minutes of music without having to employ any tricks, but you can technically fit up to 80 minutes of music on a disc if the data is spaced properly and within Red Book tolerances.
When inserting a CD into a computer, there is only this one continuous stream of LPCM audio data, and the parallel, smaller set of 8 subcode data streams. There are layers of abstraction between this stream data and what is presented to you via the operating system. How each operating system does this differs, and ultimately does not matter.
So what’s with the long winded history lesson? It’s all a matter of perspective. You are looking backwards when you should be looking forwards. The Red Book standard was designed to make CD’s backwards compatible with recording and mastering techniques of the '70s and '80s. “24-bit audio” was always present, but often did not leave the studio, and I put this in quotes because what the engineers were working with was likely analog. We did not get 24-bit audio offerings as consumers until the early 2010’s, and it’s exclusively digitally. It wouldn’t have mattered if this was offered earlier because the technology to replicate these sounds faithfully - especially portably - are also quite recent.
That is why 24-bit audio is not on CD and can never be on CD. It physically and legally cannot fit. If you press music to the disc that uses 24-bit instead of 16-bit, you’d need a thicker material or a wider disc to fit the same length of music. Using a standard CD and pressing 24-bit audio to it is entirely possible, but there’s no guarantee it will play back in every CD player and there are most likely space concessions to consider. If you run a factory that presses these 24-bit CDs and add the “Compact Disc” logo on it, you can run into a lot of legal issues for violating the spec.
Oh, and for those that are curious, there’s no such thing as 24-bit for vinyl; vinyl is all analog.
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This man audios.
16-bit 44.1 kHz is literally the best you can do. You could technically listen to upsampled 24-bit audio with HQPlayer or use some egregiously expensive upsampling DAC, but it’s still not true 24-bit and moot from a listening perspective, imo. (Especially if it’s vk… lol)
I get it’s likely proper archiving that you’re aiming at, so yea just use EAC and you’re donezo.
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Thank you for the history lesson. I loved to read learn. This is awesome 