..............

Album Rating: 5.0

Liking both Mariner and every other CoL albums don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Mariner is a different direction for the band sonically but it still kicks as much ass as Dawn or Salvation.

Album Rating: 5.0

Nah.



Also, the 24-bit release of this sounds fucking awesome and massive.

Album Rating: 4.5

Oh I gotta download that. Would love a CD of this, the production is already incredible in 320 kbps

Album Rating: 4.5

I’m sure this would’ve ruled regardless, but the production job is indeed incredible. Sounds absolutely massive whilst retaining subtlety/depth. Reflects their live performance in that sense.

Note that the advanced sonic experience of studio master 24 bit flacs is debatable. Surely, the layers are intact and rich but, compared to 320kbps mp3s and cds, many times the experience is cold and sterilized cos you can actually understand through your ears that the instruments and vocals have been recorded separately and, thus, the warmth of "as a whole result" fades out if you know what I mean. But this does not happen with all the albums, it depends.

Album Rating: 5.0

That depends on two things:



1) The album's dynamic range



2) Your setup



If you use shitty apple earbuds or Beats, you won't hear any difference whatsoever. Might as well stick to 128 kpbs mp3s.

Nah Pika, what you say is plain wrong, it doesn't depend on that. You can simply navigate to audiophile forums and check the tests that ALWAYS happen with high-end sources, speakers or cans. Crispy and clear many times contradicts warm and good in terms of music. And the full dynamic range many times adds nothing cos the very lows and the very highs are barely or not at all audible.

Album Rating: 5.0

in the end



it doesn't matter

Album Rating: 5.0

I've got this album downloaded at 16-bit and 24-bit FLAC and I can hear the difference VERY clearly. I don't bother with mp3s anymore.



The sound is much fuller at 24-bit, like you're being wrapped in it, and the riffs sound crisper and cleaner despite the distortion.

Album Rating: 5.0

I am talking about my experience with headphones by the way. Don't use speakers.

Album Rating: 5.0

I have no idea what you mean by "warm" by the way. If you can hear all the instruments fine and clear, that's all I care about. Obviously not every album has to be at 24-bit for that. Arguing against that is silly.



But if something gets too drowned in the overall sound, then that starts to annoy me.

That's your experience as a casual listener and with that particular album and in the end that's all that matters for you. But there are professional experiences with several albums with much higher equipment than yours that doesn't confirm the sonic superiority of 24bit. I mention again that it takes just a google search to access those tests. The "if you can hear all the instruments fine and clear" sentence is just your opinion. A good production, recording, mastering and mixing is far more complicated than that. Have you ever thought why expensive monitoring cans are unsuitable for casual listening, despite of being far more crispy, flat and clear than music cans?

Album Rating: 4.5

I can understand ElioG's point, but that would mostly go for very processed records. This already feels warm and natural at 320 kbps. I always look at the drums to see if a record sounds natural, most of the time it's the most obvious there if a record is overprocessed/produced or not. Listening to a record like Silence in the Snow by Trivium on 24-bit would for sure ruin the whole experience, because that record is unnatural and overprocessed as hell, I'm fairly certain there aren't even real drums on that record. But when a recording/production is well done, listening to 24-bit is a fucking blessing, and that's what REAL music is made to do.

Below is a professional opinion from head-fi.org. I repeat, i didn't state it's superior (or not), i said it's debatable.

......"So, 24bit does add more 'resolution' compared to 16bit but this added resolution doesn't mean higher quality, it just means we can encode a larger dynamic range. This is the misunderstanding made by many. There are no extra magical properties, nothing which the science does not understand or cannot measure. The only difference between 16bit and 24bit is 48dB of dynamic range (8bits x 6dB = 48dB) and nothing else. This is not a question for interpretation or opinion, it is the provable, undisputed logical mathematics which underpins the very existence of digital audio....... So, can you actually hear any benefits of the larger (48dB) dynamic range offered by 24bit? Unfortunately, no you can't.......So, if you accept the facts, why does 24bit audio even exist, what's the point of it? There are some useful application for 24bit when recording and mixing music. In fact, when mixing it's pretty much the norm now to use 48bit resolution. The reason it's useful is due to summing artefacts, multiple processing in series and mainly headroom. In other words, 24bit is very useful when recording and mixing but pointless for playback. Remember, even a recording with 60dB dynamic range is only using 10bits of data, the other 6bits on a CD are just noise. So, the difference in the real world between 16bit and 24bit is an extra 8bits of noise.

I know that some people are going to say this is all rubbish, and that “I can easily hear the difference between a 16bit commercial recording and a 24bit Hi-Rez version”. Unfortunately, you can't, it's not that you don't have the equipment or the ears, it is not humanly possible in theory or in practice under any conditions!! Not unless you can tell the difference between white noise and white noise that is well below the noise floor of your listening environment!! If you play a 24bit recording and then the same recording in 16bit and notice a difference, it is either because something has been 'done' to the 16bit recording, some inappropriate processing used or you are hearing a difference because you expect a difference."

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

the only situations in which you can hear a difference is when the mix is different. there have been circumstances where bands use different mixes on 24bit releases however i've never been able to tell the difference between a 16bit and 24bit flac side by side when the mix is identical. when i've dithered down a 24bit flac to 16bit and listened side by side the result has always been the same - no difference at all, on any of my audio systems.



i usually get the 24bit flac anyway simply because having the highest available quality even if you don't need it just makes sense, but the business of paying more for it is bs. i had a few requests for a 24bit flac of my own album which i thought was absurd - it never even gets close to reaching peak DB anyway so what's the point?

Album Rating: 4.5

This album sounds great on my skullcandys through my zune

Album Rating: 4.5

The thing with a 24-bit resolution is that it also means that the bitrate is higher. 24-bit flac is usually around 3000 to 6000 kbps, where a 16-bit CD is 1000 and an MP3 is 320. THAT is the difference, and THAT is audible.

Album Rating: 4.5

Surprised my comment somehow triggered an audiophile debate... oh right Pika got involved.

Album Rating: 4.5

You triggered Pika, nothing new haha