Do i loose content when listening to uncompressed audio?

[Artas1984]

I noticed that the audio files on compact discs are PCM, at 1400 kbps.

When i am listening to these songs, do i loose some content because my PC can not handle this high rate bandwidth?

I never thought about it, but is there some bandwidth limitation depending on your sound card capabilities, or perhaps audio cables or perhaps speakers..?

I know i do not loose anything when listening to 128 kbps or 320 kbps "torrented" audio files, but what about uncompressed audio? Is it intended to be heard on PCs just as good as on real audio players?

[Richard_G]

I know i do not loose anything when listening to 128 kbps or 320 kbps "torrented" audio files,

Yes you do, any digital file has been compressed so will have lost something that the original analogue audio had. On a decent hi-fi system you will definitely hear a difference between an MP3 file and a PCM WAV file on a CD. Equally, you will hear a difference between the original analogue and a CD. Using a better quality sound card and speakers on a computer will improve things so you hear more of what was there originally, but you will never hear everything unless you listen to the original analogue recording.

[johns0]

You won't hear any difference from a 320 kbps mp3 to a audio cd when listening on a pc with a $100 audio system,for it to be as good as a home stereo sound the pc audio has to be comparable in specs

[Artas1984]

I know i do not loose anything when listening to 128 kbps or 320 kbps "torrented" audio files,

Yes you do, any digital file has been compressed so will have lost something that the original analogue audio had. On a decent hi-fi system you will definitely hear a difference between an MP3 file and a PCM WAV file on a CD. Equally, you will hear a difference between the original analogue and a CD. Using a better quality sound card and speakers on a computer will improve things so you hear more of what was there originally, but you will never hear everything unless you listen to the original analogue recording.

This does not answer my question at all, and you did not understood what i meant with "loosing 128 kbps"..

Of course i loose content when listening to low profile 128 kbps samples, as it is a loose compression, i was not talking about that!!!

I was talking about the fact, that the 128 kbps music file is not compromised by PC in any way and a 1400 kbps music file might be compromised by the limitations of the audio chip!

You won't hear any difference from a 320 kbps mp3 to a audio cd when listening on a pc with a $100 audio system,for it to be as good as a home stereo sound the pc audio has to be comparable in specs

Yes, of course, and that is my problem! I can not tell the difference between PCM 1400 kbps and MP3 320 kbps audio files and i wonder what must i do in order to feel it.

Now, let's return to my original question, which has not been answered yet:

does a PC, or to be more precise - the realtek HD audio chip compromise a 1400 kbps audio data in any way?

[Hoser Rob]

I noticed that the audio files on compact discs are PCM, at 1400 kbps. When i am listening to these songs, do i loose some content because my PC can not handle this high rate bandwidth?

Absolutely no problem there. A 30 year old CD player had no problem with it. Why should your computer have one? 30 year old CD players did sound like dog doo but that was because their D/A converters were no good, not the bandwidth.

I never thought about it, but is there some bandwidth limitation depending on your sound card capabilities, or perhaps audio cables or perhaps speakers..?

Sound card speed issues can be a problem if you're doing multitrack studio recording and you need real time monitoring. But there you're talking about a theoretically unlimited number of 24 bit audio tracks. Not a problem with CD.

Analog audio cable bandwidth limitations only occur in the MHz range and are irrelevant for analog audio, which has a 20Hz-20KHz bandwidth. If you use an external USB DAC, USB cables can handle a lot more than 1400Kb/s.

It doesn't matter to your speakers either, or any other component after the D/A converter. At that point it's analog 20Hz-20Khz. Your ears are analog. And unless you're under 18 you probably can't hear 20KHz.

I know i do not loose anything when listening to 128 kbps or 320 kbps "torrented" audio files, but what about uncompressed audio? Is it intended to be heard on PCs just as good as on real audio players?

Again, if a 30 year old CD player can handle it, no problem.

BTW regarding a later post of yours on that last topic. You may want to not use boldface and exclamation points after someone gave a reasonable answer to your incoherent questions. You just make yourself look like a petulant idiot.

[davexnet]

Actually, isn't the original CD/PCM/WAV file the same as the 128kbps mp3 as far as bandwidth of the soundcard is concerned?
The software playing the low quality mp3 uncompresses the file and sends the same amount of audio
samples to the soundcard as the PCM file did. (Assuming the mp3 is also 44.1 KHz samples per second @ 16 bits per sample)

[lingyi]

I noticed that the audio files on compact discs are PCM, at 1400 kbps.

When i am listening to these songs, do i loose some content because my PC can not handle this high rate bandwidth?

I never thought about it, but is there some bandwidth limitation depending on your sound card capabilities, or perhaps audio cables or perhaps speakers..?

I know i do not loose anything when listening to 128 kbps or 320 kbps "torrented" audio files, but what about uncompressed audio? Is it intended to be heard on PCs just as good as on real audio players?

Soundcard - As Hoser Rob posted, bandwidth isn't the issue, but the quality of the D/A may be. Some audiophiles will argue that their multi-thousand dollar dedicated CD player provides a more accurate conversion and they may be correct. Again, in theory, everything from the error correction while reading the CD to the digital to analog converter to the output ICs may change the sound quality / accuracy. There are those who claim to be able to tell the difference between 320 MP3 and the original CD, as well as differences between CD players themselves. As for myself, my audiophile days are long gone (loss a good deal of high end hearing from too loud music and age) and can't tell the diiference, but don't doubt that some can hear differences that I never could.

Cables - For digital cables, no difference. For speaker wires, anything thicker than the 1/16" "speaker wire" often included your purchase should be fine. Again, there are those that will argue that only "99.999% silver, oxygen free cables with golden connectors" will do, but for most of us what Monoprice sells is fine.

Speakers - Ahh...the analog component. I don't think anyone would argue that speakers are the single most important component in "accurate" music reproduction. Back in my audiophile days *sigh*, I was privileged to hear and compare multi-thousand dollar (in late '70's dollars!) speakers and there defiintely were differences between them. Back then you would budget roughly 70% for speakers and spread the rest over other components and I don't think that's changed much if any now.

"...what must i do in order to feel it." - Spend some time in a properly set up high-end audio dealer and learn what "real / true" audio reproduction sounds like. Take your CD, 320bps and 128bps MP3s with you and ask to listen to them in an A/B (preferbly double blind) comparison. Take the dealer's statements of how component A sounds better than component B with large grains of salf and judge for yourself. Go home and try to reproduce the sounds you heard as best you can with what you can afford.

There will always be those that will say that component A (be it soundcard, cables, speakers or anything else) sounds better that component B and component C is limiting the capabilities of component D. In the end it comes down to training your ears to hear differences (that may or not be real) and being happy with what you're hearing.

[jagabo]

I noticed that the audio files on compact discs are PCM, at 1400 kbps.
When i am listening to these songs, do i loose some content because my PC can not handle this high rate bandwidth?

No. Any sound card can play back 2 channel, 16 bit, 44100 Hz, PCM audio these days. Most can go much higher, multichannel, 24 bit, 96000 Hz. Of course, there's always the issue of how well the card converts that to analog. Onboard audio and cheap audio cards often introduce a lot of noise because the interior of a computer case is a very electrically noisy environment.

[Cornucopia]

I know i do not loose anything when listening to 128 kbps or 320 kbps "torrented" audio files,

Yes you do, any digital file has been compressed so will have lost something that the original analogue audio had. On a decent hi-fi system you will definitely hear a difference between an MP3 file and a PCM WAV file on a CD. Equally, you will hear a difference between the original analogue and a CD. Using a better quality sound card and speakers on a computer will improve things so you hear more of what was there originally, but you will never hear everything unless you listen to the original analogue recording.

INACCURATE, to say the least!

Within the boundaries of the sample rate (usually 44.1kHz or 48kHz - giving 22.05 or 24kHz bandwidth), and sample size (usually 16bit to 24bit - giving 96dB to 144dB SNR), a standard LPCM audio file gives an EXACT REPLICA of an analog signal. Other than the anti-alias filtering going on ahead of time, or the quantization error incurred (due to non-infinite sample sizes) there is NO loss of signal or increase in distortion or noise. And certainly no "compression"!

Because people can hear differently, some better than average, some worse, there ARE some people who can tell the difference between a clean, live analog sound (or pro analog recording) and a standard, well-produced AudioCD, and even then ONLY on a very, very good hi-fi system. However, that figure gets orders of magnitude smaller when one compares the same analog with a 24/96 LPCM or DSD digital recording. And there are NO consumer analog formats (LP, Cassette, FM, etc) which even come close to even standard AudioCD in quality. Heck, that's why CD's became popular - did you all forget?

We've also had this conversation here before about GoldenEars listeners and MP3 vs. CD/LPCMwav. High bitrate MP3 is indistinguishable from LPCM by the great majority of people. The lower the bitrate, the more people can tell the difference, to the point where 128kbps, even though it is still considered acceptable by many and is very popular, is pretty noticeably worse than LPCM.

Getting back to I believe the OP was originally asking...

There is NO bottleneck. A modern PC (anything form 1994 onward) is perfectly capable of playing out 2ch/16bit/44kHz LPCM audio (aka 1400kbps) without hiccup (assuming a correctly tuned PC with no undue overhead). Any bitrate equal or less than this (including the mentioned 128 or 320kbps) is gravy. Yes, there is less pipeline bandwidth to worry about and more CPU calculation overhead to add to the mix, but it pretty much is a breeze with current PCs. Since modern HDDs and their internal busses can readily put out 1000Mbps (that's 800x your audiofile needs), and even BD can do 40Mbps and DVD 10Mbps, well above CD rates. So there should NEVER be a bandwidth problem. Heck, even USB 1.1 can do well enough.

About the only thing left that still doesn't match that are slow internet connections. But who tries to PLAY an LPCM/WAV soundfile LIVE directly from the internet anyway?

Stop sweating it...

Scott