High Resolution Audio Processing discussion

[barcajuvebilbao]

Hi. I use Poweramp for the first time, before I used several players like (Neutron, PlayerPro, doubleTwist, n7player). I know Neutron supports 768 khz audio files and PlayerPro supports 384 khz (they say it on their apps description on google play). But I did not find anything about your player hi res range. Please tell me how many khz it supports and if it will be 384 or more you will have one more big fan. And one more thing I wanted to know, if your player work through android system or separately as Neutron does ? I will wait for v3 and hope it will come before 2018. Thanks in advance.

[Quade13]

7 hours ago, barcajuvebilbao said:

Hi. I use Poweramp for the first time, before I used several players like (Neutron, PlayerPro, doubleTwist, n7player). I know Neutron supports 768 khz audio files and PlayerPro supports 384 khz (they say it on their apps description on google play). But I did not find anything about your player hi res range. Please tell me how many khz it supports and if it will be 384 or more you will have one more big fan. And one more thing I wanted to know, if your player work through android system or separately as Neutron does ? I will wait for v3 and hope it will come before 2018. Thanks in advance.

Depends on your device. In the current iteration of PA there's only constant 48khz 16 bit. 

The player utilizes primary output, i.e. proceeds through the audio mixer. The notorious "hires" option is inclusive to that behavior. 

[barcajuvebilbao]

I dont get it, everyone here talking about how good is Poweramps quality and how they can not switch to other players due to quality of sound and now you are saying that it handles only 48 khz. It makes no sense, can someone explain me this ??? It will be great if Andrew would answer to this that I could be sure. Thanks in advance

[Kado]

19 minutes ago, barcajuvebilbao said:

I dont get it, everyone here talking about how good is Poweramps quality and how they can not switch to other players due to quality of sound and now you are saying that it handles only 48 khz. It makes no sense, can someone explain me this ??? It will be great if Andrew would answer to this that I could be sure. Thanks in advance

Maximum audio frequency does not mean better audio quality.

Besides most stuff beyond 48khz is just greed as you won't be able to listen to it anyway due to human ear limitations.

[andrewilley]

32 minutes ago, barcajuvebilbao said:

I dont get it, everyone here talking about how good is Poweramps quality and how they can not switch to other players due to quality of sound and now you are saying that it handles only 48 khz.

No, people have said the current stable release build on the Play Store (build 588/589) has a max output of 48kHz/16bit. The alpha-test version that we are discussing here (build 704) is capable of higher frequency and resolution output - currently up to 24-bit / 192kHz - but the feature is still experimental so is not yet guaranteed to work on all devices.

Andre

[barcajuvebilbao]

8 minutes ago, Kado said:

Maximum audio frequency does not mean better audio quality.

Besides most stuff beyond 48khz is just greed as you won't be able to listen to it anyway due to human ear limitations.

I am talking DAC and hi res headphones or speakers with flac file rendered from vinyl on 192 khz or higher, I can definitely hear the difference. Can anyone else reply to my question ?

[barcajuvebilbao]

12 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

No, people have said the current stable release build on the Play Store (build 588/589) has a max output of 48kHz/16bit. The alpha-test version that we are discussing here (build 704) is capable of higher frequency and resolution output - currently up to 24-bit / 192kHz - but the feature is still experimental so is not yet guaranteed to work on all devices.

Andre

Thanks man. I read from your profile that you are from Birmingham. I am really huge fan of Heavy Metal and Black Sabbath. There are many of flac files of there albums in rutracker.org mostly 192 khz and 24 bit, and I really looking forward to v3 that would support 192 khz. But I have some more questions. Can I count on 384 khz on the v4 or higher, because there are flac files that rendered from vinyl at 384 khz. And last question, I happen to notice that v2s UI ergonomics are way behind of some other players like doubletwist that provides up to date material design that flys under fingertips. Can I hope that v3 would be something like that or it would be a little bit refined v2 UI. Thanks in advance

[andrewilley]

I wouldn't be surprised if 384kHz / 32-bit support was added for those newer devices that feature it (not sure where you are going to find ears that genuinely support it though. ) . The next beta release will have a new Material Design interface. It might also be worth reading the first post in this thread for more info.

Andre

[ACE7F22]

There's a different between frequency response, sampling rate, and bit depth.  Try not to get then confused.  Human hearing probably can't hear anything over 22khtz, but sampling rate of 44khtz means that it's only sampling the soundwave 2 times throughout it's length.  Higher sample rates means more captures and the soundwave, like frames of a video.  It allows even the highest frequency we do hear to be recreated with accuracy, and the instrument qualities are better preserved.  There's a different between hearing I high pitch sound, and being able to understand it, and know what kind of sound it is.

 

Bit depth such as 16bit or 24bit is how accurate each sample of the wavelength is.  More bit depth increases the size of the sample, and larger samples means more data that has to be read by the second.  That's why you see numbers over 600kb/s.  There's no way you're hearing a sound at that high a frequency, but the device has to process information that fast to give you all the subtle details in what you can hear, making it sound more natural, and alive.

 

This is just a short brief on Hi-Res, and how it makes a difference.  It's the same with video, going from old standard definition to HD, and 4K, and the difference when gaming between 5fps and 60fps, or even 120fps.  Smoother sound, and accurate detail is just as pleasing to our ears as pictures are to our eyes.

 

Bottom line, try not to get the details confused, and don't under appreciate the value of being able to recreate music as close as possible to its original analog quality.

[Mübeşşır Mehmet Ali]

4 hours ago, ACE7F22 said:

There's a different between frequency response, sampling rate, and bit depth.  Try not to get then confused.  Human hearing probably can't hear anything over 22khtz, but sampling rate of 44khtz means that it's only sampling the soundwave 2 times throughout it's length.  Higher sample rates means more captures and the soundwave, like frames of a video.  It allows even the highest frequency we do hear to be recreated with accuracy, and the instrument qualities are better preserved.  There's a different between hearing I high pitch sound, and being able to understand it, and know what kind of sound it is.

 

Bit depth such as 16bit or 24bit is how accurate each sample of the wavelength is.  More bit depth increases the size of the sample, and larger samples means more data that has to be read by the second.  That's why you see numbers over 600khtz.  There's no way you're hearing a sound at that high a frequency, but the device has to process information that fast to give you all the subtle details in what you can hear, making it sound more natural, and alive.

 

This is just a short brief on Hi-Res, and how it makes a difference.  It's the same with video, going from old standard definition to HD, and 4K, and the difference when gaming between 5fps and 60fps, or even 120fps.  Smoother sound, and accurate detail is just as pleasing to our ears as pictures are to our eyes.

 

Bottom line, try not to get the details confused, and don't under appreciate the value of being able to recreate music as close as possible to its original analog quality.

Hmm... Seems you would make yourself a second Nyquist... Kudos for explaining what my lecturer didn't do better...?

[Bill2uok]

This is great news but will there be an addon to allow 432hz conversion and playback? Please this would set Poweramp apart fromany player current and upcoming. Just tell me it is in the works! 

[quirK]

9 minutes ago, Bill2uok said:

This is great news but will there be an addon to allow 432hz conversion and playback? Please this would set Poweramp apart fromany player current and upcoming. Just tell me it is in the works! 

https://ask.audio/articles/music-theory-432-hz-tuning-separating-fact-from-fiction

Might as well make a plugin that converts to any frequency of one's choosing. 

[Wolfpig]

16 hours ago, Bill2uok said:

This is great news but will there be an addon to allow 432hz conversion and playback? Please this would set Poweramp apart fromany player current and upcoming. Just tell me it is in the works! 

 

Why would one want that number?

Would be meaningless to have support for that if one does not have the equipment to play that back or files which got natively mastered from a source which has originally that high hz.

 

 

BTW: Even if it is not really about PA......but where do you guys get your Hi Res Music from to play wiht pa (if it supports hires on your device yet)?

Only find shops which either have classical Music in HR, oder ones where most of the music are just upscaled CD tracks.

[andrewilley]

3 hours ago, Wolfpig said:

Why would one want that number?

Would be meaningless to have support for that if one does not have the equipment to play that back or files which got natively mastered from a source which has originally that high hz.

432Hz (not kHz) playback is a very slight musical pitch shift which some people think sounds subjectively better. Personally I'm not so sure it isn't a case of the Emperor's New Tunes (see article referenced a few posts back) and I think I'll stick with the tuning that the musicians, audio mixers and mastering engineers chose rather than presuming to rethink all of their work.

Andre

[Crow]

The reason I joined this forum was because after upgrading to Nougat I noticed a significant reduction is sound quality when using Poweramp, which then prompted me to measure the frequency response of the headphone output confirming that it was limited to 20kHz.

Now I accept it may not be the wider frequency response that is contribution to the higher sound quality, but using the experimental high-res out certainly creates an audible improvement that I picked up on without initially knowing that was why things did not sound as good as before. In fact I now have another Android app that can also play HiRes direct to my phones DAC but it does not sound quite as good as Poweramp's HiRes mode which I guess must be due to a cleaner audio path when using Poweramp, but it too sounds much better than other apps using the standard Android audio output.

I have now downgraded back to Marshmallow and the sound quality is back to how I remembered it.  

[ACE7F22]

On 11/29/2017 at 8:15 PM, andrewilley said:

432Hz (not kHz) playback is a very slight musical pitch shift which some people think sounds subjectively better. Personally I'm not so sure it isn't a case of the Emperor's New Tunes (see article referenced a few posts back) and I think I'll stick with the tuning that the musicians, audio mixers and mastering engineers chose rather than presuming to rethink all of their work.

Andre

Sadly to say, not all producers use the best equipment, or know how to mix and master their audio well.  Some music sounds great live, but their recordings suck, sound like trash.  Besides that, any art is what it is to the observer, and people will always pick and choose, and tailor their perception to suit them.  That's why I love Poweramp so much.  The visual is nice, but more importantly the level of control I have over the quality of the sound I hear.  Some artists I need to change the tone to more bass because it's too sharp, or the mid range between 500hz-1khz is to congested and bringing that down clears up a whole song so everything sounds better.  Having control like that makes everything better for the listener, even if the studio or independent artist doesn't know how to master their tracks.

 

Bottom line, some music actually needs the help after it's produced.

[Akilure]

1 hour ago, kamiller42 said:

Either UAPP or Neutron are great. No fault picking one over the other. Neutron has oodles of options and bit perfect playback. UAPP resamples 44.1kHz to 48kHz if what I read is correct. Hopefully remedied soon.

I chose UAPP over Neutron because the developer is getting a LG V20 (I have a V20.) and will work with the ESS driver to maximize use of the DAC on LG phones. And I have to admit, the user interface. People can read more about these players and such at head-fi.

The tables can turn again if PA with an updated interface and engine enter the market.

UAPP follows audio file original sampling rate which means it doesn't convert 44.1khz to 48khz. Otherwise it would be called SRC. The whole point of choosing the likes of Neutron and UAPP is they do not trigger SRC even when playing music through regular SOC embedded codecs like Snapdragon 820's WCD9335.

 

[kamiller42]

3 hours ago, Akilure said:

UAPP follows audio file original sampling rate which means it doesn't convert 44.1khz to 48khz. Otherwise it would be called SRC. The whole point of choosing the likes of Neutron and UAPP is they do not trigger SRC even when playing music through regular SOC embedded codecs like Snapdragon 820's WCD9335.

That's great if true. I was under the impression the developer admitted so and someone measured the output to be so. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the following messages:

https://head-fi.org/threads/lg-v20-sound-quality.816024/page-209#post-13786613

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/lg-v20-sound-quality.816024/page-214#post-13851560

[Timmy Fox]

On 11/27/2017 at 10:06 PM, ACE7F22 said:

There's a different between frequency response, sampling rate, and bit depth.  Try not to get then confused.  Human hearing probably can't hear anything over 22khtz, but sampling rate of 44khtz means that it's only sampling the soundwave 2 times throughout it's length.  Higher sample rates means more captures and the soundwave, like frames of a video.  It allows even the highest frequency we do hear to be recreated with accuracy, and the instrument qualities are better preserved.  There's a different between hearing I high pitch sound, and being able to understand it, and know what kind of sound it is.

 

Bit depth such as 16bit or 24bit is how accurate each sample of the wavelength is.  More bit depth increases the size of the sample, and larger samples means more data that has to be read by the second.  That's why you see numbers over 600kb/s.  There's no way you're hearing a sound at that high a frequency, but the device has to process information that fast to give you all the subtle details in what you can hear, making it sound more natural, and alive.

 

This is just a short brief on Hi-Res, and how it makes a difference.  It's the same with video, going from old standard definition to HD, and 4K, and the difference when gaming between 5fps and 60fps, or even 120fps.  Smoother sound, and accurate detail is just as pleasing to our ears as pictures are to our eyes.

 

Bottom line, try not to get the details confused, and don't under appreciate the value of being able to recreate music as close as possible to its original analog quality.

I'm sorry but there is several things that are factually incorrect about this.

Firstly, the "Only sampling 2 times" has been proven through the Nyqvist theorem to be enough to reproduce the full soundwave indetically to its source. Surely we can capture more points and such but that's completely redundant because only 2 samples is actually needed to perfectly reproduce an identical analog signal. Sure the real world isn't flawless but the little bit of extra leeway added with 44.1 and 48kHz (over the theoretical requirement of 40kHz) is enough to eliminate these. Thus, there is no other reason than the "bigger numbers must be better"-mentality to have higher sample rates for mere audio reproduction.

Secondly, I think you misunderstand bit depth. It has little to do with sample size and is all about amplitude and dynamic range. With 16 bits we can seamlessly reproduce 120dB of dynamic range which is plentiful unless you want to go loud enough to cause yourself permanent hearing damage in a matter of minutes, if not even seconds, whilst simultaneously trying to hear a mosquito or needle falling in the background.

You can't compare it to video that way because your eyes work quite differently and there are very different sensitivities to be applied; Most shortcomings in video is limited by costs and technology whereas audio is limited only by your ears. But sure, if you absolutely wish to compare your eyes and ears in this manner then the more fair comparison would be these:

• Take an IR-emitter (like a remote controller) or a true blacklight. Most likely you won't actually be able to see any real light yet you know it's there. If you photograph it with a camera you'll see it's probably really bright even if your eyes can't see anything. That is a limitation of your eyes. You physically cannot see it. This is a much better analogy to why higher sample rates won't actually make any difference.
• You know how, if you've looked at a bright light and gotten dazzled it can get to see anything, especially things that are dark? This is the limitation of your eyes' dynamic range; Your eyes are physically limited in how much difference they can make out between bright and dark. You usually don't notice it very much however because your eyes constantly adjust themselves much in the same was as a camera adjusts itself depending on whether your trying to photograph something bright or something dark. In other words, there is a limit to how big the difference between bright and dark can be for your eyes to be able to clearly make out any details (also why it's so hard to see anything in a dark room after you have just been in a bright room). It's the exact same for your ears, there's a limit to the loudest and quietest sound you are able to make out at the same time, though for your ears they don't have to adjust nearly as much as your eyes will and the limit is closer to where it's so loud it starts hurting and you'll eventually go deaf due to sheer loudness. 16 bits is enough to cover this range practically seamlessly.

[ACE7F22]

14 hours ago, Timmy Fox said:

I'm sorry but there is several things that are factually incorrect about this.

Firstly, the "Only sampling 2 times" has been proven through the Nyqvist theorem to be enough to reproduce the full soundwave indetically to its source. Surely we can capture more points and such but that's completely redundant because only 2 samples is actually needed to perfectly reproduce an identical analog signal. Sure the real world isn't flawless but the little bit of extra leeway added with 44.1 and 48kHz (over the theoretical requirement of 40kHz) is enough to eliminate these. Thus, there is no other reason than the "bigger numbers must be better"-mentality to have higher sample rates for mere audio reproduction.

Secondly, I think you misunderstand bit depth. It has little to do with sample size and is all about amplitude and dynamic range. With 16 bits we can seamlessly reproduce 120dB of dynamic range which is plentiful unless you want to go loud enough to cause yourself permanent hearing damage in a matter of minutes, if not even seconds, whilst simultaneously trying to hear a mosquito or needle falling in the background.

You can't compare it to video that way because your eyes work quite differently and there are very different sensitivities to be applied; Most shortcomings in video is limited by costs and technology whereas audio is limited only by your ears. But sure, if you absolutely wish to compare your eyes and ears in this manner then the more fair comparison would be these:

• Take an IR-emitter (like a remote controller) or a true blacklight. Most likely you won't actually be able to see any real light yet you know it's there. If you photograph it with a camera you'll see it's probably really bright even if your eyes can't see anything. That is a limitation of your eyes. You physically cannot see it. This is a much better analogy to why higher sample rates won't actually make any difference.
• You know how, if you've looked at a bright light and gotten dazzled it can get to see anything, especially things that are dark? This is the limitation of your eyes' dynamic range; Your eyes are physically limited in how much difference they can make out between bright and dark. You usually don't notice it very much however because your eyes constantly adjust themselves much in the same was as a camera adjusts itself depending on whether your trying to photograph something bright or something dark. In other words, there is a limit to how big the difference between bright and dark can be for your eyes to be able to clearly make out any details (also why it's so hard to see anything in a dark room after you have just been in a bright room). It's the exact same for your ears, there's a limit to the loudest and quietest sound you are able to make out at the same time, though for your ears they don't have to adjust nearly as much as your eyes will and the limit is closer to where it's so loud it starts hurting and you'll eventually go deaf due to sheer loudness. 16 bits is enough to cover this range practically seamlessly.

Look it up.  If you study digital audio, there's a lot of alterations in the waveform that higher resolution is required to gain all the intricate details.  Theoretical only the points in the wavelength where the waveform changes is needed to be sampled, and the transition between would take care of itself, but considering all the different types of sounds, frequencies, and characteristics that overlap to create music, especially electronic music, knowing when to sample the soundwave at the optimum point to avoid unnecessary samples would create a demand for prediction on the processing level that would just be insane.  Therefore 4 samples per wavelength at the highest frequency is very well worth it.  That's about 96khz.  If you actually look at a waveform from digital music such as a DAW, especially at high frequency, the wave shape can be very complicated.  Try using only a few points of reference, and then tell someone else who doesn't know the original to recreate the waveform from those samples.  That's what the audio engine has to do.  In reality, 192khz can't even perfectly recreate the original analog sound, but the closer you get, the better it sounds.  Part of music is subliminal, I mean you don't always realize what you're hearing, but you feel the difference.  The same pitch by a different instrument, or different player sounds different, but mathematically at low resolution you would just get that pitch, without the intricacies.

 

Imagine a picture painted by an artist, and you have the physical piece in front of you, as well as a SD digital copy, and a 4K digital copy.  Of course you may get the pictures, colors and all, but you may not see the brush strokes, or see how the painter expressed themself.  Ask someone to play a note on the guitar, and then give someone else the same task.  Same note, but different sound based on the artist, the energy they have, how they play it.

 

I can never say it enough.  Music is an art, and digital processing loses the soul that the creators put in, but the more accurately people can save, and recreate it through sampling rates and bit depth, the more that soul and spirit is preserved to be experienced again, and again.

 

Also, all music recordings have a noise level, which is something that can degrade the clarity of the music.  It can't be avoided, but bit depth always the creators to expand the range of volume capture, keeping the noise to a minimum, and the art to be bright and clear.  Just because you can measure 24 bits of valume, that doesn't mean you have to push it that far.  Good equipment can use that to capture even low volume sounds with greater accuracy.  That's like saying more pixels on a screen means the screen has to be bigger.

 

Bottom line, in my perspective, sample rate is like frames per second, and bit depth is like picture resolution.  The higher they are, the closer to real life it is.

[ToaneeM]

16 hours ago, Timmy Fox said:

I'm sorry but there is several things that are factually incorrect about this.

Firstly, the "Only sampling 2 times" has been proven through the Nyqvist theorem to be enough to reproduce the full soundwave indetically to its source. Surely we can capture more points and such but that's completely redundant because only 2 samples is actually needed to perfectly reproduce an identical analog signal.

The theory you're misquoting says that if you sample a continuous waveform at less than 2x the frequency of that waveform, your samples can contain an alias. Nysquist himself was talking about sampling communications data streams but people attach his name to the later work done by Shannon etc.

What wasn't said was that sampling a waveform at 2x the incoming waveform's frequency would guarantee a perfect reproduction of the waveform when played back through a low-pass filter ("only 2 samples is actually needed to perfectly reproduce an identical analog signal"). Ten minutes with graph paper and pencil dots will show you the fallacy of that argument, let alone progressing through the mathematical analysis.

Two samples into a low-pass filter can reconstitute a sine wave. But, as per Fourier analysis, complex waves consist of multiple sine waves called harmonics which are of increasingly-higher frequencies than the frequency of the complex waveform itself. And these need to be sampled and captured to recreate the original waveform. So your 18 kHz note needs to have its harmonics captured to reproduce the waveform to some acceptable quality.

 

17 hours ago, Timmy Fox said:

Sure the real world isn't flawless but the little bit of extra leeway added with 44.1 and 48kHz (over the theoretical requirement of 40kHz) is enough to eliminate these. Thus, there is no other reason than the "bigger numbers must be better"-mentality to have higher sample rates for mere audio reproduction.

Well, either lots of software and the DVD and music industries are deludedly wasting storage space using pointlessly-high sampling frequencies or your paragraph here is wrong. Have another think about it. There's plenty of text on the internet on the subject. Thanks.

[Timmy Fox]

@ACE7F22 @ToaneeM Then I invite you two to do a full double blind test and tell me if you can actually tell the difference because I sure can't with notably higher performing equipment than what a mere phone is capable of.

Even IF there is a difference you speak of, it's so small that if I and a bunch of other people can't make it out on any of the tests I've conducted on a variety of dedicated DAC/AMP combinations with numerous different high-end headphones including some HD800, Hifiman, STAX etc. you'd very likely impossibly be able to tell the difference using a mobile integrated dac/amp and essentially any portable headphones.

Either way, don't take my word from it, here's one of several popular papers that go more into detail about it written by someone who's actually done this type of work professionally for many years; https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

[quirK]

Sad to see the anti-science high res pushers in here too. 

[ACE7F22]

Awhile back I became curious about audio quality, and studied the digital formats, processing, analog, and hardware characteristics including impedance, responsiveness, ect.

 

A piece of information I came across is that there is a limit to perceivable quality in digitally reproduced media.  This is a limit in our own senses, which is why TVs of different resolutions are recommended based on how close you are viewing from.  The finest details become impossible for us to notice, or pick out no matter how hard we try.  The cost of producing technology, and equipment that can recreate on that level begins to outweigh it's benefits.

 

Considering this, there are many variables, such as differences between each person's own senses, some people may pick up on what others physically or mentally can't.  Also some media isn't made in high level of detail to begin with, so low quality music through the best system money can buy will still sound cheap even to the finest set of ears.  It's a chain of things that the weakest link will bring everything else down to it's level, and having something that goes beyond does become redundant.

 

That being said, yes, even portable devices can give extremely high quality audio experiences. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars, or have an expensive media station.  These days being able to play high quality is a standard, and the important part that's missing is the high quality audio source, such as music files.

 

If you want to know the difference, my biggest example is "Dare" by Gorillaz.  I first started listening to this song before I got good headphones, and after the difference and detail was breathtaking.  I also recommend Metallica.  Listen to the music with low quality settings, and then listen to it again with the high quality settings, or an upsampler.  Make sure the track is at least 24bit, I found it makes a big difference, even with MP3.  Generally I aim for files that are larger, if I'm downloading, cause they have more volume and dynamic range.

 

The goal of Hi-Res is to step up from the mp3 error that cut out so much quality of the original music.  Back then hearing the music was enough, but Hi-Res allows you to actually feel the music, experience it.  With Poweramp, and some good headphones, I experienced songs like I never heard them before, some if them I grew up with, and it was overwhelming.

 

Final note, remember that your music will only be as good as the weakest link from the file itself, to the sensitivity of your own ears and how you feel.  If it doesn't move you, than something somewhere isn't stepping up, and if you don't believe there's a difference, find, or put together a real chain of all high quality, such as the files, audio engine, DAC, and speakers, and remove any one part, and you'll feel the difference.

 

I hope this helps.  People forget that it's a system of things, and you can't make a bad file sound good just because you have the best equipment and software.  And you don't need the best to feel the music as the artist intended, just decent stuff.

[quirK]

22 minutes ago, ACE7F22 said:

Awhile back I became curious about audio quality, and studied the digital formats, processing, analog, and hardware characteristics including impedance, responsiveness, ect.

 

A piece of information I came across is that there is a limit to perceivable quality in digitally reproduced media.  This is a limit in our own senses, which is why TVs of different resolutions are recommended based on how close you are viewing from.  The finest details become impossible for us to notice, or pick out no matter how hard we try.  The cost of producing technology, and equipment that can recreate on that level begins to outweigh it's benefits.

 

Considering this, there are many variables, such as differences between each person's own senses, some people may pick up on what others physically or mentally can't.  Also some media isn't made in high level of detail to begin with, so low quality music through the best system money can buy will still sound cheap even to the finest set of ears.  It's a chain of things that the weakest link will bring everything else down to it's level, and having something that goes beyond does become redundant.

 

That being said, yes, even portable devices can give extremely high quality audio experiences. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars, or have an expensive media station.  These days being able to play high quality is a standard, and the important part that's missing is the high quality audio source, such as music files.

 

If you want to know the difference, my biggest example is "Dare" by Gorillaz.  I first started listening to this song before I got good headphones, and after the difference and detail was breathtaking.  I also recommend Metallica.  Listen to the music with low quality settings, and then listen to it again with the high quality settings, or an upsampler.  Make sure the track is at least 24bit, I found it makes a big difference, even with MP3.  Generally I aim for files that are larger, if I'm downloading, cause they have more volume and dynamic range.

 

The goal of Hi-Res is to step up from the mp3 error that cut out so much quality of the original music.  Back then hearing the music was enough, but Hi-Res allows you to actually feel the music, experience it.  With Poweramp, and some good headphones, I experienced songs like I never heard them before, some if them I grew up with, and it was overwhelming.

 

Final note, remember that your music will only be as good as the weakest link from the file itself, to the sensitivity of your own ears and how you feel.  If it doesn't move you, than something somewhere isn't stepping up, and if you don't believe there's a difference, find, or put together a real chain of all high quality, such as the files, audio engine, DAC, and speakers, and remove any one part, and you'll feel the difference.

 

I hope this helps.  People forget that it's a system of things, and you can't make a bad file sound good just because you have the best equipment and software.  And you don't need the best to feel the music as the artist intended, just decent stuff.

The weakest link in an audio chain is the speakers or the headphones. So that's where you find the biggest improvement and pleasure in your audio journey. 

I have to caution that you're still only referring to your subjective experience. The answer to the "problem" of mp3 is not high res. The problem of mp3 is not low res, but suboptimal frame sizes and sfb21 bitrate bloat that affects 16 kHz and above. It suffers from pre-echo due to the first, and deprivation of bits below 16 kHz due to the second, if the lowpass is not low enough.

The answer to mp3 is the modern codecs that were designed to overcome its specific weaknesses, or designed after years of dealing with psychoacoustic models, transforms, and filters, and learning about minimising the non-linear artifacts that arise from using them. These codecs today are lc-aac and opus, opus being unencumbered by patents. 

If one is sensitive to the various artifacts of lossy codecs, they can go on to lossless codecs like FLAC or ALAC, FLAC being unencumbered by patents. 

The sufficiency of 16-bits and 44.1 kHz has been proven by hard research data again and again. Perhaps a handful of people can go beyond, and even so, it's more likely that they are simply _different_, not better. There is no need to envy them or to try to be like them. 

The latest audio technology was created because of people who did correct science. Why then, may I ask, do you insist on applying anti-science when promoting high res as a magic potion? 

 

Is it wrong for Poweramp to playback high res? No. If technology improves and creates a bigger buffer against mistakes made in studio mixing and recording, then we should move in that direction. 

Is it wrong to falsely claim that high res is audible? Yes.