Sound quality lost on the new generation?

ojrules

ojrules

ojrules

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Today i decided to rip a cd to wma lossless, rather thna the usual 198kbps. I am absolutely amazed. I'm only playing them on my seinheisers omx70 9 (some sport headphones), i'm amazed so much so that i've gone and ripped loads of my old cd's. Up untill now i was tempted to get spotify premium, but now i think i'l just buy albums. The difference in quality is simply amazing. I wonder how many other people will never know what songs truely sound like, especially with the onslaught of cheap ipod dock systems..
 
TBH its their problem :D
if you dont put the effort in to find out you dont deserve better quality audio
besids that way when people come to your house an listen to your music their ears can have fits
 
i've taken audio very seriously, even when i was in my mid teens; had a seperates system from the age of 14, which only consisted of a marantz cd player, sony stereo amp, and a pair of kef cresta 2's. always thought sound was a bit more important than visuals (still think visuals hold a lot of the experience with games/films etc) but obviously this being a topic about music, a good 2 channel setup will sound awesome at the end of the day compared to pc speakers.

generally, cd's are the way forward, but due to time constraints etc, sometimes higher quality mp3/flacs are the way forward. i'd never get anything less than 320kbps mp3's ever now!
 
Does the LAME mp3 encoder still have the 16Khz+ dropoff problem or was that fixed a while back?

As for 320kbps rips..that is extremely wasteful, you would be better using VBR encoding, rather than CBR.
 
titaniumx3 said:
Maybe I don't have a good enough gear or good enough ears, but I find pretty difficult to tell apart V0 lame encoded mp3s and lossless encodings.
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My headphone setup cost about £1k and I play in clubs with incredible PA systems and happily use V0 for both having formerly used lossless for years and I haven't noticed any loss really. I can ABX the difference pretty easily on most kit so I know my hearing isn't going; I just realised that the difference is so slight that it doesn't matter for regular listening even on the best kit.
 
I think spotify is about 130ish, spotify premium is 340ish, ( from memory) but that 340ish may be an *up to* figure.....

Whats this about 16k drop off?.. I'm a bit of a noob to audio stuff, but have better knoledge than the random person in the street, does that render any speaker that can play to say 20khz useless?( to put it bluntly)..
 
I blame my dad for only liking good quality audio, even when I say this I don't mean hi fi so I still not all clued up when it comes to perfect sound.

However I can only have my music ripped at the highest quality.

My dad had an audio setup he bought in the late 80s and it sounded amazing for years, not sure what it was but it was seperates and black and a great equalizer which really did change the music...

One of my first buys when I earn real money will be a bang on audio setup
 
It's all in your head dude...I may not have a "golden ear" (as if such a thing ever existed) but I've been classically trained since age 3 and can't tell any difference between v0 and 320kbps let alone FLAC.
 
In theory even CDs degrade the sound
CDs are sample at 44.1 KHz which in theory covers the sound spectrum up to 22kHz nptes - which is way beyond the range of the average human which is ~up to 16KHz in adults and Maybe 18KHz in children. However the problem is most musicial instruments do not produce a clean note but also produce harmonics at multiple times the frequency of the original note - these can't be heard on their own but can interact and will influence the how the the original note is perceived. On CDs these harmonic get chopped out as they are above the KHz Spectrum range that CDs can produce and hence the final sound of the note is not the same. This is why most studio recording that are done on digital media are done at 96KHz and about to increase the sound spectra.

And don't even get me started on digital remasters of old analogue recordings meant for vinyl
 
^ didnt think about instruments that produce sounds above (and below) the hearing spectrum and 44.1khz cd spectrum. Maybe recordings should all be done at 192khz now then and lower to cd quality for cd sales but also be available to download 192khz for those of us who use digital media?

I take it we would then be able to feel the music more, like lower than 20hz. Wouldnt we then need new technology for speakers and amplifiers?

Ive never really understood why soundcards can sample at 192khz but the best quality is from CD which is at 44.1
 
Axil said:
In theory even CDs degrade the sound
CDs are sample at 44.1 KHz which in theory covers the sound spectrum up to 22kHz nptes - which is way beyond the range of the average human which is ~up to 16KHz in adults and Maybe 18KHz in children. However the problem is most musicial instruments do not produce a clean note but also produce harmonics at multiple times the frequency of the original note - these can't be heard on their own but can interact and will influence the how the the original note is perceived. On CDs these harmonic get chopped out as they are above the KHz Spectrum range that CDs can produce and hence the final sound of the note is not the same. This is why most studio recording that are done on digital media are done at 96KHz and about to increase the sound spectra.

And don't even get me started on digital remasters of old analogue recordings meant for vinyl
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Mate - spot on.

I posted in another thread regarding digital audio sample rates on Windows - some of you might find it interesting:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18098909

@Guest2 I agree with you but you ever heard of DVD Audio?...Thought not cos it never took off. These were higher quality masters of audio original recorded @ 96kHz/24-bit (the professional recording industry has been using these high fidelity sample rates/bit depths for years) but frankly, it will neverr take off because (like this thread has demonstrated) most people can't tell the difference! It's only people like myself who work in pro audio day in day out who can and what percentage of the retail market do you think we make up?!

@gurusan - I've been classically trained since the age of 5 but don't fall into the trap I did before I started audio production of assuming that because you have a good ear 'musically' you have a good 'technical' ear for production...it simply isn't the case. It took me YEARS of ear training to be able to tell the difference between MP3s @ different bitrates, let alone sample rates and even the sound frequency spectrum itself. These days - I can tell exactly what sample rate (and bit rate) has been used and even what frequencies make up the sound of say a snare drum just due to familiarity. It's like the 'perfect pitch' of the musical world but for us engineers/producers!
 
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I'm slowly realising the benefits of better quality audio. I started using Spotify a few months ago and really enjoyed the clarity of the sound vs. my iTunes library of 128kb/s MP3s. I can more easily notice compression now I've done a lot of listening to better quality stuff.
 
reflux said:
I'm slowly realising the benefits of better quality audio. I started using Spotify a few months ago and really enjoyed the clarity of the sound vs. my iTunes library of 128kb/s MP3s. I can more easily notice compression now I've done a lot of listening to better quality stuff.
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Good man - the more people who respond like this to the lack of quality in the consumer market the better! What will be the next spotify I wonder? I am a BIG fan of Steam for PC gaming. I think as a distribution/business model this same formula could work fantastically for music but alas, untill the next big thing comes along Spotify will have to do :(
 
I'd like to see some doubleblind testing done with 320kbps vs flac...because I don't buy this golden ear business. So far every person I've met who claims this are the same people that insist silver solder in their circuits and boutique power cables make things sound better.
 
I'd be glad to take it - you setup the blind test to your disgression and I'll happily prove to you that I can hear the difference. However, I am slightly uneasy with your 'golden ear' definition. This term connotes some sort of lucky stroke - I have trained for years both as a musician/performer and as a engineer/producer. This is my craft...there would be something seriously wrong if I COULDN'T tell the difference as I work everyday in digital audio.
 
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