100 listeners, A 50/50 random choice and $50 reward. Statistically, that would make me lose $ 2500 on an average day... not much fun :scowl:
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Neil Young speaks out against excessive compression
- Thread starter chuck3
- Start date
100 listeners, A 50/50 random choice and $50 reward. Statistically, that would make me lose $ 2500 on an average day... not much fun :scowl:
Telling vinyl from CD can be easy for reasons independent of the limitations of the medium. A record spinning will have "tells" like low frequency rumble, scratches, etc. That and the fact that the master used to source a record is virtually ALWAYS different than the one used for a CD, if for no other reason than to accomodate the RIAA curve.
CD from MP3 tests - what was your methodology? What was the encoder and bitrate used? What music did you select? These are all important variables to mention.
scottfeldstein
Roots and fifths and a little extra.
The "mp3s" sold by Apple, for example, are 256k AAC files. And I haven't seen any evidence that human beings can hear the difference between them and their source masters. I'll consider it interesting if you can show me a group of audiophiles who can do this. I'll be humbled--and admit I am wrong--if you can show me that a majority of average music listeners can do so. Frankly, I bet you yourself can't do it.
There's nothing "wrong with" trying to get higher quality formats "out there." Not that I really know what that means, but... The problems I have are these:
1. He's proposing ludicrous "solutions" to a problem nobody actually has. I mean, seriously. "Thirty minute" downloads for a song that nobody can distinguish from a five megabyte iTunes file? Portable players which can hold up to "30 albums"? This is starting to sound like early onset dementia when he reports that he was "working with" Steve Jobs on these incredible "innovations."
2. He's fueling one of the most irritating impulses in the human species: Self-delusion in the service of elitist snobbery. Wine experts who, when blindfolded, can't distinguish red from white. Audiophiles who swear that they can hear their $100 cables, or who swear that headphones sound better after they're "burned in." All of these things turn out to be BS. They're easily disproved. As I've said before, I'm for all the quality the human ear can genuinely appreciate--but no more.
Your problem here is that those other subjects probably involve differences people can actually, provably hear. Our example here does not. It involves differences that people cannot hear.
sdoow said:
There is a HUGE flaw in your reasoning here, and I'll explain it to you:
When you compare your LPs to your CDs (or SACDs), you aren't just comparing different mediums, you're also comparing different MASTERS.
In order to truly see how the CD stacks up against the LP, you have to ensure that your source audio is identical.
So, I want you to take a few minutes and try something:
Plug your turntable into a good digital recording device. Hopefully something like an audio interface that has good converters, etc. Any audio interface will do; the line in on your computer will not.
Record a song onto your computer from the LP. Use a song you're intimately familiar with. Be sure to leave plenty of headroom; do not allow the input to clip.
Normalize the file you just recorded, burn it to a CD, and compare them.
I can almost guarantee you they will sound identical.
The reason for this is simple: the medium itself *doesn't matter*.
The important part is the *master*.
When you start talking about lossy mp3s, the line gets a little blurry, but in general, a well-done master will sound great anywhere, while a crappy, brickwall-limited-to-death master will sound crappy and dead anywhere.
Consider the source (experience level of the artist, and those posting on TB). Those posting have experience levels all over the map.
This is really the crux of the issue. The fact is, like it or not MOST people find compressed, lossy recordings to be perfectly acceptable. And the market reflects this. There are, and always have been, and always will be those who find this unacceptable, and they will do what they need to do to make it better for themselves. But now, it's harder to tell the difference between good and crap playback. As a teen I remember how LP's/45's were the height of fidelity, compared to the other formats available- 8 track or pre-recorded cassette. I would 'burn' LP's to cassette with my high-quality TEAC deck, and plop them in my Cybernet walkman(remember those?), and listen with good headphones. And I was one of those kids who carried a tiny screwdriver so I could adjust the tape head for best fidelity on each cassette. Thing is, you could do these things and the difference between good and bad was obvious. Today, not so much.
It IS notable that lossless formats are more flexible in that they can be encoded into any possible format, at any time, until the end of the universe without any ill effect. If you have a 256kbps AAC recording, EVEN IF it's audibly indiscernable from the lossless sources, it is more likely to pick up additional artifacts if encoded to other lossy formats. These artifacts can snowball when you go through multiple encoding cycles, something called transcoding.
Keeping a lossless copy somewhere (doesn't matter what format or extension) means you never have to commit to MP3, AAC, Vorbis, whatever when it comes to lossy media.
There is no difference between a lossless file and a WAV file for playback purposes, because the lossless file is decoded to a bit-perfect version of the original uncompressed file before playback.
scottfeldstein said:
Indeed, I've several Yes albums on CD, and lately I bought some of these albums in iTunes, remastered edition with additional songs. The Apple AAC sound even better the the CD version.
Btw, I use iPad and DACport class A headphone amp which is also a very good DAC. It uses the docking port out and drives my AKG 701 headphones.
scottfeldstein
Roots and fifths and a little extra.
I've stated before that I'm perfectly happy with mp3 format for listening purposes, but I think people are unnecessarily bashing Neil on the file size and download time angle.
It's perfectly possible to have a system where you can have a lower-quality version of a file which can later be replaced by a larger, higher-quality version automatically. In fact, that system exists right now - it's called iCloud. By Apple.
I don't know the highest-quality file types they serve from the cloud, but they could even do wav files if they wanted. You download an mp3, enjoy it immediately and in the meantime your device downloads the better version and replaces it when complete (I know iCloud doesn't work exactly like that but it certainly could).
So I don't think Neil has totally lost it, actually. And he's been pushing for higher quality digital audio for a long time before this article came out - decades probably.
It's perfectly possible to have a system where you can have a lower-quality version of a file which can later be replaced by a larger, higher-quality version automatically. In fact, that system exists right now - it's called iCloud. By Apple.
I don't know the highest-quality file types they serve from the cloud, but they could even do wav files if they wanted. You download an mp3, enjoy it immediately and in the meantime your device downloads the better version and replaces it when complete (I know iCloud doesn't work exactly like that but it certainly could).
So I don't think Neil has totally lost it, actually. And he's been pushing for higher quality digital audio for a long time before this article came out - decades probably.
DiabolusInMusic
Functionless Art is Merely Tolerated Vandalism
Wow I am amazed about the amount of sound ignorance on this forum. Digital listening will never be the same as vinyl, not unless you run a DAC. And most of you aren't doing that.
It's called analog people, you hear in analog because you are not a digital being. Vinyl is analog and CD is digital, there is a certain warmth that digital cannot get.
The average person will never know the difference and this CD is better because it is more clear, that is incorrect. Ask a real audiophile, go into an eletronics store that sells 20k stereo speakers and tell them you prefer CD's, then ask they're real opinion not they're saleman opinion. He'll tell you your a fool.
*** people....
Sorry if this came up I skimmed a couple pages in between.
It's called analog people, you hear in analog because you are not a digital being. Vinyl is analog and CD is digital, there is a certain warmth that digital cannot get.
The average person will never know the difference and this CD is better because it is more clear, that is incorrect. Ask a real audiophile, go into an eletronics store that sells 20k stereo speakers and tell them you prefer CD's, then ask they're real opinion not they're saleman opinion. He'll tell you your a fool.
*** people....
Sorry if this came up I skimmed a couple pages in between.
scottfeldstein
Roots and fifths and a little extra.
Not sure what you're getting at here. I have the service. I even pay extra for the iTunes Match service. Maybe you're referring to my ability to "launder" my low bitrate files into 256k AAC through the matching service? That is pretty handy.
Perhaps it could. But how high a quality should it ever deliver? My contention is that it should be the highest quality that human ears can reliably appreciate--and no higher. And further, we're already at (or very close to) that limit with what Apple sells today.
Yeah, his comments might have been a lot more relevant back when everyone was downloading 96k bitrate nonsense off Napster and listening to it on their desktop computer speakers. But seriously, when was that? Fifteen years ago?
