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24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

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Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#41

Post by nirvdrum »

mark-r wrote: post #13
martin_a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who is using MP3 players these days any more? I found myself to buy an iPod in... like... 2011 or so. Converted all the CDs I had to FLAC because losless was the way to go. Two or three years (let it be 5, doesn't matter) pass by, I got a better Smartphone, Spotify Premium and don't touch my 1xx GB of FLAC music anymore, because I don't want to carry around another device etc. I'm not sure but I think "owning" mu…

I rip my CDs in a two-step process: first to FLAC, then convert to mp3. The mp3s go in my phone, I have 33GB so far and my collection isn't even half ripped. I haven't checked how big the FLACs are lately but I'm sure they'd be a much bigger burden.

Slightly off topic, but do you use something other than iTunes for this process? I'm looking for a good way to manage a FLAC library.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#42

Post by mruts »

martin_a wrote: post #8
mruts wrote: post #4

Problem with music sounding bad doesn’t really have much to do with the distributed format: V0, V1, or 320 mp3s should sound pretty much the same compared to 16-bit flac. You can only the difference between mp3 and flac at shitty bitrates no one uses anymore (like 120). The reason why a lot of recent digital music sounds bad is because of the intentionally terrible mastering. Since everyone is listening of crappy ear…

But who is using MP3 players these days any more? I found myself to buy an iPod in... like... 2011 or so. Converted all the CDs I had to FLAC because losless was the way to go. Two or three years (let it be 5, doesn't matter) pass by, I got a better Smartphone, Spotify Premium and don't touch my 1xx GB of FLAC music anymore, because I don't want to carry around another device etc. I'm not sure but I think "owning" mu…

Well I never used CDs. Unfortunately what.cd got taken down, but a couple years ago, it was probably the biggest and most complete collection of music in the world.

Nowadays, I also just use spotify since I don’t have a quality source for music. But if what.cd was still around, I would dump spotify in a second.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#43

Post by amrrs »

diminish wrote: post #19
teknico wrote: post #10

Already discussed. Main posts: [2012] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3668310 [2014] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8689231 [2015] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10520639 [2017] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15127633

It's a very good article which shows up again and again. Think it's 2040, singularity reached. AI runs the world and on HN we have this article popping up very frequently like every hundred Planck time unit .

Could it be also because HN Front page algorithm (my speculation) of favoring domains (with something like Domain Authority) based on previous votes?

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#44

Post by Arnt »

martin_a wrote: post #8
mruts wrote: post #4

Problem with music sounding bad doesn’t really have much to do with the distributed format: V0, V1, or 320 mp3s should sound pretty much the same compared to 16-bit flac. You can only the difference between mp3 and flac at shitty bitrates no one uses anymore (like 120). The reason why a lot of recent digital music sounds bad is because of the intentionally terrible mastering. Since everyone is listening of crappy ear…

But who is using MP3 players these days any more? I found myself to buy an iPod in... like... 2011 or so. Converted all the CDs I had to FLAC because losless was the way to go. Two or three years (let it be 5, doesn't matter) pass by, I got a better Smartphone, Spotify Premium and don't touch my 1xx GB of FLAC music anymore, because I don't want to carry around another device etc. I'm not sure but I think "owning" mu…

Your smartphone or laptop is like an MP3 player with respect to mastering, not like an expensive amplifier and speakers. Your smaryphone/laptop has an amplifier that's optimised for low energy usage, not fidelity, and loudspeakers optimised for size. Music which has been mixed and mastered without regard for how it sounds on your smartphone is sold as "24/192" or "vinyl" or such. The 192 does not matter technically, it's just an identifying mark, and some sort of identifying mark is necessary.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#45

Post by vortico »

aidenn0 wrote: post #36

The only rebuttal to this that I have found compelling is that 24/192 downloads make sense if you are going to sample the music in your own creations. Recording and mixing with extra dynamic range, combined with only needing to low-pass once at the end has demonstrable advantages. Of course this was a response to marketing that was definitely not targeted at samplers, so it's not so much of a rebuttal as arguing at c…

Yes, adding any sort of nonlinear distortion to audio will make frequencies depend on other frequencies, i.e. audible frequencies in the output of an effect can depend on supersonic frequencies in its input. For example, if you add a 100 kHz sine wave through a high-gain guitar amplifier, you'll definitely be able to hear it.

I didn't really see a mention of this point in the article since there was no "So when do you need 192 kHz?" section, but in its defense, DACs, amplifiers, speakers, and room ambiance are all incredibly linear in 2019, so for music listening, most super-sonic frequency content doesn't turn into to lower frequencies. It does matter when you're using the very nonlinear Apple earbuds, but if you were doing that, you wouldn't care about audio quality in the first place.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#46

Post by some-guy »

mruts wrote: post #42
martin_a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who is using MP3 players these days any more? I found myself to buy an iPod in... like... 2011 or so. Converted all the CDs I had to FLAC because losless was the way to go. Two or three years (let it be 5, doesn't matter) pass by, I got a better Smartphone, Spotify Premium and don't touch my 1xx GB of FLAC music anymore, because I don't want to carry around another device etc. I'm not sure but I think "owning" mu…

Well I never used CDs. Unfortunately what.cd got taken down, but a couple years ago, it was probably the biggest and most complete collection of music in the world. Nowadays, I also just use spotify since I don’t have a quality source for music. But if what.cd was still around, I would dump spotify in a second.

what.cd was continued by redacted.ch, and the community is currently quite strong.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#47

Post by sideshowb »

vortico wrote: post #14
PascLeRasc wrote: post #9

I have a degree in electrical engineering, and I'm currently in a graduate course on computer music systems, so I hope that qualifies me enough to avoid the author's ad hominem attacks he seasons this stinkpiece with. I can't stand seeing frequency response charts and scientific measurements in articles about audio. Like my favorite audio reviewer says [1], I listen to music for enjoyment and I talk about audio in su…

So you think our senses transcend what tools have the ability to measure? Maybe that was the case in 1970, but in 2000+, hearing (and vision) is completely understood scientifically and far surpassed by measuring apparatus at every frequency range. Saying otherwise is an appeal to what is called audio mysticism and is caused by placebo and confirmation bias, which was mentioned in the article.

Actually that's a defensible position when you're mixing and mastering audio. A spectrogram won't tell you which settings sound better, but your ears will.

Maybe not relevant in the context of GP's post though. In the context of digital tools telling you two signals are identical, then I suspect they are, and if you want to prove to me your ears hear better then you're going to need a blind A/B test.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#48

Post by vortico »

aidenn0 wrote: post #40
mark-r wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rip my CDs in a two-step process: first to FLAC, then convert to mp3. The mp3s go in my phone, I have 33GB so far and my collection isn't even half ripped. I haven't checked how big the FLACs are lately but I'm sure they'd be a much bigger burden.

If you are concerned about space, consider vorbis, AAC, or opus. They all will achieve a higher quality at a given bitrate (or equivalently a lower bitrate for a given quality).

Note that the difference is not large. A 128 kbps opus or AAC might be comparible to a 160 or 192 kbps MP3. So it's less than 2x improvement of file size.

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#49

Post by IWeldMelons »

vortico wrote: post #14
PascLeRasc wrote: post #9

I have a degree in electrical engineering, and I'm currently in a graduate course on computer music systems, so I hope that qualifies me enough to avoid the author's ad hominem attacks he seasons this stinkpiece with. I can't stand seeing frequency response charts and scientific measurements in articles about audio. Like my favorite audio reviewer says [1], I listen to music for enjoyment and I talk about audio in su…

So you think our senses transcend what tools have the ability to measure? Maybe that was the case in 1970, but in 2000+, hearing (and vision) is completely understood scientifically and far surpassed by measuring apparatus at every frequency range. Saying otherwise is an appeal to what is called audio mysticism and is caused by placebo and confirmation bias, which was mentioned in the article.

If it was true, the entirety of hi-fi industry would not exist. I myself built a number of amplifiers and, after a certain threshold, roughly .02% THD (total harmonic distortion) at 20khz, there is a very little correlation between the THD (what is usually measured)numbers and perceived quality of the sound. Which means, while it is true that is everything could be measured, no one measures the right thing (perhaps some weird subtle phase shifts or some almost immeasurable frequency response deficiencies)

Re: 24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012)

#50

Post by lucideer »

martin_a wrote: post #8
mruts wrote: post #4

Problem with music sounding bad doesn’t really have much to do with the distributed format: V0, V1, or 320 mp3s should sound pretty much the same compared to 16-bit flac. You can only the difference between mp3 and flac at shitty bitrates no one uses anymore (like 120). The reason why a lot of recent digital music sounds bad is because of the intentionally terrible mastering. Since everyone is listening of crappy ear…

But who is using MP3 players these days any more? I found myself to buy an iPod in... like... 2011 or so. Converted all the CDs I had to FLAC because losless was the way to go. Two or three years (let it be 5, doesn't matter) pass by, I got a better Smartphone, Spotify Premium and don't touch my 1xx GB of FLAC music anymore, because I don't want to carry around another device etc. I'm not sure but I think "owning" mu…

I don't think this advice is aimed at your typical Spotify user (i.e. the majority of people).

Spotify is fine for casual listening, but if you're picky about quality, you're going to diy it, and if you're diying, 24/192 is pointless.

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