24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (2012) • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by theandrewbailey » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #108

jlarcombe wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But aren't you worried you'll lose access to your music? I have to own it! I can't have it at the whim of multiple third parties to take down as they see fit. It's too important.

So where do you store these files that you'll never lose access? CDs? People with a room full of 8 tracks or cassettes would like to have a word. HDDs? Those fail all the time, plus any sort of natural disaster could wipe out your collection. Online backup? This seems like the only real option, but for me the risk/reward just doesn't fit. At least for now, the record companies and the service providers are both incen…

One copy on each of:

-My desktop at home

-My server in the basement

-My work laptop's external hard drive

-An external hard drive in a fireproof lockbox (server backup)

-An external hard drive on a shelf at work (server backup)

-An external hard drive in my parent's house 150 miles away (server backup)

Try prying my files from my cold dead hands.

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

#162

Post by byproxy » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #79

teknico wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article's author, Chris "Monty" Montgomery, is one of the authors of Ogg Vorbis [1] and Opus [2]. It puzzles me that many people don't yet know about Opus. Let me quote the FAQ [3]: "Does Opus make all those other lossy codecs obsolete? Yes. From a technical point of view (loss, delay, bitrates, ...) Opus renders Speex obsolete and should also replace Vorbis and the common proprietary codecs too (e.g. AAC, MP3, .…

I use Opus for music playback for all my archived music. The reason it's not more widespread was opposition of the likes of Apple to free codecs. Today they are losing this, and Opus is making its way even to Apple's systems.

Is there a particular reason you don't opt for lossless formats (e.g. FLAC) for your music archive? I imagine the only constraint would be space, though storage gets cheaper by the year.

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

#163

Post by PavlikPaja » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

bch wrote: post #39

aidenn0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MP3s at any bitrate cannot properly reproduce certain sounds, as preecho can happen and it is fairly easy to train yourself to notice it. Pretty much any modern lossy format can be made transparent at high enough bitrates though.

Example?

Any sound that starts or end very suddenly. Drums of any kind will sound kind of weird in MP3. Applause used to be the bane of MP3. Encoders got better at it, but it's apparently impossible to get rid of completely. As far as I understand it it's the accoustic equivalent of ringing artifacts that you can see in low quality JPEG's or old MPEG videos.

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

#164

Post by KerrickStaley » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

Question: Is 192 kHz better when you want to slow down (or speed up) a track significantly while keeping pitches the same? Does it produce less noticeable artifacts?

When DJing, I often speed up or slow down a track I'm cueing in order to match the tempo of the playing song. So having 192 kHz tracks might be better (although usually you try not to change a song's tempo too far from the original anyway).

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

#165

Post by pesfandiar » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

KerrickStaley wrote: post #164

Question: Is 192 kHz better when you want to slow down (or speed up) a track significantly while keeping pitches the same? Does it produce less noticeable artifacts? When DJing, I often speed up or slow down a track I'm cueing in order to match the tempo of the playing song. So having 192 kHz tracks might be better (although usually you try not to change a song's tempo too far from the original anyway).

When slowing down the track, you're changing the effective sampling rate (e.g. 192 kHz turns into 96 kHz at half the speed). This article is about regular playback, so in your case it might make sense to have a higher rate.

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

#166

Post by penagwin » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

KerrickStaley wrote: post #164

Question: Is 192 kHz better when you want to slow down (or speed up) a track significantly while keeping pitches the same? Does it produce less noticeable artifacts? When DJing, I often speed up or slow down a track I'm cueing in order to match the tempo of the playing song. So having 192 kHz tracks might be better (although usually you try not to change a song's tempo too far from the original anyway).

I personally read the article to be addressing 192 kHz as a consumer of the music, I have a feeling for those producing (or mixing, etc.) it's a bit different.

It's kinda like how there's advantages of recording at 8k, better cropping, supersampling, etc. But for the average consumer there's no perceivable difference between the pixel density of 8k footage and 1080p footage on their 7" screen anyway.

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

#167

Post by Tomte » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:16 PM UTC

bch wrote: post #39

aidenn0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MP3s at any bitrate cannot properly reproduce certain sounds, as preecho can happen and it is fairly easy to train yourself to notice it. Pretty much any modern lossy format can be made transparent at high enough bitrates though.

Example?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtiRBFWkRKs beginning at 54 seconds.

I don't really hear the pre-echo.

Actually I love that I don't hear compression artifacts in music or see them in JPEGs. Makes my gear so much cheaper. :-)

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

#168

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #104

stcredzero wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since everyone is listening of crappy earbuds, they compress the hell out of it and destroy all dynamic range. More compression and less dynamic range is beneficial for certain environments. Noisy subways. Watching TV in a noisy downtown apartment. Basically, crappy, noisy environments. In those, compression will help you actually hear the music and speech. However, the fact that this should be done in the master is…

Isn’t radio a big factor in this? Broadcast radio is noisy and has pretty limited dynamic range. This may be a cause.

[deleted]

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

#169

Post by stcredzero » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:24 PM UTC

mruts wrote: post #138

stcredzero wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since everyone is listening of crappy earbuds, they compress the hell out of it and destroy all dynamic range. More compression and less dynamic range is beneficial for certain environments. Noisy subways. Watching TV in a noisy downtown apartment. Basically, crappy, noisy environments. In those, compression will help you actually hear the music and speech. However, the fact that this should be done in the master is…

But there are easy ways to kill dynamic range with an algorithm. On windows this is called "loudness equalization." On the otherhand, there is no way to go back from little dynamic range to more dynamic range. So I think it makes sense that records are mastered with a lot of dynamic range, so the people who actually enjoy music can enjoy it, and the people who don't can just equalize it themselves.

But there are easy ways to kill dynamic range with an algorithm. On windows this is called "loudness equalization." On the otherhand, there is no way to go back from little dynamic range to more dynamic range.

So I think it makes sense that records are mastered with a lot of dynamic range, so the people who actually enjoy music can enjoy it, and the people who don't can just equalize it themselves.

You do realize that you just restated my comment, but left out the analysis of the current day situation? BTW, equalization doesn't directly change dynamic range. Equalization is meant to change frequency response. It can change dynamic range by causing clipping.

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

#170

Post by gwbas1c » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

When I casually researched the upper limit of human hearing, I came across something that mentioned that some people can detect lowpass filtering up to 27khz.

That's less than half an octave over the "traditional" 20khz limit. Even the 20khz limit is more of an average then a strict biological limit.

It also means that a sampling rate somewhere at 54khz is the "ideal" limit when trying to pick a sampling frequency that is completely transparent to everyone.

This is less than half an octave higher than the traditional 44.1khz rate, just 22% more data.

That's the thing that really drives me nuts about high sampling rates. The minute improvement really only needs a very slight boost in sampling rates, not 96khz or higher.