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The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

theghostinthemp3.com

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Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#31

Post by LeoPanthera »

Malic wrote: post #28
chungy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be surprised if they don't support ALAC, Apple's lossless codec. Can't say I have any iPods or iPhones to try it out myself though. Apple generally has a very strong case of NIH.

I was under the impression that Apple chose to develop ALAC because it was less CPU/battery intensive to decode. This is going back to iPod Rev.1 days, mind you. Processing power for simply decoding audio CODECs hasn’t been a challenge for some time now.

ALAC (and Sony's ATRAC) can be decoded using only integer math, which makes them very power efficient. It's the reason they exist in the first place.

MP3, FLAC (and I assume AAC) requires floating point math to decode.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#32

Post by LeoPanthera »

underseacables wrote: post #6

Wow this is really fascinating. I’ve seen a lot of support for FLAC but I’ve never been able to get an iPhone or iPod to read them. I wonder why flac and other high end lossless file formats are not supported.

You can play ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) on your iDevices. If you have a Mac, the free XLD will convert FLAC to ALAC for you.

https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#33

Post by [deleted] »

hctaw wrote: post #18
underseacables wrote: post #6

Wow this is really fascinating. I’ve seen a lot of support for FLAC but I’ve never been able to get an iPhone or iPod to read them. I wonder why flac and other high end lossless file formats are not supported.

Lossless is only useful as an archival or intermediary format during production/recording where you can't tolerate lossy encoding. For listening purposes lossy codecs are all capable of being perceptually lossless for trained or untrained listeners, including MP3. MP3 gets a bad rap because low bitrate mp3 does sound awful. 320kbps or higher is sufficient for 99% of listeners, including audiophiles. Most listeners ca…

[deleted]

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#34

Post by didsomeonesay »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #31
Malic wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that Apple chose to develop ALAC because it was less CPU/battery intensive to decode. This is going back to iPod Rev.1 days, mind you. Processing power for simply decoding audio CODECs hasn’t been a challenge for some time now.

ALAC (and Sony's ATRAC) can be decoded using only integer math, which makes them very power efficient. It's the reason they exist in the first place. MP3, FLAC (and I assume AAC) requires floating point math to decode.

Flac decoder does not require floating point math since 2005:

https://xiph.org/flac/changelog.html

Come to think of it, that still might have been one of the historic reasons for ALAC's creation. Its development started before.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#35

Post by kruxigt »

apostacy wrote: post #26
cardamomo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ways in which biases can be encoded in an algorithm are not trivial. The author takes pains to describe how the lossiness of MP3 encoding is audible. The codec's authors made aesthetic decisions, shaped by their own taste, to determine what sounds could be acceptably removed from the audio. That should be a significant point in almost any discussion of MP3. The author of this piece does not, however, challenge th…

I for one find the idea that there is a "white" way to hear music to be pretty offensive. Does he have any evidence for his race-realist perspective? I wish we could move past these outdated ideas. Of course mp3 is limited by the people who made it, everything is. It certainly wasn't done with any bad intentions.

Personally Im quite offended that blacks haven't contributed with almost any technical invention.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#36

Post by drzaiusapelord »

dbatten wrote: post #13
seanalexander wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't like the distortion that 128k mp3 introduces, but I imagine that in years to come it'll become a fetish for certain types of audiophile This hasn't happened in almost 30 years of mp3s being a household format. The only feeling low resolution media evokes is frustration.

I think the implication was that, once mp3 is no longer a household format, there will be a certain type of person who feels a nostalgia for the "sound" of mp3s, maybe even advocating that it was "better" in some way than the sound of whatever comes next... This is basically what's happened with vinyl records at this point, right? People have a nostalgia for their sound, even though by any scientific or technical mea…

but we're drawn to "analog warmth" for whatever reason. We see it in guitars obviously with tube amps and analog effects pedals preferred over their digital counterparts. Vinyl has that messy analog-ish sound that we find pleasing in a similar way.

Shrill low-bitrate, lower-fidelity digital sound just doesn't evoke that feeling in us. The same way no one is asking for RealMedia videos on their home theater system, but prefer film grain on video and 3D CGI to look "messy" (another analog noise characteristic). We humans love noise apparently! I guess evolution built us for a noisy and messy world and digital sound just seems off to us. We'll make an effort to get closer to analog warmth but do out best to flee digital shrill.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#37

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

cardamomo wrote: post #19
nayuki wrote: post #14

The author posts clips like "Example 1. White, Pink, and Brown Noise - Uncompressed", but the audio files are hosted on SoundCloud. My experience on SoundCloud is that no matter what format you upload as, they always stream it down to you as a 128 kb/s MP3 or something like that. I think the author is better off self-hosting the WAV files? > Listening tests, primarily designed by and for western-european men, and usi…

The ways in which biases can be encoded in an algorithm are not trivial. The author takes pains to describe how the lossiness of MP3 encoding is audible. The codec's authors made aesthetic decisions, shaped by their own taste, to determine what sounds could be acceptably removed from the audio. That should be a significant point in almost any discussion of MP3. The author of this piece does not, however, challenge th…

That is cultural bias. It is just easier to play the other card and get attention.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#38

Post by drzaiusapelord »

nayuki wrote: post #14

The author posts clips like "Example 1. White, Pink, and Brown Noise - Uncompressed", but the audio files are hosted on SoundCloud. My experience on SoundCloud is that no matter what format you upload as, they always stream it down to you as a 128 kb/s MP3 or something like that. I think the author is better off self-hosting the WAV files? > Listening tests, primarily designed by and for western-european men, and usi…

This isn't "racial bias" and has nothing do with race, but the types of music MP3 developers, who were western men, decided to use as a reference. Famously, Karlheinz Brandenburg focused on making 'Tom's Diner' sound good, which suggests the mp3 model is strongly optimized to rock music and, as others have claimed, sounds sub-optimal when encoding non-Western music.

Your comment was good until you got into an unfounded and reactionary "reverse racism" accusation.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#39

Post by igneo676 »

dbatten wrote: post #13
seanalexander wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't like the distortion that 128k mp3 introduces, but I imagine that in years to come it'll become a fetish for certain types of audiophile This hasn't happened in almost 30 years of mp3s being a household format. The only feeling low resolution media evokes is frustration.

I think the implication was that, once mp3 is no longer a household format, there will be a certain type of person who feels a nostalgia for the "sound" of mp3s, maybe even advocating that it was "better" in some way than the sound of whatever comes next... This is basically what's happened with vinyl records at this point, right? People have a nostalgia for their sound, even though by any scientific or technical mea…

Supposedly, one of the big reasons people prefer vinyl is not because of the medium. It's because of the mastering process.

CDs and/or Streaming services are victims of the "loudness" wars, resulting in music with low dynamic range. Since vinyl is often mastered by someone who specializes in the vinyl and is rather niche, they have full freedom to make it sound as good as it ever will be.

That's also one reason why some people prefer Tidal or because sometimes they simply use better masters. At least, that's the only reason that can't be chalked up to placebo

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#40

Post by jim-jim-jim »

> As previously stated, the MP3 codec was refined using listening tests designed by european audio engineers and featuring the music they chose. In a sense, each of these songs acts as a resonant filter for every file encoded in the MP3 format

Was thinking in the shower just the other day about genre-specific compression schemes. Could you get significant improvement if you knew something like the BPM or the spectral profile of common instruments ahead of time? Or is production too inherently complex for this to be worthwhile? Obviously no two hurdy gurdy recordings will sound the same, even though your algorithm knows wtf a hurdy gurdy is.

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