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24/192 music downloads are silly

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Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#71
post #51
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. I store originals (rips and etc.) in FLAC and then encode in Opus (around 140 Kbps) to actually listen to. 140 is an approximation of transparency level, it can be lower according to these tests: http://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm

Curious: Are you playing back with Rockbox?

Yes, I have it installed on a Sansa Fuze player. Waiting to get Jolla 2 handset when it will come out, and then will probably play it there. I'm sure though that VLC would handle it just fine on any Android device as well.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#72
I think this underestimates how many people are DJing. You don't have to be a professional to want to warp a couple tracks together, and this is a case where more samples help. Many of the 'only professionals need this' arguments fall apart; DJing is a popular hobby.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#74
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people buy $500 wooden knobs to make their volume pots sound better. (or was that a hoax? i can't tell anymore) Some people buy small pyramids to elevate their cables off the floor, some people buy mats to put onto your CDs before putting the CD in a player ( http://dagogo.com/millenniums-m-cd-mat-carbon-cd-damper-revi... ), some people buy $1000+/meter digital interconnect cables ( http://www.theabsolutesound…

That's rather a wide-ranging bit of character assisination. Some of us just enjoy listing to music on decent equipment (If you can buy it at your local big box store, it's probably not sufficiently "decent") properly setup (which doesn't mean expensively - just basic proper speaker placement and the like).

> Some of us just enjoy list[en]ing to music on decent equipment

The best definition of audiophile I've heard is somebody who listens to equipment, rather than music.

Of course your favourite Pink Floyd sounds better on a decent stereo rather than a clock-radio, but if somebody is forever chasing the proper "colour" for their speakers, or swapping amps for the perfect tone... they might be an audiophile.

edit: s/you might be/they might be/

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#75
They're silly for listening maybe, but for editing (or so I gathered) they're quite valuable because the extra bits give editors a lot more room to play with the sounds and frequencies and such.

It's not always about the audiophiles, you know.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He still thinks he can hear the difference between FLAC and MP3 to this day. He works as a sound engineer now. It's really not fair to compare FLAC vs MP3 to "hi-rez" FLAC vs regular FLAC There's legitimately some instruments that do not compress well. The harpsichord is a particular example that you should be able to hear the difference on on any sort of decent equipment. Bur hi-rez vs regular flac is something tha…

What the heck is "hi-rez" FLAC? My understanding is that FLAC is lossless. How would you have varying degrees of lossless?

By '"hi-rez" FLAC vs regular FLAC"' the parent post means something like 24/192 vs 16/44.1, not the amount of compression. It has a higher resolution than the other example.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#77

I once spent ~2 hours explaining all of this (well maybe not all of it) to a friend of mine who was studying sound design at the time. He didn't believe me. I even transcoded some 24/192 FLAC Pink Floyd I had lying around and made him do a double blind test to show him that he'd prefer the slightly louder song every time, even if the louder song was 192kbps vs the FLAC. He did. He still doesn't believe me. He still t…

>He still thinks he can hear the difference between FLAC and MP3 to this day. He works as a sound engineer now. It's really not fair to compare FLAC vs MP3 to "hi-rez" FLAC vs regular FLAC There's legitimately some instruments that do not compress well. The harpsichord is a particular example that you should be able to hear the difference on on any sort of decent equipment. Bur hi-rez vs regular flac is something tha…

Wasn't a cello (I keep remembering hearing "cello attack") supposed to be problematic on mp3?

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#78

I once spent ~2 hours explaining all of this (well maybe not all of it) to a friend of mine who was studying sound design at the time. He didn't believe me. I even transcoded some 24/192 FLAC Pink Floyd I had lying around and made him do a double blind test to show him that he'd prefer the slightly louder song every time, even if the louder song was 192kbps vs the FLAC. He did. He still doesn't believe me. He still t…

> Some people buy $500 wooden knobs to make their volume pots sound better. (or was that a hoax? i can't tell anymore) Some people buy small pyramids to elevate their cables off the floor, some people buy mats to put onto your CDs before putting the CD in a player ( http://dagogo.com/millenniums-m-cd-mat-carbon-cd-damper-revi... ), some people buy $1000+/meter digital interconnect cables ( http://www.theabsolutesound…

> Self-styled audiophiles are, by and large, idiots with way too much money plagued by magical thinking.

Not just that. But the arrogance and fanboyism is rampant.

God forbid you ever consider buying a Bose or Beats product.

Re: 24/192 music downloads are silly

#79
post #35

I once spent ~2 hours explaining all of this (well maybe not all of it) to a friend of mine who was studying sound design at the time. He didn't believe me. I even transcoded some 24/192 FLAC Pink Floyd I had lying around and made him do a double blind test to show him that he'd prefer the slightly louder song every time, even if the louder song was 192kbps vs the FLAC. He did. He still doesn't believe me. He still t…

It is baffling to me that people even talk about 24/192. There are such vast differences in audio quality related to speakers, loudness, amplifier, mastering, and EQ, before you even get to the source format. For some reason people seem to latch on to the format thing, before being able to make judgements about the more important factors.

It doesn't end there. For most people, I strongly suspect moving around your furniture would affect your sound reproduction more than changing your equipment.
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