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The Man Who Broke the Music Business

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Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#11

Post by adamtj »

golergka wrote: post #5
tempodox wrote: post #2

...if the MP3 was just as good, why bother with the CD... The thing is, MP3 _isn't_ “just as good”. A rendering in lossless compression from a CD still sounds different than a 320 kBPS MP3. Which is why I just can't get over the iTunesStore selling sound in 256 kBPS. Much too bad. Amazon does 320 kBPS, but it's still not good enough.

Have you gone through a blind test? Because most musicians, DJs and producers I know that tried it, either couldn't tell a difference, or told it wrong, on a big enough sample. I'm not even mentioning people who are not music industry professionals.

Don't forget that the early encoders were pretty bad. It seems conceivable that a old encoders might have produced 320 kbit mp3s that were distinguishable from CDs in blind tests. Perhaps tempodox gave up on mp3s before they got good?

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#12

Post by wnevets »

tempodox wrote: post #2

...if the MP3 was just as good, why bother with the CD... The thing is, MP3 _isn't_ “just as good”. A rendering in lossless compression from a CD still sounds different than a 320 kBPS MP3. Which is why I just can't get over the iTunesStore selling sound in 256 kBPS. Much too bad. Amazon does 320 kBPS, but it's still not good enough.

Considering most people were listening to music on those god awful ipod/iphone earbuds, higher audio quality is wasted.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#13

Post by MPSimmons »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #9
yason wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the majority of people, mp3s seem to be "just as good" enough. I remember some low-bitrate songs encoded with some very early encoder where you could hear a difference. Not necessarily "the" difference but "a" difference. After a couple of years the worst encoder anyone could find was better already and since 192kbps bitrates mp3s were 99.999% there. I'm sure that a trained ear can hear differences between 256kbp…

The conventional wisdom is just that - MP3s don't sound any different than their CD counterpart, but we all know that they don't have the same degree of fidelity to the original mastered audio files. While it is true that most cannot detect the differences between MP3 (and other lossy formats) and PCM (lossless) audio, this is beginning to change as consumers become used to a higher quality of sound delivery than bef…

Maybe. The competing standard for many, many years was analog FM, though. Most places now don't even have the 300kb/s digital radio.

192kb/s is definitely good enough for the vast majority of people. There are always going to be audiophiles and artists who make derivative works, but those aren't the people who are served by the widespread piracy of media.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#14

Post by ssharp »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #9
yason wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the majority of people, mp3s seem to be "just as good" enough. I remember some low-bitrate songs encoded with some very early encoder where you could hear a difference. Not necessarily "the" difference but "a" difference. After a couple of years the worst encoder anyone could find was better already and since 192kbps bitrates mp3s were 99.999% there. I'm sure that a trained ear can hear differences between 256kbp…

The conventional wisdom is just that - MP3s don't sound any different than their CD counterpart, but we all know that they don't have the same degree of fidelity to the original mastered audio files. While it is true that most cannot detect the differences between MP3 (and other lossy formats) and PCM (lossless) audio, this is beginning to change as consumers become used to a higher quality of sound delivery than bef…

> Consumers will catch up to the decay that MP3 codecs cause and feel the same way about them that a millennial feels about VHS tapes. It may take a few years, or even decades, to arrive there, though.

I'm not sure if that's really a fair comparison. The difference in both video and sound quality between a VHS tap and a DVD is easily noticeable. There is also improved cost and improved convenience. Cost and convenience won't vary much with the higher quality or lossless digital formats, so you're solely relying on quality, which most people seem to have a hard time distinguishing between.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#15

Post by donohoe »

louthy wrote: post #10
windsurfer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people can't even tell the difference between 128kbps and 320kbps. Try it yourself: http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/mp3-sound-quality-test-1...

I could tell the difference. I produce music, and I can usually tell the difference between low and high bit-rate MP3s. Certain sounds are handled poorly at lower bit-rates: especially high-frequency sounds - you tend to hear obvious artifacting which comes across as 'mushy'. The link above is clearly a biased example where there are barely any real high-end sounds, and therefore it would easily fool an untrained ear…

Being totally sincere and serious here; but could you create such a test?

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#16

Post by pornel »

tempodox wrote: post #2

...if the MP3 was just as good, why bother with the CD... The thing is, MP3 _isn't_ “just as good”. A rendering in lossless compression from a CD still sounds different than a 320 kBPS MP3. Which is why I just can't get over the iTunesStore selling sound in 256 kBPS. Much too bad. Amazon does 320 kBPS, but it's still not good enough.

iTunes is not selling music in the MP3 format, so the kbit comparison is invalid.

Due to limitations of MP3 and advances in AAC it's quite likely that 256kbit AAC is higher quality than MP3 would be at 320kbit.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#17

Post by mattmanser »

ssharp wrote: post #6

It's hard to believe one person was able to successfully leak so much material. I got into album leaks in the early-mid 2000's. Even if I would end up buying the album anyway, that first listen of the leaked album was awesome.

And all he got was 3 months.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#18

Post by bluedino »

I remember seeing people at flea markets selling bootleg compact discs. They'd rent a booth and have boxes and boxes of them in those fluorescent colored plastic holders, the ones you could buy in 500 packs at Sam's Club or Egghead. Some of them even printed out fake covers and labels on inkjet printers, heck they would be doing it in between customers.

I couldn't figure out why the cops never came and shut them down. Same goes for the gas stations or convenience stores that sold obviously bootlegged movies for $3 on the check-out counter.

Now I want to read an article on Adil R. Cassim, the guy behind that whole ring.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#19

Post by intopieces »

tempodox wrote: post #2

...if the MP3 was just as good, why bother with the CD... The thing is, MP3 _isn't_ “just as good”. A rendering in lossless compression from a CD still sounds different than a 320 kBPS MP3. Which is why I just can't get over the iTunesStore selling sound in 256 kBPS. Much too bad. Amazon does 320 kBPS, but it's still not good enough.

When given the "Pepsi Challenge," most college students prefered the sound of 128 MP3 to Lossless. It's all about what you cut your teeth on. [0]

[0] Jonathan Sterne, "MP3: The Meaning of a Format", pg 166

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#20

Post by amyjess »

ssharp wrote: post #14
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conventional wisdom is just that - MP3s don't sound any different than their CD counterpart, but we all know that they don't have the same degree of fidelity to the original mastered audio files. While it is true that most cannot detect the differences between MP3 (and other lossy formats) and PCM (lossless) audio, this is beginning to change as consumers become used to a higher quality of sound delivery than bef…

> Consumers will catch up to the decay that MP3 codecs cause and feel the same way about them that a millennial feels about VHS tapes. It may take a few years, or even decades, to arrive there, though. I'm not sure if that's really a fair comparison. The difference in both video and sound quality between a VHS tap and a DVD is easily noticeable. There is also improved cost and improved convenience. Cost and convenien…

Yep.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of: DVDs don't need to be rewound, discs take up less space than tapes, DVDs don't degrade with repeated viewings, you don't have to futz with tracking when watching a DVD (I totally forgot about tracking until now! Good riddance!), DVDs come with multiple audio and subtitle tracks (anime fans especially love these), DVDs can be watched on a computer without specialized equipment (seriously, this was the main reason I switched to DVD as a teenager: I could watch one on the same screen I did everything else on!), DVDs can have all kinds of special features...

If it was a simple matter of a quality difference that was barely perceptible to the human ear, especially on consumer-grade equipment, DVDs would have never replaced VHS.

Oh, and audiophile equipment still hasn't trickled down to the consumer level yet. Every other technology that starts as a high-end professional thing trickles down to the consumer, but audiophile equipment stays right in the ultra-high-end so-expensive-your-wallet-cries sector forever and ever and ever.

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