The Man Who Broke the Music Business • Hacker News Board

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#61

Post by cozzyd » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 1:33 AM UTC

windsurfer wrote: post #8

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.

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...

It's easy if you ignore everything but the percussion (assuming your speakers / headphones are decent).

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#62

Post by jonah » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 3:13 AM UTC

pxlpshr wrote: post #44

pageld wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made some pretty good beer money running one of those FTP sites by making people download Bonzai buddy for a password. I feel a bit bad for advancing that purple ape, but at least I could increase my sysadmin skills on something that didn't matter.

+1. I was running an FTP server on one of the few multi-honed T3 connections (late 90's) in our city. OTH sent me a ton of traffic, which also included RIAA scouts. I almost lost my job after they sent a C&D to our IT department; I was ~16 years old at the time and was forgiven.

Be glad that was 20 years ago. If you did it today, you'd have a felony...

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#63

Post by shitlord » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 4:36 AM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #32

This was a pretty good article, I'd love to read one (as similar as it might be) about warez crews.

I thought the ending was very beautiful, in a way.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#64

Post by aikah » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 4:41 AM UTC

> After the trial, Glover began to regret his decision to testify and to plead guilty.

He shouldn't have taken the deal, I guess he is the only one who went to prison, not even the guy he testified against went to jail.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#65

Post by Gigablah » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 5:13 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #38

bluedino wrote: post #18

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…

In some parts of the world (Singapore, Malaysia are places I have seen) there are shops in malls that openly sell copies of stuff. In fact when I first bought a PS3 and went looking for games for it in Singapore I was frequently turned away with "Oh, you want originals? We don't do that here".

You probably won't find a lot of places like that in Singapore anymore. They've really cleaned up over the past 10 years.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#66

Post by beedogs » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 5:29 AM UTC

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.

> Amazon does 320 kBPS, but it's still not good enough.

Yeah, nah. I'd bet a paycheck or two that no one could tell the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and a CD. And I'd win 99 times out of 100.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#67

Post by ugexe » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 6:24 AM UTC

flyinghamster wrote: post #46

amyjess wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

The trouble with audiophile gear is that it is really a scam to separate people from their money. I've found that, for me at least, the best deals for music fidelity are in studio-type equipment. A good pair of powered mid-field studio monitors and a Focusrite FireWire audio interface gets me sound that would cost $thousands if I bought audiophile-market gear. Also, there are some interesting audio cards for the Rasp…

I'd be surprised if anyone here didn't consider monster brand equipment a ripoff. Thought that was pretty well known, even for non tech people.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#68

Post by tempodox » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 9:52 AM UTC

adamtj wrote: post #21

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…

Music consumers won't catch up to the decay that mp3's cause, _by definition_. Consumers only listen to music. The most sensitive, highly trained ears listening to the absolute best equipment in a perfect environment cannot reliably tell the difference between a decent mp3 and the original CD. Anybody who tries to distinguish guesses wrong as often as they guess right. Anybody who thinks they can tell the difference…

You speak of ...compressing down to CD quality. That's wrong. The samples stored on a CD are not compressed, as opposed to compressed formats like MP3.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#69

Post by tempodox » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 10:00 AM UTC

beedogs wrote: post #66

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.

> Amazon does 320 kBPS, but it's still not good enough. Yeah, nah. I'd bet a paycheck or two that no one could tell the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and a CD. And I'd win 99 times out of 100.

Yes, there may be a lot of audio content where what you say is true. But there is also audio content where I can hear differences. You may find such content uninteresting or the differences negligible, but I don't.

Re: The Man Who Broke the Music Business

#70

Post by tempodox » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 10:02 AM UTC

pornel wrote: post #16

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.

That is an interesting observation. I didn't know this detail, thank you for mentioning it!