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24/192 music downloads make no sense

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Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#171

Post by Eiriksmal »

hammock wrote: post #29
hatsunearu wrote: post #10

The single worst thing that harms audio quality is excessive compression. It's ruining everything, I'd say. Heck, I'm sure everyone who knows their worth would agree that compression harms audio quality. Recommended reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war edit: compression as in dynamic range compression, not data compression like mp3 in audio

Dynamic range compression is an important part of the aesthetic of pop music today, like it or not. Pop hits don't sound the same without it. For this reason (unaffected by normalization on itunes/youtube) it will be slow to go away.

Did some brief Googling to see if I could participate in a blind listening test and hear the difference between 24- and 16-bit recordings. I found this instead [0], an even more interesting gap to see if you can hear the difference between 8- and 16-bit!

The source song, PSY's Gagnam Style, is the epitome of modern pop. I got a 3/10 on the listening test on a decent pair of Sennheiser headphones in a quiet room.

Some people are commenting that modern pop pairs well with 16-bit because of the heavy-handed mastering techniques and that older music thrives under 24-bits. Well, Audio Check offers the same 16 vs 8 test, using a Neil Young track from 1989... I couldn't fool myself into hearing any differences between the source WAVs at all and didn't even attempt to score the 10 soundbites.

[0] http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_16vs8bit.php

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#172

Post by 885895 »

Eiriksmal wrote: post #171
hammock wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dynamic range compression is an important part of the aesthetic of pop music today, like it or not. Pop hits don't sound the same without it. For this reason (unaffected by normalization on itunes/youtube) it will be slow to go away.

Did some brief Googling to see if I could participate in a blind listening test and hear the difference between 24- and 16-bit recordings. I found this instead [0], an even more interesting gap to see if you can hear the difference between 8- and 16-bit! The source song, PSY's Gagnam Style, is the epitome of modern pop. I got a 3/10 on the listening test on a decent pair of Sennheiser headphones in a quiet room. Some…

4/10. "Only slightly worse... than a random guess!"

I already knew that 24-bit vs 16-bit would be indistinguishable for pop music but I would not have expected that the same would go for 16-bit vs 8-bit. Or, well, I was kind of expecting it since otherwise the person who put this test together likely wouldn't have bothered.

However, I don't mind. I've never claimed to be "audiophile" -- a fact which is reflected by the inexpensive headphones I use :)

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#173

Post by baddox »

JonnieCache wrote: post #16
muraiki wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading "compression" as both a programmer and audio-minded person made that first sentence difficult to parse at first. :) But yeah, it's obvious when I have my car stereo nearly on max to listen to classical or jazz, and then if I turn the radio and get a pop music station my ears are about to explode.

Don't worry, the loudness war is basically over. itunes and youtube normalize everything to -15dbRMS and -13dbRMS respectively. Spotify uses the ReplayGain algorithm. Broadcasters worldwide now use the EBU R128 standard, which is a more effective form of loudness normalization, hopefully to be adopted by online services too at some point. All that's required is for personal media players to widely implement loudness…

> itunes and youtube normalize everything to -15dbRMS and -13dbRMS respectively.

Are you using "normalize" in the audio production sense, as in adding or subtracting a constant gain to an entire track? I'm pretty sure that iTunes doesn't do this, at least not by default.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#174

Post by cthalupa »

Zitrax wrote: post #144
cthalupa wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Vinyl actually has far less fidelity. Vinyl mastering is sometimes better than CD mastering though, due to the loudness war. I would love to sell my turntable and vinyl collection and rely purely on digital formats. Takes up less space, technically superior format, etc. But one thing keeps me buying vinyl: AWFUL mastering on CDs. A significant portion of LPs are released with more normal mastering on the vinyl, whil…

How do the versions on streaming services compare, are they usually copies of the CD masterings ?

Usually the CD master.

The optimistic people have said that iTunes and YouTube not allowing the high volume compression will kill the loudness war [1][2], but, it is still happening [3].

[1] http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2013/10/28/itunesloudness/ [2] http://productionadvice.co.uk/youtube-loudness/ [3] http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/year/desc

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#175

Post by nullc »

earlz wrote: post #26

I can't hear a difference between 96khz/44khz in it's raw form. However, I can tell the difference from effects in audio mixing. The extra detail can really make a difference in how well an audio effect VST works. I have a 96khz/24bit interface that I use and ATH-M30X headphones, and I can tell a difference between at least some 24bit FLAC files and 16bit highest-quality-possible MP3s. I was mixing my own music and t…

" can tell the difference from effects in audio mixing."

Yes, non-linear effects can be sample rate sensitive. However-- this really means that their internal model is aliasing and not faithfully simulating an infinite sample rate system.

In an ideal world, effect that needed more sample rate would internally upsample/downsample (or be constructed in a way that they didn't need to). Then they would behave consistently across rates; though doing this would waste cpu cycles.

In any case, the article is all about distribution. Having excess rate in mastering is cheap and harmless, and-- because of these reasons, can be practically pretty useful.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#176

Post by Radle »

JonnieCache wrote: post #16
muraiki wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading "compression" as both a programmer and audio-minded person made that first sentence difficult to parse at first. :) But yeah, it's obvious when I have my car stereo nearly on max to listen to classical or jazz, and then if I turn the radio and get a pop music station my ears are about to explode.

Don't worry, the loudness war is basically over. itunes and youtube normalize everything to -15dbRMS and -13dbRMS respectively. Spotify uses the ReplayGain algorithm. Broadcasters worldwide now use the EBU R128 standard, which is a more effective form of loudness normalization, hopefully to be adopted by online services too at some point. All that's required is for personal media players to widely implement loudness…

Wait, what does that mean for somehow who records music as a hobby? If my recording is all the time at around -10dbRMS, it will sound as loud to the listener as if it was on -15dbRMS(itunes)?

Also, how exactly does it sound when most of my recording is at -10dbRMS and a couple peaks are at -5dbRMS?

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#177

Post by nullc »

yzhou wrote: post #58

There's a big difference in impulse response with different sample rates, any one can see it on a oscilloscope, I bet some one can hear the difference. Those who don't have a oscilloscope can see the picture here: http://i.imgur.com/wY0wzcW.png

What you are showing is _precisely_ the effect of low-passing, nothing more, nothing less.

See the digital media primer 2 for more information on that: https://wiki.xiph.org/Videos/Digital_Show_and_Tell

If humans were able to hear audio above 22kHz (or what not) in any meaningful way, we'd expect to be be able to demonstrate that effect in carefully controlled studied and then that lack of low-passing may matter; but that isn't what the best evidence so far shows.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#178

Post by nullc »

gwbas1c wrote: post #158

This article really misses the facts of the Nyquest-Shannon theory. In order to decimate a signal to 44.1 or 48khz, and preserve high-frequency content, high frequencies need to be phase-shifted. This phase-shift is similar to how lossy codecs work. For what it's worth: I'm a big fan of music in surround, and most of it comes in high sampling rates. When I investigated ripping my DVD-As and Blurays, I found that they…

> In order to decimate a signal to 44.1 or 48khz, and preserve high-frequency content, high frequencies need to be phase-shifted.

Your understanding of sampling theorem is incorrect. Sampling alone (not quantization, of course) is completely lossless under the critical frequency.

We demonstrated this in a very clear way near the end, at about 21 minutes in, on the primer two video: http://www.xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml where we show a square wave being phase shifted tiny fractions of the intersample length.

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#179

Post by chillingeffect »

beat wrote: post #169
hatsunearu wrote: post #10

The single worst thing that harms audio quality is excessive compression. It's ruining everything, I'd say. Heck, I'm sure everyone who knows their worth would agree that compression harms audio quality. Recommended reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war edit: compression as in dynamic range compression, not data compression like mp3 in audio

I've played acoustic and electric instruments for over 30 years, and recorded numerous albums. Compression is the best tool we have for accurately reproducing the musicality and emotion of a musical performance. Without compression, most recordings would be unlistenable. Don't confuse the foolishness of the loudness wars for "compression is bad". That's like saying the internet is bad because there's porn on it.

I respect your opinion, but it's only your opinion, not a global truth.

Compression is a style. There is far more to musicality and emotion than compression. The problem compression solves is that the environments where industrialized cultures now listen in are not dedicated listening areas, but alternately loud and quiet places, so compression makes all parts of the music almost equally loud so there are no drop outs where the quieter parts would be. There is no need to compress music in headphones, for example, to the extent that it is currently compressed.

I find compression and other techniques such as removing vocal breath sounds, makes most recordings unlistenable. They don't sound like humans anymore, but synthetic puppets animated by humans with conflicting values. Take the Foo Fighters, for example. They're popular, sure, but all of their songs sounds like one continuous din. Between the compression induced by the guitar distortion settings and the compression added to the recording, then the compression added by the radio station, it just sounds like a waterfall with a few bandpass filters changing between the verse and chorus.

Also their vocals have no dynamics. When he yells loud, the vocals don't get louder but the timbre changes. That changes it from cathartic to strained. The dynamics have all been flattened.

Why do you think the indie rock movement and bands and styles with wide dynamic range like the Pixies, Nirvana and dubstep got so popular? They eschewed the trend of hardline compression with alternating loud and quiet parts. They match the rhythm of human thought and motion which has fast and slow, detail and empty parts.

> That's like saying the internet is bad because there's porn on it.

Yes but on the internet you can go where there is no porn. Where can you find music with no compression?

Re: 24/192 music downloads make no sense

#180

Post by chillingeffect »

nosuchthing wrote: post #63
hammock wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dynamic range compression is an important part of the aesthetic of pop music today, like it or not. Pop hits don't sound the same without it. For this reason (unaffected by normalization on itunes/youtube) it will be slow to go away.

If you listen to pop recordings between 1950-1980, you'll notice there's more depth and character to every instrument. Yes, dynamic range compression is currently used/abused extensively in pop music productions, but if mixes weren't compressed they would have a much wider range for the sounds to play around in. Not only is Justin Bieber's My World 2.0 louder than Metallica's The Black Album, it's louder than The Sex…

that is tragically and hilarious ironic.

with older songs, you can turn them up louder, then the dynamic parts really punch you.

with newer songs, it's just a steady fatigue.

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