So... lossless formats

[ariich]

I'm completely with you on that Rob. I love being open minded and, on the whole, easily impressed. Means I enjoy everything a whole load more than I would otherwise.

[Groundhog]

For all intents and purposes, any quality higher than 256kbps is merely a placebo.  

Just, no

256kbps is about the speed your ears can process noises at.

Yes, when you play a lossless file the speakers will probably be making vastly different amounts of sound - they objectively are, that's a fact right there - but the perceived quality is only as high as it's possible to perceive, and your ears won't be able to tell the difference, as a general rule. Play a pristine, beautiful orchestra down a telephone line and it'll still sound like it's coming down a telephone line. Compared to the information contained in a lossless file, we're all walking telephone receivers.

If you think you can tell the difference, you're either willing yourself to hear a difference, you've got above-average ears, or you're telling porkies. Probably the second one! We all take music very seriously here, would make sense that your ear was more discerning than most. And if that's the case, congrats. You have elite ears. Well done. I'll make you a hat.

And whichever of the three's correct, fair play, by the way! You're enjoying your music, and that's what counts. But the average ear won't be able to tell the difference. A trained ear possibly could. I wouldn't be surprised at all if musicians or people who frequently listen to hi-res audio could distinguish between 256k and 320k, or even 256k and lossless. I've not looked into it very much, admittedly, so if anyone's got anything substantial (i.e. not anecdotal) to contradict me with then I'll happily scoff a bit of humble pie. Eat it right up with beans - I'm speaking from the position of a half-remembered Physics A-Level course, so you may well be able to find something concrete that puts me in my place.

That said, as I'm aware of it, by 320kbps you'd almost definitely be enjoying a big fat placebo. Key word, enjoying! But... the other key word is placebo.

Lossless audio is useful! It so is. You're gaining something with lossless - peace of mind, complete backup... PERFECT for recording music with. But it's more a tool for storage and accurate copying than a way to make your music sound lovely. Listening isn't one of its uses. By and large, anyway! I'm talking broad brushstrokes, here. Maybe you could, possibly, hear a difference in the v. high frequency noises. Someone upthread (Nick?) mentioned cymbals, and as they resonate at a very high frequency anyway, the discrepancies might be more noticeable there. That'd make sense to me. But I, myself, am honestly not that bothered.  It's great, lossless. But I'm not missing much by listening to 256kbps in my leisure time. And you're not gaining THAT much if you insist on listening to FLAC.

Again, this is all coming from someone who isn't an audiophile. I'm the unwashed masses. But then it always struck me there's something very counterintuitive about taking something as raw and visceral and immediate as rock music and then making it into something fussy - niggly, fusty and perfectionist. It's almost a contradiction.

It's meant to be wild, and aggressive. 'Sides which, not many of us can listen to proper, full-quality, massive-fidelity audio ALL the time, anyway, and I'd rather enjoy the lower-end stuff all the time and not know what I'm missing than listen to the lower-end stuff most of the time and compete with a nagging feeling that something's missing. I consider my inability to tell the difference between 256kbps and WAV a blessing, rather than a curse.

I'll come clean and admit that I don't "get" audiophilia. It turns something positive into something negative. Many of my experiences with audiophiles tend to be limited to watching them moan. Grumpy moaning. Not ecstatic moaning. (Though I'm sure a well-mixed 5.1 would get their gears going.) That doesn't seem to be the easiest way to enjoy music, to me. Falling in love doesn't make your platonic friends redundant. I'm glad that you have this really intense and detailed interest in music music, and that you can appreciate it on a higher level. You get to go home and listen to your music on the equivalent of a cinema screen, that's grand. But it's too much of a chore for me. I'm gonna keep rocking out on my cathode ray tube, and you honestly can't convince me that your approach is better. I like being easily impressed. I enjoy it. Ignorance is bliss. Audiophilia, while consummately beautiful and luxurious and all the rest, is one headache that I really don't need.





So there we go. Listen, take my opinions with a pinch of salt. I know my facts are very flimsily supported, and I acknowledge that audiophilia is so alien to me that it almost makes my opinion moot. But there we go.

I've never heard about human ears processing the speed of sound at maximum of 256kbs. What has a compression bitrate have to do with how the ears work?

If you play a 320 kbs file and a lossless file through a telephone line you won't notice a difference. I'll admit that 320 kbs can be hard to differentiate from lossless especially if you don't know what to look for, like those symbals Nick mentioned. I don't personally believe in the "golden ears". So no need to make me a hat. If you have had hi-fi as a hobby for years you'll eventually learn to pick up certain things things about the sound. So, that surely helps.

The difference between 320kbs and lossless are subtle, but if you have good enough audio equipment that difference comes clear. Mp3 compression is said to remove frequencies that human ear doesn't hear. That is only part of the truth. While a certain frequency alone can't be heard it will affect the sound as a whole (harmonics) and some frequencies can be felt. Mp3 compression adds metallic hizzing sound. That can be heard for example in the already mentioned symbals. On lower bitrates it can be heard on the sound as a whole. Also it adds even more distortion to the records that are loudly mastered. Finally it makes the sound flat, two-dimensional and mushy. The latter involves all the subtle stuff like ambience, space and liveliness. For hearing these differences you need a good enough stereo system with properly positioned speakers. Also it can be harder or easier to notice depending on the material.

As you've said, it comes down to personal enjoyment. I'm ok with people enjoying their mp3s, but the difference is not a placebo. Don't know how many people would notice the difference in a blind test when used a good quality gear and familiar music. That would be interesting to see. What I know is that some people can't believe how such an amazing sound can come from just two speakers when they hear music first time on high quality stereo.

I'll be first to admit that audiophilia can be a double-edged sword. On the other hand it makes good recordings sound amazing, but on the other hand it also brings out the flaws in the recordings if there is any. I'm not really into 5.1 music myself. Way too few releases and harder to get it sound right. Also if you have a fixed budget, stereo will bring you more quality over quantity.

Good point about the sound of rock. I don't want rock to sound clean and pristine either. Imo some of the modern production is way too polished and processed. There should be some rawness and live like quality to it. Raw and aggressive sound doesn't mean that it can't sound good. What I want from a recording is to capture the sound of the band as well as possible. All the nuances, dynamics, tones of the instruments, etc. It's a shame that nowadays most people think that aggressiveness will be achieved with dynamic range compression. I hate that attitude. It just makes it sound bad. The real heaviness and liveliness comes from the actual band playing their instruments. If you know what I mean. Bands don't compress their live sound to 6db range, do they? And it sounds heavy and pounding, doesn't it?

[ariich]

I've never heard about human ears processing the speed of sound at maximum of 256kbs. What has a compression bitrate have to do with how the ears work?

Well, the compression bitrate directly affects the frequencies in the sound. Rob's point was that the human ear can only pick up a limited range of frequencies. Quote from wikipedia: "The human ear can generally hear sounds with frequencies between 20 Hz and 20 kHz".

[Nick]

Here is the thing most people don't realize, things aren't as simple as just numbers. Sound is based on a wave, fucking with frequencies causes distortions in other frequencies, you can't mess with something and not have a minor domino effect on other frequencies.

[Groundhog]

I agree, Nick.


Ariich, I know that. What I didn't get was how can human ear be limited to 256kbs? 20hz-20khz is what we normally hear and 256kbs is less frequency range than that.

[robwebster]

I've never heard about human ears processing the speed of sound at maximum of 256kbs. What has a compression bitrate have to do with how the ears work?

[[[EDIT: This is the bit where I went on about nothing for five years. Nothing to see here.]]]

As you've said, it comes down to personal enjoyment. I'm ok with people enjoying their mp3s, but the difference is not a placebo. Don't know how many people would notice the difference in a blind test when used a good quality gear and familiar music. That would be interesting to see. What I know is that some people can't believe how such an amazing sound can come from just two speakers when they hear music first time on high quality stereo.

I'd quite like to see a blind-test, too. I think that I'd probably be floored by an MP3 through a high-end, too, though. I think the innate quality of the speakers has a lot to do with it. From everything I've been taught, past 256kbps possibly, 320kbps definitely, the effect would probably be a placebo, but again - I'm speaking from a fairly wooly platform, so don't invest too much in my presumption. I'd rather see the test! Never too old to learn.

Good point about the sound of rock. I don't want rock to sound clean and pristine either. Imo some of the modern production is way too polished and processed. There should be some rawness and live like quality to it. Raw and aggressive sound doesn't mean that it can't sound good. What I want from a recording is to capture the sound of the band as well as possible. All the nuances, dynamics, tones of the instruments, etc. It's a shame that nowadays most people think that aggressiveness will be achieved with dynamic range compression. I hate that attitude. It just makes it sound bad. The real heaviness and liveliness comes from the actual band playing their instruments. If you know what I mean. Bands don't compress their live sound to 6db range, do they? And it sounds heavy and pounding, doesn't it?

Oh aye, definitely agree that there are some HORRIBLY mixed and mastered albums. I'm all for making it sound beautiful in the studio. If the sound was mutilated when it was put onto the disc, that's gonna sound horrible to everyone. It's more that I feel it's a bit odd turning it into a rare treat; something you've got to shut your eyes and sit in the middle of a room for. Lots of people have specific rooms for listening to music in, which are soundproofed and have a single chair right in the middle with all these umpteen speakers positioned to within a hair's breadth of the specification, and while that's such a brilliant thing, and a testament to everything that's wonderful about music, and while it is, admittedly, an extreme scenario... that's not how I like to do it. I like to crank up the volume and stomp around the room strumming a mop. In 256kbps. I can't tell the difference, and I don't want to tell the difference. It'd take away from the mop.

(Sorry for the bits I've omitted, just trying to keep it... er RELATIVELY brief, at least given how much of a bore I am. I read it all, don't worry. Good post!)

((As I keep stressing, this is all half-remembered. For all I know I could have made the other half of this up to fill in the gaps. You're all talking about the specific compression frequencies and I'm going "...wait, what?" What I'm saying makes sense to me, makes sense in the context of the world as I understand it, in the context of computing as I understand it, in the context of the mind as I understand it, and I've got... er, let's say a 70% confidence that it's all right? But that other 30% of me is thinking "I have got no idea. I am a serious fucking moron for trying to argue this." Oh well. Worst case scenario is that I learn something! Actually, let's call that the best case scenario. It's not, 'cause I end up looking a right numpty, but if I start calling it the best case scenario I might start looking forwards to it. Like when my mum used to paint cabbages brown and tell me they were chocolate. (They weren't. They were just highly toxic. Put me off normal cabbages, actually, come to think of it. And chocolate. Still, made me want them at the time.)))

[Portrucci]

Some really excellent posts in this thread Rob. Almost exactly the same as my view, but expressed far more diplomatically  well done 

[Sigz]

Rob, I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding bitrate. As I understand it, bitrate is the number of bits per unit time in the audio - so it isn't akin frames per second of an animation, it's more like how high resolution each frame is; regardless of the bitrate, it's still going at the same 'speed' so to speak.

[robwebster]

Rob, I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding bitrate. As I understand it, bitrate is the number of bits per unit time in the audio - so it isn't akin frames per second of an animation, it's more like how high resolution each frame is; regardless of the bitrate, it's still going at the same 'speed' so to speak.

Ahaaa. There we go. That'll be me filling in the blanks. I'd like to blame teaching standards. And I will. Fucking teaching standards.

On reflection, what I was saying doesn't even make any sense, 'cause if it were sending out 256,000 bits of information every second, then it'd just be one noise of a single frequency.

I've got no fucking clue where I got that from, then. Whoops. It would explain why I didn't do very well in my physics exam.

Tell you what, actually. I wrote it so hectoringly that I think I'm going to edit big chunks of that post out. I Fail Physics Forever. I'm gonna be making a lot of hats.

[ariich]

Rob, I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding bitrate. As I understand it, bitrate is the number of bits per unit time in the audio - so it isn't akin frames per second of an animation, it's more like how high resolution each frame is; regardless of the bitrate, it's still going at the same 'speed' so to speak.

Not quite, because resolution in an image is a completely separate entity from frame rate, whereas sound IS by all accounts a frame rate itself. So the 'resolution' or bitrate directly affects the frequencies in the sound.