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In Reply to: RE: Video: The Distortion of Sound... posted by Todd Krieger on July 18, 2014 at 21:20:30
And you've got the idiot who says digital data compression can remove up to 90% of the music (this is repeated on the Clari-Fi website). You can compress up to 50% with a lossless codec. Does that mean you've removed 50% of the music? Of course not. And just because a lossy codec can compress much higher, doesn't mean you're losing that percentage of the music.
Idiots. They're just out to make a buck. They don't give a shit about actually informing people. They want to make the "problem" as scary as possible.
Follow Ups:
I thought the main point of the video was that with all the care taken in the studio by the producers, engineers and artists, the vast majority of people listen to compressed versions of the tracks on less than stellar devices using crappy earbuds and don't get the full experience.
I think they were right on, regardless of their confusion of dynamic range reduction and compression.
I thought the main point of the video was that with all the care taken in the studio by the producers, engineers and artists, the vast majority of people listen to compressed versions of the tracks on less than stellar devices using crappy earbuds and don't get the full experience.
I think they were right on, regardless of their confusion of dynamic range reduction and compression.
When HAVEN'T the vast majority of people been listening on less than stellar devices? They would have you believe that listening to a cassette-based Sony Walkman with the crappy portable earphones they were used with sounded much better than a 128kbs MP3 on an iPod with Apple earbuds. That's absolute bullshit.
And don't give me this "...all the care taken in the studio by the producers, engineers and artists..." nonsense. The loudness wars are still raging and the vast majority of music being produced these days by those very same studios, producers, engineers and artists have had the life squished out of them due to the gross overuse of dynamic compression before they're ever converted to MP3.
Yet these clowns are arguing that it's all MP3's fault.
Check out this example from the video. Look at the waveform differences between uncompressed and compressed. That's NOT due to data compression. That's due to dynamic range compression. And they have also dramatically reduced the overall level, so it actually sounds SOFTER rather than louder as would be the case on an actual recording.
Here's a piece of music I have here. This is the waveform of the uncompressed WAV file.
And here's the same file encoded as a 96kbps MP3.
This video only succeeds in nothing but being a fraud on the public.
Maybe the designer of the Clari-Fi even has the two types of compression confused.... I listened to that demo again, and effect was *awful*.... Flat-out awful....
The sonic losses of data compression are pretty subtle (my MP3 vs. WAV test bears this out), so an enhancement shouldn't have a dramatic effect to the track.
I applaud the video of raising the awareness of compression. But you are correct about the intermixing of the two types of compression. Whether it was out of ignorance or out of deceit, I'll presume the former. I just hope this "enhancement" doesn't catch fire like asynchronous conversion or Auto-Tune.
I applaud the video of raising the awareness of compression.
A bunch of misinformation and confusion is decidedly NOT "raising awareness." It's misinforming and confusing.
But you are correct about the intermixing of the two types of compression. Whether it was out of ignorance or out of deceit, I'll presume the former.
If the people at Harman are THAT fucking ignorant, and went so far as to producing an entire video without someone in their ranks pointing it out, they've got no business being in the audio business. And if the latter, they should be put out of business for such a fraud as this.
Perhaps your language was a bit strong, but I generally agree. Conflating dynamic compression (loudness wars) vs. lossy compression is inexcusable. Most CDs produced today have already thrown away information needed to enjoy the music through the loudness wars. This usually does worse damage to the music than 320 kbps Mp3 or 256 AAC encoding.
Not to mention that the so called "lossless" CD format already threw away information in the analog stream because of the 44/16 format which is incapable of accurately reproducing the output of a live microphone stream or a 15 or 30 IPS master tape.
Not to mention that most "stereo" recordings are not really stereo recordings, but multiple mono recordings mixed and pan-potted into flat recordings with no depth.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Perhaps your language was a bit strong, but I generally agree. Conflating dynamic compression (loudness wars) vs. lossy compression is inexcusable.
It is inexcusable. And their being Harman, and not just some podunk "high end" audio company, I don't think my language was too strong at all.
Most CDs produced today have already thrown away information needed to enjoy the music through the loudness wars.
I would change that to "Most MUSIC produced today..." Dynamic range compression and the loudness wars have nothing to do with CD.
Not to mention that the so called "lossless" CD format...
"Lossless" is a term used in describing digital compression schemes. CD doesn't use any compression so I think your "so called 'lossless' CD format" comment is a bit off the mark.
...already threw away information in the analog stream because of the 44/16 format which is incapable of accurately reproducing the output of a live microphone stream or a 15 or 30 IPS master tape.
And vinyl throws away far more. But I don't see people here talking about vinyl in the same way. Nor have I seen anyone able to reliably distinguish between 16/44 and higher resolutions. So for the purposes of this discussion, I think bringing CD into it is a bit of a red herring.
Not to mention that most "stereo" recordings are not really stereo recordings, but multiple mono recordings mixed and pan-potted into flat recordings with no depth.
No argument there.
"And vinyl throws away far more (information than CD)."
Gotta kindly disagree with this one.... I've stunned a few people playing them vinyl of music they initially didn't care for with past experiences using digital formats. You might be correct from an analytical sense, but in regard to connection to the music, vinyl just captures more "emotion" of the performance.
Gotta kindly disagree with this one.... I've stunned a few people playing them vinyl of music they initially didn't care for with past experiences using digital formats. You might be correct from an analytical sense, but in regard to connection to the music, vinyl just captures more "emotion" of the performance.
I wouldn't say that it's "capturing" anything more, but rather some people find it's inherent limitations and distortions more subjectively pleasing than if those limitations and distortions were absent.
Also keep in mind that the masters used for digital tend not to be the same masters used for vinyl.
In any case, there's no arguing over people's subjective preferences.
"'Lossless' is a term used in describing digital compression schemes. CD doesn't use any compression so I think your "so called 'lossless' CD format" comment is a bit off the mark."
If you have 88/24 and you downsample it to 44/16 you have lost data. The original lie was that 44/16 was "perfect sound, forever", when it was well known that it was not. It is true that after throwing away a good portion of music that you can copy the remainder without losing any more. You could say as much of a copy of an MP3. It's "lossless" if you copy the file as is without decoding and reencoding it. That does not mean it is "lossless" with respect to the original music.
"And vinyl throws away far more."
Apart from ticks and pops and a little low frequency noise on a bad TT, vinyl has about the same dynamic range as CD, after allowing for a 7 dB increase in noise for proper dither and for 20 dB of peak vs RMS headroom. The high frequency response on vinyl goes considerably above 22 kHz, assuming one has a high quality recording and a good MC cartridge. In addition, the vinyl mastering process does not need to use steep filters, which are necessary for 44 kHz digital audio, especially recording.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
As near as I can tell, AND in a digital context, 'LOSSLESS" is taking a file compressed by some means and reconstructing a Bit Accurate copy of the ORIGINAL……
If that's accepted as true, than FLAC and ALAC are both 'lossless' encoders.
Too much is never enough
"You could say as much of a copy of an MP3. It's 'lossless' if you copy the file as is without decoding and reencoding it. That does not mean it is 'lossless' with respect to the original music."
No recording is truly "lossless" relative to the original music....
The context of "lossless" in data compression is that it can be decoded back to the original uncompressed format without loss.
If you have 88/24 and you downsample it to 44/16 you have lost data.
But that's not data compression as we are discussing here.
The original lie was that 44/16 was "perfect sound, forever", when it was well known that it was not.
Yet I'm not aware of anyone who has been able to demonstrate that they can reliably tell the difference between 16/44 and any higher resolution that you care to name. So I don't know where this "well known" is coming from.
Apart from ticks and pops and a little low frequency noise on a bad TT, vinyl has about the same dynamic range as CD, after allowing for a 7 dB increase in noise for proper dither and for 20 dB of peak vs RMS headroom.
There's more than just ticks and pops, there's the surface noise as well which you're not going to escape with even the best turntable and cartridge. Not to mention harmonic and intermodulation distortion.
In any case, the effective dynamic range of human hearing is only about 60-70dB, and 16/44 exceeds that by quite a wide margin.
The high frequency response on vinyl goes considerably above 22 kHz, assuming one has a high quality recording and a good MC cartridge.
Even if that's the case, it doesn't seem to matter as far as human hearing goes. It only seems to matter when everything is boiled down to numbers games marketing.
In addition, the vinyl mastering process does not need to use steep filters, which are necessary for 44 kHz digital audio, especially recording.
Who's recording at 16/44? And who beside a handful of boutique audio manufactures are using non-oversampling DACs?
" In addition, the vinyl mastering process does not need to use steep filters, which are necessary for 44 kHz digital audio, especially recording.
Who's recording at 16/44? And who beside a handful of boutique audio manufactures are using non-oversampling DACs?"
It may not be recorded at 16/44, but it must be reduced to 16/44, with steep filter, when cutting a CD.
It is possible to record without a filter at 44 kHz. If you do so then you will get horrible distortion, for example if you attempt to record a square wave you will get audible beat tones lower than the fundamental frequency. If a square wave is swept up in pitch some beat tones will move down in pitch, etc., making the distortion obvious.
It is possible to record with a filter that is not steep. If you do so, then there is a choice. Either the filter severely rolls off the high frequencies or it fails to filter out needed frequencies, in which case see above.
It is possible to record with a steep filter, but if this filter is excited with energy in its transition range the filter will ring. If the filter is linear phase it will create unnatural pre-ringing whereby high frequency noise appears prior to a musical transient. If the filter is minimum phase it will smear the sound after a transient for a longer period of time. Either method, or a tradeoff combining a mixture of the two, will result in some amount of changing tonality and/or unnatural imaging.
Software may bypass the laws of physics, but can not overrule the laws of mathematics. Of course none of these distortions matter to a (willfully) deaf person.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Of course none of these distortions matter to a (willfully) deaf person.
And when you run out of hand-waving and empty claims, you resort to ad hominem.
It may not be recorded at 16/44, but it must be reduced to 16/44, with steep filter, when cutting a CD.
But that filtering is done digitally, which allows you to implement it in ways that you can't do with analog.
" It may not be recorded at 16/44, but it must be reduced to 16/44, with steep filter, when cutting a CD.But that filtering is done digitally, which allows you to implement it in ways that you can't do with analog."
That's not the point... The point is mastering to a CD requires steep filtering (to prevent components > 22 kHz from reflecting into the audible band), where mastering for vinyl LP does not require bandwidth limiting filters at all. (Although vinyl does require RIAA equalization.)
Edits: 07/21/14
That's not the point... The point is mastering to a CD requires steep filtering (to prevent components > 22 kHz from reflecting into the audible band), where mastering for vinyl LP does not require bandwidth limiting filters at all. (Although vinyl does require RIAA equalization.)
Show me that it matters to human beings.
With a CD you can hear the music without having to put up with groove noise!
JE
With a CD you can hear the music without having to put up with groove noise!
Well yes, there is that. ;-)
If you believe in "perfect sound, forever" then there is simply no point in arguing with you.
I have done lots of downsamplings from hi-res to 44/16 and in most cases there is a noticeable degradation in sound in one form or another, depending on how this is done (the specific anti-alias filter chosen). This is often the case when the original (e.g. 88/24) comes from a digitization of a cassette tape master. (These are direct copies of an original R-R master.)
Most first rate mastering engineers who work with acoustic music can easily hear differences between various digital formats. Here's how you tell whether these people are BSing or not: you listen to their recordings. If they are uniformly good then the chances are excellent that they do not subscribe to the 44/16 dogma. If they accept that 44/16 is good enough they are on a path of $$$ and not sonic excellence and it shows in their products.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
If you believe in "perfect sound, forever" then there is simply no point in arguing with you.
Hey, I just look at the evidence beyond hand-waving and empty claims. If hand-waving and empty claims are good enough for you, fine.
Most first rate mastering engineers who work with acoustic music can easily hear differences between various digital formats.
Name one who has actually demonstrated such abilities, i.e. without foreknowledge of what they're listening to. And here I'm referring to 16/44 vs. higher resolution formats, not MP3 and the like.
"Hey, I just look at the evidence beyond hand-waving and empty claims. If hand-waving and empty claims are good enough for you, fine."
Hand-waving and empty claims are definitely not good enough for me. I go on what I hear.
I do not need to convince anyone what I hear or don't hear. I rely on my own mind and my own senses, not authority figures from some BS organization. I know that 2 + 2 = 4 because I've checked and proven it for myself, not because of some grade school teacher. Ditto the publications of the Audio Engineering Society.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Hand-waving and empty claims are definitely not good enough for me. I go on what I hear.
But our subjective perception of hearing is embarrassingly unreliable and no amount of ego and vanity or willpower can overcome that. So if that's what you're relying on, you may just as we'll be relying on hand-waving and empty claims because you're in denial of the very real limitations of our own humanity.
Any competent mastering engineer has learned to overcome his biases. If he hadn't he wouldn't be able to tell what he is putting out and hence would be unable to deliver consistent quality product. Part of the training is to learn how easily one's hearing can be fooled and then learn how to go beyond this. These people make dozens of decisions every working day of the form: "Does this matter?" "Is this an improvement?" "Should I change X and if so how much?" Part of their art is understanding the limitation of their tools (which includes their own hearing) and using them effectively. The same applies to some extent with audiophiles, but if we don't get to hear their system we have no way of knowing whether they know what they are doing or not. In general, my experience with audiophile friends are that those with a subjective approach have much better sounding systems than those who follow a purely objective approach.
You should confine your remarks to your own lack of abilities and not extend a belief in your own limitations to others. You have no basis for such beliefs other than your own foolishness. People with beliefs like yours are one of the reasons for the sorry state of recorded music these days.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Any competent mastering engineer has learned to overcome his biases.
Bullshit. That's just ego and vanity talking. You can't overcome what's in your subconscious mind.
When someone can actually deonstrate their claimed abilities, I'll listen. Until then this is just more of the same hand-waving and empty claims we've been hearing for the past 30 years.
A few posts back, Barabajagal said: "Yet I'm not aware of anyone who has been able to demonstrate that they can reliably tell the difference between 16/44 and any higher resolution that you care to name."
Fair enough. I agree with you as far as that goes. However, from what little info I can find about The Audio Guild, it appears you sell speaker cables and interconnects. Have you been able to demonstrate that people can reliably tell the difference between your products and properly made but generic speaker cables and interconnects? I'd be very interested in seeing such a demonstration.
JE
A few posts back, Barabajagal said: "Yet I'm not aware of anyone who has been able to demonstrate that they can reliably tell the difference between 16/44 and any higher resolution that you care to name."
Fair enough. I agree with you as far as that goes. However, from what little info I can find about The Audio Guild, it appears you sell speaker cables and interconnects. Have you been able to demonstrate that people can reliably tell the difference between your products and properly made but generic speaker cables and interconnects?
No, we haven't. But neither do we make any claims as to actual audible differences.
I'm one of among a relative few people I would call a "true subjectivist." I go by my own subjective experience, regardless of what my account for it (i.e. whether it be due to actual audibility or just in my head due to subjective biases). It doesn't matter to me because at the end of the day, the only reason I listen to reproduced music is for my own subjective pleasure and enjoyment.
I call myself a true subjectivist because I never attempt to pass off my subjective experience as anything more than that. Unlike others who would call themselves subjectivists, but go on to insist that their subjective experiences are some unerring reflection of an objective reality. In other words, they operate from the premise that if they subjectively perceive some difference, then it MUST be due to an actual audible difference. Mr. Lauck above is a good example of this.
I don't operate from such a premise because I know all too well how unreliable our subjective perceptions can be. And my ego isn't so overblown that my self-esteem is threatened by that fact. I don't deny and run away from my own humanity, I embrace it.
The people who cannot I do not consider to be true subjectivists. Their making objective claims without any objective evidence, I refer to them as "pseudo objectivists."
So that's the perspective I am coming from with respect to my business.
"In other words, they operate from the premise that if they subjectively perceive some difference, then it MUST be due to an actual audible difference. Mr. Lauck above is a good example of this."
Whatever gave you the impression that I believe this? I'm not sure whether you are a fool or a troll trying to provoke controversy. In light of your post count, I suspect the latter.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Whatever gave you the impression that I believe this?
Because I've not seen you offer up anything else. And your truly laughable claim that mastering engineers are able to seize full control over their subconscious minds and rid themselves of all subjective biases as if they were Jedi knights or something.
I'm not sure whether you are a fool or a troll trying to provoke controversy. In light of your post count, I suspect the latter.
I had been a member here for over 14 years and with thousands of posts before I deleted my account earlier this year. I started this account recently because I wanted to defend a friend of mine who posts here.
Will you guys PLEASE get over yourselves and your positions.
Either of you, PLEASE, get on with a productive conversation!
:)
Well, you can't have a rational discussion with irrational people so I don't see much hope of a productive conversation. So I'll just bow out.
Hi, Barabajagal!
I see you are an "M." What exactly is "TAG?"
JE
I see you are an "M." What exactly is "TAG?"
The Audio Guild.
Is your only web presence on Facebook? Not everyone facebooks. I also have never seen an OEM whose webpage required a password to view. Why put your light under a barrel?
JE
Is your only web presence on Facebook? Not everyone facebooks. I also have never seen an OEM whose webpage required a password to view. Why put your light under a barrel?
The new website isn't ready yet.
We've been operating as Q since 1998. But we recently wanted to expand into electronics under a different name. Didn't want to go through the hassle of setting up a second business so we are reorganizing under The Audio Guild. That will be the singular business entity. Q will then just be a brand under the umbrella of The Audio Guild and allow us to easily add other brands as we expand.
Here's a sneak peek of the new website.
NT
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