People w/o ears (fidelity related)

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  • BeatChemistBeatChemist 1,465 Posts
    I'm sorry if I seemed argumentative or malicious. I have just recently re-discovered the strike-through.

  • BaptBapt 2,503 Posts
    I hate to say this but, music is disposable and people don't care.

    ... but you hate to say this. Some can live with this, some can not.

  • BaptBapt 2,503 Posts

    Spelunk, I TOTALLY understand your point of view.

    Last year I have been banned from crappydermy and their hidden section just because I told them the same thing, they called me a "nazi"...wtf!?

    Same kind of question in VINYL by Alan Zweig : are you collecting items or the great Music recorded on this?
    Also they're collecting records but are they really feeling what's inside?

    Quantity > quality.

    The mp3 has killed the ears of the young generation, that is a fact!
    You can't fight against that shit.

    Even here, you have like maybe 10% of the strutters concerned by this quality problem but that's all.

    Are most people that oblivious? Yes.

  • FlomotionFlomotion 2,391 Posts
    some people seem to be missing the fact that he is talking about playing on the radio. there is no way you can tell the difference between an mp3 at 192 and a cd over the radio. no way. however, the difference between a cd and vinyl is vastly different than the difference between an mp3 and a cd. we're talking analog to digital as opposed to two different styles of compression in digital. I can always tell an mp3 from vinyl in my own studio on my own reference monitors, and usually even between an mp3 and a cd (or wave file), but that's because my ears are trained on my current setup. in a regular listening environment (home stereo, or any mid to high end audio equipment), the average person should be able to hear the difference between vinyl and any kind of CD or mp3 when A/Bed, but I still think a decent quality mp3 and a cd are going to be a tough call for most people.

    Agreed.

    On the other hand, you're all wrong about FM not delivering true fidelity. Clean FM on a decent receiver will piss all over any digital broadcast you care to compare it with.

  • hemolhemol 2,578 Posts
    People that are not normal wax diggers are clueless when it comes to understanding different frequencies with different formats of music [/b].


    I am not big on CDS. For me, it's Wax and mp3 files. But I know the difference.

    Most records have a tucked( thick analog feel, but still clear) sound because records are pressed at a low frequency.

    To me, mp3s are brassy like. They all have a high treble feel to them- that's why a lot of people dont like them, too much gain.

    CDs are ultimately clear. You can hear everything. They're mastered to the point where the clarity is too perfect, not a lot of thickness to it ..

    that's my take


    www.myspace.com/ishnockbaptisterock
    www.swanksociety.com



    I went and heard a psychoacoustician give a talk on mp3 encoding a few months ago. From what she said mp3 encoding is like the wild west. The SAE (Society for Audio Engineers) doesn't have any fixed standards for mp3 encoding, which is not the case with all previous formats. People in labs are building the codecs that compress and convert files without much knowledge of the psychoacoustic process. Basically this means that you can't just do a flat conversion across the frequency spectrum because the ear is more sensitive to certain frequencies. Mp3 encoders can trash a song even at the highest bit rate if they aren't congifured properly.

    b/w

    I can't listen to digital radio because the sampling rate is too low and there is disgusting distortion in the high end. Does anyone else suffer from this?

  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts

    Spelunk, I TOTALLY understand your point of view.

    Last year I have been banned from crappydermy and their hidden section just because I told them the same thing, they called me a "nazi"...wtf!?

    Same kind of question in VINYL by Alan Zweig : are you collecting items or the great Music recorded on this?
    Also they're collecting records but are they really feeling what's inside?

    Quantity > quality.

    The mp3 has killed the ears of the young generation, that is a fact!
    You can't fight against that shit.

    Even here, you have like maybe 10% of the strutters concerned by this quality problem but that's all.

    Are most people that oblivious? Yes.

    While I respect that this is your take on the events, I saw it a bit differently.

    And everyone has different reasons behind why they want what they want, or how they do what they do. So don't shoot all the dogs just because one has fleas.

  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    don't shoot all the dogs just because one has fleas.

    People shoot dogs because they have fleas? Does the ASPCA know about this?

  • I'm sorry if I seemed argumentative or malicious. I have just recently re-discovered the strike-through.



    No problem.

    Actually, my response was geared to the guy that responded before you.But I appreciate the follow up, and I was not mad about the strikes. That was YOUR TAKE, and I respect that

    Keep music alive

    peace

  • SnagglepusSnagglepus 1,756 Posts
    yeah fm is so compressed and fucked with by all kinds of digital signal processors
    by the time it hits you

    This does depend on the station, of course. The station I work at (WHUS in CT) has always attempted to offer a signal virtually free of compression to allow for the natural dynamics in the music we play (especially important for classical music, etc.)

    Of course, we're now making the switch to HD digital so I imagine that our "natural" signal will soon be a thing of the past.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Artists always manage to find away to take advantage of new technology. Who is making music that sounds better on mp3?

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts

    crappydermy and their hidden section

    Nobody told me about their hidden section. How do I get in?

    What gets me about Wax is they never discuss those off the wall records it is supposed to be about. They just discuss some records they talk about here.

  • BaptBapt 2,503 Posts

    Nobody told me about their hidden section. How do I get in?

    Sections.

    _ Same thing as the Real Headz section here but weird.
    _ the second one is a beef section I think, dunno.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts

    Nobody told me about their hidden section. How do I get in?

    Sections.

    _ Same thing as the Real Headz section here but weird.
    _ the second one is a beef section I think, dunno.

    Damn. Hey Hcrink, how do I scale the golden stairs? If you all are beefing about me I want to know.

  • bull_oxbull_ox 5,056 Posts
    Artists always manage to find away to take advantage of new technology. Who is making music that sounds better on mp3?

    D4L


  • Spelunk, I TOTALLY understand your point of view.

    Last year I have been banned from crappydermy and their hidden section just because I told them the same thing, they called me a "nazi"...wtf!?

    Bapt,

    please keep your apples and oranges seperated - you were banned because you were an ungrateful pain in the ass that demanded higher bitrate / better rips of records people spent their spare time recording.


    In short: because you acted like a 4-year old, not because you were on some righteous


    The mp3 has killed the ears of the young generation, that is a fact!
    You can't fight against that shit.

    - crusade.


    Please stick to the truth when telling stories.

    RC

  • BaptBapt 2,503 Posts

    Aahh! RC, the truth is I tried to tell you (at crappyshit.com) how bad a mp3 is.
    I made a post with the definition, etc. explaining what is a mp3...
    I did not requested any mp3s or whatever like you seem to say.
    We won't start another beef but to be clear, here, what I said was 320kbps is better than 192.
    Then I asked you all to share, if possible, best quality rips.
    I remember many posts about how to record/convert... vinyl to mp3s, I was always ready to help!
    The thing was that I was surprised that you choosed to share bad quality rips (when you own the records it is NAGL) you share, and also I was surprised that crappymembers did not hear the difference of quality between a 192kbps and a 320 kbps rip.
    Finally a worm called me a "nazi" what is so I wanted to make with his head that's all.
    Oh! And you seem to say that I did not share anything (everything at 320kbps), and that all I shared was not during my spare time, COM'ON!

    stick to the truth when telling stories

    Anyway, the thing is mp3s suck and I'm with Spelunk when it comes to share good quality Music, on the radio or anywhere else.

    Crusade!

  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts

    Aahh! RC, the truth is I tried to tell you (at crappyshit.com) how bad a mp3 is.
    I made a post with the definition, etc. explaining what is a mp3...
    I did not requested any mp3s or whatever like you seem to say.
    We won't start another beef but to be clear, here, what I said was 320kbps is better than 192.
    Then I asked you all to share, if possible, best quality rips.
    I remember many posts about how to record/convert... vinyl to mp3s, I was always ready to help!
    The thing was that I was surprised that you choosed to share bad quality rips (when you own the records it is NAGL) you share, and also I was surprised that crappymembers did not hear the difference of quality between a 192kbps and a 320 kbps rip.
    Finally a worm called me a "nazi" what is so I wanted to make with his head that's all.
    Oh! And you seem to say that I did not share anything (everything at 320kbps), and that all I shared was not during my spare time, COM'ON!

    stick to the truth when telling stories

    Anyway, the thing is mp3s suck and I'm with Spelunk when it comes to share good quality Music, on the radio or anywhere else.

    Crusade!

    Bapt, usually when telling your side of the story, you should try to show yourself in a good light.

    You basically just summed up Red_Clay's side of the story perfectly. This is EXACTLY how you acted.

  • spelunkspelunk 3,400 Posts
    Let me straighten out things a bit. I'm not some crusader on a mission to end the mp3 format and banish it from the face of the planet. Mp3s are highly useful, and I use them all the time just like we all do, primarily for sharing music with others, hearing a track before buying it, etc.

    All I'm saying is that when I personally present music to people via some mass medium, whether that's radio, my own mixes, etc. I want to come correct in terms of sonic quality, whether that means using wav files in Microwave, cleaning up some surface noise, whatever. I personally think that playing mp3s over the radio or through Microwave is nagl (playing over a big sound system or through a compressed format is when the quality of your source material is most critical IMO, contrary to what some people seem to think)

    I started this thread because I realized the other day that an assumption of mine might be wrong - that all people are capable of telling the difference between a CD and an mp3. Notice that there's no discussion of vinyl here, because that is a whole different issue. I'm starting to question this, and I'm really wondering if this has changed over the years, whether more people were concerned with sound quality during previous eras.

    Aside from all the CatFightStrut going on above, what I really want to know is a) can you hear the difference between a quality mp3 and a CD? and b) Do you think most people can?

  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts

    Aside from all the CatFightStrut going on above, what I really want to know is a) can you hear the difference between a quality mp3 and a CD? and b) Do you think most people can?

    A) No
    B) No

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts


    I started this thread because I realized the other day that an assumption of mine might be wrong - that all people are capable of telling the difference between a CD and an mp3. Notice that there's no discussion of vinyl here, because that is a whole different issue. I'm starting to question this, and I'm really wondering if this has changed over the years, whether more people were concerned with sound quality during previous eras.

    I do not think it has changed. As I said above, most people believe they can not hear the difference. They believe that because they have never a/bed. If they were to a/b a cd and an mp3 they would hear the difference. I think this is true going back to the cylinder v disc days.

    As for your question about the difference between a high quality mp3 a cd I do not know if I could tell the difference. I have never a/bed them. I do know when I got my mp3 player and started making recordings I was shocked at how bad mp3s sounded. There was no need to a/b anything. I am not an audio head, I have a mid-fi consumer electronics system, 1200, 80s Pioneer amp, old cheap computer Altec speakers, and a nice pair of 90s Goodman speakers.

    I have a cool old Sony Hi-Fi radio. It has 3 settings lo, mid and hi-fi. The woofer and tweeter drop out on the low and mid-fi, and I guess some tubes. The only reason for the different settings, I think, is so that salesmen can a/b/c them. The difference between each is night and day. Just to prove to people in the 50s that they could hear the difference.

  • FatbackFatback 6,746 Posts
    I mean people bought cassettes and didn't care about fidelity either, you know?

    Tapes sound great.

  • FatbackFatback 6,746 Posts
    If you A/B a mono OG Blue Note record and an MP3 file for someone using even the most basic system and they don't notice a difference, just forget about it. Your wasting time. It's like trying to get a dyke to suck your balls.

  • hemolhemol 2,578 Posts
    If you A/B a mono OG Blue Note record and an MP3 file for someone using even the most basic system and they don't notice a difference, just forget about it. Your wasting time. It's like trying to get a dyke to suck your balls.

    The problem is whether people are listening qualitatively (dope beat), or quantitatively (lush spectrum). Shitty mp3s don't suffer much in low end, it's the higher frequencies that get distorted.

    It might also be helpful tot hink of all the people using shitty ipod headphones and blasting them so loud that you can hear their music at the opposite end of a subway car.
    1.)If people can listen to music on those headphones there is something wrong with their ears.
    2.)If people listen to music that loud they obviously have an awkward perception of the spectrum.

  • I've been having an ongoing struggle with a guy I do a radio show with over sound quality and mp3s, trying to get him to listen to the difference in fidelity between CDs, mp3s, and vinyl. When we were first starting to pull together the show I implored him to try to find all the stuff that he has as mp3 files at least on CD at the station's library, if not on vinyl. He's very typical of the current college generation, as he rarely buys music and relys almost solely on mp3 files.

    Thing is, the guy can't tell the difference in sound quality between an mp3 and a CD to save his life, even when I A/B the same track on some good studio monitors. This really tripped me out, because I had always assumed that everyone could tell the difference, it's just that most people don't really care. It really got me thinking though about how many people out there are really even concious of those issues, and even notice when a track is poorly recorded/mixed/encoded.

    Personally, I know that I notice the smallest details in mixes and sound, and am picky to the point where I won't play some great songs if they're poorly recorded. I won't play an mp3 over the radio unless it's something impossible to find otherwise (now a lot of radio promotion is done via mp3 downloads, which is some total bullshit. Bandwidth is so damn cheap these days, send me the effing wav file or a CD you cheap bastards.)

    I guess my question is - with a lot of the everyday people you encounter, do a lot of them not notice differences like this? I mean we're not all cut out to be recording engineers or mix records but are most people that oblivious? I don't know, a lot of shit these days has got me questioning whether I hear music differently from most people...

    Im also a very very very picky audiophile. Then again. I Do have a large MP3/MP+
    Collection.
    MP3 isnt all that bad in my opinion. With the right encoder and the right settings you can get good quality. Some things in music are really hard to encode. Hihats for example and I soley encode mere stereo encoded MP3s because of this.
    Try coppin choclate milk-action speaks louder than words from CD and use
    Joint-Stereo. Or The Dansettes' "Oh my..."

    In my opinion. Sound qualitywise Even if you buy the CD's nowadays, the sound quality will be sonically BIG, but already very very poor.
    Even the commercial popsongs that sound like they was made for SKY-radio
    and all those so called raw rocksounds of today they really sound pussy.
    They were already mastered in a way. Squished dynamically,
    Lowpassed, ready to hit your tv set straight from CD...
    Enoding this type of material to MP3 isnt that hard. You shouldnt hear much
    difefrence eccept for some bass and dynamics loss. MP3 is actually quite good.
    And Ive come to know "its sound" quite well. So I 'know what I can rely on'.

    To me, 'Good' sounding MP3 sounds like a very good nakamichi cassette-recorder.
    Rly! Or even better..
    No real pun from my side towards MP3. Those German guys and gals who invented this really got something.
    I trust MP3 more than I do WMA or OGG or whatever. Quality is more consistent.
    Another good codec is MPC. It keeps more of its original stereo-depth wich preserves the original CD-rip its 3rd dimension in between the speakers.

    And really. Lots of records and pressings dont sound that up to par either...
    I still get upset when I get my labcabin-order and the quailty is friggin poor
    on some records.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Im also a very very very picky audiophile. Then again. I Do have a large MP3/MP+
    Collection.
    MP3 isnt all that bad in my opinion. With the right encoder and the right settings you can get good quality. Some things in music are really hard to encode. Hihats for example and I soley encode mere stereo encoded MP3s because of this.
    Try coppin choclate milk-action speaks louder than words from CD and use
    Joint-Stereo. Or The Dansettes' "Oh my..."

    In my opinion. Sound qualitywise Even if you buy the CD's nowadays, the sound quality will be sonically BIG, but already very very poor.
    Even the commercial popsongs that sound like they was made for SKY-radio
    and all those so called raw rocksounds of today they really sound pussy.
    They were already mastered in a way. Squished dynamically,
    Lowpassed, ready to hit your tv set straight from CD...
    Enoding this type of material to MP3 isnt that hard. You shouldnt hear much
    difefrence eccept for some bass and dynamics loss. MP3 is actually quite good.
    And Ive come to know "its sound" quite well. So I 'know what I can rely on'.

    To me, 'Good' sounding MP3 sounds like a very good nakamichi cassette-recorder.
    Rly! Or even better..
    No real pun from my side towards MP3. Those German guys and gals who invented this really got something.
    I trust MP3 more than I do WMA or OGG or whatever. Quality is more consistent.
    Another good codec is MPC. It keeps more of its original stereo-depth wich preserves the original CD-rip its 3rd dimension in between the speakers.

    And really. Lots of records and pressings dont sound that up to par either...
    I still get upset when I get my labcabin-order and the quailty is friggin poor
    on some records.
    Can someone translate this to American. I'm sure he is not saying that 1) he is an audiophile and 2) mp3s sound good.
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