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Can I get better than 320kbps sound quality? - Page 6

post #76 of 134
6/22/11 at 9:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post



Quote:
Originally Posted by bcasey25raptor View Post

hence why i prefer 320kbps mp3s.



People talk about "listening fatigue". The best way to induce listening fatigue is to wear sealed headphones and listen to tracks with boosted ultra high frequencies. It won't sound any different than a balanced frequency response, but you'll get a headache quick.

When I was a kid, I hated to go to Sears because the whole store was lit by banks of fluorescent lights as far as the eye could see. I could barely hear the squeal of all of those ballasts, but I sure could feel them in my head! That squeal is somewhere around 14-15kHz. Pain!


man i get the same thing from old style analog tv's. in fact i can't watch tv much do to the high pitch squeals they cause. luckily lcd doesn't do that.

 

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post #77 of 134
6/22/11 at 9:39pm



 

Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post
Don't believe me? Open your favorite music track in a sound editing program and set up a high pass filter at 18kHz. Listen to the sounds of silence.



Will take up on that when i get home T_T school life sucks

 

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post #78 of 134
6/22/11 at 9:42pm
Meh don't whine about school. It takes up less time than being chained to a desk at an office job.

bigshot: very enlightening posts, thanks!
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post #79 of 134
6/22/11 at 9:44pm
Here's a nice juicy 20kHz test tone for ya...

http://www.archive.org/details/20kHz_tone

Please be careful setting your volume! If you crank it trying to hear it, you can damage your hearing. Set your volume level using music first. This tone is plenty loud.
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post #80 of 134
6/22/11 at 9:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SunBakedEmoKid View Post



 



Will take up on that when i get home T_T school life sucks

 

man am i glad i just graduated.
 

 

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post #81 of 134
6/23/11 at 12:10am


 

Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post

Here's a nice juicy 20kHz test tone for ya...

http://www.archive.org/details/20kHz_tone

Please be careful setting your volume! If you crank it trying to hear it, you can damage your hearing. Set your volume level using music first. This tone is plenty loud.

a quiet buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... annoying. Reminds me of mosquitoes

 

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post
Don't believe me? Open your favorite music track in a sound editing program and set up a high pass filter at 18kHz. Listen to the sounds of silence.

actually a tiny bit of high hat and i see your point as 99% of people probably wouldn't notice

 



Quote:
Originally Posted by bcasey25raptor View Post

man am i glad i just graduated.

 


i'm still in high school... a long way to go

 


Edited by SunBakedEmoKid - 6/23/11 at 12:13am
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post #82 of 134
6/23/11 at 12:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SunBakedEmoKid View Post

 

actually a tiny bit of high hat and i see your point as 99% of people probably wouldn't notice

 

 

Hm.
http://www.easyeartraining.com/2010/04/08/percussion-frequencies-part-2-cymbals/

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post #83 of 134
6/23/11 at 12:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SunBakedEmoKid View Post

a quiet buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... annoying.

Guess what? That buzz probably wasn't even the sound- it was the sound pressure distorting in your ears causing ringing at a lower frequency. That was not a quiet tone.

The frequency in the high hat on your ripped track might very well be distortion as well. Hot mastered CDs have noise in the upper frequencies caused by digital clipping. And high hat crashes are the most frequent place to find that sort of thing. The redbook CD format has a roll off at the top end to prevent noise as well. It is very likely that the music on your track may not even extend into that range at all.

When you know what the spec numbers sound like, you know which are important and which aren't. If your system plays 40Hz to 10kHz perfectly clean with a balanced frequency response and 40dB of dynamic range, you are 99% of the way to fantastic sound. Ten more digits in the frequency response down below to allow for the sub bass vibration in your chest, and a few up above to allow accurate first And second level harmonics on most instruments, and to allow for the occasional cymbal and triangle and you're all set.

Getting the core frequencies in line is a trick. That's what separates the men from the boys in most systems.
Edited by bigshot - 6/23/11 at 12:39am
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post #84 of 134
6/23/11 at 12:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric_C View Post

Hm. http://www.easyeartraining.com/2010/04/08/percussion-frequencies-part-2-cymbals/

They're talking about core fundamental frequencies there. A high hat may sit at 6 and 12kHz, but there's a bit of smaller stuff going on above that. The first level harmonic is usually at an octave up- double the frequency, so that would reach between 12 and 24kHz. But harmonics drop tremendously in volume with each doubling of the frequency. It is possible in a direct A/B test to hear above 12kHz in a cymbal crash, but the audibility drops off steeply, the higher the frequency gets. Above 15 or 16kHz it doesn't really matter all that much any more.

Playing around with an equalizer is what taught me all this. It's a great toy to experiment with.
Edited by bigshot - 6/23/11 at 12:56am
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post #85 of 134
6/23/11 at 12:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric_C View Post


Hm.
http://www.easyeartraining.com/2010/04/08/percussion-frequencies-part-2-cymbals/

Interesting...

 

 

 

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post #86 of 134
6/23/11 at 12:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post



Quote:
Originally Posted by SunBakedEmoKid View Post

a quiet buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... annoying.



Guess what? That buzz probably wasn't even the sound- it was the sound pressure distorting in your ears causing ringing at a lower frequency. That was not a quiet tone.

The frequency in the high hat on your ripped track might very well be distortion as well. Hot mastered CDs have noise in the upper frequencies caused by digital clipping. And high hat crashes are the most frequent place to find that sort of thing. The redbook CD format has a roll off at the top end to prevent noise as well. It is very likely that the music on your track may not even extend into that range at all.

When you know what the spec numbers sound like, you know which are important and which aren't. If your system plays 40Hz to 10kHz perfectly clean with a balanced frequency response and 40dB of dynamic range, you are 99% of the way to fantastic sound. Ten more digits in the frequency response down below to allow for the sub bass vibration in your chest, and a few up above to allow accurate first And second level harmonics on most instruments, and to allow for the occasional cymbal and triangle and you're all set.

Getting the core frequencies in line is a trick. That's what separates the men from the boys in most systems.

+1

 

I stand corrected. Thanks for the info.

 

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post #87 of 134
6/23/11 at 3:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post

The difference between high bitrate lossy and lossless is more a matter of what you believe than what you can actually hear.

I like how people believe the difference is greater with the type of music they personally listen to than the types they don't.


You really have it out with people who can tell the difference between lossless and lossy huh...

 

So you're saying the difference between MP3 and FLAC is just as easy to notice in Light Rock as Technical Death Metal? 

 

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post #88 of 134
6/23/11 at 1:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alghazanth View Post

So you're saying the difference between MP3 and FLAC is just as easy to notice in Light Rock as Technical Death Metal?

No, I'm saying that the style or tempo of the music doesn't matter- the texture of the sound does. Individual electronic instruments generally compress with fewer artifacts than masses of acoustic ones, like a symphony orchestra. String sections are the hardest to encode without artifacting.

As for heavy metal music, Heavy distortion can mask artifacting but hot mastering can introduce artifacts of its own as the file is converted to mp3. It's very likely that your "technical death metal" is hot mastered. Normalizing the track down to 90% before transcoding won't correct the clipping, but it will prevent overdriving from introducing artifacts in the encoding process. Doing this would probably result in a cleaner sounding mp3.
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post #89 of 134
7/4/11 at 7:14pm

Hey guys, new to the forum, so go easy on me.

 

I see a lot of talk on here about people that claim that they can hear above 20khz. But how far above 20khz?

 

The reason i'm asking is because MP3 generally cuts off at around 20khz at 320cbr if you use "Stereo". However, if you use the "Joint Stereo" mode with the newest LAME encoders, then the frequency range tends to reach somewhere in the 21.5khz region.

 

I'm surprised nobody brought this up in the topic.

 

I generally rip my CDs to MP3 320CBR Joint Stereo using LAME 3.98 and i've never had any transparency issues with any of my RIPS. And I consider myself to have very good hearing.

 

Anyway, please discus. (:

 

Fraiz

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post #90 of 134
7/4/11 at 7:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post



No, I'm saying that the style or tempo of the music doesn't matter- the texture of the sound does. Individual electronic instruments generally compress with fewer artifacts than masses of acoustic ones, like a symphony orchestra. String sections are the hardest to encode without artifacting.

As for heavy metal music, Heavy distortion can mask artifacting but hot mastering can introduce artifacts of its own as the file is converted to mp3. It's very likely that your "technical death metal" is hot mastered. Normalizing the track down to 90% before transcoding won't correct the clipping, but it will prevent overdriving from introducing artifacts in the encoding process. Doing this would probably result in a cleaner sounding mp3.


Sorry "bigshot". Have to disagree with you about the clipping. I'd say in a vast majority of cases if you normalize the volume to 90% before converting to MP3 320CBR, then you will most certainly avoid clipping. Even on todays heavily compressed music. On the other hand, if you convert to a lower bitrate mp3 (192 or bellow or VBR) then it most likely will cause clipping as at these bitrates the waveform becomes much less accurate.

 

 

Fraiz

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