[mkozlows]

Spotify Extreme quality is lossless.

No, it's lossy. "Lossless" isn't an opinion word that you can use to describe high-bitrate lossy compression, it has a specific meaning, and OGG 320kbps is not lossless.

 

[LordBorg]

I own the Aeon Closed but was thinking about trading these in for a pair of EMU Teaks. Any one have any impressions of the Teaks?

I own both and they are *very* different headphones. AFC are more refined, airy, and articulate. The Teaks have a bloomy/boomy bass and have a "fuller" sound. To my ears they complement each other, so I don't plan on selling either one.

 

[Jimster480]

No, it's lossy. "Lossless" isn't an opinion word that you can use to describe high-bitrate lossy compression, it has a specific meaning, and OGG 320kbps is not lossless.

Its lossless, if you want to bet $10000 USD right now that you can't A/B test a single song between the two I'm down to do the test.

Its lossless in all senses of the word even if its not bit perfect. 320kbps is already hard to differentiate and almost impossible for 99% of people, OGG VBR Q9?
100% chance you won't A/B test a single song that was transcoded properly vs a lossless version.

 

[Jimster480]

OGG VBR Q9 is a lossy compression algorithm . People may claim that it is indistinguishable from lossless. But it is not lossless in any sense of the word.
I like listening to it. For the times I use Spotify, for casual non-critical listening it is quite good, but it is definitely not lossless, nor do I feel that it sounds as good on my best systems when listened to critically, as true lossless renditions of the same recordings. YMMV of course, I any case the statement that it is the same as lossless "in every sense of the word" is definitely false.

Now to comment on the original question, I have never heard any sort of buzzy sounds coming from my Aeons in any circumstance.

Yes it is not lossless in terms of it being bit-perfect.
But it is lossless in terms of the actual waveform that is reproduced in more than 99.9% of situations.
Now if the encoding is crap, then it will be crap.
Not all of the songs on Spotify are perfectly mastered and some of them are probably transcoded from lossy MP3's or something. But as someone who listens to Spotify 4-10 hours a day I have to say most of the music is sourced well and the quality is incredible.

 

[jhwalker]

Its lossless, if you want to bet $10000 USD right now that you can't A/B test a single song between the two I'm down to do the test.

Its lossless in all senses of the word even if its not bit perfect. 320kbps is already hard to differentiate and almost impossible for 99% of people, OGG VBR Q9?
100% chance you won't A/B test a single song that was transcoded properly vs a lossless version.

“Lossless” is a word with a meaning. No matter how good you think it sounds, no matter how much you think it sounds like the original, if you cannot reverse the compression and get a bit-for-bit restoration of the original, it’s NOT lossless. It’s as simple as that.

 

[Jimster480]

“Lossless” is a word with a meaning. No matter how good you think it sounds, no matter how much you think it sounds like the original, if you cannot reverse the compression and get a bit-for-bit restoration of the original, it’s NOT lossless. It’s as simple as that.

Yes you are right in that its not bit-perfect.
But there is no data lost in the compression.

 

[Alcophone]

“Lossless” is a word with a meaning. No matter how good you think it sounds, no matter how much you think it sounds like the original, if you cannot reverse the compression and get a bit-for-bit restoration of the original, it’s NOT lossless. It’s as simple as that.

It's people like him who ruined the meaning of the word literally.
Is it lossless? No. Are the losses so insignificant that they are usually inaudible? Probably.
Those are still different claims, though. Let me take a penny out his wallet without his permission, let's see whether he doesn't feel robbed just because it has no actual effect on his wealth

 

[Jimster480]

It's people like him who ruined the meaning of the word literally.
Is it lossless? No. Are the losses so insignificant that they are usually inaudible? Probably.
Those are still different claims, though. Let me take a penny out his wallet without his permission, let's see whether he doesn't feel robbed just because it has no actual effect on his wealth

Sorry, you are right in that I shouldn't have said its lossless. But what I really meant is that there is no audible difference between lossless and OGG VBR 320kbps Q9

 

[Alcophone]

Sorry, you are right in that I shouldn't have said its lossless. But what I really meant is that there is no audible difference between lossless and OGG VBR 320kbps Q9

I appreciate that. I would add "to my ears with the equipment I have tried". And I'm not claiming I would hear a difference either, I'm routinely failing those MP3 vs lossless A/B tests out there. But I look forward to repeating those tests once I have an Yggdrasil in the mix, while a comparison between WAV and FLAC at the same bit depth and sample rate would be utterly pointless.

 

[earnmyturns]

Sorry, you are right in that I shouldn't have said its lossless. But what I really meant is that there is no audible difference between lossless and OGG VBR 320kbps Q9

It may not be audible for most people in most conditions with most source material, which does not mean that it is always inaudible. Given the current low cost of storage relative to everything else in a decent audio chain, it's seems silly to degrade source material with lossy coding rather than using the best lossless source except when constrained by source or audio chain (like when listening from a phone).

 

[Jimster480]

It may not be audible for most people in most conditions with most source material, which does not mean that it is always inaudible. Given the current low cost of storage relative to everything else in a decent audio chain, it's seems silly to degrade source material with lossy coding rather than using the best lossless source except when constrained by source or audio chain (like when listening from a phone).

Storage is not cheap and no streaming services have lossless. Tidal has a crap selection at a high price and considering the audio quality of spotify extreme / desktop high quality there is no reason to ever buy an album or even have music on my computer.
I used to have 100gb of music.
I lost the HDD and now I have 3gb of music and I haven't listened to any of it.
There is literally no reason to listen to it. I have spotify, Amazon and Google music.
Why would I want to pay through the nose for music with inaudible differences in quality?
I listen to 10s of thousands of songs. Literally going into an artist and playing them top to bottom all day every day.
It would cost me 10k+ to buy music and i wouldn't listen to even a fraction of the music I do Today if i had to purchase it.

 

[Roybenz]

Edit

 

[earnmyturns]

Why would I want to pay through the nose for music with inaudible differences in quality?
I listen to 10s of thousands of songs. Literally going into an artist and playing them top to bottom all day every day.

Lossy makes sense for the way you consume music, with any individual track coming and going without much time to reconsider it. Without repeated listening, it's unlikely that you'd notice differences between reasonable lossy and lossless. But some of us listen carefully and repeatedly to well-recorded works. I get around 20 high-quality albums (some multi-disc) every month, mostly newly recorded music, and from old experience I know that some kinds of instrumentation/recording sound better lossless than lossy. It goes to show that there are many different ways to enjoy music, and different ways may favor different technical tradeoffs. Many years ago I knew a professional classical musician that listened to recorded music only on mediocre equipment, because anything other than the real orchestra sounded fake to him anyway.

 

[Porkyan]

Song link ^^^^^^^^^^





spotify:track:7mYr4wzPe54WU0HGcP5vEx


Song URL ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


"somethin' stupid - 2008 remastered" by frank sinatra

 

[Porkyan]

OGG VBR Q9 is a lossy compression algorithm . People may claim that it is indistinguishable from lossless. But it is not lossless in any sense of the word.
I like listening to it. For the times I use Spotify, for casual non-critical listening it is quite good, but it is definitely not lossless, nor do I feel that it sounds as good on my best systems when listened to critically, as true lossless renditions of the same recordings. YMMV of course, I any case the statement that it is the same as lossless "in every sense of the word" is definitely false.

Now to comment on the original question, I have never heard any sort of buzzy sounds coming from my Aeons in any circumstance.

I wouldn't bother going into that silly battle.

If you like black coffee then just drink it, don't justify and tell the world about it.
I use spotify and the other time i tested tidal, couldn't tell the difference, what if the person who released the song themselves all produced it for the sake of mainstream people? I don't know why nobody considers that!!!

If tidal works for you, then good. Just enjoy it -_-