[bigshot]

Not much else in Silver Ears' example up there!

 

[Head Injury]

  Not much else in Silver Ears' example up there!

From the song title it's K-Pop, which I imagine is especially bad. But having the graph zoomed out like that is a bit misleading of how much of a percentage of the sound clips.
 
Here's a really noisy song I have (speedcore, basically). Guaranteed worse than Silver's song. This is a worse case scenario, virtually everything else will fare better.
 

 
 
When you zoom way in on one of the bad patches, you see that, while there's still way too much red, it's accounting for much less of the signal.
 

 
 
And yes, it does still sound better with good gear. Though the difference is smaller than something which actually sounds good, and it still gives headaches.

 

[SilverEars]

  There's always more to the music than the clipping. Good gear won't cure clipping, but it still makes the rest sound better.

I think of good gear as the setup the listener like the sound out of for whatever genre(s) they prefer.  I think of transparent gear as something else that reveals harsh sounds if it's there or reveals the mastering as intended.  It's safe to say that mainstream gear is good enough for the mainstream listeners that listens to mainstream music.  Most likely the mastering is done not with the transparent setup in mind.

 

[SilverEars]

  From the song title it's K-Pop, which I imagine is especially bad. But having the graph zoomed out like that is a bit misleading of how much of a percentage of the sound clips.
 
Here's a really noisy song I have (speedcore, basically). Guaranteed worse than Silver's song. This is a worse case scenario, virtually everything else will fare better.
 

 
 
When you zoom way in on one of the bad patches, you see that, while there's still way too much red, it's accounting for much less of the signal.
 

 
 
And yes, it does still sound better with good gear. Though the difference is smaller than something which actually sounds good, and it still gives headaches.

I guess it's hard to see to what density the waveform is compressed until you look closer.  Maybe if Audacity gives a percentage, that would work better.

 

[bigshot]

  When you zoom way in on one of the bad patches, you see that, while there's still way too much red, it's accounting for much less of the signal.

 
With clipping, it not so much the duration as the frequency that it occurs. If it's clipping on every beat, that's horrible. Your example there appears to be clipping on every other *waveform*... That is beyond horrible.
 
A limited frequency response or high noise floor my ears can adjust to. Continual distortion drives me nuts.

 

[Head Injury]

   
With clipping, it not so much the duration as the frequency that it occurs. If it's clipping on every beat, that's horrible. Your example there appears to be clipping on every other *waveform*... That is beyond horrible.
 
A limited frequency response or high noise floor my ears can adjust to. Continual distortion drives me nuts.

Oh, I know, and I even said it sounds awful! It's supposed to, really; that was its goal.
 
The point I was making is that it's still much more than clipping, and so still much of it can be improved with better gear. This ties back in with my original point that even fans of poorly mastered music can enjoy and benefit from better gear.
 
I was not trying to say this track sounds good, or that it wouldn't drive you nuts.

 

[bigshot]

  Oh, I know, and I even said it sounds awful! It's supposed to, really; that was its goal.

 
Success!