[mminutel]

Alright, my friend and I are in a little argument. He basically makes fun of me for encoding my music in FLAC, because "it is pointless." He said that his DJ friend has been around people that master CDs, and they only master them with 160kbps. He said ripping them in anything over 160kbps is pointless. Now, I know this isn't true, but I want to be able to show him all of the people that are on my side. His argument doesn't even make sense to me. I tried to tell him there is really no such thing as compressing audio before it is burnt to a CD, but he insists on arguing. Anyone care to help me out?

(12:30:43 PM) ********: Truth be told, CDs are only recorded at 160, if you go over that, you are just adding extra 00s to the file to make it a bigger size.
(12:31:20 PM) MMinutel: I assure you they aren't recorded at 160.
(12:31:27 PM) ********: 192, rather.
(12:31:56 PM) MMinutel: How do you figure that?
(12:32:36 PM) ********: Eric told me, he's a DJ and has watched CDs being mastered. They were mastered at 192 or something
(12:33:09 PM) MMinutel: Not to get an argument started, but I don't see how that is possible.
(12:33:20 PM) ********: Why?
(12:34:16 PM) ********: You can reencode a 16 kbps file to 1411 and it's still only got the 16kbps info, it's just got a **** load of extra zeroes to make it 30 mb instead of like 800 KB
(12:34:35 PM)********: You have no extra "sound information"

 

[goldenratiophi]

Perhaps he misheard the engineer and he was really talking about recording at 192 kHz? If he really said kbps then yeah, he's wrong.

 

[GlendaleViper]

Seems you'd both get a little value from this: The Death of High Fidelity : Rolling Stone

He's wrong, but you aren't spot on either. Nothing to feel bad about though - this was voodoo to all of us at one point and the more folks know about all this, the better.

You might also get something out of this:

Do the songs remain the same? - Times Online



I like that second article because it tackles the whole idea of compression and hot mastering as a very subjective experience. Truth be told, some people like their music squashed and loud as hell. My opinion is that people are simply unaware and therefore have no point of reference for comparison.


[EDIT] Sorry, to be a little less vague in what I added myself, compression does indeed exist at the mastering level. But there is a huge difference between encoding compression and recording compression.

 

[Rempert]

I can only figure that your friend is confusing bit *depth* with bit *rate*. CD audio is only mastered at 16 bits per sample. If you play back at a higher bit depth, you are only adding 0s to each sample and not actually changing the audio. (Of course, as soon as you add any DSP to your signal chain, a couple of those extra 0s may come in handy, but they do not need to be stored with the music itself).

In any case, your friend's argument is pure gibberish and technically wrong regardless of mastering methods. Even if you had a CD which was e.g. pirated from mp3s and then uncompressed onto the disc in standard format, and you compressed to .mp3, this would be equivalent to transcoding and thus opens the door to even worse artifacts than those present on the CD). In terms of the end result there is still a grain of truth behind his side of the debate. That grain of truth is, a well encoded piece of music at around 192 kb/s is usually indistinguishable from the original lossless version for most people, especially if it is VBR rather than straight 192.

Dynamic compression is a reality, but that's been in use since long before CDs or .mp3s existed and really has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

 

[jilgiljongiljing]

Your friend is just one of those n00bs who thinks they know everything and won't listen to the facts. Just give him a thumbs up and save your energy, I have found it a waste of time arguing with such ppl who argue back when they are full of nonsense.

And yes, he probably thought 192 Khz and 192 Kbps are one and the same or just heard it wrong.

 

[krmathis]

Just play with him, and ignore it.
We all know that he is obviously wrong, but if he don't get it there are no need in creating a large discussion from it...

 

[FrederikS|TPU]

That hole 192 kHz / 192 kbps is actually a general misconception among many non-audiophile music listeners. I have come across quite a lot of people confusing sampling rate with the encoded bit-rate. Nothing new there.

To add to the confusion a CDs sample rate is only 44.1 kHz at 16 bit. DVD-audio on the other hand is 192 kHz at 24 bit.

 

[BigJohn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlendaleViper /img/forum/go_quote.gif Seems you'd both get a little value from this: The Death of High Fidelity : Rolling Stone He's wrong, but you aren't spot on either. Nothing to feel bad about though - this was voodoo to all of us at one point and the more folks know about all this, the better. You might also get something out of this: Do the songs remain the same? - Times Online I like that second article because it tackles the whole idea of compression and hot mastering as a very subjective experience. Truth be told, some people like their music squashed and loud as hell. My opinion is that people are simply unaware and therefore have no point of reference for comparison. [EDIT] Sorry, to be a little less vague in what I added myself, compression does indeed exist at the mastering level. But there is a huge difference between encoding compression and recording compression.

Tnx very much...
Now I have to go and buy "So Real: Songs From Jeff Buckley"
Again, Thanks!