[drgnfrc13]

Spoiler: Quote

 

   
 
 
 
The difference in quality between $50 headphones and $800 headphones is faaaaaar greater than the difference made by switching from decent compression to lossless. I would much rather listen to 126kbps AAC with my Hifiman HE-560, than 24-bit/192kHz on my old Koss PRO DJ-100 (and those were excellent headphones, for $50).

That's getting to the gist of it. But I don't know that I agree with you.  Let me think it out --
 
A:
128k MP4 on a nice DAP with expensive $800 headphones
 
vs
 
B:
24bit FLAC on a nice DAP with mainstream $50 headphones
 
 
Is the material using real instruments and real voices, or is it EDM and/or heavily processed?  If it's natural I expect B to sound better because it will convey the true, accurate sound as recorded.
 
If the material is modern, fake, electro, or otherwise has it's humanity compromised, perhaps A would sound louder and fuller.  Better? I doubt it. Lossy (perceptual) coding is a slippery slope of badness. It doesn't really matter if you think you can hear it, it's still far less than the artist intended. 
 
I just don't understand how you don't hear lossy degradation, especially to the soundstage and the timbre of the instruments, not to mention how it absolutely demolishes any natural reverb and screws up delays, pulling them back together again. it's like pouring glue all over a nice apple pie.
 
Or perhaps to say - music before 2008 or so - better in hi-res. Stay native, own the masters if you can.
 
I'd be happy to test this on my PonoPlayer if i just had $800 headphones....

 

There's nothing inherently particularly inaccurate about compressed audio. The loss of actual sound quality in AAC (or even MP3) files is very, very minute (yes, I know I'm opening up a can of worms here, and I'm aware that there are some people here who believe that the sound of a bobby pin hitting a carpet floor in another room must be distinguishable from beneath the thump of the bass in a jazz recording).

I've spent several hours ABX'ing a variety of music (especially various tracks from Dark Side of the Moon, since I own the full album in both ALAC and 128kbps MP3), and my best accuracy in identifying 5 "X" tracks was 80%, while my worst score was 60%. After comparing a track in each format, I could pick out subtle differences, but upon hearing both for the first time in a particular test, there was almost no appreciable difference.

We all like to feel as though we are getting the best quality possible, so we'll obsess over every detail in our setup, but at this point, I firmly believe that most of the things we obsess over actually have little to no affect on our general perception of music, beyond the placebo affect.

The factors that actually make a clearly perceptible difference in sound quality are: the speakers, the amp, the DAP, and the recording/mastering quality of the music. IMO, until you get into the $300+ range of headphones, the bottleneck is most commonly going to be either the headphones, the recording/mastering quality of your music, or the amplifier. 

 

[serman005]

"Hooked on Music"/Live! Go For What You Know/Pat Travers Band

 

[pentel21]

 

[chuckwheat]

 

I'd love to hear a higher quality recording of this.
 
 
I'm listening right now to "Most Of Us Are Sad" by the Eagles, and it sounds amazing.

 

[taffy2207]

Quero

 
http://moodystreetsound.bandcamp.com/album/moody-street-sound

 

[FFBookman]

 

Spoiler: Quote

 

There's nothing inherently particularly inaccurate about compressed audio. The loss of actual sound quality in AAC (or even MP3) files is very, very minute (yes, I know I'm opening up a can of worms here, and I'm aware that there are some people here who believe that the sound of a bobby pin hitting a carpet floor in another room must be distinguishable from beneath the thump of the bass in a jazz recording).

I've spent several hours ABX'ing a variety of music (especially various tracks from Dark Side of the Moon, since I own the full album in both ALAC and 128kbps MP3), and my best accuracy in identifying 5 "X" tracks was 80%, while my worst score was 60%. After comparing a track in each format, I could pick out subtle differences, but upon hearing both for the first time in a particular test, there was almost no appreciable difference.

We all like to feel as though we are getting the best quality possible, so we'll obsess over every detail in our setup, but at this point, I firmly believe that most of the things we obsess over actually have little to no affect on our general perception of music, beyond the placebo affect.

The factors that actually make a clearly perceptible difference in sound quality are: the speakers, the amp, the DAP, and the recording/mastering quality of the music. IMO, until you get into the $300+ range of headphones, the bottleneck is most commonly going to be either the headphones, the recording/mastering quality of your music, or the amplifier. 

 
I'm not snarking, I think you have an intelligent post and have most definitely researched and done some thinking on this topic.
 
But I still strongly disagree. Lossy 'perceptual' compression is the #1 problem with modern music consumption because this type of degradation hides from the listener behind the complications of trapping and explaining perceptions of musical detail.
 
Everyone knows about quality in gear, everyone understands price, build, and marketing promises. But most people are completely confused by perceptual compression.  That is by design, after all.  It wouldn't be popular in the first place if it was easily debunked.
 
I judge the instruments and the overall mix. If you can't hear the difference in a crash cymbal, kick drum, or high-hat when rendered lossy or hi-res than I just don't understand what you are hearing. Can you not hear the smaller width, the less sound data, the choppiness, graininess, and overall incomplete form of the sound as the sound decays?  
 
Can you not hear the lack of detail in the lossy version - things like the attack of the stick/beater on the drum head, the slight opening and closing of a high hat?
 
Listen to any music featuring phase shifts and long natural reverbs. The huge disorienting swirling affect of a proper analog phase shift is greatly diminished with lossy compression. Listen to The Cars 1st album and Lenny Kravitz's Are You Gonna Go My Way for some tasty analog phase. http://www.staffs.ac.uk/personal/engineering_and_technology/dp11/phase/phases.htm
 
Guitars sound like paper in lossy compression. Amp distortions cannot be layered - the lossy compression glops them all into one sound.
 
Voices also glob together. If you have a 5-part harmony, lossy makes it sound like a 4 or 3 part. It just destroys that signal.
 
Bowed instruments, anything wooden, like a cello, violin, contrabass, all sound horrible and fake in lossy.
 
Pure human voice also comes out the other side of lossy a robotic shallow shout. The depth and character of the human voice, including the breathing in and out plus lip noise, is completely desecrated with lossy.
 
Just sayin' ---- yeah bad speakers suck, but bad source is more damaging to the world overall than bad speakers.  Everyone knows if they have bad speakers or a cheap system. But many don't understand that their system and speakers are fine, they are just attempting to play garbage signal.   You know, shine a turd.
 
And because of points of view like your own this continues to be the case. Smart, observant people like you come to the conclusion that "lossy is fine, buy new speakers" and the trend continues.
 
Again, I liked your post, just keeping the discussion going.

 

[taffy2207]

  just keeping the discussion going.

Can you guys talk about it somewhere else? 
 
I may be alone in this (though I suspect not) but this is is a thread about songs that sound good to the poster, nothing more, nothing less.
 
It would ne nice if this thread can be fun without descending into technobabble arguments like a lot of threads here.
 
Can you take it to PM or make a thread elsewhere or something, please?
 
Just my opinion.

 

[Audioholic123]

The acoustic guitar in the first song  below sounds really thin using my Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro's.
Switch over to my Denon AH-D5000's and it's much thicker, micro details appear out of nowhere.
It gets to the point where I can sense movements and not just hear things...
the Denons provide a "WOOOOW" even when listening to Shiit music...
 
A simple upgrade in headphones makes a bigger difference.
 
I don't think I payed $700 for the Denon's to "shine the turd"...but maybe for an amazing needle that flushes away all the negative toxins of lossy music.

 

 
Back to the music

 

 
 
 

 

[FFBookman]

  Can you guys talk about it somewhere else? 
 
I may be alone in this (though I suspect not) but this is is a thread about songs that sound good to the poster, nothing more, nothing less.
 
It would ne nice if this thread can be fun without descending into technobabble arguments like a lot of threads here.
 
Can you take it to PM or make a thread elsewhere or something, please?
 
Just my opinion.

i agree except i've been banned from the forum set up to talk about this stuff in because i guess my point of view as a music recorder is toxic to their point of view. 
i'll be happy to take it out of the thread, i think it's an interesting discussion (source quality vs render quality) but almost everywhere i bring it up i'm attacked and/or banned, even on a cool forum like head-fi. i guess it's not my most popular held opinion these days.

 

[FFBookman]

back on topic --

 
but still
fax is fax -- the first :13 is all the proof you should need about resolution and source quality. assuming you have decent signal chain, this youtube mp3 version sounds nothing close to the cd, which sounds nothing close to the 24/44 version i bought last year.
 
the phase shift through the beginning of the song is intense yet completely destroyed by downsampling, dithering, and pixelating. if you don't hear it, or don't care, i can only say ignorance is bliss.

 

[Mortalcoil]

 

[taffy2207]

unsubbed

 

[nephilim32]

I am extremely amused to death.

ROGER WATERS--AMUSED TO DEATH. 24/96 stereo PCM

I bought the blu-ray edition o this album that just came out in 2015. The audio quality and the music is off the chain. Pitch black background with ultra high DNR. Joel Plante and James Guthrie are just amazing at das boot recordings.

Highly recommended.

 

[FFBookman]

The only reason i do what i do:

 
That's our inner ear as close as we can zoom in these days. Look at those tiny hairs grouped into arrays of varying depths. Look how each array is positioned slightly different on a rolling surface. Those hairs move independently. The arrays can also slightly shift their orientation, and the entire surface, being organic, can and does move in every angle possible.
 
Amazing right? Then there's what's not pictured here -- directly opposite this surface we are looking at in that image is a pool of liquid that appears to defy physics. This pool of liquid appears to self-organize, hang over top of the arrays of hairs, and move on it's own accord based on the sound entering the ear. It can form into thicker pools and even show a slight rippling effect.
 
Researchers believe this pool of liquid is using unknown forces to help equalize, compress, expand, and limit the sound in the chamber as being detected by the hairs.
 
Finally, this whole operation is at the end of a massive swirling tube not unlike a sea shell, except our sea shell has thousands more micro-hairs running down it to tune the sound as its being amplified.
 
Outside of this, there's the eardrum, the hammer amplifier, etc. but I find the true genius in this final transduction moment.
 
Then duplicate this into a stereo pair.
 
Makes 320k/sec seem pretty ridiculous. Even 1400k/sec seems light.
 
Our sound sensors can detect far more data than that. The science of the mechanics of sound reception is just beginning.

 

[FFBookman]