Yes it takes more care, but you can achieve amazing sq with TT even being on budget. There are so many releases till this day that comes out only on LP’s and all you have left with is to hope that someone will soon rip it and upload track on youtube. As well a lot of 1950-1980 LP releases consists of so much music which doesn’t have digital copies, you a left with no choice unless you are a member of closed community like what.cd was in the past. Listen to Victor Kiswell, some of Gilles Peterson mix releases and you will see how much of the music is still left to be found from that era A real music geek would blow your mind with sounds that are present only in LP or ripped into his hard drive
Yeah...I definitely have traded the ability to acquire un-digitized music for the sake of functionality and ease-of-use. For me...it was a trade I can live with
1. The width and, above all, the DEPTH of soundtage. RBCD is flat, LP is 3D - rivaling most of what the surround can provide.
Admitedly, this DOES get affected by the actual equipment used - the most hidden and hard to break "nut" in this case is the phono stage preamplifier - where only a handful selection from creme de la creme will actually do the real justice to this recording, which is so exceptional in every way of the meaning. And I do, regretfully, realize most people will never get to hear it at its best. Sad, but - true.
Apart from the usual nonsense you write, the part in bold is worth discussing as it is a (sort of) myth that I raised in this forum several years ago. As most of us know, as sound stage in a recording is a product of the mix and use of left and right channels, it is impossible for vinyl to match a CD for soundstage accuracy - a quick comparison of cross talk would convince most non-science type dudes of that. Yet sometimes vinyl does seem to have in particular a wider soundstage than digital. So too does my clock radio with the "wide" enhancement button pressed and some sound bars with DSP. The problem is that it is a fake soundstage (ie it is not in the recording or the mix) and vinyl, particularly with worn records and or cheaper carts can have a lot of the fake and unrealistic soundstage.
I postulated that it may have something to do with timing inaccuracies and phase errors of analog playback - which explains why there is less of this fake "3D" effect with analog tape as it is a higher fidelity format than vinyl. So you are right, vinyl can have a soundstage that rivals my clock radio but I am not into fake soundstages. I perfer the pin point accuracy that I can only achieve with active speakers playing well produced digital recordings. I am sure you would love the Bose 901 speakers as it has a very wide (and fake) soundstage.
Btw, the more I upgraded my TT and cart over the years the less fake sound stage and the greater the pin point precision - though it still can't match my digital front-end. I also notice the fake soundstage is more apparent on TT/carts that are not correctly aligned.
My favorite type of audiofoolery test is where you get two duplicate MP3s or 16 bit 44khz lossless files, then convert one to lossless 24 bit 88 or 192khz, and rename the file to include the tags such as (Master) or (Studio Master).
Then get your audiofoolery friend or random audiofoolery moron to listen to and compare the audio files, while allowing them see the name of the audio file and the bitrate, etc that's being played, and sit back and laugh as the morons try to claim how the fake 24 bit studio master version of the song is superior, how they can hear more detail, better frequencies, better instrument separation/imaging, better soundstage or whatever other audiofoolery wank terms they want to use. It's even more funny if they start resorting to use audiofoolery emotional expressions in explaining the difference... It's essentially the audio equivalent to introducing and checking for if someone is experiencing a placebo effect.
These types of listening tests where intentionally sabotaged audio tracks are inserted amongst legit tracks, are how all these audiophile tests should be performed.. as if some individuals are truly capable of telling the difference and are true audiophiles, they'd be able to recognize if a perceived lower quality version of a song is better or sounds exactly the same than the one labeled as being better. These types of tests are better than the guessing game ones such as ones where they are blind and have no idea which are the mp3 or the lossless tracks and instead just take 50/50 chance guesses most of the time.
So it's better to remove the "blind" from these types of tests and have them instead explain the difference between two qualities of a track while tossing in some faked/sabotaged and/or mislabeled examples into the test without telling them to see if they can pick them out or can't tell the difference and if it's just in their imagination and are fooling themselves like a placebo effect if they do claim there's a difference or the visually better version is superior.
honestly I do not pay much attention to audio format. For me good mp3 rip can nearly match lossless/flac and I could make mistakes during blind test. I can even go further as I heard plenty of good sounding songs via 128kbs soundcloud/ youtube streaming servcies
honestly I do not pay much attention to audio format. For me good mp3 rip can nearly match lossless/flac and I could make mistakes during blind test. I can even go further as I heard plenty of good sounding songs via 128kbs soundcloud/ youtube streaming servcies
MP3 with Lame pretty much fine at 128 ~ 160kbps despite what audiophiles with HD800's say. If a track struggles then save that one at 256k or another codec(AAC/Ogg).
MP3 with Lame pretty much fine at 128 ~ 160kbps despite what audiophiles with HD800's say. If a track struggles then save that one at 256k or another codec(AAC/Ogg).
It is hard to agree with such strong blank statement (and I am not an "audiophile with HD800").
It definitely depends what one listens to and how (what transducers are used).
For many listening to DDs with their listening preference geared to bass and mids (after all most of the auditory information is in the mids), the difference indeed can be minimal.
If one listens to any decent violin (or symphonic) recording and use drivers with the faster response, such as BAs, piezo, etc., the difference between 128-160 mp3 and CD-quality flacs is apparent.
Higher overtones, resolution and attack/decay are all very noticeably affected by the compression.
The math strongly supports this - if you compress ~3-4 times from CD-quality flacs (which is from 20 Hz to 20 kHz), higher frequencies (and/or fast response) are mutilated.
Estimating (simplistically) just based on the frequency range, it can be agreed that 15-20 kHz may be important only for the most discerning audiophiles, so 320 mp3 are largely undistinguishable from flacs.
~10 to 15 kHz may also be not the most important, so 256 mp3 are largely OK, and will do the job for most.
But then sacrificing more in resolution is cutting into real music!
With AAC, I think there is no high end roll off above 192. It goes all the way up. I imagine it's the same with LAME. Roll off is at lower bit rates, not higher ones. Modern codecs at decent bit rates filter out sound you can't hear, not sound you can.
With AAC, I think there is no high end roll off above 192. It goes all the way up. I imagine it's the same with LAME. Roll off is at lower bit rates, not higher ones. Modern codecs at decent bit rates filter out sound you can't hear, not sound you can.
AAC/Ogg at 192kbps the lowpass is at 19KHz and Opus is 20KHz from 80 - 512kbps. Lame shows the mp3 format was made for 16KHz since it struggles with content at 16.5 ~ 22.5KHz even with V0/320kbps. The HD800, ER3XR, Stax/audeze argument means nothing if your using 160 ~ 256kbps with AAC or vorbis since there more advanced codecs than Lame mp3 is.
Yeah, at higher rates you just have to get above the level of audible artifacting and you’re home free. Add VBR and you’re doubly safe. I think AAC 320 VBR will actually go above 320, but I can’t think of a reason it would need to.
Hard to compress stuff like white noise and hardest attacks/transients common in anything electronic or noisy genres. I've got some albums that reach 400kbps with Q6 Vorbis and 192kbps AAC.
By the same type of arguments, if one can't perceive the difference between tea and coffee (after all, they are 99% water, no calories, dark in colour), then it really does not matter - hard to disagree.
Flacs preserve original CD-quality informaton and their are 2-2.5 times larger compared to 320 mp3 files. At 20 Hz to 20,000 kHz, all the frequencies can be heard - nothing to "cut what one can't hear" (we are not talking about 24/96, etc where these arguments may work), inevitably some audible information is lost.
If 192 are sufficient (or some justification is needed to be happy about them) - that is an entirely subjective choice.
I have tried a few tube amps and ive never been able to notice much of a difference im wondering if it has just been that i need to try a better tube amp or that in all reality they may not sound that much different than solid state. I do like solid state amps for sure but ive always just never been able to see the appeal of tube amps because they sound almost no different to me maybe not much different but not the amount that people make them seem to be
By the same type of arguments, if one can't perceive the difference between tea and coffee (after all, they are 99% water, no calories, dark in colour), then it really does not matter - hard to disagree.
I can easily taste the difference between tea and coffee, but no human I've ever found has been able to discern high data rate AAC or MP3 LAME and FLAC. It isn't the percentages of what the file is made of, it's the fact that the material that is eliminated is inaudible. They're masked frequencies that you can't hear. If you can't perceive it, it doesn't matter.
I have tried a few tube amps and ive never been able to notice much of a difference im wondering if it has just been that i need to try a better tube amp or that in all reality they may not sound that much different than solid state.
It is possible to design a tube amp that is audibly transparent, just like a solid state amp. If that is the case, there is no difference to hear. But there are also tube amps that slather on euphonic distortion, which either you like or don't. If you like euphonic distortion, it's a lot easier to just use a DSP and adjust the distortion to just what you want. Having the degree of distortion hard wired into the design of the amp isn't very flexible. That's like an amp without tone controls.
I can easily taste the difference between tea and coffee, but no human I've ever found has been able to discern high data rate AAC or MP3 LAME and FLAC. It isn't the percentages of what the file is made of, it's the fact that the material that is eliminated is inaudible. They're masked frequencies that you can't hear. If you can't perceive it...
Considering that the original point of the discussion was about 128-160 mp3 files, there is hardly much to discuss scientifically (if 128 with 4 times less the size than 16/44 flac carries all the information - it is surely some form of magic), just to disagree since yours and mine experience seems to be different.
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A real music geek would blow your mind with sounds that are present only in LP or ripped into his hard drive
