buzzy
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2008
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Life is short. Don't waste it on stuff like this.
I would suggest that if you don't detect a difference in abx testing but you think you do detect differences in normal listening then this cannot be reliably taken as an indication of bias and may well be exactly what it seems - a difference.
There is a big difference.
But the main advantage is gained in the recording process,recording and mixing.
The smooth and warm sound that our recordings are famous for,is to a great deal thanks to 24/96.
We have experimented with different formats at our studio and found that 24/96 was the best sounding format for our purposes.
But once we have finished recording,we found that you can down sample to even mp3 format and the sound quality is still pretty good,and that is not the case with a file recorded in 16 /44, in our experience.
I suggest you get hold of an originally recorded file of 24/96,not an up sample.
This is probably where the root of the misconception lies,in all these older recordings that have somehow magically been transformed to 24/96 or 24/192.
I have some horrible remasters in my CD collection.I.e."Ella and Louis,''is a great sounding LP, but the 24 bit CD remaster I have, is horrible.
(It now lives it's life in my 83 year old mothers car stereo,and there the added smile curve has a purpose,the car,and the stereo in it,is from '92)
And if you compare the same recording in different rates/formats be sure to all ways listen from down to up,i.e. 128mp3 first and flac and Wav last.
What I would do is carry out a normal listening test first, memorising the bits that you think are different, and then do a blind listening test with the expectation that you'll find those differences again. Listening fatigue aside, if you can't find those differences with the blind test, then surely they weren't there in the first place. That's sounds reasonable to me.
Welcome to the world of supposition, probability and uncertainty, decorated with a dash of unqualified and uninvited psychological evaluation.
Warning: If you spend years trying to convince yourself your mp3s sound identical to the CD, without ever really being sure, then this can happen to you too.
Yes if you take a snippet of my earlier statement, and then append an "if..." composed of some other conditions and circumstances, apparently ignoring or discarding everything that preceded it, then you can have a satisfying discussion, but probably not with me.
I don't need to do as you suggest because it offers me no worthwhile benefit. If performing those tasks helps you feel confident about your lossy files then that's fine.
On the preceding page you can see that both me and someone else, who previously hadn't thought it even possible, both abx'd lame -V 0 vs lossless. It was even easy.
The single advantage lossy compression has is reduced size. But I do not need to save disk space even on my portables. My Sansa Clip+ with 32GB card has eighteen times the storage space of my first PC. It can hold more than 100 lossless albums. If I want 100 different albums I can swap the cards. That's probably about about 80 hours of music per card and another 15 hours on the internal storage. The battery lasts between 10 and 15 hours per charge. I don't need more albums on it.
I already have a lossless collection derived from CD and I have several terabytes of storage. I don't need any size reduction. I know with 100% certainty that occasionally lossy compression fails badly enough that anyone who knows the original sound will easily notice the failure. So why would I want to use it? What benefit would I get? Why would I want to maintain two different music collections (actually three if you include the optical discs)? Alternatively why would I want to spend time transcoding for portable devices when they can play the untouched originals?
And why do other people want me to use and like lossy even after I clearly state why I prefer not to in plainly expressed, rational terms supported by unambiguous data?
Is it a cult or is it an imperfect compression technique?
.....I myself have a sony walkman,and most of the files on that is 256mp3,and I'm perfectly happy with that for that listening situation.......
And for the rest of the discussion,I think you all should trust your ears,if you can hear a difference good for you!......If not,good for your wallet.
My ears can't tell much of a difference. Maybe I burnt them out with too much high-volume music.
The smooth and warm sound that our recordings are famous for,is to a great deal thanks to 24/96.
We have experimented with different formats at our studio and found that 24/96 was the best sounding format for our purposes.