How depressing is it to live in a world where you do believe that 400k = 4000k, and that your human senses are so horrible that they can't even tell (nor can your basic math concept).
Why is it depressing that we can have audibly perfect reproduction from a device that fits in your pocket, can hold months of music, and that costs only a few hundred dollars? That sounds like it should excite audiophiles to me - what would be depressing would be if we really needed 5 different multi-thousand dollar pieces of gear just to run headphones properly. As for our senses being horrible? 60dB of instantaneous dynamic range and 115+dB of long-term dynamic range, across 3 orders of magnitude of frequency response doesn't seem too bad to me. Of course, except for the long term dynamic range, that can be perfectly contained within a 320kbps mp3, or a ~600-900kbps FLAC (if you really want to be paranoid about perfection). Capturing any more makes about as much sense as making sure your HD camera also records into the infrared and ultraviolet.
90% of modern music "enthusiasts" online don't understand the basics of signal chain, and especially the analog part of it. this leads to all sorts of misunderstandings.
they refuse to acknowledge the golden rule of audio: garbage in = garbage out.
they accept "good enough" for their source and stupidly spend money down the chain, making superficial improvements to the sound quality. shining turds.
they also exist in a world where most new music released in the last 20 years is, take your pick:
over-compressed / loudness wars / fake instruments / aggressive side chained / parallel multi band compression on every track / over automated / auto tuned / reamped / replaced garbage,
that the very definition of "sound quality" means nothing to them. it's loudness and bass.
Of course most of you are beyond that but some still exist in this world of "good enough" digital resolution for audio. I reject that on principle, if everything is tracked and mixed at 24bit then as soon as the bandwidth limitation is removed it should be released to consumer in that same format, not down sampled for either 1980 or 1999 reasons/limitations.
90% of "audiophiles" online don't understand the basics of signal chain, and especially the human part of it. this leads to all sorts of misunderstandings.
Now many will be disappointed that you don't even need a high-end system to identify compression effects.
Honestly, can you describe what to listen for? How does it sound with lossy compression? I never identified more that just a little flatness in the sound, or less nice decay. Is it that?
Now many will be disappointed that you don't even need a high-end system to identify compression effects.
Honestly, can you describe what to listen for? How does it sound with lossy compression? I never identified more that just a little flatness in the sound, or less nice decay. Is it that?
If the lowest quality is 192 kBit mp3 it is close to hopeless to identify differences. No to speak about associating the correct bitrate to the pieces.
But I'll listen to it when I am at home tonight.
When being "adequate" is all you demand from your music, there's MP3.
Crazy. This is music -- high fidelity emotional content packaged for our enjoyment and sanity. Why is "adequate" worth arguing about?
Some other things that are adequate :
maxwell house coffee
inkjet printed art
a 1988 chevy cavalier
duct tape holding 2 things together
plastic-backed guitar cable jacks
VHS tapes
dirty underwear
All of these items accomplish their purpose in an adequate fashion. When adequate is all you need. Fi is short for fidelity, so mp3's should at least be called what they are.
MP3 = low-fi. Because of some mental issue it might be "good enough" for you but you can't ignore that it's the bottom of the barrel.
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