The sound quality debate.

bongobongo said:
Everything you've said basically matters. I think 320mp3s are fine personally for home listening and off an iPod etc. You won't be able to tell the difference generally between wav and a 320, the first thing you should notice drop off compressed music is the subbass.
Anything lower than 320 and I can tell the difference with my earbuds immediately.
If you compare a 15 quid set of earbuds with an 80 quid pair you will to start to notice sounds and differences that you didn't know were there before its almost like listening to a track for the first time again.
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The first thing you'll notice when you listen to a compressed music file affects the opposite end of the frequency spectrum. It's the high end of the frequency spectrum not the low end. A 320kbps MP3 will have the frequencies above 18Khz rolled off. The high frequencies are compressed to make the 320 mp3 file a quarter of the size of an uncompressed WAV.

Personally I can't tell the difference between a 320 mp3 and WAV. I can't tell the difference between a 256 mp3 and a WAV. I can only start telling the difference when the mp3 is at 192kbps. The brightness of the hi hats starts to deteriorate.
 
Bloody hell, I never expected such an extreme reaction. Most people seem to have gone onto the difference between mp3 and wav, which I know for certain is none.

I'm of the group of people who believe that it's all psychoacoustics. When people expect stuff to sound crap, it sounds crap, and vice-versa, and I don't think anyone can really provide any evidence that it isn't

Some people are talking about the difference between 320 mp3s and wavs... I can't even tell the difference between 192 and 320 mp3s.

Check out this site: http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/mp3-sound-quality-test-128-320/

Nobody really answered me about speakers though... if you have two speakers which are the same size and in the same room in the same place, and one is £1000 and one is £50, can anyone tell the difference?
 
smoothassilk said:
Bloody hell, I never expected such an extreme reaction. Most people seem to have gone onto the difference between mp3 and wav, which I know for certain is none.

I'm of the group of people who believe that it's all psychoacoustics. When people expect stuff to sound crap, it sounds crap, and vice-versa, and I don't think anyone can really provide any evidence that it isn't

Some people are talking about the difference between 320 mp3s and wavs... I can't even tell the difference between 192 and 320 mp3s.

Check out this site: http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/mp3-sound-quality-test-128-320/

Nobody really answered me about speakers though... if you have two speakers which are the same size and in the same room in the same place, and one is £1000 and one is £50, can anyone tell the difference?
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I do believe there is a noticeable difference in hardware. Maybe not between a speaker which costs £200.00 and one that costs £300.00 however, if the price difference is like the example you gave there would be a difference in both the sound and build quality.
 
sam the dnb man said:
I can't be asked to write a thesis but you should always listen to Wav's when possible.

With MP3 you lose 90% of the data when compared to wavs.
This means that your brain is working to make up for the lost data or some shit.
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this doesnt make sense...if you are listening to an mp3 your brain isnt trying to make up the 90% of data that would be in the wav, its listening to the mp3 and the data encoded in that. just because there may be an alternative format with more data doesnt mean the brain is 'making up' for data that it isnt hearing.

unless i am missing what you are trying to say?

also fuck wavs...flacs are the one if you want lossless, who wants an endless list of song names with no meta data?????
 
fractal said:
this doesnt make sense...if you are listening to an mp3 your brain isnt trying to make up the 90% of data that would be in the wav, its listening to the mp3 and the data encoded in that. just because there may be an alternative format with more data doesnt mean the brain is 'making up' for data that it isnt hearing.

unless i am missing what you are trying to say?
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I think he's got a bit mixed up. I've heard before if you do listen to low quality music i.e. everything sounds really muddy or distorted then your brain works harder to distinguish the different sounds and it can make you tired quicker. Same with sound systems if the sound quality isn't very clear you will end up with a lot of tired ravers quicker than you would with nice crystal clear sounds.
 
Coming back to this, I still don't understand how people can't notice the difference in MP3's and WAV's. As mentioned before, MP3's typically roll off at the 18Khz mark so you really do lose that top end "sheen", I can notice it with most headphones and monitors, its really that noticeable.
 
I can tell the difference between a 320 CBR and VBR mp3 on second hand £3 JVC headphones
 
there is no debate, just people who can hear the diffrence, and people who cant. people who cant always love to start this same pointless argument :rolleyes:
 
miszt said:
there is no debate, just people who can hear the diffrence, and people who cant. people who cant always love to start this same pointless argument :rolleyes:
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Thats pretty much exactly it. If you can't hear any difference (a bit of a shame i think) then just buy bad quality music.

If you really care about audio and how it sounds and you don't enjoy listening to low quality music, get wavs. Really simple.
 
Saint said:
Thats pretty much exactly it. If you can't hear any difference (a bit of a shame i think) then just buy bad quality music.

If you really care about audio and how it sounds and you don't enjoy listening to low quality music, get wavs. Really simple.
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you did read what tim wrote tho?!

im a bit on miszt's side here but actually against him aswell :D. never really tested it, but i know various audio tests with adults, that most of us simply cant hear above 18khz (and whats the shame?! ears get bad because of actual physical deteroriation, nothing you could do against that) - if we could, wed be dogs and would be hearing them dog-pipe-things(whats the english name for that?) and simply because of that fact, i guarantee you that 80% of the people that mean to hear the difference actually dont hear it and just add some psyche to make themself feel better (yeah, i do care about sound quality, you dont - typical elitist bs).

if you say you do hear the difference, mind if ill upload a test with which you (and everyone else for that matter) - can proof that theyre actually talking sense?



another thing @OP - dont buy shitty equip. with gear its most likely the higher the price tag, the better the product. if you dont believe me, do a test with cheap in ears and sennheisers for 30 quid. or buy some behringer and some adam studio monitors and test them 1vs1.

the better build a speaker is, the better he can reproduce what actually is in the song.

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PS: what i dont get aswell - if the difference was audible, why not render 450kbps mp3s, rolls off at 22khz?

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hmm. you basically puttin in your statement that whoever goes out to a club these days, enjoys shitty sounding music scotty. you dont go out anymore?
 
18khz> is not the only aspect which is distorted by mp3 compression, sub end is too, and mp3 has great difficulty properly reproducing wide-bandwidth sounds aswell


i've lost count of the number of times i've seen this argument crop up over the last decade :twitch: if i was that bothered about it i'd say sure put some files up and we can test it, but I'm studioless till the end of the year, and i'm really not bothered enough lol


you are correct that most people cannot hear the diffrence - but then most people dont do (thousands of...) hours of training in sound, most people cant hear a sound an instantly map it out frequency by frequency in their head, these things come with an obsessive dedication to sound engineering, i'm sure there are a few who can do it naturally, but for most who can, it comes from a hell of allot of hardwork rather than anything magical or special - tbh all the cries of BS on this topic, would be a bit offensive, if i was bothered enough to care lol
 
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can understand that youre not bothered, kind of a tiring "debate".

youre obviously right about the third paragraph - but then again, as tim viper said - all the top djs play out 320kbps mp3s and dont seem to mind. and seeing that most of the top djs are producers first, that seems to counter your argument.

but then again i wouldnt bother writing houndreds of emails aswell, even if i did mind.

really have to test it now myself i guess, lol. anyone cares enough to upload me a blind sample? wav to mp3 and to wav again and then send me both, the original wav and the reduced quality one? would be cool. doesnt need to be longer than 30seks aswell.

im just saying that everyday bob will not hear the difference at all, especially not in a club.

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ps. good to see you here aswell, hope all is fine - apart from being studioless ;)
 
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