Why do we still use MP3s and other lossy formats?

[ralfy]

"How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?"

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

 

[Gunbuster]

1) I rip CDs to FLAC for use on my home audio systems and keep a mirror library of Mp3 copies, kept current by an automated script. No need to rip more than once, or even to create both formats when ripping. Even if I later go back and make a correction to some metadata in the FLAC files, like a song title or artist name, the Mp3s are automatically updated.

What setup do you use to keep a MP3 mirror of you FLAC files? I want to go to there!

 

[Spungo]

"How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?"

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

It's possible people can't tell the difference because they don't know what the original music sounds like. The only thing I can spot is symbols because they sound really screwed up when compressed. Someone who plays piano would probably be able to spot piano compression.
Compression is a bigger problem in the higher frequency range because of the way data needs to be stored. The sampling rate needs to be at least twice as high as the highest frequency sound. If a music file is sampled at 44kHz, it means all of the sounds above 22kHz are cut off or distorted.

edit:
I finally got around to hearing the samples. The first test made me laugh. Two of the options sounded the same, but one of them was radically different. I picked the one that was different. I picked the lowest quality one!

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Everyone says the same thing when they know which track is which. And about 99.99% of them fail when forced to do it blind. I'd be willing to bet a large amount of money that you'd be in the 99.99% if someone else was administering a fair, legit ABX test.

I thought the same thing when it came to speakers in similar class. Unfortunately I was stunned not only when blindly comparing them in a store (boutique) but also in my home (audio meet).

I was even more impressed that I could tell my speakers from any other speaker set when I had only had them maybe a year or so. I hadn't listened to them much for music at the time and so when blindly challenged in front of two or so people they were impressed--as I was--that I could tell a difference.

Of course it all depends on your ability to hear and few, if any, get their hearing checks regularly AND keep them canals clean, too.

 

[Spungo]

Of course it all depends on your ability to hear and few, if any, get their hearing checks regularly AND keep them canals clean, too.

And drink milk or something. Your ears work using bones. Bone loss = hearing loss.

 

[BurnItDwn]

With the state of secure ripping, unless your disc has been chewed on you should get a good rip.

As others have said, FLAC for digital archive, and mp3 or whatever other format you want for carrying around.

Yea, I reripped most of my stuff in the early 200s after I had a better media drive and PC. no more skips and bumps! I used lame and did everything either 320 or high end vbr. I have since used flac for encoding new albums I purchase, but I am lazy now, and lots of the albums come also with copies in amazon library, so I will just listen to those as they are ...

 

[Fayd]

I redid it and am getting closer to 11.7% now... so I'm wondering where your 17% is coming from

> pbinom(3,10,.5)
[1] 0.171875

 

[rh71]

I still burn MP3s onto a CDR to play in my car (just over 100 of them each time). I don't like having to connect my phone to the AUX every time. Also the screen shows the songs from the CDR but doesn't if I plug in my phone. Makes it easier to choose songs while driving.

 

[rh71]

Why do we still drive BMWs when the Rolls Royce offers a much smoother ride?

Rolls are all ugly, all of them. Do something like an F-type, but that's not their style.

 

[nakedfrog]

I still burn MP3s onto a CDR to play in my car (just over 100 of them each time). I don't like having to connect my phone to the AUX every time. Also the screen shows the songs from the CDR but doesn't if I plug in my phone. Makes it easier to choose songs while driving.

I also make MP3 CDs for the car. I spend a bit of time organizing the playlist as well, so I don't have to put any thought or effort into music when I'm driving.

 

[rstrohkirch]

Maybe this was posted somewhere in the 6 pages already but my opinion...is that mp3 vs flac doesn't even matter. It's so far down the ladder of mattering it's not even existent.

The super majority of music nowadays is so overly compressed dynamically that it's stunning. The details are ripped right out of the recording before it was even finished. Which is a shame if you think about the kind of technology available today.

The second problem is you actually need a decent set of headphones or speakers to judge these things. Which I'm sure the majority of people in general, perhaps not this thread do not have. Then on top of that, all the characteristics like frequency response or distortion are different in every system. You may not be able to resolve the detail differences in these particular songs on your system but maybe you could with different test material.

I guess my point would be...what does it matter if going to a well encoded mp3 lost you even 1% of the information from the original track. When depending on the music you're listening to or what you're listening to it with resulted in much much more than that.

Some of you may not fit into my generalization but I believe if there were a honest poll of material and equipment that the majority would.

 

[Keeper]

Why do people stream Netflix HD when Blu-rays are clearly superior? Why do people drink Bud Light when craft beer is constantly increasing in availability? Why eat at McDonalds when you could just suck on a dead squirrel? For most people, once something hits the point of "good enough," they don't care about minor increases in quality. Americans hit that with mp3. The vast majority of the market doesn't care about incremental increases in sound quality that most don't even have the equipment to hear.

+1

 

[ralfy]

It's possible people can't tell the difference because they don't know what the original music sounds like. The only thing I can spot is symbols because they sound really screwed up when compressed. Someone who plays piano would probably be able to spot piano compression.
Compression is a bigger problem in the higher frequency range because of the way data needs to be stored. The sampling rate needs to be at least twice as high as the highest frequency sound. If a music file is sampled at 44kHz, it means all of the sounds above 22kHz are cut off or distorted.

edit:
I finally got around to hearing the samples. The first test made me laugh. Two of the options sounded the same, but one of them was radically different. I picked the one that was different. I picked the lowest quality one!

There are several reasons given in the article.

 

[yottabit]

You mean you guys aren't using .WMA anymore????

 

[Exophase]

It's possible people can't tell the difference because they don't know what the original music sounds like. The only thing I can spot is symbols because they sound really screwed up when compressed. Someone who plays piano would probably be able to spot piano compression.
Compression is a bigger problem in the higher frequency range because of the way data needs to be stored. The sampling rate needs to be at least twice as high as the highest frequency sound. If a music file is sampled at 44kHz, it means all of the sounds above 22kHz are cut off or distorted.

edit:
I finally got around to hearing the samples. The first test made me laugh. Two of the options sounded the same, but one of them was radically different. I picked the one that was different. I picked the lowest quality one!

Ultimately CBR formats are far from ideal in the first place, but something like 320kbit/s mp3 still beats FLAC while remaining indistinguishable for all but some pretty exotic cases.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Maybe this was posted somewhere in the 6 pages already but my opinion...is that mp3 vs flac doesn't even matter. It's so far down the ladder of mattering it's not even existent.

The super majority of music nowadays is so overly compressed dynamically that it's stunning. The details are ripped right out of the recording before it was even finished. Which is a shame if you think about the kind of technology available today.

The second problem is you actually need a decent set of headphones or speakers to judge these things. Which I'm sure the majority of people in general, perhaps not this thread do not have. Then on top of that, all the characteristics like frequency response or distortion are different in every system. You may not be able to resolve the detail differences in these particular songs on your system but maybe you could with different test material.

I guess my point would be...what does it matter if going to a well encoded mp3 lost you even 1% of the information from the original track. When depending on the music you're listening to or what you're listening to it with resulted in much much more than that.

Some of you may not fit into my generalization but I believe if there were a honest poll of material and equipment that the majority would.

This.

What pisses me off is we have assholes like Neil Young acting like MP3 compression is the problem. He even goes through and sets up a whole device and service, but it doesn't even address the real problem: the recordings are being ruined in the studio before we even have an opportunity to buy them. Who care is we get 64bit 512KHz if its screwed to the point that consumer level cassettes are technically capable enough to handle the actual end result?

I somewhat disagree with your second point. In the past few years headphones have come a very long way, you almost have to go out of your way to get bad ones. Even Bose and Monster/Beats have competent (if not spectacular and some still pretty poor ones) headphones that would easily show the issues if we had anything worthwhile to reference them against. They've gone back and redone a lot of the back catalogs so that they sound like modern methods so you can't even necessarily take older recordings and compare. Even the Apple earbuds improved substantially, and I know tons of people that have invested in better stuff.

I have some FLACs of some older Heart recording and it is mindblowing how even the low end just slaps the shit out of modern recordings. And its not like Heart was some bottom heavy sound. But the texture and timbre, with nice impact (but not overwhelmingly so) in those puts to shame stuff that is suppose to be "all about the bass". There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that modern recordings couldn't match and even exceed that.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Why do we still drive BMWs when the Rolls Royce offers a much smoother ride?

Didn't someone finally come up with a "law" concerning automotive analogies and how they basically just fail?

 

[CZroe]

Didn't someone finally come up with a "law" concerning automotive analogies and how they basically just fail?

Like a... particular make or model of vehicle that it prone to failure? Burn!