Endless Changing Platforms for Music
- Thread starter mso489
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@nate- you just added to my shopping list :crying:
Great discussion and one I've debated with my musician friends since CD's reared their ugly head. I did the listening test and got two right, two better bitrate and two fails. Twice I changed my answer at the last second on impulse and would have been right. Considering how deaf I am and using great headphones on a crap laptop, I'm pretty happy.
I see MSO's point as a loss of material culture, something referenced regarding the recent acquisition of sheet music. This discussion is cultural and technological. My beloved vinyl is in storage for a reason. I don't have room for all that crap AND all my speakers AND all my receivers. I'm in my third residence this year and won't be moving again anytime soon, THANK THE GODS ! Before my Mac crapped out I grabbed all kinds of files off the internet, especially from vinyl playbacks, threw them into Garage Band app and mixed them to my satisfaction then converted to A files. I have to say, a Mac with good files plugged into a 100 watt per channel blueface Pioneer pumping Cerwin-Vegas bigger than a mini fridge is some great stuff. Vinyl sounded slightly better to me with that set up. But with what life throws at us some times, time marches on and its easier to plug my headphones into a laptop and find the best files I can and bookmark them or throw them into an mp3 converter for I-tunes.
I miss the vinyl. A bulk of the collection belonged to my parents. I want to sit down and listen to that stuff, smoking my pipes and thinking about the good old days, but I can't right now. It has to stay in storage for the time being. I'm in a house with roomates who have much better hearing than me and and can't handle the walls shaking (though it clears the dust out of the walls and floors pretty well for clean up in my opinion). I am CRAZY about collecting material culture that interests me. Instruments, Vinyl, Tools, Motors, Speakers, Receivers, Tubes, Antiques.... When we finally get our own home, I am hoping to be that connection to the past some archaeologist will dug up in a thousand years and say "Wow, I didn't know they had THIS stuff way back when."
:puffpipe:
Great discussion and one I've debated with my musician friends since CD's reared their ugly head. I did the listening test and got two right, two better bitrate and two fails. Twice I changed my answer at the last second on impulse and would have been right. Considering how deaf I am and using great headphones on a crap laptop, I'm pretty happy.
I see MSO's point as a loss of material culture, something referenced regarding the recent acquisition of sheet music. This discussion is cultural and technological. My beloved vinyl is in storage for a reason. I don't have room for all that crap AND all my speakers AND all my receivers. I'm in my third residence this year and won't be moving again anytime soon, THANK THE GODS ! Before my Mac crapped out I grabbed all kinds of files off the internet, especially from vinyl playbacks, threw them into Garage Band app and mixed them to my satisfaction then converted to A files. I have to say, a Mac with good files plugged into a 100 watt per channel blueface Pioneer pumping Cerwin-Vegas bigger than a mini fridge is some great stuff. Vinyl sounded slightly better to me with that set up. But with what life throws at us some times, time marches on and its easier to plug my headphones into a laptop and find the best files I can and bookmark them or throw them into an mp3 converter for I-tunes.
I miss the vinyl. A bulk of the collection belonged to my parents. I want to sit down and listen to that stuff, smoking my pipes and thinking about the good old days, but I can't right now. It has to stay in storage for the time being. I'm in a house with roomates who have much better hearing than me and and can't handle the walls shaking (though it clears the dust out of the walls and floors pretty well for clean up in my opinion). I am CRAZY about collecting material culture that interests me. Instruments, Vinyl, Tools, Motors, Speakers, Receivers, Tubes, Antiques.... When we finally get our own home, I am hoping to be that connection to the past some archaeologist will dug up in a thousand years and say "Wow, I didn't know they had THIS stuff way back when."
:puffpipe:
Inside the house and barn I listen exclusively to lossless flac files. I have a tower with 16 terabytes of music. I definitely notice the difference between flac files and highly compressed mp3 files. In the car I do listen to mp3s but I prefer them with the least amount of compression possible (usually 320).
Not really
Again, "uncompressed" could mean a lot of things.
320k MP3s obviously sound much better than the 128k MP3s and would be harder to pick out. If we are specifically talking about 320k MP3s then my answer is "it depends".
If the song in question was heavily compressed during recording or mastering, crushing most of the headroom, killing the frequencies above 12-14khz and brickwalling the sound, and the test is performed on low-quality equipment (earbuds or desktop PC speakers), then it would be admittedly difficult. And again, this type of over-compression in modern recording is becoming ever-more prevalent.
However, on a decent stereo or set of headphones, OR with a recording that was not murdered, then yes I can tell the difference. Mostly in the headroom and space of the sound. There's a "closed in" or "small space" feeling that the music gets when subjected to this type of compression. Even if the recording was "brickwalled", the sound will be different than the way MP3s sound. The high end won't get cut off so badly and the mastering compression used tends to leave less non-tonal sounds in the music.
The music itself makes a difference, too. Some artists make great use of dynamic, some don't. Some music is airy, with lots of space and resonance, some isn't. Music that is more dynamic and airy, recorded with good equipment, mastered well, and with lots of headroom is going to suffer a lot more than a death metal recording that was brickwalled to begin with.
So ... Metallica's "Death Magnetic" on a set of WalMart earbuds? No ... I can't tell the difference. At least not without a really good stereo, and even then it would be tough to do.
Tool's "Lateralus" ... yep ... I can tell the difference even with the aforementioned WalMart earbuds. The space, headroom, and dynamic are completely crushed out of it on the MP3 version.
Again, I'm not going to turn the music off or complain about it because the dynamic and headroom got killed if it's a good tune anyways. If the song is rockin ... let it rock. But, given the choice, when listening to my favorite music, I prefer to have the dynamics and headroom in tact.
"Some people say cucumbers taste better pickled" - Dave Chappell
320 is very hard to tell from a flac file, I do agree with that. At least this is the case with my ears.
I've been inspired to put on my Gustav Mahler Society 78's of Bruno Walter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Das Lied Von der Erde. Now, THAT'S music!
Nate looks like a great little DAC. Anyone running digital music needs to run it through a quaity DAC. The difference in sound is like night and day.
"The compression is what kills the sound. I can listen to an album on vinyl and then the same album on CD..."
It's true of course that the standard Redbook CD specification is a digital format but whatever its faults it is not a compressed format.
Peck I heartily second the thumbs up on the Dragonfly DAC. Best bang for the buck by far.
It's true of course that the standard Redbook CD specification is a digital format but whatever its faults it is not a compressed format.
Peck I heartily second the thumbs up on the Dragonfly DAC. Best bang for the buck by far.
I do not consider cd's digital, I was referring to compression of mp3 files. Sound preference is still vinyl for me. As far a Tool, one of the few bands still true to their sound.
Speaking as a former tape trader, I love the flexibility of MP3s, but they encourage "lazy listening" which causes people to stop discerning good music from bad.
I do not like the highly compressed production, and find it rewards chunky rhythm music. Then again, I find most music kind of dead and lifeless, an emulation of an imitation fifteen generations later.
I was hoping that instead of going to MP3s, we'd simply upgrade the sound on CDs. But having your iTunes is more convenient, and most music listeners are only in it for a decade.
I do not like the highly compressed production, and find it rewards chunky rhythm music. Then again, I find most music kind of dead and lifeless, an emulation of an imitation fifteen generations later.
I was hoping that instead of going to MP3s, we'd simply upgrade the sound on CDs. But having your iTunes is more convenient, and most music listeners are only in it for a decade.
Just took the npr quiz and scored 5/6 using my iPhone and a pair of 90's era sony earbuds I use for the gymn.I picked the 320mb on the classic piece, which surprised me. I have a pair of hd650's downstairs that would probably render a 6/6 but not worth the bother at this point. For casual listening the difference in the files was modest to the point of irrelevance, particularly for new to me music.
I'm ashamed to admit that I have a reference grade audio system. I thought this was a big deal for a while and told anyone that would listen all about it. Letting folks know they hadn't heard music 'til they heard it play through my system, well, in so many words. So embarrassing now.
I have two small kids and a big ass dog now. These things do not mix well with triodes, turntables and paper cone drivers. Consequently, most of my listening is via iPhone and earbuds. Ultimately, content is king, same as it ever was. Good music is still good regardless of format.
My bro in law and his wife are both professional musicians (orchestra). They have one of the those multi speaker movie surround sound thingies that came in a box and they don't give a hoot about sound quality. Neither do any of the classical musicians I know, which seems totally bizarre.
Even though I hold the early 50's as the golden age of audio quality (distinct from sound quality), things are better today than they've ever been. The access and convenience on tap today is limited only by one's imagination to say nothing of storage and sound quality.
I'm ashamed to admit that I have a reference grade audio system. I thought this was a big deal for a while and told anyone that would listen all about it. Letting folks know they hadn't heard music 'til they heard it play through my system, well, in so many words. So embarrassing now.
I have two small kids and a big ass dog now. These things do not mix well with triodes, turntables and paper cone drivers. Consequently, most of my listening is via iPhone and earbuds. Ultimately, content is king, same as it ever was. Good music is still good regardless of format.
My bro in law and his wife are both professional musicians (orchestra). They have one of the those multi speaker movie surround sound thingies that came in a box and they don't give a hoot about sound quality. Neither do any of the classical musicians I know, which seems totally bizarre.
Even though I hold the early 50's as the golden age of audio quality (distinct from sound quality), things are better today than they've ever been. The access and convenience on tap today is limited only by one's imagination to say nothing of storage and sound quality.
And here I am still spinning vynil records... Everyday my turntable gets used. Since I was a small child I've had records, I've lived through 8 tracks, cassettes, cd's and now mp3's ... Have never given up on my vynil records. .. At the moment I have a collection of almost 2000 (it goes up and down over the years)
As far as I'm concerned.. There is nothing like a good recording on vynil.
As far as I'm concerned.. There is nothing like a good recording on vynil.
Agreeing with Tinsel, completely. And if it hasn't been said (enough), there is a big difference between hearing that A sounds different than B vs I prefer A to B vs A is better than B.
I started out with Vinyl, but the need for mobility as I bought my first car pushed me into - 8 Track! When cassettes came along, I went there, converting all of my 8 Tracks, still keeping the vinyl (played once, recorded onto Maxell tapes) Like BigPond, when my kids came along, I remember that being the demise of my Denon turntable. I moved to Compact Disc as soon as it came out, the vinyl stored in the basement. I recently tried to convert my first CD, Eric Claptons "Journeyman" (1989) to MP3, but my laptop didn't recognize the format.
I now rip everything to 320 MP3's,which sound just fine to my ears and equipment.
I now rip everything to 320 MP3's,which sound just fine to my ears and equipment.
carbonmated said, "I do not consider cd's digital, I was referring to compression of mp3 files."
Little puzzled here. Mp3s, FLACs, etc. are indeed, to a greater or lesser degree, compressed data formats, while the data encoded onto a conventional CD is not compressed, but all are as "digital" as any other computer audio format.
Little puzzled here. Mp3s, FLACs, etc. are indeed, to a greater or lesser degree, compressed data formats, while the data encoded onto a conventional CD is not compressed, but all are as "digital" as any other computer audio format.
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