Simple.

Buy a turntable, get the vinyl album.

Play at home, loudly.

Done.

.

[Edited 9/22/15 7:35am]

Giovanni777 said:

Mindflux said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

lol where do I start?! So the cd quality format on Tidal (which is flac and is an identical copy of original audio data i.e. lossless) is somehow 'blown out of the water' by CD. Flac and wave are inferior to CD quality then? That proves you don't know what you're talking about.

I once was told by a hifi retailer he could tell the difference in audio quality by plugging the amp power cable into the wall as opposed to through an adaptor. I laughed. Evidently bullshit, as was his claim his son could tell the difference between flac and wave- apparently wave was better.

The only way to do a proper reliable test is to set up the test blind- double blind with a friend involved, no hidden cues or gaps between tracks and all other conditions being equal. Or you could just take the Phillips Golden Ears challenge or other similar test designed to reveal transparency and post your results.

See, I would debate with you further, but you don't know what you are talking about. Flac, is NOT IDENTICAL to the original wave! It is an audio codec that removes information so you can have a compressed file without, apparently, any PERCEIVED loss of audio. This is what the makers claim. The information removed is supposed to be stuff you would not hear. But other arguments suggest that, whilst mathematically speaking that should be true, you might not know how those frequencies are affecting other frequencies in the piece. It is precisely why a subwoofer does more than give you extra or deeper bass -it has an affect over the full frequency range. I'm a music producer - it's all I do and I'm lucky enough to travel the world through my music. For the average listener, they don't hear the subtleties and differences in sound (and that's when you stop spending money on expensive equipment - when you can't hear a difference. But some people can, especially musicians and producers and is why some sound consistently great and are in demand by others, because they can hear and effectively manipulate subtle aspects in the sound that others can't. Purporting there is some backward conspiracy amongst manufacturers to make cheap items sound shit to make the more expensive stuff appear better is just ridiculous. [Edited 9/22/15 4:09am]

So your argument appears to be, though we can't hear certain high and low frequencies these soundwaves affect air molecules in such a way as to determine how we perceive those sounds. My cat may be able to tell the difference but I certainly can't. Anecdotally, this reminds me of the time I met a deaf guy in a nightclub through a mutual friend. And he said he really like the music. So I asked him - through my friend's sign language gestures - 'how can you tell, you're deaf?' and he replied 'I can feeeel the bass' as he banged his chest. Funny yeah I know.

Again if you feel so confident you can tell the difference between wave and flac, cd and 320 kbps, post your results! But consider the fact that on the Golden Ears challenge, a lot of people can't tell the difference between 128 kbps and cd, nevermind a file that has 2.5 times the data size of 128 mp3.

It's worth iterating again, dacs are not expensive to produce. They can sound brilliant at a very small scale for a small cost. Op Amp issues are another issue again. Their sound is affected more by the drivers that support them than the actual hardware involved! -as compared to their competition- and yet it's another way dac manufacturers can justify a higher cost.

As an illustration of this sight bias, there was an experiment someone did on his friend exposing him to a demo on sighted audio equipment perceived by the listener to be cheap and substandard and then alternately demoed the same sound file on his favoured amplifier/audio setup - but through duplicitous means conned into thinking the second playing was on his favoured equipment when actually it was still playing through the original amp. His opinion the second time, it was a vast improvement! There are more examples of this wherever you look hard enough on online forums. I don't doubt you 'hear' the differences you claim, but until you actually post the evidence then I'll just keep levelling the same accusation you're making it up as per the placebo effect.

TrevorAyer said:

Mp3s are GARBAGE!!! Mastering ruins music!! Mastering flattens the audio frequency of music to make the quieter frequencies louder and the louder frequncies quiet destroying all the dynamics inherant to good music. Like mp3s, mastering limits the dynamic range that you hear and thus ruins your hearing. Just like staring at a screen all day ruins your eyes. Your eyes only exercise one distance of focus, so you vision weakens due to not focusing on a dynamic range of focal points. You are not exercising your eyes properly so your vision weakens. Same with sound. When music has no dynamic frequncy range you loose the ability to hear the dynamics when they are present.

Loudness wars have nothing to do with MP3 in actual theory, in practice maybe a different matter. But that's the fault of the producers, engineers not the MP3 per se.

You want to know a way to really affect the sound (real 'night and day' difference). EQ, that's what - because people seldom ever talk about that!

fortuneandserendipity said:

This discussion got me curious, so, I ripped the CDs to WAV and had a look at those files in SoundForge. I'm now convinced more than ever that any future remasters will completely ruin the original intended flow of the album and that the best way to listen to the album as a whole is the obvious choice of vinyl and the 2nd best option is the CDs played on a good system with a good EQ.

So, here's the thing: Mastered at a time when the most common listening experience was cassette, SOTT is designed for some songs to be much louder than the rest. A scan of the peak levels of the individual tracks reveals a 7dB difference between the peak of the loudest and quietest tracks and a 5dB diffence between the RMS average.

What this means is that if the quietest songs are mastered by today's standards, the peaks and valleys intended in the original mastering will be lost completely.

Interestingly, the song SOTT is one of the quietest on the album with a peak level of -7.7dB (only Adore is quieter with a peak of -8.3dB) and average RMS of -23.3dB (lower than all but 5 of the other album tracks).

Looking further I also ripped SOTT from The Hits/The B-Sides, The Very Best Of & Ultimate. All 3 contain the edited single version of the song. The rip on THTBS & TVBOP are identical. Both have a peak of -1.0dB and average RMS of -18dB. The track on Ultimate has been tweaked yet again with a peak of -.3dB and average RMS of -13.3dB. If we got the album mastered by the Ultimate standards with 7.4dB increase in peak and a 10dB increase in average RMS, either the louder tracks would be horribly compressed and/or the original intended peaks and valleys will be gone.

And, Ultimate came out nearly a decade ago, there's no reason to think things wouldn't be even worse at this point. All that said, I suspect most will still prefer the remaster because their ears and/or equipment are not up to the task of detecting the problems.

And, anyone who thinks that SOTT original mastering was not intentional, see the original 1 track Lovesexy CD. Rip that to wav and see what the waveform looks like in a program like SoundForge. It is obvious that Prince wanted the listening experience to include louder and quieter moments. Remastering the tracks individually may improve how they sound on shuffle but would damage the presentation of the album...

Just sayin'...

[Edited 9/22/15 9:39am]

fortuneandserendipity said:

Mindflux said:

fortuneandserendipity said: See, I would debate with you further, but you don't know what you are talking about. Flac, is NOT IDENTICAL to the original wave! It is an audio codec that removes information so you can have a compressed file without, apparently, any PERCEIVED loss of audio. This is what the makers claim. The information removed is supposed to be stuff you would not hear. But other arguments suggest that, whilst mathematically speaking that should be true, you might not know how those frequencies are affecting other frequencies in the piece. It is precisely why a subwoofer does more than give you extra or deeper bass -it has an affect over the full frequency range. I'm a music producer - it's all I do and I'm lucky enough to travel the world through my music. For the average listener, they don't hear the subtleties and differences in sound (and that's when you stop spending money on expensive equipment - when you can't hear a difference. But some people can, especially musicians and producers and is why some sound consistently great and are in demand by others, because they can hear and effectively manipulate subtle aspects in the sound that others can't. Purporting there is some backward conspiracy amongst manufacturers to make cheap items sound shit to make the more expensive stuff appear better is just ridiculous. [Edited 9/22/15 4:09am]

So your argument appears to be, though we can't hear certain high and low frequencies these soundwaves affect air molecules in such a way as to determine how we perceive those sounds. My cat may be able to tell the difference but I certainly can't. Anecdotally, this reminds me of the time I met a deaf guy in a nightclub through a mutual friend. And he said he really like the music. So I asked him - through my friend's sign language gestures - 'how can you tell, you're deaf?' and he replied 'I can feeeel the bass' as he banged his chest. Funny yeah I know.

Again if you feel so confident you can tell the difference between wave and flac, cd and 320 kbps, post your results! But consider the fact that on the Golden Ears challenge, a lot of people can't tell the difference between 128 kbps and cd, nevermind a file that has 2.5 times the data size of 128 mp3.

It's worth iterating again, dacs are not expensive to produce. They can sound brilliant at a very small scale for a small cost. Op Amp issues are another issue again. Their sound is affected more by the drivers that support them than the actual hardware involved! -as compared to their competition- and yet it's another way dac manufacturers can justify a higher cost.

As an illustration of this sight bias, there was an experiment someone did on his friend exposing him to a demo on sighted audio equipment perceived by the listener to be cheap and substandard and then alternately demoed the same sound file on his favoured amplifier/audio setup - but through duplicitous means conned into thinking the second playing was on his favoured equipment when actually it was still playing through the original amp. His opinion the second time, it was a vast improvement! There are more examples of this wherever you look hard enough on online forums. I don't doubt you 'hear' the differences you claim, but until you actually post the evidence then I'll just keep levelling the same accusation you're making it up as per the placebo effect.

Erm, no - that's not my argument at all! Where did I say anything about high and low frequencies? Flac processing does not include removing high/low frequencies, that is generally how the mp3 codec works. What I was saying is that if you remove ANY information from the original, it is not the same - regardless of whether the THEORY says it shouldn't make a difference to what is heard, some, including me, argue that it does. And I don't get your anecdote. Are you suggesting the deaf guy couldn't feel the bass? Because he most certainly can. Do you also know that a large proportion of your hearing is via bones in your skull, not just your ears?! It is also why there are now headphones being developed that are placed on the head, not the ears.

I've seen and heard all the experiments you talk about. The same was done with 4k technology recently, to see if people could really see the difference, or were they attracted to a posher looking piece of kit. The fact is, most people have "average" hearing and "average" sight - some people are lucky enough to have very keen hearing and sight. I'm lucky to have both. People taking the Philips challenge will have their results skewed by whatever equipment they are using. It is far easier to hear the difference between the formats on decent studio monitors, for example, than if you're just using your phone's headphones, or laptop speakers. And a lot of people will be using just that. But then, that backs up what I say about the quality of the equipment. If you're seriously trying to suggest that a pair of £100 Wharfdale speakers sound anywhere near as good as my £2000 Kef reference speakers, then you maybe need more than your ears examined!

You can keep levelling whatever accusations you like - you think I'm really going to lend credence to that because you read some stuff on an internet forum? LOL

Mindflux said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

So your argument appears to be, though we can't hear certain high and low frequencies these soundwaves affect air molecules in such a way as to determine how we perceive those sounds. My cat may be able to tell the difference but I certainly can't. Anecdotally, this reminds me of the time I met a deaf guy in a nightclub through a mutual friend. And he said he really like the music. So I asked him - through my friend's sign language gestures - 'how can you tell, you're deaf?' and he replied 'I can feeeel the bass' as he banged his chest. Funny yeah I know.

Again if you feel so confident you can tell the difference between wave and flac, cd and 320 kbps, post your results! But consider the fact that on the Golden Ears challenge, a lot of people can't tell the difference between 128 kbps and cd, nevermind a file that has 2.5 times the data size of 128 mp3.

It's worth iterating again, dacs are not expensive to produce. They can sound brilliant at a very small scale for a small cost. Op Amp issues are another issue again. Their sound is affected more by the drivers that support them than the actual hardware involved! -as compared to their competition- and yet it's another way dac manufacturers can justify a higher cost.

As an illustration of this sight bias, there was an experiment someone did on his friend exposing him to a demo on sighted audio equipment perceived by the listener to be cheap and substandard and then alternately demoed the same sound file on his favoured amplifier/audio setup - but through duplicitous means conned into thinking the second playing was on his favoured equipment when actually it was still playing through the original amp. His opinion the second time, it was a vast improvement! There are more examples of this wherever you look hard enough on online forums. I don't doubt you 'hear' the differences you claim, but until you actually post the evidence then I'll just keep levelling the same accusation you're making it up as per the placebo effect.

Erm, no - that's not my argument at all! Where did I say anything about high and low frequencies? Flac processing does not include removing high/low frequencies, that is generally how the mp3 codec works. What I was saying is that if you remove ANY information from the original, it is not the same - regardless of whether the THEORY says it shouldn't make a difference to what is heard, some, including me, argue that it does. And I don't get your anecdote. Are you suggesting the deaf guy couldn't feel the bass? Because he most certainly can. Do you also know that a large proportion of your hearing is via bones in your skull, not just your ears?! It is also why there are now headphones being developed that are placed on the head, not the ears.

I've seen and heard all the experiments you talk about. The same was done with 4k technology recently, to see if people could really see the difference, or were they attracted to a posher looking piece of kit. The fact is, most people have "average" hearing and "average" sight - some people are lucky enough to have very keen hearing and sight. I'm lucky to have both. People taking the Philips challenge will have their results skewed by whatever equipment they are using. It is far easier to hear the difference between the formats on decent studio monitors, for example, than if you're just using your phone's headphones, or laptop speakers. And a lot of people will be using just that. But then, that backs up what I say about the quality of the equipment. If you're seriously trying to suggest that a pair of £100 Wharfdale speakers sound anywhere near as good as my £2000 Kef reference speakers, then you maybe need more than your ears examined!

You can keep levelling whatever accusations you like - you think I'm really going to lend credence to that because you read some stuff on an internet forum? LOL

You evidently didn't grasp the humour of the deaf person quote. It's funny because there is no way anyone can appreciate the vibrations from soundwaves in music if they're not audible, even on a high-end setup capable of producing them. I've heard mid-range Kefs in a demo room btw and I was unimpressed, and no, the best monitors don't reveal any more detail than the best headphones. LOL about 4k as well, of course there's a difference- it depends on viewing distance and screen size.

You come across like a religious person. You want to believe something so much that no amount of evidence or persuasion will convince you otherwise. Nobody has been able to prove through abx testing the results you suppose you're capable of. So produce the evidence, you have the equipment, then prove it.

Giovanni777 said:

Simple.

Buy a turntable, get the vinyl album.

Play at home, loudly.

Done.

Yeah, really simple.

Mindflux said:

Erm, no - that's not my argument at all! Where did I say anything about high and low frequencies? Flac processing does not include removing high/low frequencies, that is generally how the mp3 codec works. What I was saying is that if you remove ANY information from the original, it is not the same - regardless of whether the THEORY says it shouldn't make a difference to what is heard, some, including me, argue that it does. And I don't get your anecdote. Are you suggesting the deaf guy couldn't feel the bass? Because he most certainly can. Do you also know that a large proportion of your hearing is via bones in your skull, not just your ears?! It is also why there are now headphones being developed that are placed on the head, not the ears.

Well at least we've solved the riddle of your super hearing. My ears are on my head, where the hell are yours?!

fortuneandserendipity said:

Mindflux said:

Erm, no - that's not my argument at all! Where did I say anything about high and low frequencies? Flac processing does not include removing high/low frequencies, that is generally how the mp3 codec works. What I was saying is that if you remove ANY information from the original, it is not the same - regardless of whether the THEORY says it shouldn't make a difference to what is heard, some, including me, argue that it does. And I don't get your anecdote. Are you suggesting the deaf guy couldn't feel the bass? Because he most certainly can. Do you also know that a large proportion of your hearing is via bones in your skull, not just your ears?! It is also why there are now headphones being developed that are placed on the head, not the ears.

I've seen and heard all the experiments you talk about. The same was done with 4k technology recently, to see if people could really see the difference, or were they attracted to a posher looking piece of kit. The fact is, most people have "average" hearing and "average" sight - some people are lucky enough to have very keen hearing and sight. I'm lucky to have both. People taking the Philips challenge will have their results skewed by whatever equipment they are using. It is far easier to hear the difference between the formats on decent studio monitors, for example, than if you're just using your phone's headphones, or laptop speakers. And a lot of people will be using just that. But then, that backs up what I say about the quality of the equipment. If you're seriously trying to suggest that a pair of £100 Wharfdale speakers sound anywhere near as good as my £2000 Kef reference speakers, then you maybe need more than your ears examined!

You can keep levelling whatever accusations you like - you think I'm really going to lend credence to that because you read some stuff on an internet forum? LOL

You evidently didn't grasp the humour of the deaf person quote. It's funny because there is no way anyone can appreciate the vibrations from soundwaves in music if they're not audible, even on a high-end setup capable of producing them. I've heard mid-range Kefs in a demo room btw and I was unimpressed, and no, the best monitors don't reveal any more detail than the best headphones. LOL about 4k as well, of course there's a difference- it depends on viewing distance and screen size.

You come across like a religious person. You want to believe something so much that no amount of evidence or persuasion will convince you otherwise. Nobody has been able to prove through abx testing the results you suppose you're capable of. So produce the evidence, you have the equipment, then prove it.

It really is astonishing just how much BS you manage to come out with, how you persistently say things that I didn't say and constantly contradict yourself.

I didn't grasp the humour, because there was nothing funny about it. You claim, even though you're not deaf yourself, that deaf people cannot possibly enjoy or "hear" music. Here's just one of many articles that proves you wrong. http://www.webmd.com/news...feel-music

You then mention a "high-end set up capable of producing them", when you have continually said that there is no difference between what quality different equipment can produce.

You've auditioned mid-range Kefs and weren't impressed? Big deal! So what? Again, it's in the ear of the beholder. And what were you doing auditioning hi-fi equipment if you don't believe in its merits?

"The best monitors don't reveal any more detail than the best headphones" - why are you saying that? Where did I make that claim? I said that cheap headphones that come with a mobile phone won't give you the same performance. Again, putting words in my mouth to try and fit your own agenda.

For some reason, you concede that there is more detail available from a higher resolution 4k TV, but then you dismiss the same when it comes to high-resolution audio. Do you want to explain why there is a difference between visual and auditory information? You can't have one and not the other.

And your final paragraph is just projection. You should reflect that comment back on yourself - you're asserting with just the same religious vigour about your beliefs! Furthermore, what evidence have you provided? ZERO! You've mentioned things that you've read in forums and quoted a few anecdotes, none of which is anything like backing up your claims. You then claim that noone has ever passed abx testing which, again, is just bullshit - you're making it up. But here's a study, with double-blind tests that backs up my claims - in that expert listeners (sound engineers, musicians) CAN hear the difference even between 320kb/s Mp3 and wav/CD, which you said noone has.....ever! . http://www.music.mcgill.c...on2009.pdf

The conclusion says "Trained listeners can hear differences between CD quality and mp3 compression (96-192kb/s). Trained listeners cannot discriminate between CD quality and mp3 compression (256 - 320kb/s) WHILE EXPERT LISTENERS COULD". A look at the graphs shows that 50% of sound engineers and musicians could tell the difference between a 320kb/s mp3 and a CD.

As I've said before, it's more about the enjoyment of the music and for most people, they are not particularly bothered about the best sound quality, or can neccessarily hear it. But there are many who can, despite what you say. And just what are you arguing for mp3 anyway? Why would you want to hear a track in anything other than its best quality? Some years ago, when storage was an issue, that may have been a concern - but these days? Most devices have a large amount of memory, so you can easily walk around with wav versions of all of your music.

At the end of the day, I can hear the difference, and I know many other producers and engineers who can too and nothing you are ever going to say will convince me otherwise. You can stick with your crappy sound, I'm quite happy enjoying high-quality sound for well-produced music.

TheEnglishGent said:

Mindflux said:

Erm, no - that's not my argument at all! Where did I say anything about high and low frequencies? Flac processing does not include removing high/low frequencies, that is generally how the mp3 codec works. What I was saying is that if you remove ANY information from the original, it is not the same - regardless of whether the THEORY says it shouldn't make a difference to what is heard, some, including me, argue that it does. And I don't get your anecdote. Are you suggesting the deaf guy couldn't feel the bass? Because he most certainly can. Do you also know that a large proportion of your hearing is via bones in your skull, not just your ears?! It is also why there are now headphones being developed that are placed on the head, not the ears.

Well at least we've solved the riddle of your super hearing. My ears are on my head, where the hell are yours?!

It's true. It's also the reason why you hear your own voice so differently, because of the way some of the bones in your skull make up a large part of your hearing. Did you know, that most people cannot recognise their own voice if used as part of a line-up? Take 10 people (as long as they have a similar accent, of course) and play their voices back along with your own and over 80% of people cannot pick out which is their own voice!

It's similar, in a way, to taste. Actually, the majority of what you "taste" is down to smell - in fact, 75% of taste is smell! That's why you can eat a spoonful of cinnammon whilst holding your nose and not taste it.

fortuneandserendipity said:

You come across like a religious person. You want to believe something so much that no amount of evidence or persuasion will convince you otherwise. Nobody has been able to prove through abx testing the results you suppose you're capable of. So produce the evidence, you have the equipment, then prove it.

I must say, I've never read a study where people were able to tell which was which in a properly conducted blind listening situation.

These aren't thos studies but som tests to try:

http://mp3ornot.com

http://www.noiseaddicts.c...t-128-320/

On mp3ornot I did 3 tests and got them all wrong. On the second one I did get it right but had to listen very hard to one particular part and for normal listening it would make no difference at all. Also, more people have chosen the 128k and this is a sample with over 90,000 votes!

But my speakers are only £500 B&W's so probably not good enough

TheEnglishGent said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

You come across like a religious person. You want to believe something so much that no amount of evidence or persuasion will convince you otherwise. Nobody has been able to prove through abx testing the results you suppose you're capable of. So produce the evidence, you have the equipment, then prove it.

I must say, I've never read a study where people were able to tell which was which in a properly conducted blind listening situation.

These aren't thos studies but som tests to try:

http://mp3ornot.com

http://www.noiseaddicts.c...t-128-320/

On mp3ornot I did 3 tests and got them all wrong. On the second one I did get it right but had to listen very hard to one particular part and for normal listening it would make no difference at all. Also, more people have chosen the 128k and this is a sample with over 90,000 votes!

But my speakers are only £500 B&W's so probably not good enough

B&Ws are nice speakers generally and you probably have better speakers than most people. In the real world, such delving in to musical detail is not necessary. But as a producer and musician, it is crucial for my work. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy music though, although I do catch myself being overly analytical at times, but that's just how it is.

I just took issue with fortuneandserendipity as he vehemently claims it is not possible for ANYONE to hear the difference, which is patently untrue and that all equipment pretty much sounds the same and the world of hi-fi is a con. Which is also untrue. He's a conspiracy theorist of sorts - even thinks that musical equipment manufacturers are out to trick him! (but, strangely, not TV manufacturers. Or audio codec developers!)

Mindflux said:

TheEnglishGent said:

I must say, I've never read a study where people were able to tell which was which in a properly conducted blind listening situation.

These aren't thos studies but som tests to try:

http://mp3ornot.com

http://www.noiseaddicts.c...t-128-320/

On mp3ornot I did 3 tests and got them all wrong. On the second one I did get it right but had to listen very hard to one particular part and for normal listening it would make no difference at all. Also, more people have chosen the 128k and this is a sample with over 90,000 votes!

But my speakers are only £500 B&W's so probably not good enough

B&Ws are nice speakers generally and you probably have better speakers than most people. In the real world, such delving in to musical detail is not necessary. But as a producer and musician, it is crucial for my work. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy music though, although I do catch myself being overly analytical at times, but that's just how it is.

I just took issue with fortuneandserendipity as he vehemently claims it is not possible for ANYONE to hear the difference, which is patently untrue and that all equipment pretty much sounds the same and the world of hi-fi is a con. Which is also untrue. He's a conspiracy theorist of sorts - even thinks that musical equipment manufacturers are out to trick him! (but, strangely, not TV manufacturers. Or audio codec developers!)

But did you do the tests?

I am genuinely interested if you can hear the difference consistently and at what level of equipment it makes a difference. For example, can you hear it on the stuido gear but not your home gear, or do we have to go down to ear buds and an iPhone before you fail to hear the difference, or can you still spot it down at the low end.

Not asking to be argumentative, just genuiniely interested. I've long said that even 320k mp3 is more than high enough quality for my ears and gear but I appreciate that my ears aren't the sharpest in the box .

Mindflux said:

It really is astonishing just how much BS you manage to come out with, how you persistently say things that I didn't say and constantly contradict yourself.

I didn't grasp the humour, because there was nothing funny about it. You claim, even though you're not deaf yourself, that deaf people cannot possibly enjoy or "hear" music. Here's just one of many articles that proves you wrong. http://www.webmd.com/news...feel-music

You then mention a "high-end set up capable of producing them", when you have continually said that there is no difference between what quality different equipment can produce.

You've auditioned mid-range Kefs and weren't impressed? Big deal! So what? Again, it's in the ear of the beholder. And what were you doing auditioning hi-fi equipment if you don't believe in its merits?

"The best monitors don't reveal any more detail than the best headphones" - why are you saying that? Where did I make that claim? I said that cheap headphones that come with a mobile phone won't give you the same performance. Again, putting words in my mouth to try and fit your own agenda.

For some reason, you concede that there is more detail available from a higher resolution 4k TV, but then you dismiss the same when it comes to high-resolution audio. Do you want to explain why there is a difference between visual and auditory information? You can't have one and not the other.

And your final paragraph is just projection. You should reflect that comment back on yourself - you're asserting with just the same religious vigour about your beliefs! Furthermore, what evidence have you provided? ZERO! You've mentioned things that you've read in forums and quoted a few anecdotes, none of which is anything like backing up your claims. You then claim that noone has ever passed abx testing which, again, is just bullshit - you're making it up. But here's a study, with double-blind tests that backs up my claims - in that expert listeners (sound engineers, musicians) CAN hear the difference even between 320kb/s Mp3 and wav/CD, which you said noone has.....ever! . http://www.music.mcgill.c...on2009.pdf

The conclusion says "Trained listeners can hear differences between CD quality and mp3 compression (96-192kb/s). Trained listeners cannot discriminate between CD quality and mp3 compression (256 - 320kb/s) WHILE EXPERT LISTENERS COULD". A look at the graphs shows that 50% of sound engineers and musicians could tell the difference between a 320kb/s mp3 and a CD.

As I've said before, it's more about the enjoyment of the music and for most people, they are not particularly bothered about the best sound quality, or can neccessarily hear it. But there are many who can, despite what you say. And just what are you arguing for mp3 anyway? Why would you want to hear a track in anything other than its best quality? Some years ago, when storage was an issue, that may have been a concern - but these days? Most devices have a large amount of memory, so you can easily walk around with wav versions of all of your music.

At the end of the day, I can hear the difference, and I know many other producers and engineers who can too and nothing you are ever going to say will convince me otherwise. You can stick with your crappy sound, I'm quite happy enjoying high-quality sound for well-produced music.

If deaf people are so capable of 'hearing' music from the vibrations alone then there should be a lot of deaf composers and musicians. Where are they? Even Beethoven, his deafness increased gradually and he was only possibly totally deaf in the last decade of his life. If you're born deaf you're not going to hear music the way most people do. That link was just conjecture, it didn't qualify anything. What were the subjects hearing exactly? god only knows and i'm an atheist.

Kef speakers have the same problem a lot of speakers- including reference ones have. They don't keep up with timing say on a fast played accoustic guitar track. Focal speakers do the best job across their entire range of reproducing fast tempo tracks accurately, as compared to other makes. I spent a year demoing different ones in hifi outlets. I'm surprised you reckon you can distinguish artifacts at 320 kbps, and yet miss the fact a lot of high grade speakers can't keep up. It's 5 times more important than any artifacts you might hear at 128 kbps, and those kef speakers which got really good reviews had that problem as well as a muddy sound i hear from most speakers where the imaging isn't clear.

That McGill University study seems to miss the point completely. What it tries to claim is that there is significant distinction between what musicians and sound engineers can hear at 320 and cd. So the key point here is page 17, that's where trained listeners are excluded from the graph. (Don't even think about drawing precise conclusions from page 16, it's comparing one lower rate to a higher rate and never specifies 320/cd).

Left hand side of the graph, both with electric and accoustic samples, sound engineers fail to predict correctly 50% of the time which is cd over 320. So that suggest they can't hear the difference.

Right hand side of the graph- again we're looking for something at over 50%- and hopefully well over 50% to be statistically significant. Well there's nothing in the accoustic sample, but looking at the electric sample- that's over 60% so there might be something significant there... until you look a little to the left... oops, playing the same sample electric material, only 30% prefer cd to 256 kbps, completely invalidating any point to saying 320 is inferior to cd!

(u see cd is better than 320 but not up to scratch when you compare to 256 quality... LOL sorry im being facetious)

Do you see the point- there's no statistical significance, so the authors of study got it wrong when they said "Trained listeners can not discriminate between CD quality and mp3 compression (256/320 kbps) while expert listeners could"

Why is 320 kbps important? because it allows people to store all the music they want on portable devices without sacrificing any quality.

Just as with religion, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. All historians and scientists know this (you can't disprove the existence of a unicorn but if you can provide the evidence then that is something)

[Edited 9/23/15 5:41am]

djThunderfunk said:

So, here's the thing: Mastered at a time when the most common listening experience was cassette, SOTT is designed for some songs to be much louder than the rest. A scan of the peak levels of the individual tracks reveals a 7dB difference between the peak of the loudest and quietest tracks and a 5dB diffence between the RMS average.

What this means is that if the quietest songs are mastered by today's standards, the peaks and valleys intended in the original mastering will be lost completely.

.

Sigh....

.

For the umpteenth time: confusing a proper remaster with brickwalling isn't helping things.

.

Look, all I want is to mix and match any song in Prince's output and listen to them without needing to adjust the volume over and over again. Plenty of room for peaks and valleys, I just don't want to get deaf by listening to an SOTT track and then forgetting to dial back the volume significantly because the next track is from TGE.

Mindflux said:

TheEnglishGent said:

Well at least we've solved the riddle of your super hearing. My ears are on my head, where the hell are yours?!

It's true. It's also the reason why you hear your own voice so differently, because of the way some of the bones in your skull make up a large part of your hearing. Did you know, that most people cannot recognise their own voice if used as part of a line-up? Take 10 people (as long as they have a similar accent, of course) and play their voices back along with your own and over 80% of people cannot pick out which is their own voice!

It's similar, in a way, to taste. Actually, the majority of what you "taste" is down to smell - in fact, 75% of taste is smell! That's why you can eat a spoonful of cinnammon whilst holding your nose and not taste it.

I could definitely believe that, hearing your own voice is really wierd if you aren't used to it.

Mindflux said:

The conclusion says "Trained listeners can hear differences between CD quality and mp3 compression (96-192kb/s). Trained listeners cannot discriminate between CD quality and mp3 compression (256 - 320kb/s) WHILE EXPERT LISTENERS COULD". A look at the graphs shows that 50% of sound engineers and musicians could tell the difference between a 320kb/s mp3 and a CD.

So 50% of sound engineers and musicians also couldn't tell the difference. Isn't this exactly the same conclusion as if a group of monkeys just randomly pointed at one of two answers? Not calling sounds engineers monkeys, just saying that it isn't a conclusive result if it's the same as random guessing.

It may be the case that the 50% who got it right were just lucky, or maybe they actually could hear the difference. But if those 50% could actually hear a difference, then surely some of the other 50% would have randomly got it right so we'd see a result nearer 75%?

TheEnglishGent said:

Mindflux said:

So 50% of sound engineers and musicians also couldn't tell the difference. Isn't this exactly the same conclusion as if a group of monkeys just randomly pointed at one of two answers? Not calling sounds engineers monkeys, just saying that it isn't a conclusive result if it's the same as random guessing.

It may be the case that the 50% who got it right were just lucky, or maybe they actually could hear the difference. But if those 50% could actually hear a difference, then surely some of the other 50% would have randomly got it right so we'd see a result nearer 75%?

http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~hockman/documents/Pras_presentation2009.pdf

I think the first word of the presentation title gives away a clue 'Subjective'. I mean you would think they'd arrive at the right conclusion given they determined the conditions, methodology and everything else. Why then would they say expert listeners (musicians/sound engineers) could tell the difference, when their own results contradict that statement? They're the real monkeys in this experiment, the ones who set it up.

back on thread, i got so pissed off with the quiet sound of sign 'o' the times that i went out and got these fuckers

fortuneandserendipity said:

back on thread, i got so pissed off with the quiet sound of sign 'o' the times that i went out and got these fuckers

[Edited 9/23/15 15:11pm]

fortuneandserendipity said:

If deaf people are so capable of 'hearing' music from the vibrations alone then there should be a lot of deaf composers and musicians. Where are they? Even Beethoven, his deafness increased gradually and he was only possibly totally deaf in the last decade of his life. If you're born deaf you're not going to hear music the way most people do. That link was just conjecture, it didn't qualify anything. What were the subjects hearing exactly? god only knows and i'm an atheist.

Kef speakers have the same problem a lot of speakers- including reference ones have. They don't keep up with timing say on a fast played accoustic guitar track. Focal speakers do the best job across their entire range of reproducing fast tempo tracks accurately, as compared to other makes. I spent a year demoing different ones in hifi outlets. I'm surprised you reckon you can distinguish artifacts at 320 kbps, and yet miss the fact a lot of high grade speakers can't keep up. It's 5 times more important than any artifacts you might hear at 128 kbps, and those kef speakers which got really good reviews had that problem as well as a muddy sound i hear from most speakers where the imaging isn't clear.

That McGill University study seems to miss the point completely. What it tries to claim is that there is significant distinction between what musicians and sound engineers can hear at 320 and cd. So the key point here is page 17, that's where trained listeners are excluded from the graph. (Don't even think about drawing precise conclusions from page 16, it's comparing one lower rate to a higher rate and never specifies 320/cd).

Left hand side of the graph, both with electric and accoustic samples, sound engineers fail to predict correctly 50% of the time which is cd over 320. So that suggest they can't hear the difference.

Right hand side of the graph- again we're looking for something at over 50%- and hopefully well over 50% to be statistically significant. Well there's nothing in the accoustic sample, but looking at the electric sample- that's over 60% so there might be something significant there... until you look a little to the left... oops, playing the same sample electric material, only 30% prefer cd to 256 kbps, completely invalidating any point to saying 320 is inferior to cd!

(u see cd is better than 320 but not up to scratch when you compare to 256 quality... LOL sorry im being facetious)

Do you see the point- there's no statistical significance, so the authors of study got it wrong when they said "Trained listeners can not discriminate between CD quality and mp3 compression (256/320 kbps) while expert listeners could"

Why is 320 kbps important? because it allows people to store all the music they want on portable devices without sacrificing any quality.

Just as with religion, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. All historians and scientists know this (you can't disprove the existence of a unicorn but if you can provide the evidence then that is something)

[Edited 9/23/15 5:41am]

Nobody said that deaf people "hear music the same", so your point is moot. What the article (and deaf people) say is that they can "hear" something and still get enjoyment from it.

As to the rest- I put up a study that, whilst not conclusive, shows that some people can hear the difference and that's all I needed to do to counter your assertion that NOONE can tell the difference. You have yet to put anything forward to back up your claims - all you've done is dispute, with no evidence, the argument and data put forward.

So, to this end, I'm done - cos it doesn't really matter anyway, does it? You're happy with your 320 mp3s and I'm happy with my cds (and flacs when I'm out and about - given that digital storage is not very limited these days - I have 144Gb on my phone alone!).

BTW, I did start the Philips Golden Ear challenge, but my 2 year-old managed to put an end to it half-way through the Silver Ears stage (an untimely slam of his palm on the keyboard!) and it sent me back to the beginning It had already taken about an hour to get through Basic and Bronze and, being a busy man (and having a 2 year-old), I can't see me having a spare few hours to go through all that again! But, safe to say, I had no problems getting to Silver and was sailing through that too (even the Recognising mp3 artifacts section!)

Well my Tidal quality is shit now. The trial expired today

BartVanHemelen said:

djThunderfunk said:

So, here's the thing: Mastered at a time when the most common listening experience was cassette, SOTT is designed for some songs to be much louder than the rest. A scan of the peak levels of the individual tracks reveals a 7dB difference between the peak of the loudest and quietest tracks and a 5dB diffence between the RMS average.

What this means is that if the quietest songs are mastered by today's standards, the peaks and valleys intended in the original mastering will be lost completely.

.

Sigh....

.

For the umpteenth time: confusing a proper remaster with brickwalling isn't helping things.

.

Look, all I want is to mix and match any song in Prince's output and listen to them without needing to adjust the volume over and over again. Plenty of room for peaks and valleys, I just don't want to get deaf by listening to an SOTT track and then forgetting to dial back the volume significantly because the next track is from TGE.

I'm not at all confused. What I'm saying is: When/If we finally get a "Remaster", there is every reason to expect it to be brickwalled and no reason to expect the peaks & valleys present in the original configuration to be maintained.

Mindflux said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

If deaf people are so capable of 'hearing' music from the vibrations alone then there should be a lot of deaf composers and musicians. Where are they? Even Beethoven, his deafness increased gradually and he was only possibly totally deaf in the last decade of his life. If you're born deaf you're not going to hear music the way most people do. That link was just conjecture, it didn't qualify anything. What were the subjects hearing exactly? god only knows and i'm an atheist.

Kef speakers have the same problem a lot of speakers- including reference ones have. They don't keep up with timing say on a fast played accoustic guitar track. Focal speakers do the best job across their entire range of reproducing fast tempo tracks accurately, as compared to other makes. I spent a year demoing different ones in hifi outlets. I'm surprised you reckon you can distinguish artifacts at 320 kbps, and yet miss the fact a lot of high grade speakers can't keep up. It's 5 times more important than any artifacts you might hear at 128 kbps, and those kef speakers which got really good reviews had that problem as well as a muddy sound i hear from most speakers where the imaging isn't clear.

That McGill University study seems to miss the point completely. What it tries to claim is that there is significant distinction between what musicians and sound engineers can hear at 320 and cd. So the key point here is page 17, that's where trained listeners are excluded from the graph. (Don't even think about drawing precise conclusions from page 16, it's comparing one lower rate to a higher rate and never specifies 320/cd).

Left hand side of the graph, both with electric and accoustic samples, sound engineers fail to predict correctly 50% of the time which is cd over 320. So that suggest they can't hear the difference.

Right hand side of the graph- again we're looking for something at over 50%- and hopefully well over 50% to be statistically significant. Well there's nothing in the accoustic sample, but looking at the electric sample- that's over 60% so there might be something significant there... until you look a little to the left... oops, playing the same sample electric material, only 30% prefer cd to 256 kbps, completely invalidating any point to saying 320 is inferior to cd!

(u see cd is better than 320 but not up to scratch when you compare to 256 quality... LOL sorry im being facetious)

Do you see the point- there's no statistical significance, so the authors of study got it wrong when they said "Trained listeners can not discriminate between CD quality and mp3 compression (256/320 kbps) while expert listeners could"

Why is 320 kbps important? because it allows people to store all the music they want on portable devices without sacrificing any quality.

Just as with religion, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. All historians and scientists know this (you can't disprove the existence of a unicorn but if you can provide the evidence then that is something)

[Edited 9/23/15 5:41am]

Nobody said that deaf people "hear music the same", so your point is moot. What the article (and deaf people) say is that they can "hear" something and still get enjoyment from it.

As to the rest- I put up a study that, whilst not conclusive, shows that some people can hear the difference and that's all I needed to do to counter your assertion that NOONE can tell the difference. You have yet to put anything forward to back up your claims - all you've done is dispute, with no evidence, the argument and data put forward.

So, to this end, I'm done - cos it doesn't really matter anyway, does it? You're happy with your 320 mp3s and I'm happy with my cds (and flacs when I'm out and about - given that digital storage is not very limited these days - I have 144Gb on my phone alone!).

BTW, I did start the Philips Golden Ear challenge, but my 2 year-old managed to put an end to it half-way through the Silver Ears stage (an untimely slam of his palm on the keyboard!) and it sent me back to the beginning It had already taken about an hour to get through Basic and Bronze and, being a busy man (and having a 2 year-old), I can't see me having a spare few hours to go through all that again! But, safe to say, I had no problems getting to Silver and was sailing through that too (even the Recognising mp3 artifacts section!)

The study cited doesn't lend any evidence to anyone discerning the quality between highest bit rate and cd quality. The samples that are illustrated in the study findings basically show no better odds than tossing a coin, so i don't know why ~50% should be significant. If the trained listeners are the musicians and sound engineers, then who the hell are the experts? Why cite another study without evidence presented thereof, and that at the same time goes no way to proving correct methodology and codecs used. After all, some of the early encoders were damn shite, presumably because they compressed music indiscriminately from the entire audio spectrum, so who's to say how it was set up. Until someone can prove the difference via objective testing- the world is big and the internet ubiquitous- then it's only fair to assume noone can.

You alluded before to how i referred to sound frequencies- outside the normal range - being reproduced by a high end set up, but claimed I was contradicting myself because of some inference that they therefore should be heard. But that is not what I said. CD reproduces frequencies up to 44100 hz, and some speakers and headphones can emit signals up to 30000 hz, but none of that means they're actually perceptible and able to be heard. Vibrations outside the normal range of 20-20000 hz (and that's if you've got exceptional hearing) don't suddenly become audible vibrations once they hit the cochlea, or alternatively some random bone in the body, and to say otherwise would make james randi roll his eyes.

TheEnglishGent said:

Mindflux said:

Erm, no - that's not my argument at all! Where did I say anything about high and low frequencies? Flac processing does not include removing high/low frequencies, that is generally how the mp3 codec works. What I was saying is that if you remove ANY information from the original, it is not the same - regardless of whether the THEORY says it shouldn't make a difference to what is heard, some, including me, argue that it does. And I don't get your anecdote. Are you suggesting the deaf guy couldn't feel the bass? Because he most certainly can. Do you also know that a large proportion of your hearing is via bones in your skull, not just your ears?! It is also why there are now headphones being developed that are placed on the head, not the ears.

Well at least we've solved the riddle of your super hearing. My ears are on my head, where the hell are yours?!

I don't know but I know with my cat if I push her ears right the way forward, I can talk to her through her skull! (I know this because she miaows back at me)