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Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
I'm mostly frustrated by someone banging on about minutiae of audio quality when listening on a tiny plastic speaker. Like at least get a decent receiver and bookshelf speakers first.

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TheMadMilkman
Dec 10, 2007

I mean, as near as I can tell in trying to parse that poorly written dreck, by pulling out her CD player that's likely what she did. I'm still not 100% sure, though.

But talking about how Amazon has CD quality streaming that can interface with a good-quality stereo probably doesn't fit whatever it was she was going for.

ddogflex
Sep 19, 2004

blahblahblah

TheMadMilkman posted:

I mean, as near as I can tell in trying to parse that poorly written dreck, by pulling out her CD player that's likely what she did. I'm still not 100% sure, though.

But talking about how Amazon has CD quality streaming that can interface with a good-quality stereo probably doesn't fit whatever it was she was going for.

Seriously. All paid streaming services have CD quality IF NOT HIGHER versions of uhh everything. If you think your CDs sound better than whatever service setup correctly (set to high quality basically), you're lying to yourself for unknown reasons.

It's like the people that say high quality equipment is only worth it for higher res files. Uh huh. Sure. I bet you can't tell the loving difference between a FLAC and an MQA of the same master.

Streaming has gently caress all to do with LOUDNESS WARS and the whole article just makes me want to pull my hair out.

Dirt Road Junglist
Oct 8, 2010

We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are

TheMadMilkman posted:

she's really horny and likes to misuse latin terms.

Solid potential thread title.

qirex
Feb 15, 2001

ddogflex posted:

Seriously. All paid streaming services have CD quality IF NOT HIGHER versions of uhh everything.
The smaller players offer it but only if you pay extra. Spotify and Apple Music don’t at all.

Fantastic Foreskin
Jan 6, 2013

A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

Panty Saluter posted:

it's a job but not work, if you follow

I'm singularly privileged to know the situation and yeah, it is, but it's not quite as good as it sounds.

Now if you didn't have to show up, that would be another situation. Freelance quack sounds pretty sweet, except no benefits.

Fantastic Foreskin fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Feb 19, 2020

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

ItBreathes posted:

I'm singularly privileged to know the situation and yeah, it is, but it's not quite as good as it sounds.

Now if you didn't have to show up, that would be another situation. Freelance quack sounds pretty sweet, except no benefits.

Good point. I'ma keep the day job and moonlight as a brainwormed pundit for some extra pocket money

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



ddogflex posted:

Seriously. All paid streaming services have CD quality IF NOT HIGHER versions of uhh everything. If you think your CDs sound better than whatever service setup correctly (set to high quality basically), you're lying to yourself for unknown reasons.
Do they not reduce the stream quality if your connection sucks?

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

Zereth posted:

Do they not reduce the stream quality if your connection sucks?

24/96 stereo LPCM is only about 4.5 Mbps so your connection would have to be pretty bad to warrant reducing quality

Endless Mike
Aug 13, 2003



Zereth posted:

Do they not reduce the stream quality if your connection sucks?
They can, but this isn't typically relevant in the situation he was talking about : using a streaming service connected to a home stereo.

GrandMaster
Aug 15, 2004
laidback
Spotify app has a normal/high/very high steam & download quality setting you can configure, but no idea what the bitrates actually are.

qirex
Feb 15, 2001

Spotify premium is 320 which is pretty much inaudibly different from CD quality.

Malcolm XML
Aug 8, 2009

I always knew it would end like this.

qirex posted:

Spotify premium is 320 which is pretty much inaudibly different from CD quality.

Weirdly they use vorbis instead of something better yet 320kbps vorbis is transparent

TheMadMilkman
Dec 10, 2007

ddogflex posted:

It's like the people that say high quality equipment is only worth it for higher res files. Uh huh. Sure. I bet you can't tell the loving difference between a FLAC and an MQA of the same master.

Ugh MQA. There’s an audiophile can of worms if I’ve ever seen one.

What gets me the most about all of this is that audio reproduction is freaking cool and there’s a lot of stuff to learn about without getting sucked into the BS. Room acoustics are fascinating. There’s really neat research into psychoacoustics. The history of how we got to now is fascinating. But instead people want to wax poetic about how much better one piece of copper sounds compared to another piece of copper (often the exact same OEM cable) that happens to have a thicker covering around it.

Take the plunge! Okay!
Feb 24, 2007



qirex posted:

The smaller players offer it but only if you pay extra. Spotify and Apple Music don’t at all.

Yeah, I’m on Deezer and it’s €3 more for FLAC compared to the 320kbps. I didn’t take it since it’s not worth it IMO

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Malcolm XML posted:

Weirdly they use vorbis instead of something better yet 320kbps vorbis is transparent

Vorbis is better than MP3, at least.

The problem is that they've sort of painted themselves into a corner by revealing which bitrates they use. You see it in this thread too, people just say "320kbps" with no mention of the codec, and there's a massive difference between MP3 and newer codecs like AAC, Vorbis and Opus.

So Spotify can't switch to Opus for example, and get better quality at ⅔ or even ½ the bitrate, because of the inevitable "we want 320kbps, we want what we're paying for, you're cheating us and downgrading us!" outcry.

Trying to explain to people that they're getting equal or better sound quality at a lower bitrate is an impossible marketing task.

nielsm
Jun 1, 2009



Also by the way, music with less dynamic compression (such as most classical recordings) perform significantly better in lossy codecs, or at least in MP3. Try setting LAME up for VBR at medium quality and run a high dynamic range classical performance, and a low dynamic range (compressed) rock performance through, check the resulting bitrate.

Alan_Shore
Dec 2, 2004

I think Tidal at Master quality sounds better than Spotify at High quality.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


nielsm posted:

Also by the way, music with less dynamic compression (such as most classical recordings) perform significantly better in lossy codecs, or at least in MP3. Try setting LAME up for VBR at medium quality and run a high dynamic range classical performance, and a low dynamic range (compressed) rock performance through, check the resulting bitrate.

The closer your get to noise, the harder it is to compress.

Stuff like raw black metal is notoriously hard to handle, with FLAC you only get a ~10 % size reduction on some tracks.

qirex
Feb 15, 2001

Alan_Shore posted:

I think Tidal at Master quality sounds better than Spotify at High quality.

The genius of MQA is the file includes an EQ curve so even if, like probably 95% of MQA audio, it's just upsampled from CD it still sounds different unlike high res FLAC, etc.

ddogflex
Sep 19, 2004

blahblahblah

qirex posted:

The genius of MQA is the file includes an EQ curve so even if, like probably 95% of MQA audio, it's just upsampled from CD it still sounds different unlike high res FLAC, etc.

What a sleazy way to make people hear a difference lmao

TheMadMilkman
Dec 10, 2007

Everything involving MQA is sleazy. Rent seeking at its finest.

qirex
Feb 15, 2001

The real question is: more or less sleazy than claiming a high resolution file from the same master as the CD actually sounds different when it doesn’t?

TheMadMilkman
Dec 10, 2007

More, since MQA exists for Bob Stuart to attempt to collect fees on every DAC and music file sold. Plus it’s literally DRM.

qirex
Feb 15, 2001

Outside of Tidal I'm not seeing MQA get much traction anywhere, I think all the high res stores are sticking with FLAC to maximize compatibility with what customers already have. Unfortunately I think it's popular enough that support [and associated license fees] will be part of most high end streamers. So even if you never use it you still have to give that guy money. I wonder if any of the gear companies will be brave enough to sell it as an unlockable DLC feature.

What happens to them once Spotify or Amazon buys Tidal is anyone's guess.

Neurophonic
May 2, 2009

Alan_Shore posted:

I think Tidal at Master quality sounds better than Spotify at High quality.

That’s because like Apple, Tidal sourced dedicated digital masters for streaming instead of ‘pirating’ a massive library of bad CD rips to start their libraries. Which is what Spotify did. They don’t do it now, I believe, but you can bet that some ‘major’ stuff that they have is still that old lovely file, and re-encoded since.

BurritoJustice
Oct 9, 2012

I went in to get my dad's old vinyl player cleaned up (it's a very nice automatic with a lovely wood veneer Denon DP-45), purely to listen to all the old stuff lying around that I'd never imagine otherwise.

Guy at the store couldn't stop waxing lyrical about how MQA is the future and everyone needs to change to MQA and my current DAC is useless without it, at a loving turntable repair store. Older bloke, seemingly the generation most taken by the MQA marketing poo poo. Probably couldn't hear past 10k, but only MQA could come close to vinyl if even that.

Pile Of Garbage
May 28, 2007



I guess I've been out of the loop, can someone give me the quick-and-dirty on MQA? A glance at Wiki says that it's a lossy format so why the heck would audiophiles love it?

Fantastic Foreskin
Jan 6, 2013

A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

Pile Of Garbage posted:

I guess I've been out of the loop, can someone give me the quick-and-dirty on MQA? A glance at Wiki says that it's a lossy format so why the heck would audiophiles love it?

It's a lossy format with some wis-bang encoding scheme to make it sound less lossy. More importantly, it's a proprietary encoding scheme, so you have to pay royalties to the MQA company in order to make a device capable of playing back an MQA file with all of it's "benefits". You can play MQA content on devices without it, but it doesn't get whatever processing goes on to make it sound better, and there's some high frequency noise added to the signal that, at least in isolation, is audible.

Audiophiles love it (to the extent they do, it doesn't really seem to have taken off) because it costs more and is heavily advertised.

Pile Of Garbage
May 28, 2007



Audiophiles really are just olden-day rubes willing to pay whatever amount to the snake-audio salesman who rolls into town promising enhanced fidelity and depth with the latest codec+DAC combo.

Alan_Shore
Dec 2, 2004

So why would you use MQA over FLAC or even WAV?

If you want a nice sound on your old favorite CHOONZ you can't beat recording to MiniDisc over Optical In. Sounds good man

Fantastic Foreskin
Jan 6, 2013

A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

Alan_Shore posted:

So why would you use MQA over FLAC or even WAV?

If you want a nice sound on your old favorite CHOONZ you can't beat recording to MiniDisc over Optical In. Sounds good man

Marketing and the fundamental lack of understanding of technology that comes with audiophilia.

I think MQA also is doing a thing where they get the original artist / engineer to do a new mix so they can claim it matches their original intent, not effected by studio meadling or whatever, though ultimately you can only get a lossy version of this mix because MQA.

Pile Of Garbage
May 28, 2007



ItBreathes posted:

I think MQA also is doing a thing where they get the original artist / engineer to do a new mix so they can claim it matches their original intent, not effected by studio meadling or whatever, though ultimately you can only get a lossy version of this mix because MQA.

That's the whole fingerprinting thing, right? Are there any details on how they expect to do that in a manner in which it can actually operate as anything other than a rubbish metadata attribute?

Fantastic Foreskin
Jan 6, 2013

A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

Pile Of Garbage posted:

That's the whole fingerprinting thing, right? Are there any details on how they expect to do that in a manner in which it can actually operate as anything other than a rubbish metadata attribute?

Afaik it really is a new mix, when they actually do one. E: or maybe they're just saying the MQA mix doesn't have any other, later processing like "mastered for iTunes". The fingerprinting is the high frequency signel added to the music that presumably is picked up on by the decoder but otherwise degrades the signal when not played by a licensed device. Though I remember seeing a post somewhere the other day about it being easy to fool an MQA decoder into turning on it's special light (MQA DACs turn on a blue light when playing a fully authenticated MQA file, or a green light when playing an MQA file that doesn't have 'use blue light' turned on).

The only benefit MQA has over a lossless file is a new way to extract royalties / licensing fees.

qirex
Feb 15, 2001

Meridian was smart with MQA because they went after the senior citizen analog tweako market of dudes who compare the sound of different 5 grand tonearms. The whole “it’s not just higher bitrate it’s :sparkles: magic :sparkles: appeals to those guys.

Pile Of Garbage
May 28, 2007



ItBreathes posted:

Afaik it really is a new mix, when they actually do one. E: or maybe they're just saying the MQA mix doesn't have any other, later processing like "mastered for iTunes". The fingerprinting is the high frequency signel added to the music that presumably is picked up on by the decoder but otherwise degrades the signal when not played by a licensed device. Though I remember seeing a post somewhere the other day about it being easy to fool an MQA decoder into turning on it's special light (MQA DACs turn on a blue light when playing a fully authenticated MQA file, or a green light when playing an MQA file that doesn't have 'use blue light' turned on).

The only benefit MQA has over a lossless file is a new way to extract royalties / licensing fees.

Oh wow. I thought it was fingerprinting as in for the purpose of authenticity or something but this is loving way way worse. Also unsurprised that it was broken so quickly and I can guarantee it will remain broken.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
wait, I had no idea MQA was loving lossy :newlol:

e: it's Bob Stuart's revenge for people rejecting MLP

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

Neurophonic posted:

In other news the Nuraphones arrived yesterday. I’m pretty sure I’ve already figured out what they’re doing but will run some more tests and get some relative measurements of the three profiles I’ve created so far to illustrate what I think is happening.

Any update on this, fella?

qirex
Feb 15, 2001

Olympic Mathlete posted:

Any update on this, fella?

The Nuraphones were a trap, they inject alien DNA into your ears and now the inside of their apartment looks like a Cronenberg movie.

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taqueso
Mar 8, 2004


:911:
:wookie: :thermidor: :wookie:
:dehumanize:

:pirate::hf::tinfoil:
Fine but does it sound good?

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