MP3 Quality
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 2:59PM
I enjoyed reading James Jolly's summary of the downloading market, but I must take issue with his contention that MP3s are adequate for all but those with "golden ears". Even the highest "quality" MP3s are very poor indeed. My wife has a small MP3 player (cost around £60) which I sometimes borrow and we both used earplugs (worth about £30) listening to music converted from our CD collection (all on hard disc). We were previously using the highest quality MP3s that we could create but after a firmware upgrade we have switched to flac and the difference is really striking, so even with modest equipment it is worth doing. The downside is of course that the size is roughly four times what it was, but that still allows 15 full albums on a 4GB player, and we can slot it microSD cards to get more.
We have to accept that MP3 as with other lossy compression formats are low quality. There is no point plugging them into any reasonable quality sound system because the best it can do is show up the imperfections of the format.
As to "ripping" CDs onto a hard drive, I would recommend the (free) Exact Audio Copy from www.exactaudiocopy.de as a program that emphasises quality over convenience, not that it is difficult to use! I can fit over 1,200 CDs uncompressed onto a drive that costs £100. Plug that into one of the new noiseless small form factor PCs (about £300) and take the S/PDIF output direct to your (pre)amplifier and you have an excellent system.
(computer)mike
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 4:18PM
#2
RE: MP3 Quality
Got to agree with JD. Although I use both flac and mp3 I really don't find that the mp3 spoils my enjoyment of the music.
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 5:10PM
#3
RE: MP3 Quality
I enjoyed reading James Jolly's summary of the downloading market, but I must take issue with his contention that MP3s are adequate for all but those with "golden ears". Even the highest "quality" MP3s are very poor indeed.
I think a lot of people would take issue with your taking issue :-)
If you can tell the difference between 320 kbps CBR - or even 256 kbps VBR - mp3 and the original CD, that's fine*. But many people - probably most people - genuinely can't.
* although I do wonder if you've done real ABX comparison, rather than knowing which format you're listening to. The expectation of difference generally makes a difference even if there isn't actually one.
rgds
Spider
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 6:06PM
#4
RE: MP3 Quality
I can see that we may have to agree to disagree on this one. The reason I mentioned my wife and the price of the equipment that we were using is that she is normally quite scathing about my claims to hear a difference in most situations. I was surprised with the amount of difference that I could hear, and especially that she could hear, on such modest equipment. Of course I have not had the time or the inclination to do any proper tests, apart from playing the MP3 version of a song followed by the flac version.
It may just be me, or a few like me, but I rather suspect that many people do not have the opportunity to make any sort of comparison. Very little dowloadable material is available in a lossless format. I vaguely remember there being some research done that showed quite a large proportion of the population could distinguish small(ish) differences in quality of music. I may be imagining this but I will try and look it up.
The simple fact is that a lossy compression removes information - just look at the file sizes to see how much information is removed. Many people prefer vinyl to CD because of the 20KHz cutoff and relatively low sample rate and with much better digital sound becoming available along with HD television and HDMI even uncompressed CD is beginning to be held in pretty low esteem.
I am quite happy that people enjoy their MP3s and AACs; it is enjoyment of the music that is most important, but I do worry that a generation is being expected to accept a relatively low quality experience, solely for commercial reasons, when something better is easily available. The history of music reproduction has been one of continuously increasing quality; I see the dominance of lossy compression for downloaded music as a retrograde step. Obviously others disagree! I am sure I cannot be alone though.
(computer)mike
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 9:46PM
#5
RE: MP3 Quality
Viva Le Difference
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 10:16PM
#6
RE: MP3 Quality
I honestly try to keep an open mind when it comes to all this bats' ears stuff. I've tested and discarded some of the touted upgrade stuff - mains groomers, mega-buck turntables, equipment tweaks, "audiophile" editions of cds. But I have to side with Computer Mike on this one. Somebody gave me the entire set of Perahia/ECO Mozart Piano Concertos as MP3 files a while back. So I A-B'ed them against the cds through the same amp (Home Headroom) and headphones (Grado RS1s). It wasn't even close. Not that the original cds were the last word in recording art. But the MP3 tracks sounded like they were coming out of a biscuit tin, tubby bass, shrill treble, constricted sound stage.
My son tries to keep me in touch with today's music by feeding me MP3s occasionally. He got me hooked on Cinematic Orchestra and I sprung for one of their cds just to see how it would sound compared to the MP3. Closer than the Perahia's perhaps, but still noticeably different in the same general areas, top (fizzy cymbals on MP3), bottom (tubby) and sense of depth.
I'm dying to be convinced because I'm still dragging around my portable disc player on holidays and when I go kayaking. But at this point the jury isn't even out to my ears.
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 10:36PM
#7
RE: MP3 Quality
I hope I'm not assuming too much, but when you mention listening together on a single mp3 player, I'm wondering if you weren't just reaching it's power limits with whatever headphones you were using. Just a thought...
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 10:41PM
#8
RE: MP3 Quality RE: MP3 Quality
I honestly try to keep an open mind when it comes to all this bats' ears stuff. I've tested and discarded some of the touted upgrade stuff - mains groomers, mega-buck turntables, equipment tweaks, "audiophile" editions of cds. But I have to side with Computer Mike on this one. Somebody gave me the entire set of Perahia/ECO Mozart Piano Concertos as MP3 files a while back. So I A-B'ed them against the cds through the same amp (Home Headroom) and headphones (Grado RS1s). It wasn't even close. Not that the original cds were the last word in recording art. But the MP3 tracks sounded like they were coming out of a biscuit tin, tubby bass, shrill treble, constricted sound stage.
My son tries to keep me in touch with today's music by feeding me MP3s occasionally. He got me hooked on Cinematic Orchestra and I sprung for one of their cds just to see how it would sound compared to the MP3. Closer than the Perahia's perhaps, but still noticeably different in the same general areas, top (fizzy cymbals on MP3), bottom (tubby) and sense of depth.
I'm dying to be convinced because I'm still dragging around my portable disc player on holidays and when I go kayaking. But at this point the jury isn't even out to my ears.
What was the bit rate? It depends how much compression was used. Although my older ears aren't the last word in hearing, my son who has a fairly good hi fi system uses mp3s at 320 bit rate. It can also depend on the encoder. I know he doesn't think much of the ipod one.
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 11:12PM
#9
RE: Home
The simple fact is that a lossy compression removes information - just look at the file sizes to see how much information is removed.
That lossy compression removes data isn't really the issue - it's whether people can hear the effect it has that's important.
The history of music reproduction has been one of continuously increasing quality
Except you obviously don't think so, or we wouldn't be discussing this :-)
There's an interesting short article - 'The Sizzling Sound of Music' - at http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music.html that suggests "familiarity" may be one determinant in what sort of sound we prefer.
It also mentions the fact "Thomas Edison promoted his phonograph by demonstrating that a person could not tell whether behind a curtain was an opera singer or one of Edison's cylinders playing a recording of the singer."
That was around 1900.
But in 2009 an informal test reported in a Cnet article - at http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic/0,39029432,49303980,00.htm - found that 1/3 of the people involved (only 16 in total, mind) apparently preferred 48Kbps AAC+ to 160Kbps OGG Vorbis.
Plus ça change :-)
Spider
Tue, Mar 30 2010, 11:53PM
#10
RE: MP3 Quality
You're asking fair questions, kenpat. To be honest, I don't know. But the fact that neither the person who gave be the Mozart PCs, nor my son who listens to MP3 exclusively, can hear any difference, is interesting. I believe the ear can be educated or programmed, which I guess is what spiderjon is saying. Back in the day, when I played my old Garrard entry level turntable, 20 quid kit amp and cheapo speakers to friends, they swore it sounded exactly like a live performance. The sound produced by that equipment was probably vastly inferior to today's MP3 through an ipod.
Wed, Mar 31 2010, 2:17AM
#11
RE: MP3 Quality
I agree, SpiderJon, that you need to do a "blind" test to see if you really can tell the difference. I doubt I could these days, simply because my hearing is almost certainly not as good as it was when I was young. BTST, I'm not sure I'd want to plug my iPod (loaded with 320 kbps MP3s from my CD collection) instead of my CD player into my Quad 33-303 set-up. Not that it matters. Chance to use the Quad these days would be a fine thing.
Wed, Mar 31 2010, 9:35AM
#12
RE: MP3 Quality
I agree: the main factor in the equation is surely the capacity of the human ear to hear sounds over a certain frequency, and that certainly diminishes with age, as a simple experiment with high-pitched alarms conducted with someone younger (they can hear them; I can't) demonstrates. Of the various rates which have been cited, 320 is for me indistinguishable from the CD source and I use this option (available on iTunes) to rip my CDs onto my iTunes library.
Wed, Mar 31 2010, 12:47PM
#13
RE: MP3 Quality
Sorry if this post rambles a bit.
I keep on remembering that I first heard classical music on a 50's Bush upright radiogram using 78's.
In a spirit of modernity I bought a Dansette Bermuda record player in the early 60's and that was when I really started to get interested seriously in music. I look at the pieces that I learned to love through this medium and a lot of them (albeit in different recordings) are still on my playlist. One of the first pieces I fell in love with was, I think, a Suraphone recording of Stravinskys Rite of Spring. Now I'm listening to it on a sacd, but I still love the piece. On cd I listen to historic recordings of it including the 1929 Monteux. Maybe it's an age thing but more and more I find it's the music I want to hear and I'm not to concerned about the delivery method.
The same argument in one form or another has also been present throughout my listening life. I still remember my uncle decrying stereo saying it was unreal, and there used to be a separate section in the record shop (remember them) for stereo records.
However I think it's a good thing that people care enough about the music to want to hear it as perfectly as they think they can. The downside is they sometimes lose sight of the music in the search for audio perfection.
Thu, Apr 1 2010, 6:13AM
#14
RE: MP3 Quality
Until recently I was quite sceptical about the sound quality of MP3, but recent technical developments, like interpolation software as BitDoubler, dramatically enhanced my listening pleasure. I have a large collection of 128 Kbs files I stored about 10 years ago, and I always thought them "lost" soundwise. BitDoubler makes them sound like a CD... But the real revelation is in listening to 32 Kbs radio stations. Ok, if you use headphones, you can tell the difference between FM radio and a Bitdoubled internet stream, but over the speakers I can't tell the difference anymore. I am curious what the future further brings in Mp3 enhancing software!
Rolf
Thu, Apr 1 2010, 10:43AM
#15
RE: MP3 Quality RE: MP3 Quality
I am curious what the future further brings in Mp3 enhancing software!
How about music files “1,000 times smaller than a regular MP3 file" - ie, "20 seconds of music compressed into less than 1 KB"
See http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comment/1-kb-music-files-thanks-to-a-clarinet/ for more info.
And no - it wasn't published on April 1st!
I disagree. I've had very good results comparing 320kbps (usually AAC) to lossless (ALAC) - to the point that they're pretty much indistinguishable. This is in a reasonable mid-range system with a dedicated DAC, and latterly with a top-notch headphone setup...