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Re Hi Res over CD quality:
If we think about it a bit, then there is an important consideration to take into account.
When CDs were being developed, there were, I believe, tests for the minimum bitness and sample frequency that most people would find acceptable within the technical capabilities of the time (approx late 1970s / early 1980s). This came out at 16 bit / 44.1 KHz. If that had been sufficiently poor in comparison to home analogue recordings of the time (LP and tape) then it would not have succeeded and the developers would have had to work on discs that could hold more information for a greater bitness / sample rate.
Given that CD quality was the arrived at acceptable format for most people, there will always be a debate about the quality difference between CD and higher resolutions, as CD quality was always intended to be good enough for the vast majority of listening.
Now that's not to say that higher resolution has no place. I find there are subtle improvements that can be sensed, but not necessarily easily pointed to. So given the choice I will always prefer an HD source to a CD source, but CD is arguably (and we are arguing) good enough for most of us.
Hey, I'm not arguing with you at all. In fact, I agree with you.
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No sale=No listening to a score I want to listen to?
No way!
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Posted: |
Feb 23, 2021 - 10:37 AM
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By: |
Tom Maguire
(Member)
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In my arrogant opinion, we really only need two things:
LP
HiRes Streaming.
None more. None less.
The LP fulfills two important roles - a physical copy for archival purposes. Albums that never had any physical release basically don't exist in my mind.
The LP also gives us the thing that no digital ever will, that analog sound.
In the digital world, I realize buying digital downloads is a thing, but I still don't get it. Not when there are so many all you can eat salad bar options for streaming. But people want it so what do I know.
HiRes. Lossless streaming. Higher than CD audio quality. The Industry really shot itself in the face by not properly marketing and selling a better than CD quality disc system. This would be like Hollywood still selling us Laserdiscs and VHS. I will never understand how they missed out on selling people on a backwards compatible DVD-Audio, BluRay Audio, SACD... whatever. Instead they had to respond to Napster by raising the price of CDs. Insanity.
Spotify has finally announced Spotify HiFi and it's about time because, Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon HD are already there. And where's Apple? I still use iTunes but good lord, do they not enough money to make Apple Music HD a thing. ffs get on with it.
Thanks for listening to my TED Talk.
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In my arrogant opinion, we really only need two things:
LP
HiRes Streaming.
None more. None less.
The LP fulfills two important roles - a physical copy for archival purposes. Albums that never had any physical release basically don't exist in my mind.
The LP also gives us the thing that no digital ever will, that analog sound.
In the digital world, I realize buying digital downloads is a thing, but I still don't get it. Not when there are so many all you can eat salad bar options for streaming. But people want it so what do I know.
I would definitely need digital downloads, streaming cannot replace that for me. I don't want to rely on a streaming service to provide me with my music, I want to own my own music collection and be independent from those services. Also, not every streaming service has all the music.
I enjoy streaming now and then, but there is no way that it is a replacement for my own music collection. First of all, of the thousands of music files I own, only a part is available for streaming on any platform. Secondly, streaming is only of use when you have a good internet connection. I listen to music on the plane, in the car, on different devices with different apps, often when there is no internet. If I own the music, I can convert it from high-res ALAC files to 320kbps AAC (for my car) or listen it on the go. Streaming is limited in that the music is usually tied to a certain app and to certain devices and Internet. I realize most people don't need to own music anymore, but if there is music I really want, there is no way I would want to rely on a streaming service to keep it available, I want it on my NAS. The tagging and finding of music on streaming services is also abysmal, much easier to navigate through my NAS, where artists, composers, etc. are consistently tagged.
Not to mention that even with a streaming subscription, 90% of the time I just stream the music from my own NAS, which is why I only sporadically pay for them.
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I reached out to Dr. Floyd Toole last night, literally one of the top acoustics researchers in the world (if not THE top researcher in the world) to get his take.
Is this is the same Dr. Floyd Toole who tells us that instead of buying one subwoofer for our modest home theaters, we should be buying and installing FOUR subwoofers?
Review quote:
"In his book Sound Reproduction: Loudspeakers and Rooms, Dr. Floyd Toole devotes 18 pages to subwoofer numbers and placement and discusses experiments with up to 5000 subwoofers. His primary concern is smooth distribution of bass energy in typical home listening rooms. Dr. Toole concludes that one sub is good, two is a substantial improvement and four is still better".
Yes, that's Floyd. And he's correct. I run this company:
www.thescreeningroomav.com
And I can verify it's absolutely better to run four smaller subs than one large sub IF you are trying to ensure even bass response seat to seat. It's an obvious and easy to measure upgrade. Four smaller subs will have more surface area than even a very large single sub, so therefore more more air and give you greater SPL.
For a *single* seating location, a single sub properly EQ'd is fine.
Suggest reading Floyd's article on that here, which is definitive:
https://www.audioholics.com/room-acoustics/history-of-multi-sub-sfm
I think it will clarify some misconceptions.
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There is an episode of NPR's "Radiolab" on the topic of color.
Scientists devised a shade of yellow that is apparently outside of the spectrum perceived by humans. To most people, it would look identical to a visible shade of yellow.
But the scientists found at least one person who was able to detect the difference right away.
So it is presumptuous to say how different listeners will perceive different formats. Some may be sensitive to subtleties that are lost on other listeners.
Of course that's possible. But based on all the current research it's not very probable.
For example, did you know that there is a great deal of published and peer reviewed scientific research that shows that you can predict which speaker will win a double blind listening test simply by looking at a set of specific measurements (in the CEA2034 format)? The correlation is at 86% for tower speakers (which is an astounding number) and at 99% for bookshelf speakers. It turns out that, regardless of sex, race, nationality, age, and culture that people will invariably pick the most neutral sounding loudspeaker in scientifically controlled, double blind listening tests.
If you think about it, it makes sense. Why would you want a speaker to sound like anything except what it's trying to reproduce? A saxophone should sound like a saxophone, a vocalist like the vocalist, the orchestra like the orchestra. If a speaker is adding its own "sound signature" to everything, it's acting like a giant, essentially undefeatable tone control or equalizer. Recordings are all over the map in quality - some bright, some dull, some just right. If you pick a speaker that's "warm" and then play a recording that lacks treble energy through it, you'll end up with "dull." Conversely, if you pick a speaker that's bright, recordings with too much treble energy will sound "harsh." Speakers should be neutral and accurately reproduce sound, just like every other component in an audio system. If you start with neutral speakers (or electronics), you know what you are hearing is what's actually in the recording. Then you can always use tone controls or DSP to "season to taste" for recordings that are too bright, too warm, bass shy etc.
Here's another simple way to think about it - if I record your voice, then play back the recording through your sound system, it should just sound like your voice. Nothing less, nothing more. The same is true for electronics - they have one job to do, properly reproduce whatever signal is fed to them.
If you want to season to taste beyond that (particularly to overcome the limitations of a bad quality recording or mastering), knock yourself out.
References for this research - extensive and now part of the CEA2034 industry standard:
https://speakerdata2034.blogspot.com/2019/02/spinorama-cea-2034-2015-ansi-data-format.html
https://www.soundstagesolo.com/index.php/features/246-the-biggest-lie-in-audio?comment_id=511
https://www.stereophile.com/content/blind-listening-harman-international
So, while I do think you have a point in terms of possible outliers, it does seem that the overwhelming majority of humanity agrees on what constitutes good sound.
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The attachment to physical THINGS is what's at the core of wanting CDs. That's your own business, but as someone who sees possessions as a burden, I'm very pleased to be able to play lossless audio through my computer or iPad.
Spot on...
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NO WATER = NO HOT WATER
NO HOT WATER = NO SHOWER
NO HOT WATER = NO OUTLAND
NO HOVERBOARD WORK ON WATER = NO POWAH AH HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA!
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No sale=No listening to a score I want to listen to?
No way!
What are you talking about ?? 
You’ll find that score on YT or Spotify for free!
Don’t pay labels for digital content. Don't feed vultures.
Pay them for physical product only - CD and/or LP.
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For example, did you know that there is a great deal of published and peer reviewed scientific research that shows that you can predict which speaker will win a double blind listening test simply by looking at a set of specific measurements (in the CEA2034 format)?
Yes, not least because you have pointed it out already in several other threads. :-)
Which, as I said, is probably why we should center all this stuff in one thread, instead of constantly rehashing it whenever it pops up.
But most speakers try to sound neutral, most speakers try to get an even frequency response, etc., etc. Most people, especially those who buy expensive speakers, would prefer accuracy and neutrality over sounding speakers, that is not really something that surprises me.
However, it is irrelevant to the issues no CD = no sale and it is also irrelevant to a debate about the benefits of high-res (which, also as has been pointed out in other threads, goes way beyond just "better" sound, but also to access of plenty of better smatterings, different listening perceptions based on that, etc., so a mere double-blind test can only address a smaller part of the issue).
However, I personally already know people who don't seem to be particularly interested in a neutral sound. I friend of mine (actually a former colleague) has a subwoofer in her car and all her music is basically just a mass of bass (she is really into electronic stuff)... now I don't know if she would prefer a "natural" speaker over one who can deliver her more bass, no matter what. So most people =! all people.
Finally, the comparison with colors is interesting. I actually have a color palette here which contains a few thousand colors. I bet there are some most people cannot differentiate when shown sequentially or with other colors sin between. The differences can only easily be distinguished when both colors are shown simultaneously next to each other (something you cannot do with listening). Nevertheless, the the differences are likely to be perceived once you paint larger areas, say a fence or roof with the color, as the differences are revealed there much better. Same with listening: there have been studies (not sure how scientific they were... just some magazine article) that show people get stressed out from the loudness war, they don't like to listen to music for as long when everything is turned to the max, while recordings with a more natural dynamic range are much easier on the ear (and will probably be preferred by most listeners) in the long run. That doesn't change the fact that in random 1:1 comparisons, the "louder" music often wins, as at first, the "louder" music often appears more detailed, clearer, is more present. Which is why the loudness war started in and is mostly an issue in pop music, where the music instantly has to grip you, lest you switch channels or skip the song.
The most comprehensive meta study to the subject in any case clearly shows that a difference between high-res resolution and lesser sound quality files can be perceived:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160627214255.htm
Now you may take issue with certain parts of the results, but by and large, this is still the most comprehensive analysis of the subject I am aware of, and the results are not inconclusive, they are pretty evident.
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For me, music has to be more than data on a hard drive. Data is disposable, expendable, rewritable, non-permanent. I don't care about music files but I do care about CDs.
And so people differ. I'm exactly the opposite.
For me, music is just about the data. The plastic disc (or the hard-drive) is disposable, expendable, non-permanent (as I found out when my hard drive fell on the floor). I don't care about CDs (or the hard drive), I care about the music (which is data).
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To me, music is music. No matter where it comes from.
Which means it is the data that counts, not the carrier. It matters not if the bits and zeros are on a plastic disc, on a magnetic tape, on a hard drive, or on a server (where they are of course also on a drive), it's the same bits and zeros.
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My preference is "No CD = No Sale".
For my money I want something tangible that I can hold in my hands. I like physical things. I like collecting.
If something is digital only, it certainly doesn't mean I'll miss out though. I just won't pay for it.
Digital content can easily be found for free online via platforms like YouTube or Spotify. It's also quite easy to obtain the music by 'other means'.
So you support stealing and bootlegging over paying for a legitimate product like a download? I am specifically referring to what you mean by "other means".
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