You want high-bit rate on Apple Music... then you don't need high-bit rate on Pandora or Spotify... but if you did want high-bit rate you'll buy the CD. So, it's okay for others to not offer high-bit rate cuz it's good enough as is, but if Apple doesn't offer it then you want it and half-complain they don't have it?!
Apparently internal self-consistency is not a strong point of mine.
Yes, lossless/high-bit rate would make ?Music more appealing to me.
I don't need high-bit rate Pandora or Spotify because I listen to them mostly in casual listening environments - work or driving. IMHO, high-bit rate isn't needed when traffic is raising the noise floor or my brain is mostly busy working rather than listening.
If I do want a high quality recording - to listen to on my fancy home rig, I don't find it overly burdensome to buy a CD.
I casually listen to a lot of music in noisy environments. Of that, some sub-set I find worth buying/owning. If I'm going to pay for it, I want at least CD quality. And I like possessing the actual bits vs renting them for as long as I maintain a subscription.
If ?Music provided a compelling casual listening experience (good curated playlists, playlists based on a song (Pandora crushes it here, IMHO)) AND provided CD quality when I wanted it, that would be more appealing.
How about varying quality/bit-rate based on location? If I'm in the car using cell data, give me "barely good enough", if I'm on wi-fi give me "better" and if I'm listening through my home theater give me "super awesome" quality.
- Jasen.
P.S. When is Apple going to give us a system wide equalizer so I can tune the audio output based on which headphones or speakers I have plugged in?
I have a free Spotify account too and no way I will stick with that. The sound is too awful. Even though we don't know about the sound quality of Apple Music I'll bet it the same with iTunes purchase (better than iTunes Radio). That's good enough.
And no way I'll pay for that convoluted service. I got a headache just browsing the app.
Can't hardly wait to try Apple Music. They should release it already!
Can't hardly wait to try SIRI's "play top 20 rock songs from 1975"!
Apple Music has 256kbps
Google Play Music has 320kpbs
Spotify has three ranges of streaming quality to choose from - Normal (96kbps) High (160kpbs) and Extreme (320kpbs)
After rewatching the Keynote I'm having a hard time understanding anyone who is a paid member of Spotify to not switch. What Spotify have that Apple Music doesn't? (apart from sentimental reason)
Apple Music will launch in more countries.
The price will be the same for a single person and even cheaper for family tier.
Larger library.
Better integration with the system and SIRI.
Can play offline too.
Free 3 months (you'll save $30)
It's a no brainer for Apple Watch owner.
The only group I can understand may not be too thrilled about switching will be the one who have SONOS system, which is not working *now*. Other than that, why not switch?
The several play lists they've made that would take a long time to remake. It also does offline playback. Not much incentive to switch if you're already using a service as Apple Music doesn't provide that much more if anything more like in my case.
I use Google Play Music so if I switch I'd get lower quality streaming and lose my human curated play list that refresh daily and all my personal play lists that I've made and the ability at this time to be available to play on anything I want when I want. That's a lot to lose for $2 more per month.
Now if you're new and not into any service I think Apple Music is a great choice to go into.
Simply meaning many new artists on limited budgets might break through. The term 'going viral' isn't exactly what I mean but along those lines. I know many amazingly talented musicians that never got a break. The odds are stacked against anyone unless they have a Simon Cowell behind them.
My analogy for the Apps store is the same thing and now proven. I owned a software company many moons ago and know how hard and costly it was dealing with marketing, packaging and distribution. Today two kids in an attic without a dime can have a best seller on their hands thanks to the playing field leveling effect of the Apple App Store concept. That 30% Apple take is nothing compared to the costs saved. I suspect a similar scheme may be there (I don't know obviously) for artists. Compared to what the record companies took 30% would be a gift! Have you ever read the horror stories of many now famous musicians and how little they ever actually received after being conned by record companies when they were newbies?
Hope that explains what I meant better.
Thank you for that. Makes sense and I like that thought process. Hopefully it'll work out.
I think the killer feature is ability to download songs and playlist for offline listening
Seems would help those w data limits
Dj sounds cool as bringing some old school listening
Family plan also attractive
Would love iTunes Match payers to get a discount or grandfather in
A killer feature is something that others don't have. Since others DO have offline listening that is no longer a killer feature. It's a "I have it as well" feature.
If they can launch their own 24/7 live radio station, what's to say they couldn't launch their own 24/7 live TV channel and fill it with high quality original material created specially for it. No rights issues or difficult negotiations with cable companies and tv networks.
Spotify has three ranges of streaming quality to choose from - Normal (96kbps) High (160kpbs) and Extreme (320kpbs)
I'm a bit of an audiophile and I have listened to music from MP3 low bit rate to SACD. iTunes music (the one you purchased, not the one you listened on iTunes Radio) is actually a bit better than ordinary 320 kbps MP3. I'm not sure where you get the number of bit rate for Apple Music but if it's the same as the track you purchased from iTunes then the chance it will be better than what's in Google Play Music is quite good. (assuming that it's vanilla MP3 since I never use the service)
Spotify however I'm using its free service and the sound quality is atrocious.
I'm a bit of an audiophile and I have listened to music from MP3 low bit rate to SACD. iTunes music (the one you purchased, not the one you listened on iTunes Radio) is actually a bit better than ordinary 320 kbps MP3. I'm not sure where you get the number of bit rate for Apple Music but if it's the same as the track you purchased from iTunes then the chance it will be better than what's in Google Play Music is quite good. (assuming that it's vanilla MP3 since I never use the service)
Spotify however I'm using its free service and the sound quality is atrocious.
Well that number of 256 is all over the place if you just look for it. So I'm sorry but you won't be getting the same of better bit rate as the other paid services. Buying and streaming are always two different things in negotiations.
This article pretty much sums up what I've b en seeing around the Web and on social media. Basically is that Apple Music doesn't do anything new and services like Spotify already have a great social networking play lists that is widely used.
Apple Music is a major mess, and it won't beat Spotify
Meanwhile, Spotify — Apple's chief rival in the music streaming space — is king of the human-curated playlist. That's because Spotify actually built a social network, from the bottom up, without any hoopla, without even calling it a social network. Its users just like making playlists. You can find playlists for just about any artist or mood under the sun. You can also see what your friends are listening to at any given moment, a deceptively simple but powerful feature.
Jon Hicks @Hicksdesign
Will be interesting to try Apple Music, but I've been working on 'Best of year' playlists going back 30 years on Spotify.
3:21 AM - 9 Jun 2015
4 4 Retweets 13 13 favorites
I held out against Spotify for many years, determined to protect the walled garden of my iTunes content — the tracks I'd painstakingly uploaded, the playlists I'd curated. Once I took the plunge, I discovered I could upload my iTunes playlists while adding dozens more. Within about 10 minutes, I was a convert. Every time the company updates the app I'm sold again, most recently with the excellent addition of running playlists that match their beat to your cadence.
Well that number of 256 is all over the place if you just look for it. So I'm sorry but you won't be getting the same of better bit rate as the other paid services. Buying and streaming are always two different things in negotiations.
We shall see (or hear) soon but if it's the same quality as iTunes purchase music then it will be a bit better than both Google's and Spotify irregardless of the number of their bit rate.
And from what I read, Apple Seems to create Apple Music to be your music. "With an Apple Music membership, your entire library lives in iCloud. We compare every track in your collection to the Apple Music library to see if we have a copy. If we do, you can automatically listen to it straight from the cloud. If you have music that’s not in our catalog, we upload those songs from iTunes on your Mac or PC. It’s all in iCloud, so it won’t take up any space on your devices.” it sounds like what I will get is iTunes Music as mine.
Spotify has three ranges of streaming quality to choose from - Normal (96kbps) High (160kpbs) and Extreme (320kpbs)
Quote:
Originally Posted by matrix07
I'm a bit of an audiophile and I have listened to music from MP3 low bit rate to SACD. iTunes music (the one you purchased, not the one you listened on iTunes Radio) is actually a bit better than ordinary 320 kbps MP3. I'm not sure where you get the number of bit rate for Apple Music but if it's the same as the track you purchased from iTunes then the chance it will be better than what's in Google Play Music is quite good. (assuming that it's vanilla MP3 since I never use the service)
Spotify however I'm using its free service and the sound quality is atrocious.
iTunes music is all AAC codec, which provides a better "quality" for a given bitrate than MP3 - some would claim the same quality for 1/2 the bitrate. Thus 256kbps AAC is considered to have higher quality than 320kbps MP3. I would assume that Apple Music would also be AAC.
"Save for Offline Listening" is for those who buy the Apple Music Membership.
Welcome to the modern internet world, where vast numbers of people will spend hours posting questions on forums or Twitter looking for someone to provide an answer them, rather than spend 30s doing a search and a few minutes reading answers on the sources.
We shall see (or hear) soon but if it's the same quality as iTunes purchase music then it will be a bit better than both Google's and Spotify irregardless of the number of their bit rate.
And from what I read, Apple Seems to create Apple Music to be your music. "With an Apple Music membership, your entire library lives in iCloud. We compare every track in your collection to the Apple Music library to see if we have a copy. If we do, you can automatically listen to it straight from the cloud. If you have music that’s not in our catalog, we upload those songs from iTunes on your Mac or PC. It’s all in iCloud, so it won’t take up any space on your devices.” it sounds like what I will get is iTunes Music as mine.
Well I'm sorry to tell you it's not. Many articles to back up the claim. 256kbps is what you'll be getting.
As with the second part. This is still nothing new. Substitute Apple for Google Play Music in that paragraph and it would be the same thing.
iTunes music is all AAC codec, which provides a better "quality" for a given bitrate than MP3 - some would claim the same quality for 1/2 the bitrate. Thus 256kbps AAC is considered to have higher quality than 320kbps MP3. I would assume that Apple Music would also be AAC.
Oh, I didn't know that. I just converted from Windows 4 years ago so didn't have a chance to listen to this kind of codec before. All I know is I swore never to buy a song from iTunes because it's not lossless. Then one day I craved and I'm shocked. I thought I just bought a lossless song.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SirLance99
Well I'm sorry to tell you it's not. Many articles to back up the claim. 256kbps is what you'll be getting.
As with everything in life, number alone never tell the whole thing but you believe what you want to believe. I will believe my trained ears. Thank you.
People with landfill garbage for audio systems can't tell the difference. People with reference audio systems hear night and day in quality, clarity and detail.
To use your example - it's like having a retina display, but Apple limits all your photos, video, resolution to 640x480. Then Mr. Magoo comes along with his Nokia 8210 and says humans can't discern between 640x480 and 2880x1800 anyways - and says it's science and fact, and he can't tell the difference so it's true.
Spotify has three ranges of streaming quality to choose from - Normal (96kbps) High (160kpbs) and Extreme (320kpbs)
iTunes music is all AAC codec, which provides a better "quality" for a given bitrate than MP3 - some would claim the same quality for 1/2 the bitrate. Thus 256kbps AAC is considered to have higher quality than 320kbps MP3. I would assume that Apple Music would also be AAC.
Spotify doesn't stream in MP3. Spotify streams in OGG Vorbis which has generally been considered to have a better sound quality than MP3 and AAC but its all really personal preference and most can't hear the difference. Most can't hear the difference in MP3/AAC/FLAC
People with landfill garbage for audio systems can't tell the difference.
People with reference audio systems hear night and day in quality, clarity and detail.
To use your example - it's like having a retina display, but Apple limits all your photos, video, resolution to 640x480.
Then Mr. Magoo comes along with his Nokia 8210 and says humans can't discern between 640x480 and 2880x1800 anyways - and says it's science and fact, and he can't tell the difference so it's true.
Well audio has been studied several times. And each time 8 out of 10 people could not tell the difference between MP3. AAC, OGG Vorbis, or Flac when you got to higher bitrates. For example
For most people, Ogg Vorbis sounds better at bitrates around 100 kbps as it does not cut off the trebles as harshly as AAC. From 128 up to 160 both will probably sound pretty good. Many people will not be able to tell the difference between a 192 kbps AAC/Vorbis and a CD.
I am a career audio engineer and have high resolution playback systems at my disposal. Still to this day, I have trouble hearing any significant difference between well-encoded iTunes plus tracks (usually Mastered for iTunes fare) and uncompressed 24-bit audio samples at 44.1 kHz+. There are some tracks from iTunes that are technically encoded at 256 Kbps but were obviously re-encoded from lower bit-rate files. Those are pretty obvious to pick out.
The point being... uncompressed audio only has advantages in the theoretical realm. Practically, with 99.9% of the population listening on playback systems that cost $500 or less, 256 Kbps AAC is capable of more fidelity than these systems can deliver, and Apple will stick with it for the foreseeable future. The analog hardware is almost always the weak link in the chain.
People with landfill garbage for audio systems can't tell the difference.
People with reference audio systems hear night and day in quality, clarity and detail.
To use your example - it's like having a retina display, but Apple limits all your photos, video, resolution to 640x480.
Then Mr. Magoo comes along with his Nokia 8210 and says humans can't discern between 640x480 and 2880x1800 anyways - and says it's science and fact, and he can't tell the difference so it's true.
I have a non-garbage system and I can't tell the difference between 256 kbps AAC and an uncompressed source. Some time ago I made a test file containing segments of compressed and uncompressed source and invited people to download and listen to it and challenged them to say where the splices were. No one has ever been able to do so by listening to the track.
I have a non-garbage system and I can't tell the difference between 256 kbps AAC and an uncompressed source. Some time ago I made a test file containing segments of compressed and uncompressed source and invited people to download and listen to it and challenged them to say where the splices were. No one has ever been able to do so by listening to the track.
Exactly, although that kind of testing primarily only works well when users are used to the system and the acoustics of a room.
There’s another way to test whether a compressed signal is any different from the original uncompressed signal with complete reliability.
What you do is mix the two signals together, but one of them is added out-of-phase. This will cause anything that’s common between the two signals to cancel. If you hear absolute silence, then the compression is perfect. Whatever you do hear is the difference between the two signals.
I heard this done at a SMPTE meeting some years ago to demonstrate how reliable Dolby Digital was. Every few seconds, we heard a slight momentary “sss”. That was the only difference between the original uncompressed track and the Dolby Digital optical track. And Dolby Digital used a form of AAC as well.
I’ve run tests at home with visitors who claim that digital screws up analog recordings. So I playback a vinyl LP and a CD-R copy of that vinyl LP in sync and switch back and forth. No one can ever tell the difference.
Exactly, although that kind of testing primarily only works well when users are used to the system and the acoustics of a room.
There’s another way to test whether a compressed signal is any different from the original uncompressed signal with complete reliability.
What you do is mix the two signals together, but one of them is added out-of-phase. This will cause anything that’s common between the two signals to cancel. If you hear absolute silence, then the compression is perfect. Whatever you do hear is the difference between the two signals.
I heard this done at a SMPTE meeting some years ago to demonstrate how reliable Dolby Digital was. Every few seconds, we heard a slight momentary “sss”. That was the only difference between the original uncompressed track and the Dolby Digital optical track. And Dolby Digital used a form of AAC as well.
I’ve run tests at home with visitors who claim that digital screws up analog recordings. So I playback a vinyl LP and a CD-R copy of that vinyl LP in sync and switch back and forth. No one can ever tell the difference.
By uploading a file, anyone can listen in whatever location and on whatever equipment they want, which if you have encountered the argumentative predilictions ofsome hardcase audio-hobyists, you will probably agree puts certain balls squarly in their court.
Really, the best way to test if anyone can hear a difference between A and B is via a double blind trial. There is software that will do this rather painlessly - the ABX comparator module of Foobar, for example.
Your digital playback of a vinyl recording is a good one for outing the truth. I have reached the conclusion that sources don't matter and D/A converters are pretty much indistinguishable from each others unless very poorly implemented. I can use any of my phones as a source, a DAT player, an iPod, a good CD player, a portable CD player, a DVD player - they all sound excellent and are indistinguishable from each other.
Comments
You want high-bit rate on Apple Music... then you don't need high-bit rate on Pandora or Spotify... but if you did want high-bit rate you'll buy the CD. So, it's okay for others to not offer high-bit rate cuz it's good enough as is, but if Apple doesn't offer it then you want it and half-complain they don't have it?!
Apparently internal self-consistency is not a strong point of mine.
Yes, lossless/high-bit rate would make ?Music more appealing to me.
I don't need high-bit rate Pandora or Spotify because I listen to them mostly in casual listening environments - work or driving. IMHO, high-bit rate isn't needed when traffic is raising the noise floor or my brain is mostly busy working rather than listening.
If I do want a high quality recording - to listen to on my fancy home rig, I don't find it overly burdensome to buy a CD.
I casually listen to a lot of music in noisy environments. Of that, some sub-set I find worth buying/owning. If I'm going to pay for it, I want at least CD quality. And I like possessing the actual bits vs renting them for as long as I maintain a subscription.
If ?Music provided a compelling casual listening experience (good curated playlists, playlists based on a song (Pandora crushes it here, IMHO)) AND provided CD quality when I wanted it, that would be more appealing.
How about varying quality/bit-rate based on location? If I'm in the car using cell data, give me "barely good enough", if I'm on wi-fi give me "better" and if I'm listening through my home theater give me "super awesome" quality.
- Jasen.
P.S. When is Apple going to give us a system wide equalizer so I can tune the audio output based on which headphones or speakers I have plugged in?
Apple Music has 256kbps
Google Play Music has 320kpbs
Spotify has three ranges of streaming quality to choose from - Normal (96kbps) High (160kpbs) and Extreme (320kpbs)
The several play lists they've made that would take a long time to remake. It also does offline playback. Not much incentive to switch if you're already using a service as Apple Music doesn't provide that much more if anything more like in my case.
I use Google Play Music so if I switch I'd get lower quality streaming and lose my human curated play list that refresh daily and all my personal play lists that I've made and the ability at this time to be available to play on anything I want when I want. That's a lot to lose for $2 more per month.
Now if you're new and not into any service I think Apple Music is a great choice to go into.
Thank you for that. Makes sense and I like that thought process. Hopefully it'll work out.
A killer feature is something that others don't have. Since others DO have offline listening that is no longer a killer feature. It's a "I have it as well" feature.
If they can launch their own 24/7 live radio station, what's to say they couldn't launch their own 24/7 live TV channel and fill it with high quality original material created specially for it. No rights issues or difficult negotiations with cable companies and tv networks.
I'm a bit of an audiophile and I have listened to music from MP3 low bit rate to SACD. iTunes music (the one you purchased, not the one you listened on iTunes Radio) is actually a bit better than ordinary 320 kbps MP3. I'm not sure where you get the number of bit rate for Apple Music but if it's the same as the track you purchased from iTunes then the chance it will be better than what's in Google Play Music is quite good. (assuming that it's vanilla MP3 since I never use the service)
Spotify however I'm using its free service and the sound quality is atrocious.
Well that number of 256 is all over the place if you just look for it. So I'm sorry but you won't be getting the same of better bit rate as the other paid services. Buying and streaming are always two different things in negotiations.
This article pretty much sums up what I've b en seeing around the Web and on social media. Basically is that Apple Music doesn't do anything new and services like Spotify already have a great social networking play lists that is widely used.
Apple Music is a major mess, and it won't beat Spotify
http://mashable.com/2015/06/09/apple-music-mess/
Meanwhile, Spotify — Apple's chief rival in the music streaming space — is king of the human-curated playlist. That's because Spotify actually built a social network, from the bottom up, without any hoopla, without even calling it a social network. Its users just like making playlists. You can find playlists for just about any artist or mood under the sun. You can also see what your friends are listening to at any given moment, a deceptively simple but powerful feature.
Jon Hicks @Hicksdesign
Will be interesting to try Apple Music, but I've been working on 'Best of year' playlists going back 30 years on Spotify.
3:21 AM - 9 Jun 2015
4 4 Retweets 13 13 favorites
I held out against Spotify for many years, determined to protect the walled garden of my iTunes content — the tracks I'd painstakingly uploaded, the playlists I'd curated. Once I took the plunge, I discovered I could upload my iTunes playlists while adding dozens more. Within about 10 minutes, I was a convert. Every time the company updates the app I'm sold again, most recently with the excellent addition of running playlists that match their beat to your cadence.
We shall see (or hear) soon but if it's the same quality as iTunes purchase music then it will be a bit better than both Google's and Spotify irregardless of the number of their bit rate.
And from what I read, Apple Seems to create Apple Music to be your music. "With an Apple Music membership, your entire library lives in iCloud. We compare every track in your collection to the Apple Music library to see if we have a copy. If we do, you can automatically listen to it straight from the cloud. If you have music that’s not in our catalog, we upload those songs from iTunes on your Mac or PC. It’s all in iCloud, so it won’t take up any space on your devices.” it sounds like what I will get is iTunes Music as mine.
Apple Music has 256kbps
Google Play Music has 320kpbs
Spotify has three ranges of streaming quality to choose from - Normal (96kbps) High (160kpbs) and Extreme (320kpbs)
I'm a bit of an audiophile and I have listened to music from MP3 low bit rate to SACD. iTunes music (the one you purchased, not the one you listened on iTunes Radio) is actually a bit better than ordinary 320 kbps MP3. I'm not sure where you get the number of bit rate for Apple Music but if it's the same as the track you purchased from iTunes then the chance it will be better than what's in Google Play Music is quite good. (assuming that it's vanilla MP3 since I never use the service)
Spotify however I'm using its free service and the sound quality is atrocious.
iTunes music is all AAC codec, which provides a better "quality" for a given bitrate than MP3 - some would claim the same quality for 1/2 the bitrate. Thus 256kbps AAC is considered to have higher quality than 320kbps MP3. I would assume that Apple Music would also be AAC.
Links, Rogifan, Links! http://www.apple.com/music/membership/
"Save for Offline Listening" is for those who buy the Apple Music Membership.
Welcome to the modern internet world, where vast numbers of people will spend hours posting questions on forums or Twitter looking for someone to provide an answer them, rather than spend 30s doing a search and a few minutes reading answers on the sources.
[shrugs...]
Well I'm sorry to tell you it's not. Many articles to back up the claim. 256kbps is what you'll be getting.
As with the second part. This is still nothing new. Substitute Apple for Google Play Music in that paragraph and it would be the same thing.
iTunes music is all AAC codec, which provides a better "quality" for a given bitrate than MP3 - some would claim the same quality for 1/2 the bitrate. Thus 256kbps AAC is considered to have higher quality than 320kbps MP3. I would assume that Apple Music would also be AAC.
Oh, I didn't know that. I just converted from Windows 4 years ago so didn't have a chance to listen to this kind of codec before. All I know is I swore never to buy a song from iTunes because it's not lossless. Then one day I craved and I'm shocked. I thought I just bought a lossless song.
Well I'm sorry to tell you it's not. Many articles to back up the claim. 256kbps is what you'll be getting.
As with everything in life, number alone never tell the whole thing but you believe what you want to believe. I will believe my trained ears. Thank you.
People with reference audio systems hear night and day in quality, clarity and detail.
To use your example - it's like having a retina display, but Apple limits all your photos, video, resolution to 640x480.
Then Mr. Magoo comes along with his Nokia 8210 and says humans can't discern between 640x480 and 2880x1800 anyways - and says it's science and fact, and he can't tell the difference so it's true.
Apple Music has 256kbps
Google Play Music has 320kpbs
Spotify has three ranges of streaming quality to choose from - Normal (96kbps) High (160kpbs) and Extreme (320kpbs)
iTunes music is all AAC codec, which provides a better "quality" for a given bitrate than MP3 - some would claim the same quality for 1/2 the bitrate. Thus 256kbps AAC is considered to have higher quality than 320kbps MP3. I would assume that Apple Music would also be AAC.
Spotify doesn't stream in MP3. Spotify streams in OGG Vorbis which has generally been considered to have a better sound quality than MP3 and AAC but its all really personal preference and most can't hear the difference. Most can't hear the difference in MP3/AAC/FLAC
People with landfill garbage for audio systems can't tell the difference.
People with reference audio systems hear night and day in quality, clarity and detail.
To use your example - it's like having a retina display, but Apple limits all your photos, video, resolution to 640x480.
Then Mr. Magoo comes along with his Nokia 8210 and says humans can't discern between 640x480 and 2880x1800 anyways - and says it's science and fact, and he can't tell the difference so it's true.
Well audio has been studied several times. And each time 8 out of 10 people could not tell the difference between MP3. AAC, OGG Vorbis, or Flac when you got to higher bitrates. For example
For most people, Ogg Vorbis sounds better at bitrates around 100 kbps as it does not cut off the trebles as harshly as AAC. From 128 up to 160 both will probably sound pretty good. Many people will not be able to tell the difference between a 192 kbps AAC/Vorbis and a CD.
The point being... uncompressed audio only has advantages in the theoretical realm. Practically, with 99.9% of the population listening on playback systems that cost $500 or less, 256 Kbps AAC is capable of more fidelity than these systems can deliver, and Apple will stick with it for the foreseeable future. The analog hardware is almost always the weak link in the chain.
People with landfill garbage for audio systems can't tell the difference.
People with reference audio systems hear night and day in quality, clarity and detail.
To use your example - it's like having a retina display, but Apple limits all your photos, video, resolution to 640x480.
Then Mr. Magoo comes along with his Nokia 8210 and says humans can't discern between 640x480 and 2880x1800 anyways - and says it's science and fact, and he can't tell the difference so it's true.
I have a non-garbage system and I can't tell the difference between 256 kbps AAC and an uncompressed source. Some time ago I made a test file containing segments of compressed and uncompressed source and invited people to download and listen to it and challenged them to say where the splices were. No one has ever been able to do so by listening to the track.
I have a non-garbage system and I can't tell the difference between 256 kbps AAC and an uncompressed source. Some time ago I made a test file containing segments of compressed and uncompressed source and invited people to download and listen to it and challenged them to say where the splices were. No one has ever been able to do so by listening to the track.
Exactly, although that kind of testing primarily only works well when users are used to the system and the acoustics of a room.
There’s another way to test whether a compressed signal is any different from the original uncompressed signal with complete reliability.
What you do is mix the two signals together, but one of them is added out-of-phase. This will cause anything that’s common between the two signals to cancel. If you hear absolute silence, then the compression is perfect. Whatever you do hear is the difference between the two signals.
I heard this done at a SMPTE meeting some years ago to demonstrate how reliable Dolby Digital was. Every few seconds, we heard a slight momentary “sss”. That was the only difference between the original uncompressed track and the Dolby Digital optical track. And Dolby Digital used a form of AAC as well.
I’ve run tests at home with visitors who claim that digital screws up analog recordings. So I playback a vinyl LP and a CD-R copy of that vinyl LP in sync and switch back and forth. No one can ever tell the difference.
i hope they add other genre 24 hour music stations, specifically jazz and electronic.
Exactly, although that kind of testing primarily only works well when users are used to the system and the acoustics of a room.
There’s another way to test whether a compressed signal is any different from the original uncompressed signal with complete reliability.
What you do is mix the two signals together, but one of them is added out-of-phase. This will cause anything that’s common between the two signals to cancel. If you hear absolute silence, then the compression is perfect. Whatever you do hear is the difference between the two signals.
I heard this done at a SMPTE meeting some years ago to demonstrate how reliable Dolby Digital was. Every few seconds, we heard a slight momentary “sss”. That was the only difference between the original uncompressed track and the Dolby Digital optical track. And Dolby Digital used a form of AAC as well.
I’ve run tests at home with visitors who claim that digital screws up analog recordings. So I playback a vinyl LP and a CD-R copy of that vinyl LP in sync and switch back and forth. No one can ever tell the difference.
By uploading a file, anyone can listen in whatever location and on whatever equipment they want, which if you have encountered the argumentative predilictions ofsome hardcase audio-hobyists, you will probably agree puts certain balls squarly in their court.
Really, the best way to test if anyone can hear a difference between A and B is via a double blind trial. There is software that will do this rather painlessly - the ABX comparator module of Foobar, for example.
Your digital playback of a vinyl recording is a good one for outing the truth. I have reached the conclusion that sources don't matter and D/A converters are pretty much indistinguishable from each others unless very poorly implemented. I can use any of my phones as a source, a DAT player, an iPod, a good CD player, a portable CD player, a DVD player - they all sound excellent and are indistinguishable from each other.
Thanks!