The Distortion of Sound

http://www.youtube.com/wa...-V29_M&app=desktop

makes me sad.
when was the last time you actually sat in front of a really decent playback system and listened to good audio?
(and i don't mean home studio monitors....)

(how do i say this without coming off like a pr!ck or being condescending..........)
 
so what you are saying is, you do not know what good audio really sounds like?
 
LOL....
this is kinda what the movie is getting at, at this point, i know younger people who have never really listened to anything but lossy format audio, and wouldn't know good audio if it bit them on the @ss.
 
that said, most older folks remember vinyl, 8 track, cassette, cd's that were the norm BEFORE lossy audio came along.
 

LOL
 
well, i was not directing that at you, of course...
 
but just in general, to myself and everyone else i know that mostly listens to crappy little mp3's
 
when i want to listen to something new, a new cd like the one i just got (remastered zep), i always setup in front of my yamaha amp,cd player and infinity speakers, and block out enough time for a complete listen.
 
i still find this is one of my favorite things to do...
 
and when i later, hear the same thing in my little ear buds while doing chores or whatever, i always end up saying this sounds like sh!t

slartabartfast
There is enough talk about capturing the emotion of music in this video to make you gag, but I am pretty unclear about how reasonably good lossy compression removes emotion from a recording.

It doesn't.
 
Most of what is compressed out at higher bit rates is stuff that will never even make it past the inner ear and into the brain.

when i play a regular cd thru my 'decent' home system,
and immediately play the same file from an mp3,
i can immediately hear the difference.
 

i will remind you..
 
we put a man on the moon.
 
 
in 1969.
 

 

batsbrew
when i play a regular cd thru my 'decent' home system,
and immediately play the same file from an mp3,
i can immediately hear the difference.
 

I bet if you take a modern encoder and make an mp3 of a CD track at a reasonably high bit rate and do a proper ABX test on them you will fail (miserably) to hear any difference.
 
I also bet you won't do such a test.

I have lived with very top end high quality systems especially for years early on in my career.  It sticks with you.  You do remember how things sounded and it helps to shape what you do later as an engineer very much so.  It gives you things to strive for.  It gives you direction in which way to turn with EQ and use of dynamics etc and reverbs too. It is all good.  It helps you master as well.  Everything.  It is almost the same as doing an audio engineering degree.  Lock yourself away with a super setup and listen to everything that has been recorded at least once.
 
(For me it was best turntable with pickups/arms RIAA equalisers and class A valve amps driving Quad Electrostatic speakers. This is an experience. Everything is so fast in this setup. Fast class A amp response coupled with ultra light diaphragms that can move so fast. Amazing transients. Perfect speaker response right over the mids to down low. We had sub woofers reinforcing the electrostatic speakers.)
 
When I ask audio students how many are listening to previous well recorded music on hi fi setups, no one puts their hand up.
 
I was lucky enough to listen to a wide range of genres too on a system such as this.  But even today I still have the same reproduction qualities.  I still have the turntable from that era but can listen to high quality mixes at any time even now.  In fact I believe now I am hearing things even better than back then.  I am amazed. Think our pristine 24 bit premastered mixes we are doing in our current projects.
 
I like listen to well crafted mixes, (Analog or digital)  It is still important to do it.  I also do it in the middle of productions as well as mastering sessions.  Always bringing in ref tracks to check against.
 
It is a sort of A/B mentality that stems from being involved with HI Fi enthusiast. I agree with jamesg1213. I would have not missed being involved with those people at first but I out grew them.  They taught me how to listen past the music and listen to the quality of the reproduction process.  Good stuff.  But they never got past that and that is all they did often. In their favour though they knew how to listen to whole sides of records and I really got that. It does not hurt to think about longer pieces such as 20 or 30 minutes at a time.  I fell in love with the music and started to drift away from all the Hi Fi appeal after a while.  I believed I managed both things well.  The music, and how it was produced etc.. You can do both.  And also you need to let go of the whole sound production process at times and just immerse yourself in the music as well.  That is how you get better at your own music.
 
batsbrew has brought up something very good and important.  The means are still there to do it today.  There are plenty of great CD's around, you don't have to listen to Mps'3 at all if you don't want to.  A decent turntable is a pretty cool thing to have.  There is so much well recoded vinyl around.
 
It is also nice to go to live gigs and hear things in a live context.  A jazz ensemble with say drums, acoustic bass, piano, sax and guitar in a lovely live room.  These things all can add to a lovely well balanced acoustic sound.  Good to hear it from time to time.  Whenever I go to hear my son play Jazz gigs I am hearing the total acoustic ensemble sound too.  It is usually pretty damn nice.  Also I like classical orchestral concerts too.  They sound big and beautiful and so well balanced and reach only exciting volumes too.

drewfx1

batsbrew
when i play a regular cd thru my 'decent' home system,
and immediately play the same file from an mp3,
i can immediately hear the difference.
 

I bet if you take a modern encoder and make an mp3 of a CD track at a reasonably high bit rate and do a proper ABX test on them you will fail (miserably) to hear any difference.
 
I also bet you won't do such a test.

nah, don't need to.
 
got my system setup, to play my cd player...
then a pc to send mp3's via foobar directly to the same system.....
sounds quite different to me.
 

that's ok, drew, i'm gonna stick with my gut feeling.
 
my mp3's are ripped directly by myself thru wavelab.
 
i trust it.
 
but i understand your hesitation....
 

Remember those things?

 
Before I got my first CD player, that's similar to what we had to listen music on. MP3 at 128 kbps are an audiophile's dream by comparison.  Even those of my friends whose parents had a bit more money didn't own anything that would qualify as audiophile quality.
 
I remember the first music tape I made using my little tape recorder (because my parents didn't have a tape deck, only an 8 tracks) - the album was KISS' Creatures of the Night that I'd borrowed from a friend. I had brought the living room's turntable speakers into my room, pressed record and closed the door behind me, ran back to the living room and then put on the vinyl. 
 
I listened to that crappy tape so often that I could hear music backwards between the songs. Eventually it just fell apart. But as crappy as it was, that tape completely changed my life. Those drums that sounded like thunder, the heavy guitars, Gene Simmons growling voice and those wailing guitars - everything so heavy and dark. It all transcended the audio quality.
 
If we did a comparison, I'm actually convinced that ordinary people now have access to much better audio quality than they ever did. 

Yes and do on a regular basis.
 
The problem today I feel is that music has become a throwaway commodity and as such people really do not listen any more. 
 
 
Theses furry paws can be a real PITA really

remember..
 
high fidelity PLAYBACK....
 
and high fidelity RECORDING.....
 
are two completely separate issues.
 

you know, funny story...
 
long time ago, when radio stations ruled, and crushed everything that was broadcast with several limiters...
 
a buddy of mine heard the song 'Over the Hills and Far Away', by zeppelin, play on the radio..
at the end of the song, is the very quiet section, where the clavichord-sounding keyboard plays very softly...
 
and of course, on the radio, the limiter was so NUKING the signal, that it brought that little end-of-the-piece portion up to the same volume level as the loudest part of the song....
 
and he said 'why does it sound so much better on the radio than when i play the album at home?"
 
LOL

Rain
 
I remember the first music tape I made using my little tape recorder (because my parents didn't have a tape deck, only an 8 tracks) - the album was KISS' Creatures of the Night that I'd borrowed from a friend. I had brought the living room's turntable speakers into my room, pressed record and closed the door behind me, ran back to the living room and then put on the vinyl. 
 

 
 

Rain
........... distributing copyrighted material without permission is theft, plain and simple. 
 
 
 ...........no matter who you are stealing from - it's theft.