Elcorso

[wdw]

...you were so delightful but are now becoming a tad mean spirited.

WDW

 

[wgscott]

Sorry.

 

No one has ever referred to me as "delightful" before.

 

 

 

[Old Listener]

@ MarkB

 

Very funny post. I had never been to a wake for someone who left a forum. Where is the beer?

 

@Jud

 

> In other words - just my own opinion, sometimes a little

> "magical realism" is pretty interesting.

 

I think that it is sad that there is so much magical thinking in audio and so little interest in understanding how things really work.

 

Bill

 

 

 

 

[Jud]

I think that it is sad that there is so much magical thinking in audio and so little interest in understanding how things really work.

 

I don't disagree. I do regret a bit that Roch specifically is gone, having found his posts generally entertaining. I also don't think there was a huge likelihood of people blindly following Roch's pronouncements; if anyone was doing that with someone who said he was from "Aquinostan," well....

 

All that having been said, Roch's decision was his own, no one else's.

 

 

[wgscott]

I really enjoyed Roch's contributions. Hopefully he will get over it and come back. He never took these things too seriously before, which is part of why his unusual outlook was refreshing.

 

[AlainGr]

with someone about a statement, an opinion, feeling or a question that sounds worthless, strange,or else, I just hope that this forum will not become "elitist"...

 

Roch has problems with English, even I have my limitations. I just ask myself "How would I do if I had to speak or write in Spanish, Dutch or Mandarin ?"... I guess I would appreciate that those who are speaking their native language would be more indulgent towards me...

 

 

[mayhem13]

80 posts as to why someone left a forum........this bodes well for audiophile credibility. I miss high school to but....come on!

 

[wdw]

..why the arguments in academia are so vicious:

 

precisely because there is so little at stake.

 

(sounds a little like computer audiophile)

 

Power cords, USB, whatever....forgettaboutit.

 

enjoy your music, love your sweety pie, your new dog (cheers to your new pair of woofers, wgscott), wife and family.

 

and Roch...please come back

 

WDW

 

[crisnee]

"unsubscribing from this thread..."

 

Oh, please don't. Oh what am I doing, writing to someone who isn't here, that ain't gonna do. Or, are you lurking young Caleb?

 

Are you lurking young Roch--or not so young, whatever? Frere Jacques, etes-vous lurky lurky? Come on, let us know; just a wee post.

 

It's interesting, this resignation thing. It's rare that folks acknowledge each other, much less thank each other, or say things about each others posts and the poster, positive or negative (I mean "about" as opposed to dealing with the subject of the post). Mostly they just suck up the info and go their married way, or dispute it and don't let go, ever. Which is too bad. So, which is too bad? Take your choice.

 

But now that Roch's quit.... Any more volunteers?

 

-Chris

 

 

[thesurfingalien]

"He even desperately turned to claiming that he was some kind of hero trying to protect everyone else from an unnamed site which he alleged was supplying mp3 disguised as FLAC."

 

If you read the first line in Roch's opening post (the one that set this argument of in the first place):

 

Quote "Yes, I know the big issue, ***the source****."

 

This (the source) is a clear referral to the "unnamed" website you mentioned, so you might reconsider your "desperately turning hero" idea. the way I read it, it was the whole point of the post, and the MD5 check was just a side note...

 

I know it takes a bit of creative reading when Roch's posts are involved, but I ask you to read them again and see for yourself is there is any chance this whole mess is based on misunderstandings.

 

Regards,

peter

 

[sandyk]

I understand the site was http://www.nonesuch.com/albums/live-at-carnegie-hall

 

[thesurfingalien]

Hi Alex,

 

Yes, the "unnamed" site indeed was www.nonesuch.com

 

Did not take too much effort to find it I assume? Offers food for thought...

 

Regards,

Peter

 

[Teresa]

In that closed thread "FLAC vs. WAV" I caught that Roch was saying that the download sounded terrible and the CD had decent sound. Both were converted to AIFF and both had identical checksums. He also said that he didn't like to do tests and I believe he only did the checksums because the sound of the download was so horrible.

 

Roch said "Yes, I know the big issue, the source.

 

For this, I'll give you an a very recent example that bothers me a lot:

 

The album is: Caetano Veloso & David Byrne "Live at Carnegie Hall", from Nonesuch Records. Highly recommended, btw. (If you love Brazilian music from two excellent musicians).

 

I DL from Nonesuch the FLAC version, converted by XLD to AIFF (choosing in preferences: the same sample & bit rate of the 'source'). Nasty sound.

 

I forgot I pre- ordered also the CD from Amazon, ripped it to AIFF with iTunes. Nice SQ, not the best, but decent sound. With this kind of music & musicians sometimes I don't look farther for the SQ.

 

I don't like to make this kind of tests, but the MD5 checksum was identical!! The app name for Mac is "MD5".

 

I have a lot of more examples, but I don't like to make this too long. But you can be sure I will not buy any more FLAC DLs, like yesterday big mistake from HDTracks: Bonnie Raitt "Slipstream" on 24/88. There is a lot of clipping overload, even this one is not upsampled. I also ordered the CD (by pre-order some time ago), I hope this is not (another more) recording engineer 'fashion' you mentioned here a lot of times, since I don't want to blame HDTracks."

 

And a later post:

 

My guess is that the DL is not a 'real' 16/44 to FLAC, because it sounds to me like MP3, then converted...

 

Roch

 

If this really is an upsample from MP3 to lossless FLAC it is even more of a fraud than 16/44.1kHz upsampled to 24/96kHz. Why do record companies think they can get away with these deceptions when we have programs to reveal their shenanigans?

 

Personally I don't care what the MD5 checksums did or did not reveal, I am more concerned with passing off MP3 music files as lossless. THAT IS REAL FRAUD!!!! I can never understand why some people concentrate on the unimportant parts of a post and totally ignore the important issues.

 

[thesurfingalien]

Teresa,

 

I do think Roch made a mistake (an honest one though) with the MD5 check-sum, and I also think goldsdad was right arguing the possibility of the DL and the rip having a matching MD5.

 

The whole point of this topic is to show that sometimes it takes careful reading to know what the intention of a post is. In this case, it is my opinion it has gone in a totally wrong direction.

 

Please forgive me for saying this... I do understand you are supporting Roch, but I do not think it is the best topic to discuss DL sites offering fraudulent files.

 

Regards,

Peter

 

 

[Jud]

Personally I don't care what the MD5 checksums did or did not reveal, I am more concerned with passing off MP3 music files as lossless.

 

With respect, Teresa, I believe that the two things (MD5 checksums and fraud) are related, to the extent that if the checksums are identical, it's as certain as anything can be in this life that such a fraud did *not* occur.

 

[goldsdad]

"Personally I don't care what the MD5 checksums did or did not reveal"

 

Whether you care about the md5s or not does not alter the fact that the probability of the md5s being the same is astronomically small because the AIFFs could not possibly be identical. Regardless of what audio samples are in the AIFFs, one made by iTunes and the other made by XLD, it is impossible for iTunes and XLD to create identical AIFFs under any circumstances.

 

"I am more concerned with passing off MP3 music files as lossless. THAT IS REAL FRAUD!!!!"

 

Again, you consider your personal concerns of paramount significance. Tell me, what evidence supports the allegation of fraud?

 

"I can never understand why some people concentrate on the unimportant parts of a post and totally ignore the important issues."

 

Unimportant parts, you say!? Roch's initial post was about his finding the md5s to match when two files of the same music sounded distinctly different to him. He made his suggestion of fraud in a post which followed my asking him to check the correctness of his initial md5 claim.

 

 

[goldsdad]

"Yes, the "unnamed" site indeed was www.nonesuch.com

 

Did not take too much effort to find it I assume? Offers food for thought…"

 

Sure, I missed the naming of the supplier as Nonesuch. That does not alter my extremely strong suspicion of Roch inventing his account of finding matching md5s for non-identical files of the same music which sound distinctly different to him.

 

 

[goldsdad]

"If you read the first line in Roch's opening post (the one that set this argument of in the first place):

 

Quote [of Roch] "Yes, I know the big issue, ***the source****."

 

This (the source) is a clear referral to the "unnamed" website you mentioned"

 

(First, a little pedantry: that was not the first line in the post.) Anyway, Roch was responding to Barry's comments about requiring the source of a given file to determine the file's fidelity. This:

 

Barry:

"Hi Roch,

 

My posts about preferences vs. fidelity to the original were not intended to suggest there are no audible differences between FLAC (or other so-called "lossless" formats) and raw PCM (such as .aif or .wav).

 

That was intended as a separate subject - because folks often describe one as "more faithful" or "more accurate". As I see it, without having the source as a reference for direct comparison, there is no way anyone can know for sure what is more faithful or accurate.

 

It may sound more "real" to a given listener and that, I would not argue with.

 

By the way, I hear differences between "lossless" and raw PCM too. That is why Soundkeeper does not offer any format but raw PCM (.aif or .wav is listeners choice)."

----------

 

 

Clearly, source did not mean supplier in this case.

 

 

[esldude]

If this really is an upsample from MP3 to lossless FLAC it is even more of a fraud than 16/44.1kHz upsampled to 24/96kHz. Why do record companies think they can get away with these deceptions when we have programs to reveal their shenanigans?

 

Personally I don't care what the MD5 checksums did or did not reveal, I am more concerned with passing off MP3 music files as lossless. THAT IS REAL FRAUD!!!! I can never understand why some people concentrate on the unimportant parts of a post and totally ignore the important issues.

 

Teresa,

 

To jump from Roch's mistaken idea about this is a mistake itself. The files weren't the same checksums. You should care, as that points out a problem with claims of it sounding like an MP3. To go from what was posted in error to then acting on the idea someone is passing off MP3 to lossless is a big big case of jumping to conclusions not at all substantiated. If you don't understand why that is the case, you need to slow down and learn what all this means.

 

The MD5's didn't match. The conclusion about relative sound quality that followed that assertion become very questionable. Even Roch never said they were MP3's only they sounded like they could have been. I am sorry, folks ears just aren't that accurate to use that as a basis to go claiming fraud in big capital letters.

 

[thesurfingalien]

goldsdad,

 

Please forgive me for not counting in "Hi Barry," as first line...

 

We can obviously argue about it, but given the rest of his post (he is not only referring to nonesuch but also to hdtracks) I believe Roch did indeed mean the supplier in this case.

 

Goldsdad, I don't know if you speak any other languages than English, but if you do, try to translate some of the longer posts using Google Translate into another language you also speak, and see for yourself what kind of weird output you sometimes get as a result. This is how Roch is able to write in English, at least for a large part...

 

regards,

Peter

 

 

 

 

 

[thesurfingalien]

goldsdad,

 

Like I said before, I believe you are correct in questioning this, and I believe Roch made an error. Probably getting the MD5 of the same file twice as you suggested.

 

But let's take a look at the (again :-)) first line of another post:

 

"@goldsdad mistakes could be in everything I do, if so, I try to learn from them."

 

I am not sure how you read it, but to me this looks like Roch is admitting his mistake. Yes, this again might need a bit of creative reading, and for me this might be a little easier as I live in South America as well and I suppose I am more accustomed to the way South American people communicate...

 

Maybe this offers some food for thought?

 

Regards,

Peter

 

 

 

 

[goldsdad]

"given the rest of his post (he is not only referring to nonesuch but also to hdtracks) I believe Roch did indeed mean the supplier in this case."

 

There's an unambiguous use of source in that post of Roch's. He wrote:

 

"I DL from Nonesuch the FLAC version, converted by XLD to AIFF (choosing in preferences: the same sample & bit rate of the 'source'). Nasty sound."

 

Source refers to the source audio, not the provider of the file.

 

I don't enjoy continuing this argument any more than you do.

 

Regards,

 

Owen

 

 

 

[Teresa]

there is a way Roch could check to see if the terrible sounding download was converted from MP3, he could use Audacity to do a Plot Spectrum since MP3's start rolling off the high frequencies at 15 - 18kHz depending on the "lossy" compression rate. Thus if the CD rip to iTunes has frequency that starts rolling off at 20kHz with no frequencies beyond 22kHz and the download only has frequencies to 15 - 18kHz he has confirmed a MP3 to FLAC lossless upsample. And if this is confirmed then it is indeed FRAUD in capital letters!

 

I just took a 24/96 AIFF music file (Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain) and converted it to Lame MP3 105 kbps VBR using XLD and then back to 24/96 AIFF (I had to use an interstep of ALAC to change the sampling frequency as AIFF can only change the bit rate in XLD) and then back to 24/96 AIFF.

 

Original 24/96 AIFF - 390.4 MB - 4608 kbps

Converted to MP3 - 9.3 MB - 105 kbps

MP3 converted to 24/96 AIFF - 390.4 MB - 4608 kbps

 

The point of this exercise is that the music file upconverted from MP3 to 24/96 has no more real music information than the extremely small MP3, it just wastes a tremendous amount of computer space. So my question is if the computer actually uses all this space to hold an upsampled MP3 file, would the MD5 data-sums look any different or would they look the same?

 

Even though Roch in a followup post stated his suspicion that the FLAC download converted to AIFF might be MP3 in the original post he did say it sounded terrible and the CD to AIFF sounded good, so it made sense to me.

 

Lastly I care more about what music sounds like not what it "looks" like and that is why I will never in my entire life understand "objectivists", as I listen to music NOT look at it!

 

[sandyk]

Teresa

In this case it is impossible for the MD5 checksums to be the same.MP3 is a lossy format, and it has removed information that it considers is not necessary. For example, it will discard information that it considers will be masked by other higher level material.This information can't be recovered. Therefore, the MD5 checksums can not be the same.

Kind Regards

Alex

 

[goldsdad]

"goldsdad there is a way Roch could check to see if the terrible sounding download was converted from MP3, he could use Audacity […] if this is confirmed then it is indeed FRAUD in capital letters!"

 

My dispute with Roch had nothing to do with whether his download actually was a fraud or not.

 

 

Lastly I care more about what music sounds like not what it "looks" like and that is why I will never in my entire life understand "objectivists", as I listen to music NOT look at it!

 

So stop with the irrelevancy of inspecting files in Audacity. Stop with the shouting in bold upper-case, too, please.