THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON COMPRESSED MUSIC

[wgscott]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

why?

 

Saves on green ink.

[esldude]

4 hours ago, Rexp said:

I'd take live AAC streaming over CD playback anyday. How about you? 

If we are going with streaming how about Opus?   If you've not tried it, the quality is very good as stupid low bit rates.  

[botrytis]

12 hours ago, Rexp said:

I'd take live AAC streaming over CD playback anyday. How about you? 

 

This makes no sense....

[Rexp]

17 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

This makes no sense....

No but have you listened to the proms? 

[botrytis]

18 minutes ago, Rexp said:

No but have you listened to the proms? 

Not a Mac or itunes person, why would I listen to AAC? No reason to. Prefer CD, FLAC or high-res depending.....

[esldude]

6 hours ago, botrytis said:

Not a Mac or itunes person, why would I listen to AAC? No reason to. Prefer CD, FLAC or high-res depending.....

It might make sense.  The BBC Proms already mentioned by Rexp are one example.  I listened to it, and my internet connection is so poor, it couldn't reliably manage the FLAC lossless streaming of those performances.  So AAC is one of the better moderate bitrate codecs to use.  They also supplied a 4 channel surround version using MPEG_DASH at 320 kbps.  I mentioned Opus which is to my knowledge the best low bitrate encoder.  It is nearly transparent at 96 kbps, and other than a few very edge cases is transparent at 128 kbps.  

 

Fortunately they've finally upgraded the internet where I live, and I can listen to FLAC.  

[botrytis]

13 minutes ago, esldude said:

It might make sense.  The BBC Proms already mentioned by Rexp are one example.  I listened to it, and my internet connection is so poor, it couldn't reliably manage the FLAC lossless streaming of those performances.  So AAC is one of the better moderate bitrate codecs to use.  They also supplied a 4 channel surround version using MPEG_DASH at 320 kbps.  I mentioned Opus which is to my knowledge the best low bitrate encoder.  It is nearly transparent at 96 kbps, and other than a few very edge cases is transparent at 128 kbps.  

 

Fortunately they've finally upgraded the internet where I live, and I can listen to FLAC.  

 

I listened to FLAC when I had DSL. To each their own

[gmgraves]

22 hours ago, Rexp said:

I'd take live AAC streaming over CD playback anyday. How about you? 

Depends. The assumption that CD is somehow an inferior format is pure mythology. As I’ve said before, if some CDs sound lousy, it’s either the source material or the execution. Before arbitrarily throwing the baby out with the bath water, do yourself a favor and track-down the JVC XRCD release of Prokofiev ‘s “Lt. Kiji Suite” with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (I believe it’s available through Amazon). It’s Redbook CD, not high-res, but if you don’t find it spectacular to the point of being better than the SACD release of the same material from BMC/Sony, and better than most high res material of any kind, I’ll eat the disc!

[wgscott]

Nothing gets by you guys.

[Rexp]

4 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Depends. The assumption that CD is somehow an inferior format is pure mythology. As I’ve said before, if some CDs sound lousy, it’s either the source material or the execution. Before arbitrarily throwing the baby out with the bath water, do yourself a favor and track-down the JVC XRCD release of Prokofiev ‘s “Lt. Kiji Suite” with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (I believe it’s available through Amazon). It’s Redbook CD, not high-res, but if you don’t find it spectacular to the point of being better than the SACD release of the same material from BMC/Sony, and better than most high res material of any kind, I’ll eat the disc!

I did buy a couple of jazz XRCD's ages ago and they were not good, classical sounds better on CD to me, no idea why. 

[gmgraves]

59 minutes ago, Rexp said:

I did buy a couple of jazz XRCD's ages ago and they were not good, classical sounds better on CD to me, no idea why. 

I have a lot of jazz XRCDs and most of them sound pretty good. OTOH, many of these XRCD jazz CDs are from labels like Riverside and Impulse, from the 1950s and were mono, recorded at 7.5 ips. Those recorded by Rudy van Gelder fare better. But the point is that there is nothing wrong with CD as a format. Well produced ones are marvelous, poorly produced ones wouldn’t sound any better in a high-res format.

[Ralf11]

of course, but production values, mastering, and acoustics are not audiophile phodder - we need to stick to cables or power supplies

[Rexp]

5 hours ago, gmgraves said:

I have a lot of jazz XRCDs and most of them sound pretty good. OTOH, many of these XRCD jazz CDs are from labels like Riverside and Impulse, from the 1950s and were mono, recorded at 7.5 ips. Those recorded by Rudy van Gelder fare better. But the point is that there is nothing wrong with CD as a format. Well produced ones are marvelous, poorly produced ones wouldn’t sound any better in a high-res format.

Can you recommend a Coltrane CD? Thanks! 

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

On 8/21/2019 at 11:49 PM, wgscott said:

Compression and dynamic range limitation on analogue media is "musical."

 

Where did you hear that?

 

On 8/21/2019 at 11:49 PM, wgscott said:

Compression and dynamic range limitation, even to a much lesser extent, on digital media is a crime against civilization.

 

Where did you hear that?

 

On 8/21/2019 at 11:49 PM, wgscott said:

One thing Neil Young is very good at is summoning up some righteous anger.

 

Are you by any chance related ?

[NOMBEDES]

“Everything Matters”. Yes, but I maintain the recording matters more.  A good recording sounds....well,  good.   

 

A bad (or poor) recording is not going to be improved on any format.  I would advise more attention be paid to sourcing outstanding recordings than ultra expensive equipment.   

[Ralf11]

9 hours ago, Rexp said:

Can you recommend a Coltrane CD? Thanks! 

 

 

Love Supreme; Giant Steps; Traneing In; Soutrane; Trane's Blues; Ballads

[Ralf11]

5 hours ago, NOMBEDES said:

“Everything Matters”.

 

NYET!!!  Anything 140 dB down does not matter.

 

- agree with the rest of your post

[wgscott]

9 hours ago, Rexp said:

Can you recommend a Coltrane CD? Thanks! 

 

Lush Life.

[NOMBEDES]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

NYET!!!  Anything 140 dB down does not matter.

 

- agree with the rest of your post

 

glad you agree.  but I don't get the 140 dB!   (Which dB are we talking about?)

[Ralf11]

noise that is 140 dB below the signal

 

"fuggahgiddaboutit"

[Rexp]

6 hours ago, wgscott said:

 

Lush Life.

Talking of compressed, does it sound as good as this? 

 

 

[gmgraves]

On 8/23/2019 at 6:37 AM, botrytis said:

Not a Mac or itunes person, why would I listen to AAC? No reason to. Prefer CD, FLAC or high-res depending.....

Perhaps simply because some services use it. If you make some arbitrary decision not to listen to a specific CoDec, you are simply cutting yourself off from certain sources of music. For instance, I’m certainly no fan of MP3, but if I decided not to listen to it, I couldn’t enjoy the live, Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts streamed on WCRB’s Internet feed on Saturday nights. There’s an old adage that covers this kind of thinking: I believe it’s called “Cutting-off one’s nose to spite one’s face.”