Lossless audio - is it really that important? - Yes it is!

[shido]

It's all subjective. I for one can tell the difference between a 128kbs mp3 versus a 320kbps one. I'd have to actually hear a lossless track first, though, before I pass a judgment in that area.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by shido

It's all subjective. I for one can tell the difference between a 128kbs mp3 versus a 320kbps one. I'd have to actually hear a lossless track first, though, before I pass a judgment in that area.

Most Sony BDs come with uncompressed PCM and Dolby Digital 5.1 of the original language. You can start comparing now.


fuad

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by shido

It's all subjective. I for one can tell the difference between a 128kbs mp3 versus a 320kbps one. I'd have to actually hear a lossless track first, though, before I pass a judgment in that area.

Me too. In one test I did, the "surround" matrix channel from a Stereo (2-channel) recording was full of garbage when playing a center channel only (mono sum) track at 128 kb/s (11:1 compression) At 320 kb/s (about 4:1 compression) it had started to sound clean.

[stevei]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Me too. In one test I did, the "surround" matrix channel from a Stereo (2-channel) recording was full of garbage when playing a center channel only (mono sum) track at 128 kb/s (11:1 compression) At 320 kb/s (about 4:1 compression) it had started to sound clean.

You have to be a little careful with these things, though - I once encoded a pro logic matrixed stereo file at 128kbps and it sounded TERRIBLE. At 192kbps it was fine, and I could have easily assumed the difference was due to the bitrate. However, a more detailed investigation revealed that the codec was configured to use joint stereo at 128 and stereo at 192. Switching it to use stereo instead of joint stereo at 128 made the problem go away at 128.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by stevei

You have to be a little careful with these things, though - I once encoded a pro logic matrixed stereo file at 128kbps and it sounded TERRIBLE. At 192kbps it was fine, and I could have easily assumed the difference was due to the bitrate. However, a more detailed investigation revealed that the codec was configured to use joint stereo at 128 and stereo at 192. Switching it to use stereo instead of joint stereo at 128 made the problem go away at 128.

You think I don't know what I'm doing? I know what you're doing.


btw I was listening to The Beatles in surround before they ended

[stevei]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

You think I don't know what I'm doing?

It wasn't my intention to give that impression. Perhaps if I'd said "one has to be a little careful" instead of "you have to be a little careful"? I don't know you well enough to know whether you always know what you're doing or not, so don't have an opinion either way.

On the other points people have raised, some people seem to be misinterpreting some of the things said up to now. One test said that most people can't tell a 128kbps AAC encode from a CD. This is NOT the same as a 128kbps mp3 encode, which tests have found the majority of people CAN tell from a CD, and my own blind tests showed I can reliably tell this from a CD. I believe that a 640kbps DD 5.1 track will be significantly higher quality than a 128kbps mp3, probably more similar to a 256kbps stereo mp3, so a more relevant test would be whether people can tell a 256kbps mp3 from the original CD. The one test I found that seemed to have tested this in a scientific manner found no ability to discriminate between these two, and they were using skilled listeners, e.g. one was a professional sound engineer.

What I do intend to do sometime in the interests of science is to listen to different bitrate tracks while wearing earplugs to see if it affects my ability to discriminate between different bitrates. Given how perceptual encoding works I find it highly plausible that impaired hearing can result in a greater ability to discern the artifacts that would otherwise be masked by louder sounds.

[MatrixS2000]

Originally Posted by stevei

What I do intend to do sometime in the interests of science is to listen to different bitrate tracks while wearing earplugs to see if it affects my ability to discriminate between different bitrates. Given how perceptual encoding works I find it highly plausible that impaired hearing can result in a greater ability to discern the artifacts that would otherwise be masked by louder sounds.

LOL and you don't think earplugs will mask any artifacts????

This is getting funnier each post!

[stevei]

Originally Posted by MatrixS2000

LOL and you don't think earplugs will mask any artifacts????

Suppose the earplugs cause a rapid drop off in volume above 1khz, just for illustration. Then suppose you listen to something that has at one point in it two sounds at 900hz and 1100hz, with the 1100hz sound quite a bit louder. The perceptual encoding discards the 900hz sound, and normally if you can hear the 1100hz sound you won't notice this has happened, but if you have the ear plugs in and can't hear the 1100hz sound, it will be like night and day because in the original you'll hear a 900hz sound and it won't be there in the compressed version.

[MatrixS2000]

Originally Posted by shido

It's all subjective. I for one can tell the difference between a 128kbs mp3 versus a 320kbps one. I'd have to actually hear a lossless track first, though, before I pass a judgment in that area.

Of course you can, because it is night and day difference.

But of course that means you can only hear up to 8Khz...

So funny what some people take as fact...