There was an interesting piece on Radio 4 this morning concerning Compression etc. Well worth listening to on BBC iPlayer. It has contributions from such people as Steve Levene and Steven Wilson. Interestingly Wilson admitted that on playing back a CD of his music and then the same in 24/96 High Res format he couldn't tell any difference. It's well worth a listen.
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When should you upgrade your hi-fi? How to control ‘upgradeitis’
Compression and Loudness Wars explained
- Thread starter DIB
- Start date
Electro
Well-known member
matt49
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The_Lhc
Well-known member
DIB said:
Did they make the same mistake as the last time they looked at this, where they confused dynamic range compression with data (ie mp3) compression?
They attempted to do a comparison with an "expert" that time as well, playing two versions of a piece, one that had a large dynamic range and the other that had been compressed (and was thus "louder"). The expert, on being asked which was the hi-res version, promptly picked the compressed version precisely because it sounded louder and that's what he thought hi-res would sound like, thus disproving his "expert" status.
When they played two versions of a Metallica song I honestly couldn't tell any difference, but it was over my van radio so not exactly the highest quality playback available.
Not that I bother with Hi-Res files anyway, but after listening to Steven Wilson who knows a thing or two about quality production, I'm quite happy to stick with CDs.
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Not that I bother with Hi-Res files anyway, but after listening to Steven Wilson who knows a thing or two about quality production, I'm quite happy to stick with CDs.
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matt49
Well-known member
Covenanter
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matt49 said:
And a lot lower than that as we age! I haven't had a test recently but the last time I did there wasn't anything above 15kHz.
Chris
AEJim
Well-known member
CD has plenty of dynamic range to cover all we can hear, if the mastering is decent then CD should sound as good as anything. That's a big "IF" sadly.*
*Reply was to Fenton but my browser doesn't seem to like this site any more.
*Reply was to Fenton but my browser doesn't seem to like this site any more.
The_Lhc
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iMark
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That was quite interesting. A couple of remarks.
The humble CD was confused with hi-res. It also shows that a properly mastered CD is more than good enough for listening purposes.
The Metallica drummer should have his ears tested.
I agree with the remarks of the players from the orchestra. We were at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on Wednesday and the dynamic range in Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto was astonishing. When I play a classical CD, it's difficult to get the right volume setting, because piano passages are very quiet. In a car, listening to a classical CD is not a great experience. (I remember having arguments with my mother about the volume settings when listening to a CD. She always said that I played them too loud. I argued that I wanted to hear the quieter passages properly)
Using compression as a recording effect tool is completely different to using compression in the playback medium.
The difference between lossy and lossless compression wasn't mentioned.
The humble CD was confused with hi-res. It also shows that a properly mastered CD is more than good enough for listening purposes.
The Metallica drummer should have his ears tested.
I agree with the remarks of the players from the orchestra. We were at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on Wednesday and the dynamic range in Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto was astonishing. When I play a classical CD, it's difficult to get the right volume setting, because piano passages are very quiet. In a car, listening to a classical CD is not a great experience. (I remember having arguments with my mother about the volume settings when listening to a CD. She always said that I played them too loud. I argued that I wanted to hear the quieter passages properly)
Using compression as a recording effect tool is completely different to using compression in the playback medium.
The difference between lossy and lossless compression wasn't mentioned.
DIB said:
Me too. I was really just guessing and couldn't tell a difference. I need Pono to reaaaallllyyyy hear the difference.
Electro
Well-known member
Vladimir said:
4/10 for me too, I really thought I had done better , but my excuse is that it was only using computer speakers *biggrin* .
Native_bon
Well-known member
I got 7/10 using my Yamaha studio speakers.(HS80M) On my main system 5/10 after taking an average of 3times each on each system. Seems our Hifi is not as accurate as we like to think.*fool*
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