PDA

View Full Version : mp3 sucks!



magiccarpetride
01-11-2010, 16:59
OK, I know I'm not discovering America by claiming this, but man, I've realized that lossy formats, such as mp3, make everything so lifeless and bloodless. Here is what happened to me:

When I was young, I got blown away by the release of Frankie Goes To Hollywood album "Welcome to the Pleasure Dome" (that was back in 1984). But when I made transition from LPs to CDs, the CD version just didn't sound right. It was pale and muffled, so I ditched it, and forgot all about this seminal album.

Then, earlier this year, I've heard that they have remastered and reissued the 25th anniversary version of this album. I got really excited, but seeing how it was selling for $31.99 at HMV, didn't want to splurge only to find out that they have, yet again, managed to botch the job. So I downloaded a few sneak preview samples in mp3, just to evaluate the material. And, of course, it sounded godawful. No life to it, no punch, murky and muddy sounding. I was super disappointed, especially after I've been blown away by the recent Thomas Dolby "Flat Earth" and Culture Club "Color By Numbers" remasters. These remaster sounded better even than the original vinyl, so I was harboring high hopes for Frankie.

OK, so I decided to pass on buying that remaster. But last Friday, in anticipation of my wife's birthday (she's always been a huge fan of "Welcome to the Pleasuredome"), I went to HMV and bought the remaster. My wife and I sat down to listen to it, and I warned her not to expect too much in terms of the sound quality and the faithfulness to the original LP. Then the music started pouring out of my Maggies, and we were enthralled! This album never sounded better. It is epic, monumental, prophetic, stupendous, the most glorious sound of the '80s I've ever heard.

So you see, what sounded dull and crappy in lossy format (mp3), all of a sudden came to full life in lossless format. From now on, I'm declaring war on lossy formats, and will purge my house mercilessly from that shit.

Please join me in saying no to mp3!

Rare Bird
01-11-2010, 17:08
Aye

The Vinyl Adventure
01-11-2010, 17:14
Depends on the mp3 I would have said 192kbps and above sound fine to me... Obviously not as good but passable, especially 320kbps ...
I would never rip to the format, but I'll happily listen to that quality if there is no other option ... Spotify for eg... That all 320kbps... It's not great, but it's opened up huge possibilitys for listening to previously unknown bands ... I like something I buy it and rip it, but until I have bought it I'm happy to listen to it on there if it means I can listen to it

Beechwoods
01-11-2010, 17:19
I find AAC quite acceptable for casual listening, like in the car or on the move, but for serious listening lossy formats are a waste of space. I can't believe that people pay full price for albums in lossy formats. Selling lossy formats shouldn't be allowed. Including a free compressed copy with all lossless formats for use in low-end MP3 machines is fair enough providing it's DRM free...

Rare Bird
01-11-2010, 17:47
Play a live album in MP-3 & tell me if the tracks are flawlessly connected to each other (as they would be on CD) without a pause being present as it changes to the proceeding song

Beechwoods
01-11-2010, 17:49
Yep - a major bugbear of MP3 and other similar lossy formats, though iTunes does a good job of seamlessly playing them; not sure how it does it, but it does!

magiccarpetride
01-11-2010, 17:49
I can't believe that people pay full price for albums in lossy formats. Selling lossy formats shouldn't be allowed.

Absolutely. Selling lossy formats is equivalent to selling books with over 70% of all the pages being smeared or some/many even missing! Nobody would put up with that. That's criminal...

And yet, in the clueless world of music buyers, that's apparently OK, even cool:scratch:

DSJR
01-11-2010, 17:52
Leave these LP lovers to their plastic. They know not what the original recording may have sounded like and regard LP's as the best there is bar none :ner:

I never did get 'Pleasuredome on CD, as they could have just about fitted both albums on one disc from memory and they charged a premium because it was two discs. Since the original recording was digital (from memory), I'm glad it's been properly re-done. I bet it would sound ok with 320Kb/s MP3, although I'd rather have the CD personally.

DSJR
01-11-2010, 17:54
Absolutely. Selling lossy formats is equivalent to selling books with over 70% of all the pages being smeared or some/many even missing! Nobody would put up with that. That's criminal...

And yet, in the clueless world of music buyers, that's apparently OK, even cool:scratch:

Sorry, MP3's aren't the same as a book with 70% removed, as digital works in a different way and the music can be very well re-consituted. In fact, it's extreme treble which is often slightly muted on MP3's.....

magiccarpetride
01-11-2010, 17:55
Depends on the mp3 I would have said 192kbps and above sound fine to me... Obviously not as good but passable, especially 320kbps ...
I would never rip to the format, but I'll happily listen to that quality if there is no other option ... Spotify for eg... That all 320kbps... It's not great, but it's opened up huge possibilitys for listening to previously unknown bands ... I like something I buy it and rip it, but until I have bought it I'm happy to listen to it on there if it means I can listen to it

The mp3 files I've downloaded for the sneak preview were in the 192kbps. They sound absolutely anemic, there is not even a trace of life in them. It's silly how the recording industry execs are cutting their dicks off by offering this shitty format for a sneak preview and thus driving away potential buyers. C'mon guys, this is 2010, the bandwidth is now broad, give us the real stuff!

Why are these people so bloody clueless?


Sorry, MP3's aren't the same as a book with 70% removed, as digital works in a different way and the music can be very well re-consituted. In fact, it's extreme treble which is often slightly muted on MP3's.....

That would be the sales pitch. In reality, we find that mp3 format is more like a digest of a book. The compression algorithm works on distilling the salient points of the track. If you ask it to crunch the track down to 128kbps, it will work on distilling only 10% of the salient points; 90% of the information will get discarder. On a playback, the algorithm will attempt to reconstruct the entire book from the 10% of the salient points it's been given.

In real life, it just can't work. Just listen to the mp3 track, then to the full lossless version of the same track, then back to mp3, and you'll hear that the majority of essential stuff is either missing, or is being poorly reconstructed and misconstrued.


Leave these LP lovers to their plastic. They know not what the original recording may have sounded like and regard LP's as the best there is bar none :ner:

At the risk of sticking my neck too far, I would venture out to say that this remaster sounds better than the original LP. I've ripped it in 24-bit/96 kHz resolution (I know, a controversial subject, sue me), and by golly, it sounds absolutely perfect!

Welder
01-11-2010, 18:17
Hey Alex.
Don’t’ you get dizzy standing on that soapbox all the time? :lol:

In this matter I do generally agree with you though.
It really pisses me off that Amazon for example who provide a first class service in my experience in music sales and music downloads don’t do redbook or above.
What’s more, I don’t understand why not.
It can’t be any more difficult in this day and age with broadband download speed and cheap storage to offer 16/44.1 as a download option on everything they offer in mp3…..can it?

I recently purchased my first mp3 from amazon. I really wanted the track and try as I might I couldn’t find it in 16/44.1 anywhere.
Now, to be absolutely fair, the quality isn’t too bad, listenable at 249 kbps. The transaction was easy, it came with album art, in a folder and at 69p hardly bank breaking.
I just wish they would do the same in 16/44.1 and maybe even 24/96; or is the market just not there?
Check it out for yourselves. It’s a lovely piece of music.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Way-To-Here/dp/B002A2KHQI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1288635249&sr=8-1
:)

The Vinyl Adventure
01-11-2010, 19:06
A much more sensible analogy is that of a digital image compressed ... The more compresion the more fuzzy and lacking in detail the image

Mp3 is definately not ideal, but I wouldn't be listening to (and enjoying) Jefferson Airplane over Spotify right now if it was so destructive it rendered music completely unenjoyable ...

Reid Malenfant
01-11-2010, 19:24
I think a lot of the problems could be down to what the MP3 is played on ;) I have a few CDs that are collections of a series of CDs which are 320Kbs & they certainly don't sound bad, in fact they sound pretty good :)

The thing is though i have to play these on a DVD player as a CD player obviously doesn't want to know :eyebrows: The DVD player in question would be a Denon DVD2930 which isn't a cheap machine, can't say i have tried any on a more modern blu ray player yet - that's for the future..

However i have no doubt that the Denon at £550 new & playing MP3 even at 320Kbs couldn't hope to compete with a 5 figure CD transport which my CDs get spun on :eyebrows: There is just no comparison, so yes, the MP3 loses out from the start even without actually trying it :doh: It's obviously not going to sound as good - simples :cool:

Rare Bird
01-11-2010, 19:31
Leave these LP lovers to their plastic. They know not what the original recording may have sounded like and regard LP's as the best there is bar none :ner:



:respect:

jbloggs
01-11-2010, 20:59
Depends on the mp3 I would have said 192kbps and above sound fine to me...

Would be inclined to go along with this...I have listened to high VBR MP3s which have sounded pretty good and others which sound woeful...I would also say the same about FLACs, some albums sound beautiful, but others, you would hardly think were FLACs at all...so I suppose it is all about how it was originally recorded etc...

Rare Bird
01-11-2010, 21:58
Would be inclined to go along with this...I have listened to high VBR MP3s which have sounded pretty good and others which sound woeful...I would also say the same about FLACs, some albums sound beautiful, but others, you would hardly think were FLACs at all...so I suppose it is all about how it was originally recorded etc...

Where did you source these FLAC's you not happy with? who says they are 100% FLAC from the original source! maybe they have been re converted to FLAC from lossy in which the damage was already done first time around!!

jbloggs
01-11-2010, 22:23
Where did you source these FLAC's you not happy with?

Recently bought This (http://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Hits-Legends-Otis-Redding/dp/B003QLEDVC/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1288649983&sr=1-1) and This (http://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Hits-Legends-Louis-Armstrong/dp/B0036V0W0S/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1288649983&sr=1-4)...didn't think much of the quality of recording...also bought This (http://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Hits-Legends-Frank-Sinatra/dp/B002LZUKW0/ref=sr_1_9?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1288649983&sr=1-9) and This (http://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Hits-Legends-Aretha-Franklin/dp/B003QLEDW6/ref=sr_1_10?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1288649983&sr=1-10) which sounded considerably better...(all ripped to FLAC with dBpoweramp and played via system in sig)...

Maximum
01-11-2010, 22:46
Where did you source these FLAC's you not happy with? who says they are 100% FLAC from the original source! maybe they have been re converted to FLAC from lossy in which the damage was already done first time around!!

Companies that do this should be made to state it clearly in the sales information. At one point I was looking at buying an album from beatport, and they give an option for WAV files and then charge about £1 a track for what they call a WAV handling fee. For all I know they could be just decompressing the file and ripping me off for the privilege, to the tune of £20 for one album. I managed to find the CD afterwards for £7 delivered. Buying lossless online is such a frigging minefield.

hifinutt
02-11-2010, 03:45
listening to the linn radio channels broadcast on internet to my sonos at 320kbs is good but doesn`t have the depth and presence of real live FM radio

dave2010
02-11-2010, 10:06
A much more sensible analogy is that of a digital image compressed ... The more compresion the more fuzzy and lacking in detail the image

Mp3 is definately not ideal, but I wouldn't be listening to (and enjoying) Jefferson Airplane over Spotify right now if it was so destructive it rendered music completely unenjoyable ...Good point, except that Spotify uses Ogg-Vorbis, and at its best sounds significantly better than mp3. Quite a number of the offerings on Spotify are limited by the CD or original recording anyway, rather than the compression. Things are even worse on Napster, where there are some quite decent performances, but heaven knows what they did with the compression - unless of course they simply played LPs into an mp3 compressor, first remembering to sprinkle the LP with cement dust, and then ensuring that the wrong tracking weight was used, together with a carefully chipped stylus!

A good mp3 - at say - 256 kbps or higher, should not sound obviously different from the original recording, though may lack refinement and subtlety on closer listening. If it sounds bad straight off, then either the compression wasn't done properly, or the original itself wasn't good. One other possibility is that the "original" was itself already compressed, perhaps in some other format, which creates even more problems - as the BBC engineers noted quite a few years back (also see the notes on Ogg-Vorbis which discuss some of the dangers of such transcoding).

MartinT
02-11-2010, 10:45
I use 256kbps mp3 using the LAME encoder for my car in the USB drive, but that's as far as it gets. Never at home.

DSJR
02-11-2010, 12:19
listening to the linn radio channels broadcast on internet to my sonos at 320kbs is good but doesn`t have the depth and presence of real live FM radio

FM as a technology has significant amounts of distortion which adds a comfy bloom to things. The signal to noise on FM is poor too, especially on very quiet passages. Radio 4 is now the only station which doesn't get much if any compression. A tragedy that Radios 1 and 2 often sound so terrible. I for one don't like the presenters shouting at me or sounding like they're eating the microphone.

Beechwoods
02-11-2010, 12:23
I used to enjoy trying to spot when the dynamic compression was switched off just before one of their big live broadcasts. It was often quite audible as the level dropped during the ident just preceding the next programme. That was when Radio 1 (a) broadcast live stuff and (b) cared a toss about fidelity... :)

DSJR
02-11-2010, 12:27
Well, maybe if they dumped the titchy Dynaudio actives they now use and returned to summat decent (even passive Harbeths would be better surely for full range but not loud studio duties), we might get a better sound. You only hear what the monitors tell you...

michaelhigh
08-11-2010, 23:07
The only lossless things I'm saving are 1) The Quiet Village podcasts, 35 hour-long episodes of space-age bach pad music, awesome, and 2) GaragePunk.com podcasts, tons and tons of hour-long podcasts of the most obscure garage rock and punk from all eras, most unavailable on commonly-sourced records or CD's, a lot of it only available at one-off shows and such. Pooey to the rest.

WAD62
15-11-2010, 14:51
I certainly agree with the general dislike of mp3, but it does have its uses, until the next generation of mobile storage comes out, then the music industry will be busily re-selling FLAC versions to unwitting punters.

I've ripped all my CD's to FLAC using dBpoweramp, perhaps not as good at retrieving scratched CDs as EAC but a damned site more user friendly. One of the nice bits of functionality is that I can use it to create an MP3 copy of the FLAC for subsequent use on my phone, car stereo etc.

But the best feature is that one can specify VBR (variable bit rate), which takes some grunt to process, but will use up to 310k when necessary, and as little as 64k (I think) when not, and on average uses the same storage as a 200k.

2k plus cd's take up about 750Gb in FLAC, and the VBR mp3 versions use about 130Gb