The Death of High Fidelity

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Rolling Stone has an interesting story on how record producers alter the way they mix albums to compensate for the limitations of MP3 sound. Much of the information left out during MP3 compression is at the very high and low ends, which is why some MP3s sound flat. Without enough low end, 'you don't get the punch anymore. It decreases the punch of the kick drum and how the speaker gets pushed when the guitarist plays a power chord.' The inner ear automatically compresses blasts of high volume to protect itself, so we associate compression with loudness. After a few minutes, constant loudness grows fatiguing to the brain. Though few listeners realize this consciously, many feel an urge to skip to another song."

NEWSFLASH! MP3's suck. Use a lossless CODEC.

[mikelieman]

It seems that FLAC does the job quite nicely.

Loudness War

[Deewun]

I call shenanigans. Double blind testing shows no perceptible difference between a good MP3 and the source material for most listeners most of the time. The real death of hi-fi is the fault of the record companies themselves, and the Loudness War [wikipedia.org]. Who cares if an MP3 encoder drops a tiny amount of imperceptible data when the CD itself has been compressed and clipped to the point that you don't want to listen to it?

And people wonder why I still own LP's

[stox]

Now they know. It amazes me how many of the LP's I own still sound better than the CD versions.

Who sells MP3?

[PolarBearFire]

Who sells music in a loosy compression such as MP3? CDs aren't mp3; itune music doesn't come in mp3. I think the author of the article is making the mistake of calling all digital music mp3. That's like calling all smart phones iPhones and all digital music players iPods.

Re:And people wonder why I still own LP's

[ErichTheWebGuy]

You're absolutely right. I have an extensive LP collection, and am disturbed how hard it is to find some stuff on LP. Not only is the sound "warmer" but if you have the right equipment, it truly sounds live. As if the band were playing right in front of you. By right equipment, I mean decent turntable with a high quality needle, a decent amp, and decent speakers (or even headphones). All of the above can be had for fairly cheap, but the quality of sound is priceless.

Yet people still talk shit because I listen to vinyl.

Invest the time and a small amount of cash. Rediscover your music. You just might be surprised.

Re:NEWSFLASH! MP3's suck. Use a lossless CODEC.

[Anonymous Coward]

People who think MP3 encoded with Lame -preset standard (about 192kbps) suck and are not trolling should register at Hydrogenaudio and submit audio samples and ABX tests tests. Some Lame developers hang out there, and I'm sure they would like some help in improving their acoustic model.

Re:Loudness War

[bm_luethke]

Isn't this pretty much the point of the article? That due to customers mostly listening with bad equipment or compressed formats (mp3's) that the source has been degraded until one can not tell the difference? They are saying the same thing you are - users can't tell the difference, however their point is that the *should*. They are saying that you can not tell the effective difference because they *no longer sale the items where you can* (and they actually more blame the loudness war, of which they claim MP3's are the final end of that). Obviously under that situation one would expect to, well, not tell the difference.

Personally it wasn't until you got into equipment that was so expensive that mostly I couldn't hope to afford it that I told the difference even with recording that *were* good. I have a few pieces of equipment that are good (my headphones are) but that mostly just lets me hear all the imperfections.

Maybe once I can afford the price of my house in audio equipment I may care (and believe me, I would *love* too and am not complaining about anyone who has), but until then I don't so much. I do, however, agree with the idea that the "loudness war" (along with other problems) mostly destroyed most new music out there. Not because I can tell much difference in the quality of recordings but because the music in general is also created to take advantage of it instead of sounding good.

Re:Meh

[Udo Schmitz]

True, and it makes sense. I just wanted to point out that the MP3 format or its use can't be blamed for how albums are mixed ...

Re:Not about lossiness...

[coldcell]

Go listen to "Something in the Way" off of Nevermind. Though he's being pulled into a loudness war, along with every other big rock/metal producer, it doesn't make him a total failure. The man has done insane things in some areas of production, granted, but he's a genius in many others IMO.

blind tests are not everything

[Anonymous Coward]

MP3 and similar compressed audio standards are to a large part based on the insights of psychoacoustic research, which is in turn based mainly on surveys taken among a large set of listeners.
So when you don't have an average ear, you're positioned out of the target group for MP3, AAC, Vorbis, etc.
In most blind tests, I can tell that there is a difference between 192Kbps-Lame compressed and uncompressed audio,
but I can't tell which is which, or which is better.
What I have experienced over years is that, compared to lossless, listening to MP3 over long periods fatigues me more and is not as much fun. It's a long term effect that no short term blind test like the ones that are run on sites like Hydrogenaudio can reveal.
That said, I think there are other aspects that have a much larger influence on the perception of music.
These are, among others:

- the look and feel of your audio equipment (including the felt value of the equipment and the music media)
- your social surroundings while listening to music
- you physical surroundings
- your overall psychological disposition (self esteem, self consciousness, attitude towards life). this changes when you're getting older.
- nostalgic feelings bound to special music

Not a major difference

[glas_gow]

I don't see how MP3s radically alters post production values. Record producers have always sought to compensate for low-fi playback systems, such as radio, by listening to the mix on small, mono speakers, as well as using bespoke studio monitors. All that has happened is MP3 has replaced small transistor radios, as the medium which dictates record sales.

The article was mostly about audio compression

[zuki]

Well, to be fair the article is specifically talking about the phenomenon known as 'finalizing', which is a way to clearly boost the
apparent levels by up to 10 dB or more during the mastering stages without any digital clipping artifacts. (a.k.a. brick-wall limiting)

There is no question that a lot of great points were raised in the article, however when it comes to MP3 (the 'other' form of compression)
as a person who has participated in recording, mixing and mastering sessions for over 30 years, and constantly listens to master recordings,
can only say that it is pathetic how bad they sound on large audio playback systems, which some of us have and listen to.
(For example pick a very large loft, or someone's home theater for 20 people, not to say anything of a proper auditorium)

You might not hear it at home, on computer speakers or certainly not your earbuds, but the bigger the stereo, the more it is obvious.
And actually what is the most disturbing is that what is very, very wrong about lossy encoding formats is that it doesn't necessarily affect so
much the frequency response, as it does the 'punch', transients and other intangibles which when played on those large-format systems become
quickly apparent. The same way a graphic designer will not try and magnify this site's jpg logo (415 x 55 pixels, I did check) to a more
adequate 16,000 x 2122 for billboard and poster printing, as there will be obvious and nasty pixelization artifacts, there are similar phenomenons
happening with audio, and they are - at best - poorly understood, and at worst dismissed as being the brainchild of crackpots with too
much time on their hands, the New-Age idealists like those who read John Diamond's "Life Energy In Music" and keep a stack of copies
of 'Absolute Sound' by the bathroom stall.

Suffice to say that the combination of both forms of compression (finalizing, plus lossy encoding) do make for a pretty formidable opponent that
already has greatly affected the public's perception of what 'sounds good' and doesn't. And it's not likely to get better.

Fear not, for those who care about listening to music in more proper manners, there are plenty of options available, from an arguably limited selection
of SACDs of some great Jazz, Classical and Pop, to fantastic vinyl playback systems, or ways to re-process those CDs that are too loud and give them
back some form of dynamic range, which will involve spending time re-mastering them with specific analog//tube//tape-machine type equipment, and is
obviously not a recommended activity for what seems to make the most of today's impatient 'click-click' listeners, the Attention-Deficit-Disorder-addled set.

As for the Hydrogen Audio bunch that keeps doing those double-blind tests and play with oscilloscope and frequency analyzers, I think they should
once try them again, but in a place that holds a couple of thousand listeners, and they may come back around to the fact that even CD-resolution
is quite atrocious to listen to, when compared to something like formats that can actually reproduce the original master recordings in a way they should,
such as DSD or 24-bit / 96 kHz encoded music. (not to say anything of a proper 1/2" open-reel master copy)

So in essence, while some of these people quoted in the article all agree that something's wrong, most of them cannot put their finger on it, as it is
something that is far more in the domain of the perceptual and psychoacoustics than an exact science.

It is mind-boggling that 25 years after the CD was introduced, most people consider progress to be size-reduction and loudness, and all attempt
at making a case for higher-fidelity have commercially failed, but again there are far larger problems looming over our heads today.

As someone who has made a living with playing recorded sounds in very large venues, I can however vouch for the fact that even if people do not exa

Re:MOD DOWN the whole story, Flamebait

[GodGell]

Let's face it, modern recordings suck and no processing will change that.

That is not universally true. I find it is very much related to genre. Take Drum and Bass, for instance - in that genre, the sound engineer who determines what the final mix should sound like and deals with compression and EQing is almost always the same person (or group of people) who made the music itself, since they are all sound engineers (either professionally or as a hobby). As a result, these recordings always sound exactly like the artist(s) intended, regardless of whether it's released on vinyl (which is the most common), on CD (in which case the music is never converted to an analog format), or through the internet as mp3s. In fact, most of the mp3s I have of D'n'B music were recorded from vinyl and they all sound great.

The same is the case with newer metal releases. I found that, almost universally, albums released in the last couple of years have great quality and sound much cleaner than those released in the 90s or earlier (excepting artists like King Crimson, who probably were all sound engineers).

Re:NEWSFLASH! MP3's suck. Use a lossless CODEC.

[MrHanky]

If you're going to compare CD with mp3, compare the original wav files to the mp3 instead of comparing your mp3 player to your CD player. As it is, you have too many variables. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an audible difference between a headphone jack and a line out, simply because they have to drive very different loads.

Umm, did I miss something?

[DragonTHC]

They have been screwing up mixes since the early nineties way before mp3s were prevalent. Fidelity was a thing of the past way back in the past. Mixing engineers first compensated for everyone's crappy speakers and little tinny headphones. Then they started doing it for mobiles and mp3s. This is all at the hands of some moronic producer who doesn't understand quality. Compare anything mixed after 1990 with "Dark Side of the Moon". Nothing stacks up. Case in point. Norah Jones. Her first album was mixed very well. Her second album was mixed by someone with no concept of fidelity. And, yes, I have the system to fully enjoy it. My headphones alone can handle more of the spectrum than the human ears can.

Producers don't care about the music or quality or fidelity anymore. It's all about the dollar. "What can I sell to people?" This is part of the reason why I don't buy music anymore. The last two CDs I bought were both Paul McCartney albums. (Though "memory almost full" is pretty crappy.) I occasionally buy singles from itunes but that's it.

I like to think that my music [binarybeats.com] is mixed well.

Re:NEWSFLASH! MP3's suck. Use a lossless CODEC.

[ceoyoyo]

Are you sure? I'm not talking about RECORDING or MASTERING, I'm talking about playback. Try this thought experiment. You've got a CD. On that CD is a bunch of 16-bit numbers representing the music. So, I put the CD in my CD player, or computer, and hit play. So by your assertion loud music uses all 16-bits, as does soft music. So, if I don't touch the volume knob, how does my CD player know to play track 1 (Teeth Gnashing Rage) loud, and track 2 (Music to Spoon By) at different volumes? Better yet, how does it know that Teeth Gnashing Rage has a quiet section in the middle?

Alternatively, if the volume of the music is boosted in mastering so that it's loud, how come extra loud bits (like a drum hit) clip (that is, exceed the ability of the CD to represent)?

Rick Rubin :)

[supertsaar]

Stadium Arcadium was produced by Rick Rubin. What you describe is actually his ' style' I guess :). He's been doing it for a while too : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rubin#List_of_albums_produced [wikipedia.org] But yeah, it's disturbing to hear how good some old Motown sh*t sounded with the limited equipment they had, and now, with all our superduper digital systems, things just sound thin, dull, compressed and tiring. Most of the time they just put in too much stuff , I mean how many gated reverbs and exciters can you handle ?

Burn a CD.

[SanityInAnarchy]

If you really want to be 100% fair, rip the original CD to WAV (or FLAC), then reburn it. Then encode those WAVs (or FLACs) as MP3s, then decode them again, and burn that.

You can now play both on the same relatively high-end CD player. (Or you could try playing both from a laptop, if you like, but I'll bet the CD player is better.)

Re:MP3's and Audiophilia

[julesh]

frequency response is sometimes questionable, although at higher bit-rates is acceptable (320 kbps, and not that sliding crap either, I don't want software telling me what part of the song is important enough to hear properly.)

You don't actually know how VBR works, do you? It actually reduces the amount of judgment the software is making over what's important, by assuming everything is equally important, rather than individual sounds in more complex parts being considered less important, as is the case in CBR encoding.

Re:Loudness War

[Shorts Eater]

Erma Bombeck, (insert your deity here) rest her soul, said it perfectly: "Maturity is knowing the volume knob turns to the left"

Re:Loudness War

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

The summary is highly misleading, almost to the point of outright lying.

Here, on Slashdot, heavens no! :)

Re:MOD DOWN the whole story, Flamebait

[GWBasic]

OTOH, I have also some other CDs of those same pieces, same orchestra, same conductor, same recording company, done entirely in digital formats. I think they aren't as good as the old ones. The reason? Not because they are digital, but because of the difference between a Karajan in his 30s compared to the same man 20+ years later. Or it could also show the difference between the criteria used by Deutsche Gramophon in the 1960s and the 1980s. However, one thing I'm sure of is that if a CD copy of an analog recording is better than an analog copy of the same recording you cannot say digital sound is inferior. And if an mp3 copy of a CD containing music originally recorded in analog format sounds better than an LP of exactly the same recording, you cannot say mp3 has intrinsic fidelity problems.

I remember reading somewhere that some of the primitive digital equipment in the 70s and 80s had limitations that often left analog versions sounding better. It wasn't until we perfected the digital process that digital recordings really sounded good. Part of the problem was that digital audio was seen as a way to eliminate hiss, when we didn't understand that our ears work best when quiet sounds fade gracefully into hiss.