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Meta has come up with a way to compress audio that is ten times more efficient than the MP3 Codec. You can read about it +++ HERE +++.


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Got the popcorn out and kicked back to hear net remarks regarding how any degree of digital compression degrades the sound. And how audiophiles can (unless subjected to a double blind study smile ) distinguish each protocol.

Bud

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I love those supposed tests via the Internet that compress the files then tell you that you are hearing them wrong.

The article is interesting in that a such low amount of data could be helpful in situations where there is poor or no broadband. I’m just disappointed that, in an era where we have dramatic increases in data transmission and storage capacity, we would consider going backwards in audio quality.


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I've been involved with high compression speech and it's amazing how much can be done with the listener being barely aware of it ... in a 'phone call. In effect, the original speech is characterised and the data obtained is sent to the other end, where it's rebuilt almost from the ground up, using a vocoder technique. You're actually not hearing the original voice at all, just a modeled version of it, usually with a sample of background noises mixed in for comfort.

Trying to do that for music without significant damage to the quality seems improbable at best if one expects a good stereo image. But then perhaps they don't any more, just something wider than mono.

Meanwhile my wife has just told me that our local-radio station that we listen to over the Internet because we're in a poor coverage are, will shortly change standards and we'll need to upgrade out Internet radio yet again. Hopefully this time it'll be a firmware upgrade, because I'm sick of throwing away otherwise perfectly good kit and buying new kit!


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Gordon, I hope I’m not hijacking the thread, but as I’m not in the UK, I’m curious what you mean. Are you referring to a switch to some kind of digital radio?


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Originally Posted By: Gordon Scott
I've been involved with high compression speech and it's amazing how much can be done with the listener being barely aware of it ... in a 'phone call. In effect, the original speech is characterised and the data obtained is sent to the other end, where it's rebuilt almost from the ground up, using a vocoder technique. You're actually not hearing the original voice at all, just a modeled version of it, usually with a sample of background noises mixed in for comfort.

Yep - since the spectral envelope of speech is slow moving and fairly narrow-band, you can throw a lot of information away and still get recognizable speech.

With music, there's all sorts of psycho-acoustic tricks that can be done to try and determine what information is salient, and what can be discarded. For example, louder frequency bands mask other sounds in nearby bands, so those nearby frequencies can be discarded,

For really high rates of compression, complex "non-harmonic" sounds are simply classified into a group of frequencies bands, and when reconstituted replaced with filtered white noise.

It can make a cymbal crash sound like a trash can lid.

I remember reading some time back how consumers had gotten used to that sound, and actually grown to prefer it over the actual sound of cymbals.

Crazy! crazy


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I ran a personal MP3 sample rate test over a decade ago. I wanted to know if I could hear the difference between the different sample rates. I used a couple of songs with lots going on instrumentally (not just vocals) on a CD that I liked and knew well, and encoded them at 128K, 192K, 256K and 320K. Differentiating the 128K and 192K encodes was easy on whatever playback system I tested. Then things got a bit more difficult. The only playback system where I could differentiate the 320K encode from the others was on the 9-speaker H-K system in the Nissan Titan I was driving at the time. I think the presence of a subwoofer there made the difference. The lower rate encodes suffered from some very low frequency loss. Everything else was a wash. If I wasn't a bass player, I'd probably have just rolled with 192K or 256K, but I've been encoding at 320K ever since. Fortunately, the cost of storage has come down dramatically since then. I was encoding my 1000s of CDs for myself, and not for streaming, so wasn't worried about the bandwidth.

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Originally Posted By: dcuny

Yep - since the spectral envelope of speech is slow moving and fairly narrow-band, you can throw a lot of information away and still get recognizable speech.

One can throw away an extraordinary amount and still hear a familiar voice.

Originally Posted By: dcuny

I remember reading some time back how consumers had gotten used to that sound, and actually grown to prefer it over the actual sound of cymbals.

Crazy! crazy

I feel exactly like that about most percussion in modern mixing. Most of it to me now sounds horribly artificial. Obviously I'm getting old.


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Originally Posted By: TheMaartian
I ran a personal MP3 sample rate test over a decade ago.

I'm in the same boat with you there. I started encoding my CDs at 192K early on then switched to 320K part way through. I've pretty much eliminated anything 128K or less in my MP3 collection.




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I liken this to the day I watched a guitar player, in person, be blindfolded, be handed 5 guitars and try to identify each one by the sound. He guessed, in some order, Strat, Tele, Les Paul, Gretsch and Ibanez.

Except that he was handed only 2 guitars, once the same guitar twice in a row. Each time he was told "Okay now. Here's one of the other ones."

Power of suggestion is indeed powerful. Those weight loss capsules full of nothing of value that people KNOW is helping them lose weight are a great example. Currently the latest scam is Golo. Not that the commercials show these fatties suddenly walking and playing basketball and eating a higher fiber, lower carb diet, which they didn't do before. But yeah, it's the pill doing it!

I have run into SO many people who claim they can tell this bitrate from that bitrate, or vinyl vs CD, while blindfolded.

But you know what? if you want to spend money buying every CD you own on the new latest and greatest vinyl re-release, with some claim of "higher fidelity using the newest whoop-de-doo technology", you go right ahead. It isn't costing me a penny. But remember, "Take The A Train" is still "Take The A Train" no matter what medium it is on. The song didn't change and never will. One of my former friends has the SAME Beatle collection with every hype boost applied. Remaster, with outtakes, with a 2k notch filter applied, special edition with 2 songs in a different running order, all the nonsense. But A Day In The Life starts with "Day after day, alone on a hill" on every one of them.

So The Book Of Face can sell their snake oil if they want to. I listen to what the songs mean, not if they are brighter or duller to the ear.

Like Steve I encode/download only at 320k like I have forever.


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