Does anyone purchase music solely through downloads?

If you throw snake-oil on your harddisk, mp3's sound better. Anyone could hear the difference. Giving spectrographs the same treatment doubles the fun as well. Works best on those older inkjet prints, btw. You'd be amazed what a tiny blob of oil could do at the 20kHz cut-off.

Also,

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=82777

  On 8/1/2012 at 10:13 PM, jlobkob said:

  On 8/1/2012 at 8:23 PM, eugene said:

long posts with more quotes

 

im not here to tell you how to live your life and how you have to listen to music, so just listen to mp3, if its ok for you.

just a reminder: music is not only about frequency, but also about dynamics and brilliance. (which you can hear and see in spectrographs)

and this what goes away by compression the most.

every method of compression uses fourier algorithms, so the gibbs phenomenon changes the wave slightly.

compression cannot be lossfree, as information gets lost.

any headphones will compete bad when you listen to music from your pc, as soundcards are simply shit.

 

i dare you to just listen to your favourite track in 320mp3 and then in CD/Vinyl on some low-tier high end equipment.

it hasn't to be over the top, a stereo amp about 500€, vinyl/cd player about 300€ and speakers about 700€ will do it.

you will be blown away by the difference, as you will be easily able to hear it.

because when its goes to acoustics in your room, it goes to dynamics and brilliance, and this is were mp3 loses.

 

on the point of autechre: there is no conversion of "digital" music when pressing a cd, because a cd is a digital format.

on the point of vinyls: of course the human hearing is limited, but that doesnt affect the theoretically infinite quality of vinyls.

that the vinyls get worse with every spin is obvious. that the quality isn't "infinite" in practice should be obvious, too.

 

as i said, you may listen to FLAC/WAV as they are loss-free. you may NOT listen to mp3 whilst stating "you can't hear the difference".

but you're telling people that mp3 is inferior to cd and vynil and that flac is inferior to vinyl with a confidence i just don't get.

so i guess we settled the freq. range argument and moved onto dynamic range and sound brilliance (wtf is that ?!) argument ?

here's 2 dynamic range analysis of a very high res flac and a 320 lame mp3 rip of it:

those are the exact DR values from log files

L: 11.85 dB --- R: 12.49 dB - flac

L: 11.84 dB --- R: 12.47 dB - mp3

do you really want to argue that you will able to easily hear the difference in dynamic range between cd and decently encoded mp3 ? and i actually make it harder by putting a flac with 3 times the bitrate of a cd, the flac is a sacd rip if im not mistaken.

you're missing the point again with your theories, mp3 isn't called lossy for nothing, it does lose info that's impossible or incredibly unlikely to percieve.

if you consider all pc soundcards crap that there's not much hope for you, things have moved on since soundblaster pro you know, there are very high quality soundcards in the market.

*Posts something about (null) and digital vinyls*

http://www.mp3ornot.com/

I could get two of the three samples they had here. I wish they had a 320 vs FLAC site.

  On 8/1/2012 at 8:23 PM, eugene said:

cds are not different in that regard, most of the share goes to the label

Yes, that's what I meant. I simply have a preference for CDs, that's the way I support the artists/labels as opposed to buying mp3s. Same thing, different format.

  On 8/1/2012 at 5:57 PM, eugene said:

  On 8/1/2012 at 5:12 PM, jlobkob said:

  On 8/1/2012 at 3:59 PM, mcbpete said:

  On 7/30/2012 at 5:25 PM, Joyrex said:

I too have gone almost entirely digital - the only physical purchases I even consider nowadays is for deluxe editions, etc.

Yep, me too !

 

Anchio Arch io Son Pittore - Have you an allergy to the words 'too', 'are' and 'you ?!

 

he is a big fan of prince, so he has to use "2", "R" and "U".

prince stopped using the normal words after his third studio album "dirty mind".

 

I only buy CD or VINYL because on the quality on the one hand and because of the beautiful packages, the feeling of putting on records on your turntable, etc.

also, i can't listen to digital music on my equipment unless i burn it on cd, so why not buy cds in the first place?

also, 320kbps really sounds shit compared to cd quality. (which is 1144kbps, thats almost 3 times the quality; as archio mentioned, in mp3s the high pitches are completely off, also the sounds lacks every brilliance and dynamics. to be honest, i cant get over the fact that some folks highly into complicated music is willing to listen to it in shit quality. listening to autechre for example in mp3 or in cd quality is like listening to completely different artists.)

everything you say is wrong:

*the quality of CD or vinyl is not better than flac/wav, and cds and vinyl only get worse as time goes by

*fuck packages, print some shit on a mass manufactured carbon if you need it so much

*you can listen to digital music on any setup with a decent player+dac combo

*you cannot detect the difference between 320kbps mp3 and cd, plus there's no reason to buy mp3s anyway when there are flacs

*the mp3 LP filter depends on the mp3 bitrate and codec, in quality high bitrate mp3s no audible frequencies are cut off, and with that said, mp3 is a dying format.

bcause u R deaf! Welcome 2 the deafs world! ;-)

  On 8/1/2012 at 7:56 PM, eugene said:

  On 8/1/2012 at 7:51 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

I still can't bring myself to pay for mp3s. Any mp3s I have are pirated, but my CD collection is ever expanding (around 1000 at this point).

 

but you're not paying FOR mp3s, you're paying the artist who made the music.

i don't think if all the artists accept 2 sell his music in MP3... we're not paying only the artist who made the music but also distribution, etc. except if the artist is autoproducer... hope u understand what i mean...

  On 8/2/2012 at 12:40 AM, eugene said:

 

but you're telling people that mp3 is inferior to cd and vynil and that flac is inferior to vinyl with a confidence i just don't get.

so i guess we settled the freq. range argument and moved onto dynamic range and sound brilliance (wtf is that ?!) argument ?

 

that prove u're really deaf! Vinyl is analogical & flac, CD, Wave are numeric... analogical is more hot & numeric is more cold when u listen vinyl, u fell the difference with CD, FLAC, WAVE! After, u tel us what u want, i think u're limited...

And that's three in a row.

Had enough fun already?

  On 8/2/2012 at 12:40 AM, eugene said:

  On 8/1/2012 at 10:13 PM, jlobkob said:

  On 8/1/2012 at 8:23 PM, eugene said:

long posts with more quotes

 

im not here to tell you how to live your life and how you have to listen to music, so just listen to mp3, if its ok for you.

just a reminder: music is not only about frequency, but also about dynamics and brilliance. (which you can hear and see in spectrographs)

and this what goes away by compression the most.

every method of compression uses fourier algorithms, so the gibbs phenomenon changes the wave slightly.

compression cannot be lossfree, as information gets lost.

any headphones will compete bad when you listen to music from your pc, as soundcards are simply shit.

 

i dare you to just listen to your favourite track in 320mp3 and then in CD/Vinyl on some low-tier high end equipment.

it hasn't to be over the top, a stereo amp about 500€, vinyl/cd player about 300€ and speakers about 700€ will do it.

you will be blown away by the difference, as you will be easily able to hear it.

because when its goes to acoustics in your room, it goes to dynamics and brilliance, and this is were mp3 loses.

 

on the point of autechre: there is no conversion of "digital" music when pressing a cd, because a cd is a digital format.

on the point of vinyls: of course the human hearing is limited, but that doesnt affect the theoretically infinite quality of vinyls.

that the vinyls get worse with every spin is obvious. that the quality isn't "infinite" in practice should be obvious, too.

 

as i said, you may listen to FLAC/WAV as they are loss-free. you may NOT listen to mp3 whilst stating "you can't hear the difference".

 

but you're telling people that mp3 is inferior to cd and vynil and that flac is inferior to vinyl with a confidence i just don't get.

so i guess we settled the freq. range argument and moved onto dynamic range and sound brilliance (wtf is that ?!) argument ?

 

here's 2 dynamic range analysis of a very high res flac and a 320 lame mp3 rip of it:

 

those are the exact DR values from log files

L: 11.85 dB --- R: 12.49 dB - flac

L: 11.84 dB --- R: 12.47 dB - mp3

 

do you really want to argue that you will able to easily hear the difference in dynamic range between cd and decently encoded mp3 ? and i actually make it harder by putting a flac with 3 times the bitrate of a cd, the flac is a sacd rip if im not mistaken.

 

you're missing the point again with your theories, mp3 isn't called lossy for nothing, it does lose info that's impossible or incredibly unlikely to percieve.

 

if you consider all pc soundcards crap that there's not much hope for you, things have moved on since soundblaster pro you know, there are very high quality soundcards in the market.

lets get back on the frequency argument:

the picture you posted shows a sampling freq of 48kHz, which means that anything above 24khz is cut off.

the flac has a sampling freq of 192kHz, which means that anything above 96kHZ is cut off.

i never said flac is inferior to vinyl, i said flac is loss-free, as flac really cuts off only stuff that is not audible.

the dynamic range only shows you the peaks of dynamics, they dont show how the dynamics in the track are. when converting to mp3, you lose a lot of bit depth, which leads to a lower resolution in dynamics.

what i meant with brilliance: all the overtones that are lost when converting to mp3.

it is really tedious to discuss with you as you wont accept hard facts based on scientific evidence. so before we discuss any further: do you have at least secondary school knowledge in wave theory? because thats the point i dont really get about you: for me, there is nothing to discuss about, because the differences between mp3 and cd/wav/flac are obvious. it's simple physics mostly.

you are telling that mp3 isnt inferior to cd with a confidence i just dont get.

  On 8/2/2012 at 10:57 AM, jlobkob said:

flac really cuts off only stuff that is not audible.

That doesn't sound very lossless to me !

  On 8/1/2012 at 5:12 PM, jlobkob said:

in mp3s the high pitches are completely off, also the sounds lacks every brilliance and dynamics. to be honest, i cant get over the fact that some folks highly into complicated music is willing to listen to it in shit quality. listening to autechre for example in mp3 or in cd quality is like listening to completely different artists.)

it'll be easier to relate to this post of yours to show that you were talking out of your ass and now you try to gradually backtrack.

we already covered that high quality mp3s lp cutoff is at inaudible frequencies (you say 24khz, which isn't true as it's lower than that but ok) - which means quality in this category is not affected . maybe you just don't get the concept of an inaudible freq ?

a flac rip of a cd doesn't cut anything at all, hence the apt label "lossless", a flac can be converted back and forth to original wav without any loss of audio info.

the dynamic range shows exactly what the name implies - dynamic RANGE, how can you claim that it measures something completely different ?

i haven't studied anything academic related to sound but the stuff i bring to this thread is very common knowledge for someone with a little interest in digitalized music.

regarding "hard scientific facts" you'll have to show me one thing scientific that you said because i really don't see it, and make it hard.

i don't think i claimed that mp3 isn't inferior, just that the difference is extremely hard, next to impossible to perceive. you go take a look at that link godel posted, it'll break that notion of "obvious difference" very quick (to human hearing of course, not to measuring equipment). maybe you're still stuck at this theoretical level that is meaningless to the listener, i just don't know..