Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Whilst applauding any improvements in audio quality using digital format, if you want the real deal, you have to go to vinyl. I say this a someone who spent a fortune on digital media and who resisted the idea of 'going back to vinyl' - but I recently bought some second hand vinyl kit and a good record cleaning deck (okki nokki) and my 30 year old LPs are a revalation.

I notice that some of the current bands seem to agree. Coldplay, Elbow, The Last Shadow Puppets are all releasing vinyl and the latest demographics seem to show that under 25s are buying into it.

Sure lossless digital is here to stay and the convenience is great but vinyl will gain in popularity once more too

I think that maybe the sort of music you are listening to will make the difference more or less obvious. Classical music recorded at a low bit rate sounds, as you've said, extremely thin and reedy and it just lacks the punch that it needs.

We do with all these leaps forward in technology seem to be slipping backwards when it comes to audio quality and with storage becoming cheaper and cheaper it does seem silly

Not that I'm against MP3, its great for in the car and for background music at parties but if you sit down and really listen to it you notice so much is missing.

All of our digital content, whether it be mp3 or digital TV is compormised.
The nature of digital means that quiet passages of music will be very quiet and very loud will be much higher than in the days of analogue.
We still have the issue of huge contrasts in volume between different broadcasters, especially those who use advertising....
At least we no longer have to listen to hiss, crackle and pop from cassettes or vinyl but sometimes even I miss that....

Interesting point. But not really surprising given how for as long as we've had compressed audio formats the manufacturers have been telling us that they sound "as good as CD" despite this being patent nonsense. But if people only listen to compressed music through either cheap headphones, the speakers attached to their PC or what passes as mainstream "hi-fi" these days then it's not a bit of wonder people can't tell the difference.
It never ceases to amaze me that people think that the low resolution approximations these formats prodiuce are some how comparable to CD, let alone it's high resolution companions DVDA and especially SACD. At the time when there is a headlong rush to HDTV isn't ironic that their is an equal and opoosite rush to low resolution audio formats?

The 'irony' is lost on me. This isn't remotely surprising in an age where broadcasting companies are experiencing all-time low viewing figures, and most of the 'lossy' generation are sat watching poor quality videos on YouTube.

'Headlong rush to HDTV' my anus.

It's true that the way that we listen to music these days has become more personal - and maybe part of the pleasure of collective listening has been lost. The hi-fi retailer Richer Sounds has been campaigning on this - the idea that the MP3 and iPod generation has really lost touch with good quality sound. The trouble is that the iPod is now the default music device and much of the equipment that turns it in to a hi-fi (cheap integrated speaker systems) are really low quality. What most people don't know is that good quality audio separates - an amp and good speakers - can be bought for the same as, or not much more than, the cheap all-in-one iPod accessories. Here's a video on YouTube that makes the case that Bad Sound Kills Good Music:

Vinyl is the best quality sound of all formats, I'm just looking on auction sites for a portable record player, not looking good so far.

Something I've also noticed is that more & more people are listening to music stored on a mobile phone, and played through the rather inept speaker, this gives such a weak sound quality that the even the basic headphones are preferable.

It sounds utterly dreadful, but it doesn't seem to bother the groups of youngsters who seem to do it.

Excellent piece. The company I work for specialises in producing consumer entertainment and media server systems that focus on quality, including FLAC-based lossless storage - but with the ability to generate iPod-compatible files in the background to enable you to have one library to listen to at home and on the go.

There is definitely a significant demand for quality and people definitely notice the difference and we've received excellent reviews.

Just because you want convenience on the go doesn't mean you have to sacrifice quality at home. People are now realising that they can have both. There is an increasing number of high-definition audio download sites too.

A lossless encoding technique by definition is bit-accurate to the original, and that potentially means exactly what was played back in the studio when they said "That's the one". If you want the closest approach to the original sound, that's it.

To one of the earlier comments regarding vinyl offering the best quality - I was a trained cutting engineer and I know that vinyl pressings had a very poor relationship to what was originally heard in the studio. They were limited in dynamics and frequency range, and suffered from surface noise, eccentricity and distortion. They degraded a little every time they were played. The current apparent minor resurgence of vinyl is about fashion, not about quality.

In my experience, the people who prefer vinyl generally seem people who have never heard the masters or know what the artist and producers intended. They are instead moved by familiarity and/or nostalgia - what was going on for them at the time they originally heard the record, or what it originally sounded like. Not a bad thing in itself, but very little to do with intrinsic audio quality.

I find music ripped to 320kbps (AAC) to be good enough for portable listening, but have reripped all my CD's to FLAC (which is lossless) for listening at home through my Hifi. Streamed from my NAS to my Squeezebox, it sounds as a good as the mid-range CD player that I have (but haven't used for ages).

The earphone being moulded around your ear seems like a great idea. whenever im out of the house i have my ipod on me, and listen to it whenever im on my own. but background interference, pertically from traffic is irritating.

Form looking a the website, Β£88 seems very well priced. May have to invest in some myself.

When they invent a vinyl record player that can store 1,000 albums and fit in your pocket, then maybe people will take notice.

Audophiles will always moan about Analog v Digital - have been for years.

I suspect the majority cannot tell the difference.

One question, most albums today have at least one stage of digital processing (being either when they are recorded, when they have been mixed or when they are mastered into the finished project) during their production. So, if you listen to these albums on Vinyl, is the sound quality ACTUALLY any better (or is it just that people try to use the same EQ settings for a CD player and a turntable?)

Please not the Vinyl versus Digital debate... not again.

@shayne_gardener - the reason that digital has much louder and quieter passages than the same track on vinyl is that its not compressed as much or at all. Vinyl suffers from cross talk and print through. Many vinyl recordings of Sibelius 5th symphony have terrible print through because of the fact that you are right at the centre of the record and the dynamic range is so high that you can hear the next groove from the one you are in.

I've been to live performances of this work and I've yet to find an analogue recording that captures the dynamic range without compromising it, and if you read liner notes on Analogue recordings from the 50s which have been remastered on CD the engineers are often very very happy with the results - just ask Wilma Cozart Fine

I commented on this before ( ), but I'll paste it here again since stuff tends to get lost in the general melee/spam of "have your say":

I pirate all my music (usually The Pirate Bay) because of the low quality music from download services like emusic.com where it's stuff like 128kbps ... Often sites seem to be sneaky and guarded about the quality of their music with no info until you actually have paid (or used your card for a free trial) and downloaded one to see. I ESPECIALLY HATE ONES THAT ASK YOU TO DOWNLOAD A "DOWNLOAD MANAGER" PROGRAM when there's absolutely no reason for it (just give us a normal link god, it's obvious you just to use it as an opportunity for putting adware on our pcs)

I prefer Blu-Ray quality music .. lossless.. like .FLAC files, and none seem to offer this it's annoying because I would buy music if it weren't for the current ones being so s... - I'd never touch iTunes at all because of the evilness of Apple with their DRM I steer clear of anything like that too much like spyware

Kate

There's a lot of misinformation and myth out there about audio quality. Some facts:

1. As the writer mentioned at the end of the article, listeners develop aesthetic preferences for the audio format they listen most frequently too--just like your favourite brew of coffee. This is true for vinyl. There is no acoustic superiority whatsoever, that your ears can hear, to vinyl. What vinyl does offer is pops, clicks, scratches, and degraded audio quality after every performance. That's all.

2. Your ears cannot hear the difference between a well-encoded MP3 or AAC file, and the original CD, whatever the earphones. Prove it to yourself with an "ABX test" (see Wikipedia or hydrogenaudio.org). Never underestimate the power of suggestion.

I prefer to take my portable CD Player out with me to owning an .mp3 player. It works fine and doesn't have a ossy problem.

I didn't get a voucher for custom ear tips with my HF2's from the apple store. None of the others commenting on the apple store mention that either. Are you they aren't tricking you as a reviewer by giving you better than they give the general public?

Given that so much of today's music is digitally-created in the first place, with a few samples from real musicians of the past, does the playback quality really matter?

As long as it's loud enough to annoy your fellow-passengers, obviously...

Re: No. 14 U9528187 (Kate)

How do you ensure the artists and engineers are recompensed for the work they put into your entertainment?

Apple no longer have any DRM on any of their music downloads.

I suspect that irrespective of the quality you would freeload anyway, and are probably just using that reason to justify your illegal actions.

I was for many years a shameless vinyl snob but as a fan of lo-fi non-production I've come to appreciate the joys of compression. Some (though only some!) music sounds better the lower you go (within reason), and while I can hear a difference between 128 and 192 I can't hear any improvement beyond that (though that's quite possibly a reflection of my choice of listening). And there's something to be said for cramming 10 hours onto a CD rather than heaving mountains of the things round with you. At the end of the day it's the music itself that counts, and if it's really that reliant on hi-fi reproduction I can do without it.

still large number of people who do care about quality. just enjoyed audio week on gizmodo. try listening to beatles mono on lossless format. revelation what you are used too is so different.

We still have the issue of huge contrasts in volume between different broadcasters, especially those who use advertising....

As far as I understand it, the peak volume can be the same. I believe we tend to detect an average volume rather than the actual peaks and adverts tend to sound louder because of compression. The reduced dynamic range enables "more" of the sound to be played at a higher level.

Finally the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ have brought up this audio quality debate. I nearly always try to keep on track of the music industry blogs. I enjoy reading it's downfall. I agree with some points in the article. However I am studying music technology and I don't think listeners do prefer badly encoded music. I just think digital music should be sold at a cheaper price. Technology aside the online market for music is very limited.

Darren,

You are rather sad. You should count yourself lucky that you did not live fifty years ago when 'Hi-Fi' meant recording on stretchy audio tape of a mono reel to reel tape machine from a fading Radio Luxembourg!

It has shocked me as an engineer how low quality most sources of music have become - yet the market still likes them. It must be that people en-mass are indiscriminate about quality and/or deaf to some degree.

Shellac and the quieter vinyl are of course valued mediums, but CD are different and a lower quality than vinyl in some circumstances. MP3,MP4 or what ever, are worse, but the market likes them. If people complained there would be room for better quality formats - after all DAB radio is a quite inefficient and relatively poor quality digital system but we are stuck with it (for a while). Similarly Digital Terrestrial TV (MPEG2 is really rather crap- a bit better when it changes to MPEG4), but HD is only slowly gaining popularity. Similarly Blue Ray seems stuck and DVD is still dominant. (Need I add VHS vs Betamax.)

There is also the problem with broadcasters insist that origination is done to standard higher than can be broadcast. This might have been a good idea in the days of analogue, but what is the point of it in the digital age, except to act as a restraint of trade!

Audio quality means everything to me, which is why my PC will never, ever be my music player. That'll will continue to be done the Playsyation 3 and HDMI Surround system. The youngsters of today really have no clue what good quality music sounds like.

It must be that people en-mass are indiscriminate about quality and/or deaf to some degree.

I don't know what it is but I have found that I might only be aware something is of poor quality if I have a better quality example to compare. Also, I'm not convinced of my own ability to detect every difference.

Earlier this year, I had a play with some cdg tracks and I was trying to work out which format I might use. I tried lame for mp3 and oggenc for ogg vorbis. With these samples, for a given sample rate. I seemed to prefer ogg voris and found that by the time I'd got to -q 5 (160kbps) I couldn't reliably tell the CD version from the other through the (Laptop -> PA, Tapco Juice amp, Wharfedale Titan 12 speakers) system I was using.

@ John-from-Hendon "It must be that people en-mass are indiscriminate about quality and/or deaf to some degree." Not nexessarily , but many headphone wearers are gong to end up hearing aid users bacause o setting the volume too high.

Oh, I love this subject (roles up sleeves)

As a recording engineer of over 30 years, the first thing I need to do is debunk a couple of bits and pieces.

First of all - Vinyl!

When I started, all recording was still analogue. The highest quality recordings were made on 1/2 inch tape at 30 inches per second. When we lined up the machines, we tried to ensure a flat response between 35hz and 18khs, more or less. On these systems, tape noise was an issue (though not to much at 30ips). To help this out we recorded using Dolby A, which applied Dolby's noise reduction to most of the frequency spectrum

All well and good, we got some really nice recordings! And being analogue, we were not chopping the signal up into little bits, so did not get what are called "digital artefacts" - the bits and pieces that sound like someone has taken a blender to your audio.

Then we sent our recording to the cutting rooms to make those delicious records you all seem to love.

And the first thing they did was "frequency compress" the recording. That means reduce the peaks in the very high frequencies and very low frequencies, and slowly roll off anything above 15khz. The reason is that grooved discs are really bad at reproducing high frequencies, and the peaks would not only sound distorted, but also widened the groove, making cutting awkward - so we through them away.

So, when anyone extols the virtue of vinyl, they are selling an extremely inferior product that did not faithfully reproduce what had been created in the studio.

This was particularly ironical as digital recording in studios was around long before CDs - so there was this embarrassing period where we were mastering amazing quality digital (tape) recordings, then releasing them on vinyl, all frequency compressed and full of crackles. (at this period, cassettes had improved so much that they far out specified vinyl - unfortunately, domestic players were terrible)

When CDs eventually came out, the industry breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time, there was the vague hope that the listener was hearing the music as we had heard it in the studio - allowing for the fact that even the most over priced home hi-fi megalith shoved in your minimalist, parallel walled living room, was so far behind the studio environment as to be a joke.

I remember wiring a CD player to my fathers hi-fi and playing him a CD of Ella Fitzgerald live - his face lit up on the spot. He had never heard it sound like that.

CDs became the bench mark. Actually, they are not the best quality digital by far. Studios commonly work at 192khz and 24 bit (the 24 bit being the more important bit, if you get my drift), and CDs are at 44.1 and 16, but for most ears they are fine.

I still giggle at the hi-fi buffs and the ridiculous money they spend on speaker leads (Β£50 per foot?? - In studios we use 5amp mains cable. At 25p per foot it is cheaper and higher speck), and the hundreds they spent on record player cartridges and needles, just to get lower quality than the pro ones we used at 25 quid a shot.

But in studios, despite the goal of perfect quality and an easier life, we also understood that sound quality has a cultural place. In the sixties and seventies, in the pop-field, the teens who were buying the records would more likely to listen to them on a small transistor radio glued to their ear than on some amazing hi-fi buff machine. Consequently, though we worked hard at achieving the highest quality "recording," when it came to mixing, we would listen to the track on tiny little low quality speakers - in fact in one studio I worked at, we had a mono transistor radio glued to the wall and wired up to the recording desk. Cutting rooms did the same.

It was far more important for us that it sounded good on a tranny than on a hi-fi system - that was what people listened on. So when you hi-fi buffs listen to your precious recording of Sergeant Pepper on vinyl on your great big system - remember that it was mixed to sound good on a 3 bob tranny.

Back to today:

The same problems exist now. I am very concious when I mix music, or film sound, or whatever, of what medium it is going to be played on. I was chatting to some hip-hop guys about this. They were envious of my studio quality speakers. But I said that unless they wanted to quality monitor individual instruments, they were probably little use for them. Their current set up which sounds far more like something out of a pimped up car is far more appropriate to the audience they are aiming for.

With the Internet, and more and more people using personal players of one description or another, we in studios should be taking more interest in that. Perhaps mixing music versions that work better on small headsets and PC speakers (I know they now come with massive sub-woofers, but the mid range definition on all these hyped up systems is dreadful)

Again, it is about market. If I were mixing a McFly track and a Berlin Philharmonic track a few years ago, then I have to be aware that what the targeted audience was listening on would be very different to each other.

Now, however, the classical lover also uses iTunes - so maybe the markets have just got a lot closer than they realise!

This all, in a very round about way, leads to whether people are able to distinguish quality or not - which many of you are asking.

The answer is yes, they all can.

However, it is far more about HOW they want to hear something than how GOOD it should sound.

For a couple of kids, it is far more fun to sit on a park bench, sharing ear phones (one each), each of them hearing only 1 half of the stereo, than it would be to sit in an anechoic chamber with the finest of studio quality monitoring.

And so it should be too!!

As a sound engineer, I relate far more to the kids with one dodgy earphone than I do to the person who spends thousands on trying to identify the slightest whiff of breeze in a recording.

Music is about fun and enjoyment, not about frequencies and the amount of noise. People for whom quality is a minor issue, falling far below the creativity of the song, and the company and environment where they experience the song, those people almost always get far more enjoyment from music as a whole than those who look for acoustic clarity over everything else.

AS I have said before, remember that in the audio environment it is the fun lovers we mix and record and optimize for, not the hi-fi buffs.



(Note about radio 4 - this is the exception to everything above! They are so worried about not over compressing voices and keeping things as natural as possible, that unless you car is Rolls Royce quiet you haven't a hope of hearing most of their programme - maybe explains why their audience is so small)

Oh, an extra thought about when something is lower or higher quality.

I think there is a "placebo" effect with audio. I think this is why some hi-fi buffs believe that vinyl is technically much higher quality than digital - they love vinyl and analogue and that lifts their perception.

Actually, in one way or another, that effects everyone. After all, how many people spend a couple of thousand on an amazing entertainment system, not realising that the standing waves created by the hard parallel walls of the average living room will probably cancel out most of the benefits?

As a sound engineer, I cannot afford such luxuries. When I record something, my "listening" to the sound is in two stages.

1. I compare what the live instrument or voice sounds like with what is coming out of my speakers after being recorded. I want those two to be able to be as close as possible. I can get that with professional digital equipment far more accurately than I can with the best of analogue.

2. I want to alter and enhance the sound so that it works best on the medium it is destined for

Put it this way, Richard Burton had a wonderful voice. But it sounded ten times more wonderful once we had dynamically compressed it(brought the high levels and low levels closer together) and messed around with the EQ (Bass and treble.) I am not sure if listeners realise exactly how much we mess around with things in the studio before they hear it - silly effects aside, of course.


(Note: Dynamic compression has nothing to do with computer compression used to make a file smaller - just in case I accidentally cause confusion)

Does it really matter if some people are not bothered about the quality of their audio? It's up to them.

I for one have always liked quality music, so all this "youngsters not knowing quality" is nonsense. Everyone who wants quality, tries to get it as the best they can/afford.

It is hard to know how much difference the various formats make to the quality of the music. The audio/visual magazines tell everybody there is a huge difference, but then they also do in depth reviews comparing different HDMI cables, despite the fact that as long as the cable is compliant it makes absolutely no difference, and are read by people stupid enough to pay between Β£50 and Β£100.

The one thing worth changing is the earphones shipped with the ipod. I don't know if Apple have improved this, but the standard white earphones shipped with my 30gb iPod were so bad I almost game up using it. A cheap sennheiser pair bought online made a huge difference - far more than changing the encoding would.

"Vinyl is the best quality sound of all formats"

No it isn't! It is however the nicest to listen to, as the imperfections are "musical" and easy on the ears. CD quality reproduction has always considered harsh, as the imperfections which soften the listening experience are absent. Perhaps lo-res MP3 proved more popular in the tests than lossless for that same reason...

jayjay

Thanks Gurubear for finally debunking the myth that vinyl is "better" than all other recording formats. I have some friends who still harp on about vinyl being better and refuse to listen to any argument to the contrary. I think I'll print out your piece and give it to them, although they'll still probably ignore it.

Blue_Blood1 wrote: Vinyl is the best quality sound of all formats,


Oooh, no it isn't. We had to reduce the quality of recordings to enable them to be cut for vinyl.

It also suffers terribly from "cross talk" between the left and right channels, decreasing the stereo width. This was a particular problem with live classical recordings where the space and width of the hall was vital.

Deutsche Grammophon were ecstatic when CDs arrived - finally they had a medium that was much closer to their prized original recordings. Their release of Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic in the early eighties was seen as a revolution.

With regards to comment 28, I couldn't agree more about music being about fun and enjoyment, and not for hi-fi buffs...hi-fi audiophiles seem to pay more attention to what they are playing their records on than what they are actually playing. It's like people who read guitar and music equipment magazines; again, if they cared more about what they were playing than what they were playing on then they might not produce such muso drivel. That's for a whole other discussion however...

As for vinyl, it goes beyond the science - I actually enjoy the crackles, hiss, analogue compression and bass bias...and as someone who has released/releases both 7" and 12" vinyl records, I actually prefer what comes off the lathe than was recorded in the studio. Who cares that it doesn't sound exactly the same as it was played in the first place? By the time you've added reverb, delay, echo etc., you've already changed the original recording anyway - if you were to take the somewhat conservative stance of 'capturing exactly what was recorded in the studio', we might as well go back to chamber music to totally avoid any corruption of the original sound.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

U9528187:

i know this may seem obvious to me, but the thing you are writing your comments on and downloading music with is made out of OIL, most likely in a factory in china. Hopefully, unlike your music, you paid for the computer.

Hi Darren. The details given in the post as well as the comments, are quite interesting. Until a few weeks ago, I was also searching for some audio correction for my system, then I got to know about (. My system is giving phenomenal results now. My guests usually ask me about the secret behind my improved system. I would recommend Scott Walker to all those who are looking for an expert in audio correction.

In the naming of higher quality ear monitor, how dare of you not to mention Ultimate Ears (smile).

Actually a good pair of sound isolation ear monitor to some extend can protect your hearing, as you don't have to turn up the volume to combat the background noise. I can actually hear better than my family can even I listen to music many hours per day.

I even went to make a pair of sound filtering ear plug with changeable filters for general use. You will soon find the benefit of having a pair of comfortable ear plug ready, when your fellow passenger on a plane is crying throughout the whole trip (+10 hours). Also no more 'ringing noise in the ears after coming out of a party'.

Gurubear well done!

As a broadcast engineer (though I'm pictures) I know everything you say is true!
This vinyl is superior claptrap has gone on too long... CD was a revolution... Vinyl is a kludge.