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This article on Myths of Vinyl has some interesting facts

Newp. Vinyl has about 12 bits worth of dynamic range, and starts distorting the signal above 5khz. https://hydrogenaud.io/index.p...

Please refute with actual engineering data/arguments. Otherwise its just placebophile hand-waving bullshit.

OTOH, vinyl is often engineered to have more dynamic range then CD.
Personally, I like buying old used CD's for the same reason, to get the dynamic range that CD's are capable off.

You're not wrong. Vinyl has inferior reproduction to CDs in every conceivable measure, especially when taking practical reality into account: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.p...

Newp. Vinyl has about 12 bits worth of dynamic range, and starts distorting the signal above 5khz. https://hydrogenaud.io/index.p...

Please refute with actual engineering data/arguments. Otherwise its just placebophile hand-waving bullshit.

As with many things, Foobar2000 can be extended and configured to have such a view:
http://www.foobar2000.org/comp...

A nice view that is in between album cover browsing and a straight text based playlist is achievable with Simplaylist:
http://www.foobar2000.org/comp...
(see the screenshots here: http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/ind... )

Customizing foobar2000 can be pretty 'technical' (holding shift when accessing the menus, really?), but once you get it the way you want it, it works almost perfectly.

back in 2003 most MP3 encoders used a low-pass filter as part of the encoding process. you didn't need "golden ears" to tell the difference, you just needed to not be deaf.

Almost every single MP3 encoders use a low-pass filter, unless you specifically disable it or use LAME -V0 specifically.

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/ind...

I'm 31 and I can't hear anything at all above 17 kHz. Not a damn thing, not even test tones. I don't give a shit about a lowpass filter at 17 kHz.

Aoyumi's Tuned Vorbis encoder (aoTuV) is believed transparent at quality 5, which is roughly 160 kbps.

And you're right that Opus is too new. It still has artifacts on "killer samples" in the 128-192 kbps range that make it little better than Vorbis at transparency under quiet listening conditions. But it wins listening tests in the 64-96 kbps range for streaming to relatively noisy vehicular and outdoor environments.

Aoyumi's Tuned Vorbis encoder (aoTuV) is believed transparent at quality 5, which is roughly 160 kbps.

And you're right that Opus is too new. It still has artifacts on "killer samples" in the 128-192 kbps range that make it little better than Vorbis at transparency under quiet listening conditions. But it wins listening tests in the 64-96 kbps range for streaming to relatively noisy vehicular and outdoor environments.

That's a meta-analysis, of a number of (flawed) other studies. The biggest problem is that the meta-analysis just accepts the findings of those other studies, no matter how flawed they are, and tries to draw a conclusion from that.

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.p...

If there really was that big of an audible difference as many audiophiles claim, it would have been proven conclusively years ago. But so far, the "best" result they have to show is this deeply flawed meta-analysis, which doesn't really prove anything at all.

Meyer and Moran's study on the audibility of a CD-quality downsampling in the signal chain of hi-res audio is still significantly more relevant, and factual.

The DR rating is useless for LPs:

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.p...

The source you provided was a link to Wikipedia, which has a particularly vague section on audio quality and mistakenly asserts that MP3 does not provide "critically transparent quality at any bitrate". If you had actually bothered to do a double-blind test yourself, you would know that this is blatantly false. High-bitrate MP3 can easily provide audibly transparent compression, which would become clear to you, if you would only bother to actually test it yourself, instead of blindly relying on second- or third-hand information from Wikipedia.

Yes, there are some non-musical problem samples that will trip up any MP3 encoder, but that's only of interest to the codec developers.

Like I said: Do an ABX test yourself, it can be done on your own PC using Foobar2000 and the ABX plugin. After you've done that, come join the discussion at http://hydrogenaud.io. Unless you're afraid of learning something new?

MP3 can't produce transparent audio at ANY bit-rate. It has many design compromises like the anti-aliasing which produces audible distortions, and besides that, it's a frequency domain codec, like AAC and most others, which makes them all incapable of true transparency:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

BS.

If you want to prove your claims, please provide ABX test logs where you successfully detect any difference between high-bitrate MP3 and the lossless source. Because yes, MP3 is technically inferior to later codecs, but that doesn't make it useless, it just makes it less bitrate efficient for full transparency. And there are a couple of problem samples (not music) that it cannot achieve full transparency with, even at 320kbps, but those are only relevant for test purposes, they're very far from actual musical content. If you're not getting audible transparency on music, stop using an inferior encoder. LAME is the standard recommended encoder for a reason, it's vastly superior.

And I'm sorry, but if you think ATRAC is superior to MP3, you've obviously never used a Minidisc player.

Stop reading the haphazardly-edited dreck on Wikipedia (it's notoriously bad for technical subjects) and go join https://hydrogenaud.io/ instead. They would love if you could actually prove an audible difference between high-bitrate MP3 and the lossless source, in a properly controlled double blind test. You can start by reading their wiki page on MP3, which is a lot better than the one on Wikipedia: http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/ind...

For my own part, I've done lots of ABX testing, and even with the toughest musical sample I could find (solo harpsichord), LAME-encoded MP3 achieved full transparency at -V3 VBR for me, and while I could ABX it with 100% accuracy at -V5, I would not be able to hear any difference in normal playback. It was only when I played back the same snippets over and over that I could actually detect a minute difference in the sharpness of transients, but it was extremely subtle.

Try disregarding your bias, and give MP3 a fair shake in a controlled listening test, instead of just reading the technical info and extrapolating. I think you'll be suprised at how good it actually is.

MP3 can't produce transparent audio at ANY bit-rate. It has many design compromises like the anti-aliasing which produces audible distortions, and besides that, it's a frequency domain codec, like AAC and most others, which makes them all incapable of true transparency:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

BS.

If you want to prove your claims, please provide ABX test logs where you successfully detect any difference between high-bitrate MP3 and the lossless source. Because yes, MP3 is technically inferior to later codecs, but that doesn't make it useless, it just makes it less bitrate efficient for full transparency. And there are a couple of problem samples (not music) that it cannot achieve full transparency with, even at 320kbps, but those are only relevant for test purposes, they're very far from actual musical content. If you're not getting audible transparency on music, stop using an inferior encoder. LAME is the standard recommended encoder for a reason, it's vastly superior.

And I'm sorry, but if you think ATRAC is superior to MP3, you've obviously never used a Minidisc player.

Stop reading the haphazardly-edited dreck on Wikipedia (it's notoriously bad for technical subjects) and go join https://hydrogenaud.io/ instead. They would love if you could actually prove an audible difference between high-bitrate MP3 and the lossless source, in a properly controlled double blind test. You can start by reading their wiki page on MP3, which is a lot better than the one on Wikipedia: http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/ind...

For my own part, I've done lots of ABX testing, and even with the toughest musical sample I could find (solo harpsichord), LAME-encoded MP3 achieved full transparency at -V3 VBR for me, and while I could ABX it with 100% accuracy at -V5, I would not be able to hear any difference in normal playback. It was only when I played back the same snippets over and over that I could actually detect a minute difference in the sharpness of transients, but it was extremely subtle.

Try disregarding your bias, and give MP3 a fair shake in a controlled listening test, instead of just reading the technical info and extrapolating. I think you'll be suprised at how good it actually is.

I've been a member of W.CD for about a year, and that's not the type of site it is. Most torrent sites that host music haven't the slightest clue how to make sure it is a decent quality release. Similar to how TV and movie torrent sites have extensive rules for quality (similar to what scene releases have,) W.CD has its own rules that can guarantee you aren't going to waste ratio or time on a crap release. But they don't go to those silly analog extremes. For example, 192kbit VBR MP3 (aka LAME v2) is a perfectly acceptable encode there because it provides audible transparency. What won't be accepted is i.e. having a 128kbit CBR MP3, or having anything that is up-encoded to fit the rules (and yes, you can empirically measure when somebody has done this, W.CD even provides guides for doing so.)

I personally am not an audiophile, nor am I a music enthusiast, but it's a nice site. In addition to music, it's also a wonderful site for college textbooks (I personally have uploaded several, including ones I've scanned myself.)

You can do pretty much anything with the gui in foobar

Here's a few different forum theads to start you off here and here and here

You can do pretty much anything with the gui in foobar

Here's a few different forum theads to start you off here and here and here

You can do pretty much anything with the gui in foobar

Here's a few different forum theads to start you off here and here and here

Here you go

You won't get UHS I speeds, but you'll get at least Class 10 performance.

It is well known that differences in audio quality between digital formats (CDs, MP3, FLACs, etc.) to Vinyl are due to different mastering for the respective media. HA has also set up a wiki page regarding misconceptions about Vinyl mastering and Vinyl as a medium. Vinyl is an inherently flawed medium, with problems like wear, necessitating expensive gear and knowledge for playback, and low audio quality compared to digital media. That some people still prefer Vinyl releases shows that they either don't really have good hearing, or that contemporary music is mastered so that a medium with roughly 13 bits of dynamic range is sufficient for even "critical" listeners. That means CD quality audio is simply excessive for that audience. Interestingly enough the same Vinyl crowd will glady buy 24bit/192khz releases, which are even more excessive.

It is well known that differences in audio quality between digital formats (CDs, MP3, FLACs, etc.) to Vinyl are due to different mastering for the respective media. HA has also set up a wiki page regarding misconceptions about Vinyl mastering and Vinyl as a medium. Vinyl is an inherently flawed medium, with problems like wear, necessitating expensive gear and knowledge for playback, and low audio quality compared to digital media. That some people still prefer Vinyl releases shows that they either don't really have good hearing, or that contemporary music is mastered so that a medium with roughly 13 bits of dynamic range is sufficient for even "critical" listeners. That means CD quality audio is simply excessive for that audience. Interestingly enough the same Vinyl crowd will glady buy 24bit/192khz releases, which are even more excessive.

It is well known that differences in audio quality between digital formats (CDs, MP3, FLACs, etc.) to Vinyl are due to different mastering for the respective media. HA has also set up a wiki page regarding misconceptions about Vinyl mastering and Vinyl as a medium. Vinyl is an inherently flawed medium, with problems like wear, necessitating expensive gear and knowledge for playback, and low audio quality compared to digital media. That some people still prefer Vinyl releases shows that they either don't really have good hearing, or that contemporary music is mastered so that a medium with roughly 13 bits of dynamic range is sufficient for even "critical" listeners. That means CD quality audio is simply excessive for that audience. Interestingly enough the same Vinyl crowd will glady buy 24bit/192khz releases, which are even more excessive.

It is well known that differences in audio quality between digital formats (CDs, MP3, FLACs, etc.) to Vinyl are due to different mastering for the respective media. HA has also set up a wiki page regarding misconceptions about Vinyl mastering and Vinyl as a medium. Vinyl is an inherently flawed medium, with problems like wear, necessitating expensive gear and knowledge for playback, and low audio quality compared to digital media. That some people still prefer Vinyl releases shows that they either don't really have good hearing, or that contemporary music is mastered so that a medium with roughly 13 bits of dynamic range is sufficient for even "critical" listeners. That means CD quality audio is simply excessive for that audience. Interestingly enough the same Vinyl crowd will glady buy 24bit/192khz releases, which are even more excessive.