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SoundCloud Refutes Decreasing Audio Quality, Cites Standard Testing (billboard.com)
cordovaCon83 writes: NestHQ published an article today noting that online streaming service Soundcloud has implemented the Opus codec for its archive of music and started streaming at 64kbps instead of its prior 128kbps streams. Opus has been touted as a more efficient codec than the aging MP3 codec. Whether this will have a major effect on audio fidelity remains to be seen, as well as whether such a move will affect the already ailing music service's business. UPDATE: SoundCloud tells Billboard that this swap in codecs is nothing new and is part of frequent tests it runs with its audio -- just as other streaming services do regularly. "We always appreciate feedback, but these reports are inaccurate," a SoundCloud spokesperson told Billboard in a statement. "SoundCloud has not altered its approach to audio quality. We have been using the Opus codec (among others) since 2016, and we regularly test different combinations of encoding and streaming to offer listeners a quality experience on any device. Furthermore, we store all content from creators at its originally uploaded quality level so we can continually adapt to advances in encoding and playback."
My guess is they are trying to reduce costs to delay going out of business caused by not having a business model. Beats having a real job I guess!
Maybe they switched their Ethernet cables for low-fidelity cables, or ran them straight along the ground instead of on an elevated platform.
They could have had them plugged in backwards. It takes a qualified audio technician to hear and identify the optimum cable directionality.
That is ridiculous. Corporations need a stable flow of income. If you keep the music you won't pay every month. Think of the corporations!
Opus at 64 kbit/s isn't terrible, probably as good as or possibly better than MP3 at 128 kbit/s (also depends on which MP3 encoder was used). Whether that's good enough depends on what you're using it for, but this change doesn't seem like a downgrade to me. I think the article writer underestimates how much progress was made in audio compression in the last ~20 years.
But when YouTube is streaming music videos with the audio encoded as opus at 96k, they are not really keeping up with the competition.
Nothing "touted" about it -- it is better than MP3.
Opus does have an unusual limitation, however: It has a limited selection of input sample rates, and 44.1KHz is not one of them. So anything recorded at 44.1KHz has to be up-sampled to 48KHz before it can be encoded in Opus.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Soundcloud are absolutely correct in that there are better codecs than mp3 available; mp3 is about 20 years old and it's development goes back at least five more. However 64 kbps codecs are generally quite crude sonically compared to 128 kbps variants of the same codec. So I understand the concern.
Satellite Radio. which uses a proprietary codec and therefore isn't available to others, is a 64~80 kbps codec. It doesn't sound terrible, and it's also quite old.
So the idea that a competent 64 kbps codec could be out there isn't all that crazy an idea. I think it's reasonable for Soundcloud to be live testing codecs of any bitrate, and I wouldn't want them to stop. It's far more than most lossy compressed streams ever bother to even consider, let alone practice.
One of the things that I noticed early on with MP3s, even high bit ones, was audio fatigue after listening for a while, maybe after an hour or more. At least compared to lossless codecs and even regular CDs. I used to be into high end audio and fancy DAC to playback good quality CDs back in the day, and this used to happen to me when I started to use high bit MP3s for some things. Granted there are additional variables like quality of speakers/headphones, but for some reason MP3s always fatigued my ears after a while, at least compared to non-compressed formats.
Not sure if someone else have had the same experience when listening to lossless codec music for longer periods.
There is no doubt MP3s and new codecs like Opus, which I didn't even know before reading this, are convenient in the nowadays streaming world and some other areas, but there might be more behind the scenes than just a base double-blind comparison with small song samples, even a bunch of them like the one described pointed by the Opus site at http://listening-test.coresv.net/index.htm
Don't get me wrong, the double-blind type comparison is the way to go, but it'll be also good to test more than some samples...
Maybe with a modern codec like Opus long term audio fatigue will be less of an issue, at lest for me, but unless I try, I guess I won't know...
You're complaining that broadcast radio doesn't sound as good as albums.
No shit.
Streaming sounds better than broadcast, downloads sound better than streaming. Get the FLAC and you have a perfect waveform. Analog is awful.
Hmm, let me see..
No.
No.
No.
Yes.
No.
No.
And slightly more helpfully, vinyl is MASSIVELY compressed in both low and high frequency regions, due to the maximum allowable track deviation (for LF), and the maximum tracking speed (for HF).
So, while digital CAN be compressed thanks to stupid sound engineers, Vinyl has to be, thanks to physics.
Just give me some notice before Soundcloud goes under so I can rip all my favourite tracks. Note that I am a paying subscriber, and like Soundcloud for both original content and obscure DJ remixes.
Dispute, not refute. Refute means to prove wrong. When used properly it's is an extremely useful word with a specific meaning. Please don't dilute it when there's the word "dispute", which already says *exactly* what you want to say. It's as if people had never heard "refute" before and thought "Oh, that's a fancy way of saying dispute, so I'm going to use it to sound more elevated."
for which you pay the price in reduced signal-to-noise in those frequency bands, making it roughly as simple as described.
Keep your music on your device.
How much does it cost to buy downloads of as many songs as are on an entire radio station's playlist?
And that's provided the artist or his label even allows purchase instead of rental, and I'm told some do not. Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, for instance, was released to the Tidal streaming service several weeks before it was available for purchase. Prince's The Black Album appears to still be exclusive to Tidal except for a few limited edition CD pressings.
WHY AREN'T YOU DRINKING THE KOOLAIDE!!!??? DRINK IT!! DRINK!! Reading the story, this is all I saw. There are enough other music sources that if one craps the bed, there's no reason to stay with them.
You act like you never heard of torrenting
The artists in question do not make the works in question lawfully available to the public through BitTorrent.
How much does it cost to buy downloads
You act like you never heard of [...] downloading
If I hadn't heard of it, I probably wouldn't be asking about it.
i personally like soundcloud i l=thin kthe quality is fine