Well most studio mics can go up to 20 khz on paper. If you look at their frequency response curves it is clear that the sensitivity starts to drop off at around 16 khz, but it is clearly still responding to sounds right up to just under 20 khz. How quickly the response drops off does depend on the particular mic.
I see this as a red herring anyway. It's what psycho-acoustic compression supporters always trot out. So we end up arguing about it. It doesn't actually matter all that much IMO. A low bitrate MP3 doesn't sound at all the same as a WAV file that has had a low pass filter applied above 16khz. That's really not what is at issue here.
But the fact remains that I and many other people can hear right up to 20 khz Whether the mics are sensitive enough at these frequencies for it to matter is another question of course.
Lossy enthusiasts are always saying that humans can't hear above 16khz anyway, but that simply isn't true. The mic argument is actually a much better one for doing a low pass somewhere between 16 and 20 Khz. Unfortunately just doing a low pass cut wouldn't get you anywhere near to the kinds of compression rates that these codecs get.
but can you tell the difference when you DON'T compare them?
Thanks for the laugh. I had to read that twice. Haha. But I understand what you are trying to say. In practice I find that one problem with lo-fi music is I tend to tire of it more quickly and develop "listener fatigue". I stop wanting to listen to music at all.
I agree that being able to hear the difference is a liability, not an asset. Higher psycho-acoustic compression is better in every way except sound quality. So if you can't hear the difference (or just don't care about it), you may as well make it even smaller up to the point where you can.
Comparing lossy music compression to 8-track tapes is silly.
Sounds like a fair enough comparison to me. The only question I would ask is with which codec and at what bitrate. At some (x) bitrate 8-track would sound better.
And as far as A/D conversion being inherently lossy. No kidding. But according to Nyquist, most of the frequency detail (at least) should be preserved with a 44.1 khz sampling rate. Whether 16 khz gives you enough samples is highly debatable though.
There's lossy and then there's LOSSY. The fact that there are initial losses is all the more reason to avoid them as much as possible later on, not to make things even worse.
Most microphones traditionally used in professional recording studios don't record much information at 20kHz, let alone above it.
How do you figure? I have a studio mic and it sure as hell is speced to record at 20 khz. Are you saying the manufacturers are lying? And how do they stop the mic from vibrating at above 20 khz anyway? How does that work exactly? Do they intentionally install a low pass filter right at 20 khz and if so why?!
I hope it's not MP3Pro. That codec was designed for lower bitrates. It was designed to make 64 or 96 kbps sound as good as 128. Unfortunately it wasn't able to even do that. At higher bitrates it tends to actually sound worse than most standard MP3 codecs.
I'm not sure why you argue that 196 would be "preferable". To some people 64 kbps would be preferable since it's half the size and most people "just want music in the background".
Not according to current technical and scientific knowledge. Human ears listen up to about 16kHz.
Sounds like our "technical and scientific" knowledge needs some updating then. Last time I got a hearing test (at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston) I was able to consistently raise my hand for 20 khz tones. The nurse didn't exactly seem shocked like she was witnessing some kind of miracle either.
Granted, I was still in my twenties (around 24 IIRC) at the time of the test, but how many people would it take to show that humans can hear at least up to 20 khz?
Actually I've heard that young kids can hear up to like 22-23khz.
While CPU architecture and Instructions Per Clock are very important, the clock rate is also very important. The truth is that they are all important.
With psycho-acoustic compression, the algorithms are important, but so is the bitrate. Better algorithms can make use of lower bitrates with the same "quality", but higher bitrates still correlate to sound that is closer to the uncompressed source material.
I would rather watch a 1500 kbps xvid than a 300 kbps xvid. Bitrate matters. A lot.
The scary thing is that to the uninitiated you will sound like you know what you are talking about even though you haven't the slightest clue.
First you say that 320 kbps is lossless because the waveform is "pretty much the same". Then you demonstrate your extreme ignorance of the very process you try to sound knowledgeable about by implying that all 256 kbps compression does is filter frequencies above 20Khz. This is wrong. Completely wrong. Not even close to how it works.
Your assertions about what people can hear or not hear are just that: assertions. It's totally meaningless. Just because audiophiles have not bothered to produce some kind of test to your satisfaction that proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that they can hear the difference does not mean that they cannot hear the difference.
I have done so called abx testing of my own using the software from hydrogenaudio, and I was not only able to correctly distinguish which tracks were compressed, but also which tracks were encoded with which codec (although not as accurately).
I am confident that I could personally pass any legitimate test you could come up with comparing 256 kbps material with the CDs. I will admit that 320 kbps would be more difficult, but given a sufficient amount of time and high enough quality source material, I could blindly identify those as well. So much for your 320 kbps is lossless theory.
There is one codec that I am not completely confident I can identify though: MPC. At a high vbr this codec tends to sound really good, even to me. The author of that proggy really did his homework when it came to psycho-acoustic compression. I haven't done a lot of testing with it. Maybe it really is transparent. I don't know.
I am poor and I can assure you that I do not buy CDs out of the goodness of my heart or because I feel sorry for the rich record company executives and "artists". I buy CDs because I can hear a very significant (varies based on source quality and bitrate) difference.
Try doing that "test" at 32 kbps and then you'll hear what 128 kbps sounds like to other people. We all have different ears. If you can't tell the difference then good for you, but others can, and very easily.
You can argue that there is no difference until you are blue in the face and the cows are home but that won't make it true. Psycho-acoustic music compression is more an art than a science. Many people still listen to analog cassette tapes (which probably sound better than 128kpbs MP3s). Most people just don't care about audio "quality". To Apple, even using 128 Kbps is probably considered overkill. It wouldn't surprise me if they could sell the idea of 64 or even 32 kbps downloads and most people wouldn't care.
I, for one, will never pay even one penny for music compressed with any form of lossy compression, even a good one like high vbr MPC. When the day comes that music companies stop producing uncompressed CDs, I will stop buying music forever.
OTOH, I would pay as much as the original CD for a FLAC, AL, or APE download assuming I had confidence in the transfer quality and the original source.
Well, I'm even happier with the higher bitrate 192-320 kbps CBR and preset -extreme MP3s that I can download for free. I can even often download those same files that you are paying big money for in OGG and MPC formats. I admit though that to people who can't hear the difference (or just don't care), a smaller size is actually better. Perhaps you would be even happier with a 64 kbps 22khz mono version. To some people even 32 kbps is more than good enough. Now that's what I call space saving.
In terms of voice I did some testing of my own a while back and actually (as much as I hate to admit it) realaudio came out ahead in most of my voice tests right down to below 24 kpbs testing. I think it really helps when you've specifically designed your codec for these ultra-low bitrates. IIRC, WMA didn't do that bad at these low bitrates either.
For 16 kbps and lower, it was pretty tough to find anything that sounded ok. This is where speex starts to look a bit better (although it didn't fare well in my testing).
Low bitrates are useful too, just not so much for pure music listening. Certain codecs (like realaudio) can do pretty well with voice or a mixture of voice and music at these low bitrates. It can be particularly useful when you want to store large quantities of audio information.
For instance I have an application where I want to record audio from my TV tuner card 24 hours a day. You can hold a lot more data at 32 kbps than at 128.
Unfortunately, AFAIK the better low bitrate codecs cannot be natively edited like MP3, and you definitely cannot afford the losses of transcoding at these bitrates. So MP3 is still more practical for these kinds of apps even if it takes twice the bitrate.
It's also a very efficient way for certain artists to provide samples while severely limiting the fidelity, providing extra motivation to buy the real thing (not all artists are available on P2P networks either).
The only problem is that at these low bitrates, signature sounds are quite noticeable. It is pretty easy to recognize one codec or another if you have heard them before. So ideally, at these bitrates, the testers should have never (non-blindly) compared these codecs before. Then it would be truly "blind" testing.
I don't know about that. In exactly what direction is the tech crowd biased in favor of? Remember we are talking 32 kpbs here! This isn't going to be high fidelity listening. If it were a slashdot crowd you might see some bias in favor of ogg and against Real and Windows (wma) codecs, but at this bitrate differences are usually extreme. Even just for voice.
That is a myth. People with good ears and good enough equipment most certainly can tell the difference. But most people don't have either of these things and listening to any portable (or most soundcards) with the stock headphones means that anything above 192 kbps is most likely "transparent".
There are even humans who have a demonstrated ability to hear above 20khz as well. Lossy compression is called "lossy" for a reason and no algorithm is perfect.
Actually the reason why certain people like Sony portables is that they are good at making them. They were the first with the concept and IMO they are still generally the "best" depending on how you judge.
I think it is only their status as a music publisher that has kept Sony from creating a genuine Ipod killer. They are certainly way more experienced and better than Apple at making a portable music player. They could easily produce a smaller, cooler looking, and much better sounding player than Apple, but they are so obsessed with DRM, that they will never win in this game.
Just don't forget the capabilities of the company that created AIBO. They could definitely beat Apple at their own game if they wanted to. If they were willing to dump DRM and (natively) support many major standards including MP3, AAC, and OGG. If people want to encode their music with an ATRACplus codec, fine. But forcing it down people's throats is marketing suicide. They will never pull it off, especially outside of Japan.
Maybe someday this will become true, but for now it is not. The problem is that there really is no good name for these devices. CD players are "digital music players" too. If any name has standardized I would say that it is the use of the term "digital" or maybe "MP3" (much to Sony's horror) player.
Sorry, but this is totally wrong. The website in question is very anti-audiophile. Go read it some time. Maybe you were just trying to be funny. But it is exactly the opposite of the truth. The people from that website are lossy compression enthusiasts. They are interested in lossy compression as a technology and hate audiophiles who for the most part don't like and don't use lossy compression.
The EPA nailed it with their 55/45 (city/highway) ratio rating of 16 city, 21 highway. I haven't measured the highway yet, but the mixed mileage is right around 15.9 mpg with every tank. I'm actually pretty impressed with the EPA estimates. Oh, and I'm not a careful or slow driver. So it seems the EPA is doing a pretty good job. From the way people talk here I didn't expect much of a corellation between the ratings and real life.
And without Javascript? GoHideMe(), GoPopUp(), self.blur()... How lovely. If web developers would stop using Javascript as a crutch, we could all just turn the thing off. I only run javascript on manually whitelisted ("trusted") sites.
Still I am going to check the latest version of firefox to see if it meets my requirements. It seems using any MS product just makes you a target. One thing I like about IE is it gives you easy control over the buttons at the top and can be configured to waste very little screen space with all kinds of functions that I don't use when browsing.
Also, I couldn't figure out how to only run Javascript/ActiveX on whitelisted sites with an alternative browser. I have to assume that the alt browsers have whitelisting.
By "good" do you mean to do things which could be easily accomplished without "active scripting"? Due to the laziness of modern web site developers, everything has to be written in Javascript or ActiveX. A lot of web sites won't even load at all without it. It's pretty scary stuff.
I've been watching this "Javascript creep" over the years. When I go to websites like that I want to strangle the developer who must think "if a little active scripting is good, a lot must be better" (and it must mean he is an advanced web site developer, woohoo!).
I guess if Javascript is your hammer, everything really does look like a nail. This transformation of the internet into one big Javascript app will eventually bite us all in the arse. I still browse with Javascript and ActiveX turned off. I only turn it on for "trusted" sites.
If we all agree on this issue, I wonder why this/. article has turned into a flamefest between freethinkers and religious bible thumpers.
Religion is such a wonderful brainwashing system. I need to start my own religion, where only pretty girls can join and they can only have sex with me because "God" said so. Having sex with any other guys and not having sex with me would be defined as "evil" so that they would feel guilty.
"Morality" for most people is just a bunch of rules that they heard about somewhere. Blind rule-following is not real morality.
We all know that sex (and hence video footage or photos of same) is evil. Why? Because God said so. He should know. He invented it. Since he is The Almighty, maybe he should just completely illiminate sex from mammalian behavior with one Act of God. It would be a miracle. We would be saved!
Don't you mean when she starts eyeing fido? I think that stuff is usually a dog (or whatever) doing some chick. What is it with girls and dogs? I remember hearing a story when I was a kid about a girl, some jelly, and her mutt... Never forgot that one.
Are you female and/or gay? Just curious. Unless your child is really a monkey, she is not likely to go copying everything she sees. But you're free to keep your child away from the internet. You'd be doing the rest of us a favor.
Slashdot Mirror
Well most studio mics can go up to 20 khz on paper. If you look at their frequency response curves it is clear that the sensitivity starts to drop off at around 16 khz, but it is clearly still responding to sounds right up to just under 20 khz. How quickly the response drops off does depend on the particular mic.
I see this as a red herring anyway. It's what psycho-acoustic compression supporters always trot out. So we end up arguing about it. It doesn't actually matter all that much IMO. A low bitrate MP3 doesn't sound at all the same as a WAV file that has had a low pass filter applied above 16khz. That's really not what is at issue here.
But the fact remains that I and many other people can hear right up to 20 khz Whether the mics are sensitive enough at these frequencies for it to matter is another question of course.
Lossy enthusiasts are always saying that humans can't hear above 16khz anyway, but that simply isn't true. The mic argument is actually a much better one for doing a low pass somewhere between 16 and 20 Khz. Unfortunately just doing a low pass cut wouldn't get you anywhere near to the kinds of compression rates that these codecs get.
but can you tell the difference when you DON'T compare them?
Thanks for the laugh. I had to read that twice. Haha. But I understand what you are trying to say. In practice I find that one problem with lo-fi music is I tend to tire of it more quickly and develop "listener fatigue". I stop wanting to listen to music at all.
I agree that being able to hear the difference is a liability, not an asset. Higher psycho-acoustic compression is better in every way except sound quality. So if you can't hear the difference (or just don't care about it), you may as well make it even smaller up to the point where you can.
Comparing lossy music compression to 8-track tapes is silly.
Sounds like a fair enough comparison to me. The only question I would ask is with which codec and at what bitrate. At some (x) bitrate 8-track would sound better.
And as far as A/D conversion being inherently lossy. No kidding. But according to Nyquist, most of the frequency detail (at least) should be preserved with a 44.1 khz sampling rate. Whether 16 khz gives you enough samples is highly debatable though.
There's lossy and then there's LOSSY. The fact that there are initial losses is all the more reason to avoid them as much as possible later on, not to make things even worse.
Most microphones traditionally used in professional recording studios don't record much information at 20kHz, let alone above it.
How do you figure? I have a studio mic and it sure as hell is speced to record at 20 khz. Are you saying the manufacturers are lying? And how do they stop the mic from vibrating at above 20 khz anyway? How does that work exactly? Do they intentionally install a low pass filter right at 20 khz and if so why?!
I hope it's not MP3Pro. That codec was designed for lower bitrates. It was designed to make 64 or 96 kbps sound as good as 128. Unfortunately it wasn't able to even do that. At higher bitrates it tends to actually sound worse than most standard MP3 codecs.
I'm not sure why you argue that 196 would be "preferable". To some people 64 kbps would be preferable since it's half the size and most people "just want music in the background".
Not according to current technical and scientific knowledge. Human ears listen up to about 16kHz.
Sounds like our "technical and scientific" knowledge needs some updating then. Last time I got a hearing test (at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston) I was able to consistently raise my hand for 20 khz tones. The nurse didn't exactly seem shocked like she was witnessing some kind of miracle either.
Granted, I was still in my twenties (around 24 IIRC) at the time of the test, but how many people would it take to show that humans can hear at least up to 20 khz?
Actually I've heard that young kids can hear up to like 22-23khz.
While CPU architecture and Instructions Per Clock are very important, the clock rate is also very important. The truth is that they are all important.
With psycho-acoustic compression, the algorithms are important, but so is the bitrate. Better algorithms can make use of lower bitrates with the same "quality", but higher bitrates still correlate to sound that is closer to the uncompressed source material.
I would rather watch a 1500 kbps xvid than a 300 kbps xvid. Bitrate matters. A lot.
The scary thing is that to the uninitiated you will sound like you know what you are talking about even though you haven't the slightest clue.
First you say that 320 kbps is lossless because the waveform is "pretty much the same". Then you demonstrate your extreme ignorance of the very process you try to sound knowledgeable about by implying that all 256 kbps compression does is filter frequencies above 20Khz. This is wrong. Completely wrong. Not even close to how it works.
Your assertions about what people can hear or not hear are just that: assertions. It's totally meaningless. Just because audiophiles have not bothered to produce some kind of test to your satisfaction that proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that they can hear the difference does not mean that they cannot hear the difference.
I have done so called abx testing of my own using the software from hydrogenaudio, and I was not only able to correctly distinguish which tracks were compressed, but also which tracks were encoded with which codec (although not as accurately).
I am confident that I could personally pass any legitimate test you could come up with comparing 256 kbps material with the CDs. I will admit that 320 kbps would be more difficult, but given a sufficient amount of time and high enough quality source material, I could blindly identify those as well. So much for your 320 kbps is lossless theory.
There is one codec that I am not completely confident I can identify though: MPC. At a high vbr this codec tends to sound really good, even to me. The author of that proggy really did his homework when it came to psycho-acoustic compression. I haven't done a lot of testing with it. Maybe it really is transparent. I don't know.
I am poor and I can assure you that I do not buy CDs out of the goodness of my heart or because I feel sorry for the rich record company executives and "artists". I buy CDs because I can hear a very significant (varies based on source quality and bitrate) difference.
Try doing that "test" at 32 kbps and then you'll hear what 128 kbps sounds like to other people. We all have different ears. If you can't tell the difference then good for you, but others can, and very easily.
You can argue that there is no difference until you are blue in the face and the cows are home but that won't make it true. Psycho-acoustic music compression is more an art than a science. Many people still listen to analog cassette tapes (which probably sound better than 128kpbs MP3s). Most people just don't care about audio "quality". To Apple, even using 128 Kbps is probably considered overkill. It wouldn't surprise me if they could sell the idea of 64 or even 32 kbps downloads and most people wouldn't care.
I, for one, will never pay even one penny for music compressed with any form of lossy compression, even a good one like high vbr MPC. When the day comes that music companies stop producing uncompressed CDs, I will stop buying music forever.
OTOH, I would pay as much as the original CD for a FLAC, AL, or APE download assuming I had confidence in the transfer quality and the original source.
Well, I'm even happier with the higher bitrate 192-320 kbps CBR and preset -extreme MP3s that I can download for free. I can even often download those same files that you are paying big money for in OGG and MPC formats. I admit though that to people who can't hear the difference (or just don't care), a smaller size is actually better. Perhaps you would be even happier with a 64 kbps 22khz mono version. To some people even 32 kbps is more than good enough. Now that's what I call space saving.
In terms of voice I did some testing of my own a while back and actually (as much as I hate to admit it) realaudio came out ahead in most of my voice tests right down to below 24 kpbs testing. I think it really helps when you've specifically designed your codec for these ultra-low bitrates. IIRC, WMA didn't do that bad at these low bitrates either.
For 16 kbps and lower, it was pretty tough to find anything that sounded ok. This is where speex starts to look a bit better (although it didn't fare well in my testing).
Low bitrates are useful too, just not so much for pure music listening. Certain codecs (like realaudio) can do pretty well with voice or a mixture of voice and music at these low bitrates. It can be particularly useful when you want to store large quantities of audio information.
For instance I have an application where I want to record audio from my TV tuner card 24 hours a day. You can hold a lot more data at 32 kbps than at 128.
Unfortunately, AFAIK the better low bitrate codecs cannot be natively edited like MP3, and you definitely cannot afford the losses of transcoding at these bitrates. So MP3 is still more practical for these kinds of apps even if it takes twice the bitrate.
It's also a very efficient way for certain artists to provide samples while severely limiting the fidelity, providing extra motivation to buy the real thing (not all artists are available on P2P networks either).
The only problem is that at these low bitrates, signature sounds are quite noticeable. It is pretty easy to recognize one codec or another if you have heard them before. So ideally, at these bitrates, the testers should have never (non-blindly) compared these codecs before. Then it would be truly "blind" testing.
I don't know about that. In exactly what direction is the tech crowd biased in favor of? Remember we are talking 32 kpbs here! This isn't going to be high fidelity listening. If it were a slashdot crowd you might see some bias in favor of ogg and against Real and Windows (wma) codecs, but at this bitrate differences are usually extreme. Even just for voice.
That is a myth. People with good ears and good enough equipment most certainly can tell the difference. But most people don't have either of these things and listening to any portable (or most soundcards) with the stock headphones means that anything above 192 kbps is most likely "transparent".
There are even humans who have a demonstrated ability to hear above 20khz as well. Lossy compression is called "lossy" for a reason and no algorithm is perfect.
Actually the reason why certain people like Sony portables is that they are good at making them. They were the first with the concept and IMO they are still generally the "best" depending on how you judge.
I think it is only their status as a music publisher that has kept Sony from creating a genuine Ipod killer. They are certainly way more experienced and better than Apple at making a portable music player. They could easily produce a smaller, cooler looking, and much better sounding player than Apple, but they are so obsessed with DRM, that they will never win in this game.
Just don't forget the capabilities of the company that created AIBO. They could definitely beat Apple at their own game if they wanted to. If they were willing to dump DRM and (natively) support many major standards including MP3, AAC, and OGG. If people want to encode their music with an ATRACplus codec, fine. But forcing it down people's throats is marketing suicide. They will never pull it off, especially outside of Japan.
Maybe someday this will become true, but for now it is not. The problem is that there really is no good name for these devices. CD players are "digital music players" too. If any name has standardized I would say that it is the use of the term "digital" or maybe "MP3" (much to Sony's horror) player.
Sorry, but this is totally wrong. The website in question is very anti-audiophile. Go read it some time. Maybe you were just trying to be funny. But it is exactly the opposite of the truth. The people from that website are lossy compression enthusiasts. They are interested in lossy compression as a technology and hate audiophiles who for the most part don't like and don't use lossy compression.
The EPA nailed it with their 55/45 (city/highway) ratio rating of 16 city, 21 highway. I haven't measured the highway yet, but the mixed mileage is right around 15.9 mpg with every tank. I'm actually pretty impressed with the EPA estimates. Oh, and I'm not a careful or slow driver. So it seems the EPA is doing a pretty good job. From the way people talk here I didn't expect much of a corellation between the ratings and real life.
And without Javascript? GoHideMe(), GoPopUp(), self.blur()... How lovely. If web developers would stop using Javascript as a crutch, we could all just turn the thing off. I only run javascript on manually whitelisted ("trusted") sites.
Still I am going to check the latest version of firefox to see if it meets my requirements. It seems using any MS product just makes you a target. One thing I like about IE is it gives you easy control over the buttons at the top and can be configured to waste very little screen space with all kinds of functions that I don't use when browsing.
Also, I couldn't figure out how to only run Javascript/ActiveX on whitelisted sites with an alternative browser. I have to assume that the alt browsers have whitelisting.
By "good" do you mean to do things which could be easily accomplished without "active scripting"? Due to the laziness of modern web site developers, everything has to be written in Javascript or ActiveX. A lot of web sites won't even load at all without it. It's pretty scary stuff.
I've been watching this "Javascript creep" over the years. When I go to websites like that I want to strangle the developer who must think "if a little active scripting is good, a lot must be better" (and it must mean he is an advanced web site developer, woohoo!).
I guess if Javascript is your hammer, everything really does look like a nail. This transformation of the internet into one big Javascript app will eventually bite us all in the arse. I still browse with Javascript and ActiveX turned off. I only turn it on for "trusted" sites.
So was he a Libertarian or an Anarchist? And how did that gel with his being the leader of a "National Socialist" Party? Just curious.
The very fact that these judges believe in a Satan should scare the bejeezus out of all of us.
If we all agree on this issue, I wonder why this /. article has turned into a flamefest between freethinkers and religious bible thumpers.
Religion is such a wonderful brainwashing system. I need to start my own religion, where only pretty girls can join and they can only have sex with me because "God" said so. Having sex with any other guys and not having sex with me would be defined as "evil" so that they would feel guilty.
"Morality" for most people is just a bunch of rules that they heard about somewhere. Blind rule-following is not real morality.
We all know that sex (and hence video footage or photos of same) is evil. Why? Because God said so. He should know. He invented it. Since he is The Almighty, maybe he should just completely illiminate sex from mammalian behavior with one Act of God. It would be a miracle. We would be saved!
Don't you mean when she starts eyeing fido? I think that stuff is usually a dog (or whatever) doing some chick. What is it with girls and dogs? I remember hearing a story when I was a kid about a girl, some jelly, and her mutt... Never forgot that one.
Are you female and/or gay? Just curious. Unless your child is really a monkey, she is not likely to go copying everything she sees. But you're free to keep your child away from the internet. You'd be doing the rest of us a favor.