MP3's carry only about 5% of original source data. Even CD's and their WAV format hold only about 15%.
That's a big to me..I had no idea. That's not much of the original source data WOW!
Young offers no solution except to say we need some rich guy to make a better "file" and a better recording device.
Always thought MP3's were much better than that..and also heard that the human ear cannot tell the difference b/w a CD and MP3. Now I find out that even a CD holds only a small fraction of source data? thats an incredible revelation for me
With all due respect to Mr. Young, what he said is kinda incorrect. An MP3 is an audio format encoded from another source whose quality can vary depending on the sample rate, frequency and where it was encoded from. You make an mp3 from a crappy radio recording at 56 kbit/s at 16 kHz and it's gonna sound terrible. Encode from a well mixed original CD and encode at 320 kbit/s and 48 kHz and you'll have a nice sounding recording.
It's true that not everything that gets recorded in the studio can actually be heard on a CD made from those recordings. Such high quality means the files are huge and I doubt a regular CD could hold all that data. Another reason for it might be that most people don't have a stereo capable of reproducing that level of detail so they don't bother, but I'm not sure.
I've heard the FLAC format loses no quality when its encoded, but I haven't messed with it.
"This above all: to thine own self be true."
~Polonius, Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'
Flac is lossless.
To comment on the topic....
A 320 kbps mp3 isnt THAT bad. There is some quality loss...but the avg person has no clue. I mean...shit, most people are listening to stuff in their car, computer, phones or ipods.
NONE of those are high quality playback devices. They are good enough though. Obviously a $4000 home stereo system in 7.2 is gonna sound better than your smartphone. If you play a 96 kbps mp3, yeah, it will sound like nuts on a chin.
KeithReynolds wrote:
I mean...shit, most people are listening to stuff in their car, computer, phones or ipods.
NONE of those are high quality playback devices. They are good enough though. Obviously a $4000 home stereo system in 7.2 is gonna sound better than your smartphone. If you play a 96 kbps mp3, yeah, it will sound like nuts on a chin.
Haha, isn't that the truth? My Dad gave me an MP3 player for my birthday a few years ago, and I barely use it because even the tracks I ripped straight from my CDs sound lackluster.
Meh, sometimes being an audiophile is a curse. I still haven't dropped the equilvalent of a nice used car on stereo equipment yet, so I think I'm alright.
"He's the electric horseman, you better back off!" - old sKool making a reference to the culturally relevant 1979 film.
My dad has a couple BADASS home sound systems. So I know what listening to music on a REAL playback system is like. Pretty damn sweet. I get a system when I get my own place this spring.
Back in the late 80s, I designed a signal acquisition circuit for the YF22 Raptor (Lightning II) prototypes that used A/D converters with a 100Mhz (with an M) sampling rate. I have a little experience with this stuff.
Mr. Young is very close when he says that CDs at 44.1Khz contain only 15% of the accurate sound. 44.1Khz / 3 is 14.7Khz which is a very high pitched audible sound. That means that this pitch is only getting 3 samples per wavelength. That is not nearly enough data to recreate the original waveform. Instead, the D/A conversion goes though an algorithm which synthesizes an approximation of the sound. Its usually not very accurate.
A pure 14.7Khz audible sine wave sampled at 44.1Khz only has enough data to recreate a sawtooth wave. Anyone who has used an analog style synth knows that these waveforms sound very, very different. At the very least, a sine wave should have 16 data points for accurate reproduction. All sound waves are made up of sine waves and their subsequent sine wave harmonics.
So, 44.1Khz / 16 = 2.75Khz. That is the highest frequency that a CD can accurately reproduce without a synthetic algorithm. 3Khz is 15% of 20Khz. I never thought I'd say this (except for Harvest), but good job, Neal.
The newer 192Khz sampling rate is much closer to reproducing the full 20-20Khz range as it can reproduce a 12Khz sine wave without synthesis. 12Khz is out of the range of most instruments and falls into the realm of upper harmonics for most. At this sampling rate, the fundamental frequencies are accurate, as are most of the upper harmonics. The last 2/3 of an octave to 20Khz would only suffer a small amount and would not be noticeable. Well, except for that one anal dude in 300 million who claims to notice it.
If you want to reproduce a 20Khz sine wave without synthesis, you need a 320Khz sampling rate. It would be possible to use this rate for master recording and then compress/downsample the master to a format that could be accurately unpacked at playback.
There were 2 main reasons why they picked a number like 44.1Khz:
1) CDs needed to store about an hour of sound and it fit on the limited media at the time.
2) It satisfied the Nyquist frequency requirement for 20Khz to prevent aliasing.
...Oh, the freedom of the day that yielded to no rule or time...
Yeah, Vinyl gives the best quality. As for MP3's, it is all based on what you encode them at. The higher the bit rate the better the quality. A lot of people encode in a high Variable Bit Rate than a Constant Bit Rate.
MP3's are lossy, so you will hear some difference on high end stereo systems. There is no way around that. With a lossless file, you won't hear a difference.
A wav file, which is lossless, is the main file before encoding. Most encoders, like lame for example; encode to a wave file then re-encode to what ever you selected.
FLAC, which stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec is the same thing as a wave file, only a little tighter. You can encode to a flac, or a wav, and then de-encode to a cd and not lose any quality.
KeithReynolds wrote:I mean...shit, most people are listening to stuff in their car, computer, phones or ipods. NONE of those are high quality playback devices.
Yea, you're right. That's the point I was trying to make. Sound reproduction doesn't boil down to any one, single factor. You may have the best recording in the world mixed by a sound engineering genius, but listen to it on cheap speakers and you're not getting the full experience. I was under the impression that 320 kbit/s was an excellent quality recording, but I honestly wouldn't know for sure as even my best speakers are kinda cheap...lol
"This above all: to thine own self be true."
~Polonius, Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'
KeithReynolds wrote:I mean...shit, most people are listening to stuff in their car, computer, phones or ipods. NONE of those are high quality playback devices.
Yea, you're right. That's the point I was trying to make. Sound reproduction doesn't boil down to any one, single factor. You may have the best recording in the world mixed by a sound engineering genius, but listen to it on cheap speakers and you're not getting the full experience. I was under the impression that 320 kbit/s was an excellent quality recording, but I honestly wouldn't know for sure as even my best speakers are kinda cheap...lol
320 CBR is the highest bit rate for constant bit rate. It is good, but you will still notice a difference on high end speakers, or top end headphones. Most audiophiles encode at 'VBR extreme' with normalize disabled. You will still hear a difference on a high end speaker set, or top end headphones, but it won't be as noticeable as 320 CBR.
There are a lot of people who still insist the 128k is cd quality. That is not the case, though. 320k is the closest you can get to cd quality.
320 kbps is pretty good. As already stated, most humans can't tell the difference between this and WAV files.
128 is terrible. You can hear the compression. The treble washes and a lot of the frequency data is lost. For a long time this was the standard/default. It still is, I guess, but you see a lot more files encoded in 160 or 320 today. I'd never touch an mp3 at 128 kbps.
CDs sound just fine in my book, though vinyl records create a subtle blending of some of the higher and lower frequencies. It makes them sound "soft," which is pleasing to most ears. Mostly this is nostalgia, though. People tend to equate old to better when it comes to audio. Analog is great in my book, but from a practical standpoint (ease of use and portability), I'll take digital every time.
to me..I had no idea. That's not much of the original source data WOW!
I still haven't dropped the equilvalent of a nice used car on stereo equipment yet, so I think I'm alright. 
