13 ms·

Effects of MP3 Compression on Perceived Emotional Characteristics in Music

53 points by pbowyer 8y ago

wbkang 8y ago
Before anyone jumps to conclusions, the paper is comparing the original audio with MP3s compressed at 112kbps and under, where the compression artifacts are very easy to notice.
- leeoniya 8y ago
  was about to say this. 192Kbps VBR is the minimumn for transparency for me. i've been moving my whole collection FLAC -> Opus 160Kbps VBR (which is widely regarded as audiophile-transparent).
  - baroffoos 8y ago
    I'm similar. I store FLAC on my desktop and then transcode it to opus before putting it on my music streaming server. MP3 doesn't really seem to have much relevance in the modern world other than legacy.
    - LeoPanthera 8y ago
      It does have the advantage of being patent free, since they have all expired.
      - baroffoos 8y ago
        So is opus and flac. Pretty much all modern audio codecs are patent free.
        LeoPanthera 8y ago
        Can this be proven? No chance of submarine patents?
        nitrogen 8y ago
        Someone would have sued by now.
    - vonseel 8y ago
      For someone out of the music codec game, is Opus generally the best codec to go with these days? Any alternatives that work with iOS? What software do you use to listen to music on your computers? Is there a good media streaming server with iOS / desktop apps which I could use and then store FLAC on my server and have it transcoded to serve to clients?
      - leeoniya 8y ago
        > For someone out of the music codec game, is Opus generally the best codec to go with these days? not for compatibility. mp3 is ubiquitous. my 2017 VW can play mp3 and even flac from an sd card. i doubt it even knows what opus is. i think you'd be hard pressed to tell a difference between a well-encoded (flac source) 192kbps vbr mp3 and 160 kbps opus. the file size of the latter will be 30% smaller. > What software do you use to listen to music on your computers? on windows, foobar2000. it's superb, no bs and has tons of optional plugins.
        vonseel 8y ago
        > on windows, foobar2000. it's superb, no bs and has tons of optional plugins. Old school. I was using that back in the early 2000s. Had a lot of fun with it. But, I've been over in Apple-land for years now... and mostly Spotify for music.
        teknico 8y ago
        foobar2000 is excellent on Android too.
      - mosiuerbarso 8y ago
        Jriver is good media player which works on IOS, Linux and on raspPI's. However, it's not free. But you can do a lot with it and it'll play movies too. I use on Jriver on my work PC to stream lossless audio to a couple of Raspberri PIs i have around my house/work. I even have it set up for streaming over the internet for when I go away on Holiday. Best thing is about this setup is that all my playlists and ratings stay synced as I'm using just the one library on my main PC.
    - shmerl 8y ago
      > I'm similar. I store FLAC on my desktop and then transcode it to opus before putting it on my music streaming server. Yep, this seems to be a common practice.
  - LeoPanthera 8y ago
    Why wouldn’t you just keep it as FLAC?
    - leeoniya 8y ago
      filesize. flac is about 10MB/min, opus 160 is 1MB/min
      - dTal 8y ago
        But you already have it stored - your provisioning is a sunk cost. And disk space is only getting cheaper...
        StavrosK 8y ago
        You have it stored on a high-capacity server, not your phone.
        shmerl 8y ago
        Or a portable player. No need to waste space there either.
  - seanp2k2 8y ago
    Same. It's crazy to me that people are saying that they can hear the difference between 24-bit 192khz recordings and something like 320Kbps MP3 or 192 VBR (which is what most of my personal collection is at). Back in the day on [huge;y famous private torrent tracker], FLAC and 192k VBR were the gold standards, with most opting for the VBR version. I personally have some VERY nice headphones, speakers, and sources (Senn HD800s, Westone ES60, KEF LS50, RME ADI-2 Pro, etc), and I can't hear the difference between this high-bitrate stuff and the lower encodes. I CAN hear a HUGE difference between bad recordings and good, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying my favorite albums. I have other headphones, speakers, IEMs, and sources for different needs, for example working out...I like my Jaybird Tarah Pros, and even though they're not "audiophile", I've still had tons of enjoyment with them doing things like skateboarding, mountain biking, and riding my motorcycle. Horses for courses. The HD800s is NOT great for bass-heavy music, so in that case, I'll switch to a Shure 1540 or Beyer DT1770, which even though they're more in the higher-end mid-fi range, have each brought me many hours of pleasure over the years. This is a fun hobby, but it's possible to make it less fun by arguing on the internet with people about it. If it sounds good TO YOU, and it's worth the price TO YOU, then never let someone make you feel bad about it. Some people buy $10k cables (or "worse" imo, cable elevators [e.g. https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/the-finest-cable-elevators-you-ever-auditioned https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/the-finest-cable-elev... ]. I think that those are ridiculous, but some people swear by them, and that's their choice. I'm the guy with the inner tube under the turntable playing with air pressure, because I love a good hack and have a penchant for DIY. I've built speakers that sound bad, but I've always learned something from every build. If you want TRUE REFERENCE sound, look up exactly what gear your favorite recording studio uses, and buy the same set-up. Otherwise, just have fun :)
    - leeoniya 8y ago
      yeah, for biking/skiing i use a-JAYS Five. for traveling 1MORE Quad Driver, for at-home audio Sennheiser HD 6XX and for gaming Klipsch ProMedia 2.1. the PC has an Asus Essence STX II 7.1 and onboard Realtek ALC1220 (surprisingly great, btw). anyone who claims to hear a difference between 24-bit 192khz and a 320Kbps CBR MP3 is drinking some good kool-aid. there's a great quote by Alan Parsons: "Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment."
  - shmerl 8y ago
    Do you recommend 160 Kbps for Opus encoding? I've been encoding FLAC to Opus with 140 Kbps setting normally for playback. I don't move my collection from FLAC to Opus though, just encode for playback purposes (Opus takes less space, so good for portable players and etc.). It's always good to preserve the lossless original. What if some new Opus-next will appear which will be even better? Without lossless source, you won't be able to re-encode.
    - andybak 8y ago
      If it's transparent, why would you care?
      - shmerl 8y ago
        Not sure what you are asking. Why use 140 instead of 160 Kbps? 140 produces smaller file size, and is practically transparent as far as I know. Or you mean why reencode later from lossless again, if a better codec appears? If it will be better, it will offer some benefits (smaller size, faster decoding and so on). So why not?
    - ZoomZoomZoom 8y ago
      It depends on your planned listening conditions and your gear, but I strongly suggest going much lower (as low as 96kbps, or even lower) and perform some ABX testing under slightly better conditions than what you're going to listen under. If the results are unsatisfactory, bump the bitrate up 16kbps and repeat. I bet you'll be surprised.
      - teknico 8y ago
        If you're going to test, you might start from 64, Opus is that good. I didn't perform extensive tests and use 128.
yrf 8y ago
>Compression effected some instruments more and others less
- stephen_g 8y ago
  Affected [1] is correct. You could perhaps say 'Applying compression effected an undesirable change in some instruments...' - the sound of the instruments is affected by the compression, but the change in the sound has been effected by the addition of compression. 1. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/affected https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/affected
S_A_P 8y ago
Maybe slightly off topic but I would be curious to know what the artifact of lower bit rate mp3 encoding is actually doing. It’s not aliasing, but it’s in the 6-15khz range. I could only describe the sound of the artifacts as a flock of seagulls in the distance flying towards you. Edit: found this which answers a lot of this. https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/what-data-compression-does-your-music https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/what-data-compressio...
userbinator 8y ago
Relatedly, this article nearly a decade(!) ago mentioned that younger people of the time were preferring the sound of MP3 compression artifacts over higher-quality compression or even the original uncompressed audio: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music... I suppose it's similar to how some people prefer the distortion of "tube sound".
- bni 8y ago
  Im sceptic of this slashdot classic. Was this ever verified independently?
vkaku 8y ago
As of today, if I need to compress, I use M4A/ALAC. This article may have been appropriate >10 years ago. Most of the time I have good speakers and decently encoded sound, I do not have any real quibs.
- out_of_protocol 8y ago
  Check out opus encoding - should be way better
  - pizza234 8y ago
    The available research is incomplete. The Opus "Comparison" cherry-picks the sub-128 kbps bitrates, where the format is evidently strong, but it doesn't include references for high-bitrate music compression. Actually, even their (partial) diagram hints that there is virtually no difference at over-160 kpbs bitrates. I'm struggling to find high-bitrate music compression (blind) listening tests lately in general; it seems that the internet crowd enthusiasm in the subject vanished in the last decade.
    - ZoomZoomZoom 8y ago
      What do you mean by incomplete? What information do you lack? If you meant some tests of OPUS over 128kbps, then it's just there's no real need for it. Why would anyone want to add some 50-100% weight to your files for almost no audible increase in quality? In any case, lossy codecs are not meant for storage/critical listening. Lack of enthusiasm in publishing tests can probably be explained by the ease of performing ABX tests by yourself with your own gear and exact listening conditions you're aiming for.

53 points by pbowyer 8y ago

Before anyone jumps to conclusions, the paper is comparing the original audio with MP3s compressed at 112kbps and under, where the compression artifacts are very easy to notice.

leeoniya 8y ago
was about to say this. 192Kbps VBR is the minimumn for transparency for me. i've been moving my whole collection FLAC -> Opus 160Kbps VBR (which is widely regarded as audiophile-transparent).
- baroffoos 8y ago
  I'm similar. I store FLAC on my desktop and then transcode it to opus before putting it on my music streaming server. MP3 doesn't really seem to have much relevance in the modern world other than legacy.
  - LeoPanthera 8y ago
    It does have the advantage of being patent free, since they have all expired.
    - baroffoos 8y ago
      So is opus and flac. Pretty much all modern audio codecs are patent free.
      - LeoPanthera 8y ago
        Can this be proven? No chance of submarine patents?
        nitrogen 8y ago
        Someone would have sued by now.
  - vonseel 8y ago
    For someone out of the music codec game, is Opus generally the best codec to go with these days? Any alternatives that work with iOS? What software do you use to listen to music on your computers? Is there a good media streaming server with iOS / desktop apps which I could use and then store FLAC on my server and have it transcoded to serve to clients?
    - leeoniya 8y ago
      > For someone out of the music codec game, is Opus generally the best codec to go with these days? not for compatibility. mp3 is ubiquitous. my 2017 VW can play mp3 and even flac from an sd card. i doubt it even knows what opus is. i think you'd be hard pressed to tell a difference between a well-encoded (flac source) 192kbps vbr mp3 and 160 kbps opus. the file size of the latter will be 30% smaller. > What software do you use to listen to music on your computers? on windows, foobar2000. it's superb, no bs and has tons of optional plugins.
      - vonseel 8y ago
        > on windows, foobar2000. it's superb, no bs and has tons of optional plugins. Old school. I was using that back in the early 2000s. Had a lot of fun with it. But, I've been over in Apple-land for years now... and mostly Spotify for music.
        teknico 8y ago
        foobar2000 is excellent on Android too.
    - mosiuerbarso 8y ago
      Jriver is good media player which works on IOS, Linux and on raspPI's. However, it's not free. But you can do a lot with it and it'll play movies too. I use on Jriver on my work PC to stream lossless audio to a couple of Raspberri PIs i have around my house/work. I even have it set up for streaming over the internet for when I go away on Holiday. Best thing is about this setup is that all my playlists and ratings stay synced as I'm using just the one library on my main PC.
  - shmerl 8y ago
    > I'm similar. I store FLAC on my desktop and then transcode it to opus before putting it on my music streaming server. Yep, this seems to be a common practice.
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  Why wouldn’t you just keep it as FLAC?
  - leeoniya 8y ago
    filesize. flac is about 10MB/min, opus 160 is 1MB/min
    - dTal 8y ago
      But you already have it stored - your provisioning is a sunk cost. And disk space is only getting cheaper...
      - StavrosK 8y ago
        You have it stored on a high-capacity server, not your phone.
        shmerl 8y ago
        Or a portable player. No need to waste space there either.
- seanp2k2 8y ago
  Same. It's crazy to me that people are saying that they can hear the difference between 24-bit 192khz recordings and something like 320Kbps MP3 or 192 VBR (which is what most of my personal collection is at). Back in the day on [huge;y famous private torrent tracker], FLAC and 192k VBR were the gold standards, with most opting for the VBR version. I personally have some VERY nice headphones, speakers, and sources (Senn HD800s, Westone ES60, KEF LS50, RME ADI-2 Pro, etc), and I can't hear the difference between this high-bitrate stuff and the lower encodes. I CAN hear a HUGE difference between bad recordings and good, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying my favorite albums. I have other headphones, speakers, IEMs, and sources for different needs, for example working out...I like my Jaybird Tarah Pros, and even though they're not "audiophile", I've still had tons of enjoyment with them doing things like skateboarding, mountain biking, and riding my motorcycle. Horses for courses. The HD800s is NOT great for bass-heavy music, so in that case, I'll switch to a Shure 1540 or Beyer DT1770, which even though they're more in the higher-end mid-fi range, have each brought me many hours of pleasure over the years. This is a fun hobby, but it's possible to make it less fun by arguing on the internet with people about it. If it sounds good TO YOU, and it's worth the price TO YOU, then never let someone make you feel bad about it. Some people buy $10k cables (or "worse" imo, cable elevators [e.g. https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/the-finest-cable-elevators-you-ever-auditioned https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/the-finest-cable-elev... ]. I think that those are ridiculous, but some people swear by them, and that's their choice. I'm the guy with the inner tube under the turntable playing with air pressure, because I love a good hack and have a penchant for DIY. I've built speakers that sound bad, but I've always learned something from every build. If you want TRUE REFERENCE sound, look up exactly what gear your favorite recording studio uses, and buy the same set-up. Otherwise, just have fun :)
  - leeoniya 8y ago
    yeah, for biking/skiing i use a-JAYS Five. for traveling 1MORE Quad Driver, for at-home audio Sennheiser HD 6XX and for gaming Klipsch ProMedia 2.1. the PC has an Asus Essence STX II 7.1 and onboard Realtek ALC1220 (surprisingly great, btw). anyone who claims to hear a difference between 24-bit 192khz and a 320Kbps CBR MP3 is drinking some good kool-aid. there's a great quote by Alan Parsons: "Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment."
- shmerl 8y ago
  Do you recommend 160 Kbps for Opus encoding? I've been encoding FLAC to Opus with 140 Kbps setting normally for playback. I don't move my collection from FLAC to Opus though, just encode for playback purposes (Opus takes less space, so good for portable players and etc.). It's always good to preserve the lossless original. What if some new Opus-next will appear which will be even better? Without lossless source, you won't be able to re-encode.
  - andybak 8y ago
    If it's transparent, why would you care?
    - shmerl 8y ago
      Not sure what you are asking. Why use 140 instead of 160 Kbps? 140 produces smaller file size, and is practically transparent as far as I know. Or you mean why reencode later from lossless again, if a better codec appears? If it will be better, it will offer some benefits (smaller size, faster decoding and so on). So why not?
  - ZoomZoomZoom 8y ago
    It depends on your planned listening conditions and your gear, but I strongly suggest going much lower (as low as 96kbps, or even lower) and perform some ABX testing under slightly better conditions than what you're going to listen under. If the results are unsatisfactory, bump the bitrate up 16kbps and repeat. I bet you'll be surprised.
    - teknico 8y ago
      If you're going to test, you might start from 64, Opus is that good. I didn't perform extensive tests and use 128.

yrf 8y ago

>Compression effected some instruments more and others less

stephen_g 8y ago
Affected [1] is correct. You could perhaps say 'Applying compression effected an undesirable change in some instruments...' - the sound of the instruments is affected by the compression, but the change in the sound has been effected by the addition of compression. 1. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/affected https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/affected

S_A_P 8y ago

Maybe slightly off topic but I would be curious to know what the artifact of lower bit rate mp3 encoding is actually doing. It’s not aliasing, but it’s in the 6-15khz range. I could only describe the sound of the artifacts as a flock of seagulls in the distance flying towards you. Edit: found this which answers a lot of this. https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/what-data-compression-does-your-music https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/what-data-compressio...

userbinator 8y ago

Relatedly, this article nearly a decade(!) ago mentioned that younger people of the time were preferring the sound of MP3 compression artifacts over higher-quality compression or even the original uncompressed audio: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music... I suppose it's similar to how some people prefer the distortion of "tube sound".

bni 8y ago
Im sceptic of this slashdot classic. Was this ever verified independently?

vkaku 8y ago

As of today, if I need to compress, I use M4A/ALAC. This article may have been appropriate >10 years ago. Most of the time I have good speakers and decently encoded sound, I do not have any real quibs.

out_of_protocol 8y ago
Check out opus encoding - should be way better
- pizza234 8y ago
  The available research is incomplete. The Opus "Comparison" cherry-picks the sub-128 kbps bitrates, where the format is evidently strong, but it doesn't include references for high-bitrate music compression. Actually, even their (partial) diagram hints that there is virtually no difference at over-160 kpbs bitrates. I'm struggling to find high-bitrate music compression (blind) listening tests lately in general; it seems that the internet crowd enthusiasm in the subject vanished in the last decade.
  - ZoomZoomZoom 8y ago
    What do you mean by incomplete? What information do you lack? If you meant some tests of OPUS over 128kbps, then it's just there's no real need for it. Why would anyone want to add some 50-100% weight to your files for almost no audible increase in quality? In any case, lossy codecs are not meant for storage/critical listening. Lack of enthusiasm in publishing tests can probably be explained by the ease of performing ABX tests by yourself with your own gear and exact listening conditions you're aiming for.