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Yeah, Grammarly is creepy as hell. I've explicitly banned it (and similar services) at work. As for Youtube music, yup, that's undeniably a good deal. The musi

by apecat 7y ago

Yeah, Grammarly is creepy as hell. I've explicitly banned it (and similar services) at work. As for Youtube music, yup, that's undeniably a good deal. The music services should watch out, especially in younger demographics (I'm already 30+, Spotify premium user since 2009). Apple will probably push Music even harder and bundle that with their new video streaming. Spotify's really trying to become the defacto podcast service, which sucks in its own right (unlike Apple Podcasts, no user facing RSS support for indie premium content etc. Podcasting is the last free rich medium on the internet, largely thanks to Apple). As for music, I'm too deep in the Spotify ecosystem myself, with stuff like proper Last.fm integration, recommendations and consistent audio quality. I can't really enjoy music with that mushy sound typical for content that has been lossy-lossy transcoded tons of times. Of course, I have to deal with that for all the awesome live takes[1] available on Youtube, and there I'm of course just grateful they exist. Spotify's audio didn't use to be all that great, except with the normalization turned off. Now with their 'quiet' normalization option, that doesn't compress quiet tracks (a clear edge over Apple Music), it's starting to sound transparent to me, as -q 9 encoded (~320 kbps) Vorbis should. Youtube doesn't allow disabling of normalization at all, and it's not super clear to me when tracks are clean encodes sourced from the proper music distribution ecosystem that stocks Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal et al. 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4V66UP4aDs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4V66UP4aDs

mvexel 7y ago
Really helpful guidance on the audio quality considerations, thank you!
Godel_unicode 7y ago
> ...it's not super clear to me when tracks are clean encodes sourced from the proper music distribution ecosystem... Isn't that kind of the point? If you can't tell which is which without a visual cue (aka bias-generator) then they sound the same.
- apecat 7y ago
  Yes! Which is why you won't hear me waste a whole lot of breath yammering about lossy compression. I'd sure pay Spotify extra for lossless, because I'm weird in ways I'll reveal below, but I agree that people should give lossy compression a break. Well-encoded AAC and Vorbis averaging over 256 kbps are very transparent-sounding, in ways that never was possible with mp3. If I put in time, I get 5/6 right in this famous test from NPR's website[1], just because mp3 is awful and ancient. But I double dare anyone to blind test Opus as low as ~128 and ~160 kbps and working upwards, with decent gear. Having grown up with shitty mp3s, it feels like magically good. And it's free software. Even lossy-lossy transcoded AAC and Opus, which Youtube uses for a lot of stuff, sounds shockingly fine, most of the time, on most equipment, if the original copy was ok to begin with. All this is mostly passable, especially as background music. That is, until you run into special circumstances, like listening attentively with halfway-decent equipment. Spotify's default normalization mode sometimes can adds dynamic compression, which sounds bad in itself. But this can make artifacts stand out in ways shouldn't (thank god for the 'quiet' setting, added sometime in 2018). This is especially true with poor source material, for example the stupidly bright 90s Led Zeppelin remasters, which still float around on tons of curated Spotify playlists, despite being superseded by really good releases. So what I'm trying to say is that I want to maintain a music library I can pull up on any device and expect consistently good quality during playback. Take my little hobby I discussed here as an example (that is, me and my friends independently inventing the Japanese audiophile parlor/café concept) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20583900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20583900 Just because I can't hear a guitar riff getting slightly distorted or hi-hats smeared when I listen at work, doesn't mean I won't hear it with in an acoustically outstanding room with 5k worth of audio gear. This problem is very pronounced with Youtube material when there's a poor supply chain, so I won't add a bunch of random garbage from Youtube in a playlist on the tram and expect to actually enjoy it later as I'm leaning back in a proper listening room. Spotify, on the other hand is relatively close to providing a universally sane way to access music on any device. 1 - https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/...
  - Godel_unicode 7y ago
    What codec do they use: https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/338369?msgid=348540 https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/338369?msgid=... Stats for nerds: https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/340313?msgid=340817 https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/340313?msgid=...
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  > If you can't tell which is which This isn't a comparison test. There's only one version uploaded. With only one version, it's hard to tell if many flaws you hear were introduced by sloppy uploading or if they were present in the master.
jorvi 7y ago
> Spotify's audio didn't use to be all that great, except with the normalization turned off. Now with their 'quiet' normalization option, that doesn't compress quiet tracks (a clear edge over Apple Music), it's starting to sound transparent to me, as -q 9 encoded (~320 kbps) Vorbis should. What annoys me is they're mixing together two features (namely normalization and dynamic range compression) and putting them behind one toggle. I want normalization, it's hugely annoying playing music on my PS4 because the Spotify client doesn't have it there and I constantly have tot tweak the volume. I do not want compression. But on my phone and computer I have to use their 'normal' normalization level and take the compression because 'quiet' means I am constantly turning up my sound level when listening to Spotify and turning it back down when I do anything else so my ears don't get blasted.
- apecat 7y ago
  Sigh, yeah, that's actually a great point. Wonder how many great pairs of ears have been ruined by opening a random youtube tab while Spotify is playing with the quiet normalization mode enabled. And just like the PS4 example, it's just insane to me that Spotify Connect doesn't mandate normalization.

by apecat 7y ago

mvexel 7y ago

Really helpful guidance on the audio quality considerations, thank you!

Godel_unicode 7y ago

> ...it's not super clear to me when tracks are clean encodes sourced from the proper music distribution ecosystem... Isn't that kind of the point? If you can't tell which is which without a visual cue (aka bias-generator) then they sound the same.

apecat 7y ago
Yes! Which is why you won't hear me waste a whole lot of breath yammering about lossy compression. I'd sure pay Spotify extra for lossless, because I'm weird in ways I'll reveal below, but I agree that people should give lossy compression a break. Well-encoded AAC and Vorbis averaging over 256 kbps are very transparent-sounding, in ways that never was possible with mp3. If I put in time, I get 5/6 right in this famous test from NPR's website[1], just because mp3 is awful and ancient. But I double dare anyone to blind test Opus as low as ~128 and ~160 kbps and working upwards, with decent gear. Having grown up with shitty mp3s, it feels like magically good. And it's free software. Even lossy-lossy transcoded AAC and Opus, which Youtube uses for a lot of stuff, sounds shockingly fine, most of the time, on most equipment, if the original copy was ok to begin with. All this is mostly passable, especially as background music. That is, until you run into special circumstances, like listening attentively with halfway-decent equipment. Spotify's default normalization mode sometimes can adds dynamic compression, which sounds bad in itself. But this can make artifacts stand out in ways shouldn't (thank god for the 'quiet' setting, added sometime in 2018). This is especially true with poor source material, for example the stupidly bright 90s Led Zeppelin remasters, which still float around on tons of curated Spotify playlists, despite being superseded by really good releases. So what I'm trying to say is that I want to maintain a music library I can pull up on any device and expect consistently good quality during playback. Take my little hobby I discussed here as an example (that is, me and my friends independently inventing the Japanese audiophile parlor/café concept) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20583900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20583900 Just because I can't hear a guitar riff getting slightly distorted or hi-hats smeared when I listen at work, doesn't mean I won't hear it with in an acoustically outstanding room with 5k worth of audio gear. This problem is very pronounced with Youtube material when there's a poor supply chain, so I won't add a bunch of random garbage from Youtube in a playlist on the tram and expect to actually enjoy it later as I'm leaning back in a proper listening room. Spotify, on the other hand is relatively close to providing a universally sane way to access music on any device. 1 - https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/...
- Godel_unicode 7y ago
  What codec do they use: https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/338369?msgid=348540 https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/338369?msgid=... Stats for nerds: https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/340313?msgid=340817 https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/340313?msgid=...
Dylan16807 7y ago
> If you can't tell which is which This isn't a comparison test. There's only one version uploaded. With only one version, it's hard to tell if many flaws you hear were introduced by sloppy uploading or if they were present in the master.

jorvi 7y ago

> Spotify's audio didn't use to be all that great, except with the normalization turned off. Now with their 'quiet' normalization option, that doesn't compress quiet tracks (a clear edge over Apple Music), it's starting to sound transparent to me, as -q 9 encoded (~320 kbps) Vorbis should. What annoys me is they're mixing together two features (namely normalization and dynamic range compression) and putting them behind one toggle. I want normalization, it's hugely annoying playing music on my PS4 because the Spotify client doesn't have it there and I constantly have tot tweak the volume. I do not want compression. But on my phone and computer I have to use their 'normal' normalization level and take the compression because 'quiet' means I am constantly turning up my sound level when listening to Spotify and turning it back down when I do anything else so my ears don't get blasted.

apecat 7y ago
Sigh, yeah, that's actually a great point. Wonder how many great pairs of ears have been ruined by opening a random youtube tab while Spotify is playing with the quiet normalization mode enabled. And just like the PS4 example, it's just insane to me that Spotify Connect doesn't mandate normalization.