3 ms·

Totally anecdotal, but I got slightly better speakers and could instantly tell the difference between a Spotify stream and Bandcamp-sourced FLACs or mp3s The r

Totally anecdotal, but I got slightly better speakers and could instantly tell the difference between a Spotify stream and Bandcamp-sourced FLACs or mp3s The rumor I've heard is that often artists upload tracks to Spotify with a lossy codec, and then Spotify re-encodes as ogg for transport imposing a second loss on the encoding. I don't know if it's psychosomatic or not, but with a decent amplifier and speakers the difference was actually pretty shocking. I am not an audiophile and I was not trying to do a comparison -- I merely bought an album on Bandcamp and listened to it and thought "huh, my Spotify streams sound kind of muddy compared to this" Take that with a grain of salt, I guess

jwells89 3y ago
Similarly, on Apple Music with some tracks I can hear a difference when switching between AAC and lossless modes. In fact the reason I know this is because one day when listening to music, one particular track sounded unusually bad and switching on lossless fixed it. Genre likely has some bearing on whether a person can hear the difference or not, with some genres being generally being more compressed for example which will reduce the gap between formats. It would also make sense that each codec has genres it’s more or less suited for.
bombcar 3y ago
I think that technically you can make lossy sound really good - almost indistinguishable. I also think that they may fail badly at it - I've heard lossy formats that sound like crap, and lossless that sound similarly bad. There's a lot more that goes into it beyond just "what is the setting on the compressor".
uneekname 3y ago
I'm honestly glad to hear you say that. I have some lossless audio I bought off Bandcamp, so I'll set it up again and do another test. I want lossless music to matter to me, but so far it hasn't. It's also worth linking to this famous NPR quiz comparing MP3 bitrates [0] 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/...
- tzs 3y ago
  That NPR quiz has a confusing interface. You can play the clips by pressing the play buttons next to them, which works as expected. If you stop a clip it resets so next time you click its play button it again starts from the beginning. You can also click within the progress bar of a playing clip and it will jump to that spot, which is handy for repeating a section somewhere in the middle. You can also click in the progress area of a clip when no clip is playing and it will start playing at the appropriate offset, but not necessarily the clip whose progress bar you clicked. It actually plays the last clip whose play button you pressed. It does not start the progress bar for that clip (or the clip you clicked in) so you won't see that it is not playing the clip you expected. You'll only notice it if the last play button you clicked was for a different song. This completely messed up the quiz for me. I'd press the play button on each clip of a set and listen all the way through. Say I thought I heard some percussion 3/4 of the way through that seemed off on one of them. I'd then play just that part by clicking in the progress area of the three clip about 3/4 of the way in, thinking that is letting me hear that section of each clip. Instead it is just giving me that section of the third clip each time.

jwells89 3y ago

Similarly, on Apple Music with some tracks I can hear a difference when switching between AAC and lossless modes. In fact the reason I know this is because one day when listening to music, one particular track sounded unusually bad and switching on lossless fixed it. Genre likely has some bearing on whether a person can hear the difference or not, with some genres being generally being more compressed for example which will reduce the gap between formats. It would also make sense that each codec has genres it’s more or less suited for.

bombcar 3y ago

I think that technically you can make lossy sound really good - almost indistinguishable. I also think that they may fail badly at it - I've heard lossy formats that sound like crap, and lossless that sound similarly bad. There's a lot more that goes into it beyond just "what is the setting on the compressor".

uneekname 3y ago

I'm honestly glad to hear you say that. I have some lossless audio I bought off Bandcamp, so I'll set it up again and do another test. I want lossless music to matter to me, but so far it hasn't. It's also worth linking to this famous NPR quiz comparing MP3 bitrates [0] 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/...

tzs 3y ago
That NPR quiz has a confusing interface. You can play the clips by pressing the play buttons next to them, which works as expected. If you stop a clip it resets so next time you click its play button it again starts from the beginning. You can also click within the progress bar of a playing clip and it will jump to that spot, which is handy for repeating a section somewhere in the middle. You can also click in the progress area of a clip when no clip is playing and it will start playing at the appropriate offset, but not necessarily the clip whose progress bar you clicked. It actually plays the last clip whose play button you pressed. It does not start the progress bar for that clip (or the clip you clicked in) so you won't see that it is not playing the clip you expected. You'll only notice it if the last play button you clicked was for a different song. This completely messed up the quiz for me. I'd press the play button on each clip of a set and listen all the way through. Say I thought I heard some percussion 3/4 of the way through that seemed off on one of them. I'd then play just that part by clicking in the progress area of the three clip about 3/4 of the way in, thinking that is letting me hear that section of each clip. Instead it is just giving me that section of the third clip each time.