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I think with piano tuning, or anything that is historical and physical and analogue and has status, you're going to get lost in human psychology and so miss the

I think with piano tuning, or anything that is historical and physical and analogue and has status, you're going to get lost in human psychology and so miss the real issue. A similar field that has always been digital is audio and video compression codecs. You see similar issues with say Apple advertising their compression as perfect, and devoted hobbyists slaving away to meet goals that the average person cannot even discern. The capitalist, rather than technical, reality is that advances will be used to deliver the same (or lower) quality at a cheaper rate. And if you measure progress by the number of people who can watch Fast and the Furious on their Android phone on a capped data plan in a third world country that is perhaps the best thing. And even if you care only for perfection, despite all the genius and effort applied, you could argue that most of the progress over decades has been the ability to throw more CPU at the problem.

ineedaj0b 2y ago
the Japanese seem to have a culture that appreciates the pursuit of perfection, at least in some domains.
- hooverd 2y ago
  Cheap housing too. You can spend 20 years apprenticing how to make the tamago or whatever when you're not worried about rent.
PaulHoule 2y ago
There is also a lot of bullshit about “quality” — like the idea that you could get a significant quality improvement sampling audio at 96k as opposed to 44.1k or 48k. For that matter I can’t believe people’s eyes don’t glaze over when they see TV ads that say, for instance, that Dawn dish detergent is better than other brands even though Dawn really has a better package of surfactants than most competitors and, over time, P&G has invested a lot of research into improving it. (E.g. ultraconcentrated soaps were an advance in practical chemistry and you really can clean more with less soap) Although their ads must be a reason that Dawn is market leading I’m pretty sure the ads, through their style, make a withdrawal from the legitimacy bank account.
- 015a 2y ago
  One of the angles I find interesting when it comes to "quality" is the debate between Spotify and Apple Music. You'll see takes on Threads/Twitter like "I didn't realize just how much sound I was missing until I switched to lossless audio on Apple Music; Wow!" Its pedantic to point out: The audio quality you're hearing probably isn't better on Apple Music. I mean, the stream is definitely higher quality; AM delivers ALAC lossless audio for most music, while Spotify is still on 320kbps. But, you're listening to it through Airpods, which do not support a wireless, lossless codec. [1] However: You did notice something different. I know you're using APs, because you noticed something different. What you noticed wasn't audio "quality" per se; you noticed the APs' faux-Atmos. Its a similar vein to saying that the vogue "TAYLOR SWIFT 9 DIMENSIONAL SURROUND AUDIO" [2] Youtube videos are "higher quality"; obviously Atmos, when its at its best, is packing more data from the master, more microphones, more streams. But, you're muxing all that data down to a lossy wireless codec, and then outputting it through two speakers. At best, what you're hearing is not necessarily higher quality, but is simply "more pleasing". And, when Apple Music delivers truly-fake-Atmos tracks, meaning the Atmos was synthesized and processed from original Stereo masters, which does happen quite frequently with older music on the platform, it might even be accurate to say that what you're hearing is actually worse quality; but it might still be more pleasing. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/118295 https://support.apple.com/en-us/118295 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpMsqFc7-Z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpMsqFc7-Z4
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    My take is that 96k MP3 “sux” but I might tolerate listening to it on my watch in a noisy gym or running out on city streets. If you hear 128k MP3 compared to the original CD the difference should be night and day but you might think it was OK, somewhere between 192k and 320k the quality difference disappears and even the phase relationships between the channels are pretty well preserved because Dolby Pro Logic works right. Now there is a huge difference between a good master and a mediocre master and often when people release on a fancy format they start with a better master. For instance a lot of CDs are victims of the loudness war and it isn’t hard to make a better release.
mewpmewp2 2y ago
All of this makes me think. I recently bought a car, and there seems to be quite a bit of audio difference. Or how pleasurable the audio sounds, how immersive, how the bass sounds. 1) Using Android Auto 2) Using Apple CarPlay 3) Which USB cables are used. Some seem to be better than others. 4) If it's over bluetooth - the worst experience with Android for me. 5) Car radio vs the above 6) Am I using YouTube Music or Spotify on Android Auto/Apple CarPlay It's almost like with some of these configuration it's frustrating, while it's really pleasurable with others, but I can't tell if I'm imagining it. From my tests so far, it feels like I'm only happy with the wired Apple CarPlay, and everything else doesn't seem satisfying. I'm not an audiophile or anything. And it has a real effect on my mood. But I have Android myself. If anyone has any suggestions to try out here... I'll try to maybe see if all the music is downloaded with offline support beforehand and maybe check the settings in Spotify/YouTube Music apps. It seems to be related mostly to how smooth or immersive bass is to me. Because bass can be annoying or it can be pleasurable.
- chgs 2y ago
  “Which USB cables are used. Some seem to be better than others.” You are imagining it.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    Are you sure about that? Because there are some extreme examples, for instance some USB cables won't work at all for Android Auto. Then some USB cables I had music skipping, and with at least 1 cable the quality seemed much worse for Apple CarPlay than for the best one.
    - Sindisil 2y ago
      It's a digital data stream. The bits either make it or they dot. Unless the cable is actually faulty (i.e., the error rate exceeds what error correction and recovery can handle), one cable cannot "sound different" to another.
      - 2y ago
octokatt 2y ago
Quoting the article, because from your comment I'm not sure you got to the end, which is a shame as it addresses your point. TL;DR: If we're not going to aim for better, what's the point at all? > If it weren't for the piano soloist (the conductor probably didn't notice, he just knew to defer to the piano soloist's concerns), we would have played the concert on a very slightly out-of-tune piano, and then... > > What? > > Nobody in the audience would probably notice. Certainly not in the specific. Nobody is standing up and saying, "there, see how G above middle C has one string that is 0.2hz out of tune with the others?!" Nobody is standing up and saying "that piano is out of tune, what a travesty." Perhaps some of the more sensitive listeners would have felt some vague sense that the piano could have sounded nicer, that maybe the hall needs a better piano, or something. > > Did the piano sound better, after all that work? Yeah... it did, I think. Hard to say. I'd like to pretend it was some colossal difference, but that's really the point. My big stupid ears are not the best judge here. Just trust the people who have the best discernment. > Only a very few people possess the level of discernment needed to know how bad your local concert hall's piano is, and precisely how it is bad. > If their art dies out, maybe nobody will know how bad all the pianos are. And then we'll all have slightly worse pianos than we would otherwise have. And I mean if that's the way things are going to go, then let's just steer the Earth into the Sun, because what's the point of any of this.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> The capitalist, rather than technical, reality is that advances will be used to deliver the same (or lower) quality at a cheaper rate. And if you measure progress by the number of people who can watch Fast and the Furious on their Android phone on a capped data plan in a third world country that is perhaps the best thing. This is a really strange choice of example, since advances in video compression and streaming have obviously been used to deliver higher quality at a cheaper rate.
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  Higher quality for cheaper implies exactly the same as higher quality for the same price or same quality for cheaper. They are all the effect of price per unit of quality going down.

ineedaj0b 2y ago

the Japanese seem to have a culture that appreciates the pursuit of perfection, at least in some domains.

hooverd 2y ago
Cheap housing too. You can spend 20 years apprenticing how to make the tamago or whatever when you're not worried about rent.

PaulHoule 2y ago

There is also a lot of bullshit about “quality” — like the idea that you could get a significant quality improvement sampling audio at 96k as opposed to 44.1k or 48k. For that matter I can’t believe people’s eyes don’t glaze over when they see TV ads that say, for instance, that Dawn dish detergent is better than other brands even though Dawn really has a better package of surfactants than most competitors and, over time, P&G has invested a lot of research into improving it. (E.g. ultraconcentrated soaps were an advance in practical chemistry and you really can clean more with less soap) Although their ads must be a reason that Dawn is market leading I’m pretty sure the ads, through their style, make a withdrawal from the legitimacy bank account.

015a 2y ago
One of the angles I find interesting when it comes to "quality" is the debate between Spotify and Apple Music. You'll see takes on Threads/Twitter like "I didn't realize just how much sound I was missing until I switched to lossless audio on Apple Music; Wow!" Its pedantic to point out: The audio quality you're hearing probably isn't better on Apple Music. I mean, the stream is definitely higher quality; AM delivers ALAC lossless audio for most music, while Spotify is still on 320kbps. But, you're listening to it through Airpods, which do not support a wireless, lossless codec. [1] However: You did notice something different. I know you're using APs, because you noticed something different. What you noticed wasn't audio "quality" per se; you noticed the APs' faux-Atmos. Its a similar vein to saying that the vogue "TAYLOR SWIFT 9 DIMENSIONAL SURROUND AUDIO" [2] Youtube videos are "higher quality"; obviously Atmos, when its at its best, is packing more data from the master, more microphones, more streams. But, you're muxing all that data down to a lossy wireless codec, and then outputting it through two speakers. At best, what you're hearing is not necessarily higher quality, but is simply "more pleasing". And, when Apple Music delivers truly-fake-Atmos tracks, meaning the Atmos was synthesized and processed from original Stereo masters, which does happen quite frequently with older music on the platform, it might even be accurate to say that what you're hearing is actually worse quality; but it might still be more pleasing. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/118295 https://support.apple.com/en-us/118295 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpMsqFc7-Z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpMsqFc7-Z4
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  My take is that 96k MP3 “sux” but I might tolerate listening to it on my watch in a noisy gym or running out on city streets. If you hear 128k MP3 compared to the original CD the difference should be night and day but you might think it was OK, somewhere between 192k and 320k the quality difference disappears and even the phase relationships between the channels are pretty well preserved because Dolby Pro Logic works right. Now there is a huge difference between a good master and a mediocre master and often when people release on a fancy format they start with a better master. For instance a lot of CDs are victims of the loudness war and it isn’t hard to make a better release.

mewpmewp2 2y ago

All of this makes me think. I recently bought a car, and there seems to be quite a bit of audio difference. Or how pleasurable the audio sounds, how immersive, how the bass sounds. 1) Using Android Auto 2) Using Apple CarPlay 3) Which USB cables are used. Some seem to be better than others. 4) If it's over bluetooth - the worst experience with Android for me. 5) Car radio vs the above 6) Am I using YouTube Music or Spotify on Android Auto/Apple CarPlay It's almost like with some of these configuration it's frustrating, while it's really pleasurable with others, but I can't tell if I'm imagining it. From my tests so far, it feels like I'm only happy with the wired Apple CarPlay, and everything else doesn't seem satisfying. I'm not an audiophile or anything. And it has a real effect on my mood. But I have Android myself. If anyone has any suggestions to try out here... I'll try to maybe see if all the music is downloaded with offline support beforehand and maybe check the settings in Spotify/YouTube Music apps. It seems to be related mostly to how smooth or immersive bass is to me. Because bass can be annoying or it can be pleasurable.

chgs 2y ago
“Which USB cables are used. Some seem to be better than others.” You are imagining it.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  Are you sure about that? Because there are some extreme examples, for instance some USB cables won't work at all for Android Auto. Then some USB cables I had music skipping, and with at least 1 cable the quality seemed much worse for Apple CarPlay than for the best one.
  - Sindisil 2y ago
    It's a digital data stream. The bits either make it or they dot. Unless the cable is actually faulty (i.e., the error rate exceeds what error correction and recovery can handle), one cable cannot "sound different" to another.
    - 2y ago

octokatt 2y ago

Quoting the article, because from your comment I'm not sure you got to the end, which is a shame as it addresses your point. TL;DR: If we're not going to aim for better, what's the point at all? > If it weren't for the piano soloist (the conductor probably didn't notice, he just knew to defer to the piano soloist's concerns), we would have played the concert on a very slightly out-of-tune piano, and then... > > What? > > Nobody in the audience would probably notice. Certainly not in the specific. Nobody is standing up and saying, "there, see how G above middle C has one string that is 0.2hz out of tune with the others?!" Nobody is standing up and saying "that piano is out of tune, what a travesty." Perhaps some of the more sensitive listeners would have felt some vague sense that the piano could have sounded nicer, that maybe the hall needs a better piano, or something. > > Did the piano sound better, after all that work? Yeah... it did, I think. Hard to say. I'd like to pretend it was some colossal difference, but that's really the point. My big stupid ears are not the best judge here. Just trust the people who have the best discernment. > Only a very few people possess the level of discernment needed to know how bad your local concert hall's piano is, and precisely how it is bad. > If their art dies out, maybe nobody will know how bad all the pianos are. And then we'll all have slightly worse pianos than we would otherwise have. And I mean if that's the way things are going to go, then let's just steer the Earth into the Sun, because what's the point of any of this.

thaumasiotes 2y ago

> The capitalist, rather than technical, reality is that advances will be used to deliver the same (or lower) quality at a cheaper rate. And if you measure progress by the number of people who can watch Fast and the Furious on their Android phone on a capped data plan in a third world country that is perhaps the best thing. This is a really strange choice of example, since advances in video compression and streaming have obviously been used to deliver higher quality at a cheaper rate.

nuancebydefault 2y ago
Higher quality for cheaper implies exactly the same as higher quality for the same price or same quality for cheaper. They are all the effect of price per unit of quality going down.