3 ms·

Shoot, most people won't be able to tell 8 bit audio from 16 bit audio. Try the following: sox highres.flac --bits 8 lowres.wav dither Wave is required b

by keenerd 12y ago

Shoot, most people won't be able to tell 8 bit audio from 16 bit audio. Try the following: sox highres.flac --bits 8 lowres.wav dither Wave is required because flac doesn't do 8 bit and we want to be 100% certain nothing sneaky is going on. You might be able to notice a slight increase in background hiss if you are in a very quiet room.

casion 12y ago
That background hiss IS the difference. I'm not sure what you think the difference would be otherwise, but the increase in the noise floor caused by quantization error will be the difference between the formats. I also don't know what 'lowres.wav' is (is this linked in the article?), but on classical or jazz recordings the difference is very noticeable due to the lower 'average' amplitude of the recordings. If you did this on a modern pop recording that's smashed to hell and back... then yeah, many people won't even notice the noise.
- keenerd 12y ago
  No, most think that if you reduce something to 8 bits that it will sound like NES-powered voice mail being played back through a piezo buzzer. If you converted something to 8 bits and used proper dithering, no one who heard it would exclaim "You monster! That is only 8 bit audio!" Where as if you reduced something to a low bitrate mp3, people would notice immediately and call you out on it.
  - casion 12y ago
    That is an issue. People don't understand what bit-depth reduction sounds like. That doesn't change the fact that the hiss is the difference. That is the quantization noise floor, and the primary artifact of the conversion. Rather than try to goad people into thinking that there is no difference, it is better to educate them on what the difference actually is (or could be). From there an honest interaction can be had regarding the potential perception of these differences. Quite simply, just because some people are misinformed about what qualitative effect is occurring, that does not discount the fact that there is a qualitative effect occurring.
afsina 12y ago
I wonder if the output is linearly quantized or a-mu law applied in this case?

by keenerd 12y ago

casion 12y ago

That background hiss IS the difference. I'm not sure what you think the difference would be otherwise, but the increase in the noise floor caused by quantization error will be the difference between the formats. I also don't know what 'lowres.wav' is (is this linked in the article?), but on classical or jazz recordings the difference is very noticeable due to the lower 'average' amplitude of the recordings. If you did this on a modern pop recording that's smashed to hell and back... then yeah, many people won't even notice the noise.

keenerd 12y ago
No, most think that if you reduce something to 8 bits that it will sound like NES-powered voice mail being played back through a piezo buzzer. If you converted something to 8 bits and used proper dithering, no one who heard it would exclaim "You monster! That is only 8 bit audio!" Where as if you reduced something to a low bitrate mp3, people would notice immediately and call you out on it.
- casion 12y ago
  That is an issue. People don't understand what bit-depth reduction sounds like. That doesn't change the fact that the hiss is the difference. That is the quantization noise floor, and the primary artifact of the conversion. Rather than try to goad people into thinking that there is no difference, it is better to educate them on what the difference actually is (or could be). From there an honest interaction can be had regarding the potential perception of these differences. Quite simply, just because some people are misinformed about what qualitative effect is occurring, that does not discount the fact that there is a qualitative effect occurring.

afsina 12y ago

I wonder if the output is linearly quantized or a-mu law applied in this case?