Apparently, young people prefer compressed mp3s

noodles · **Posted:** Thu Mar 12, 2009 5:46 pm

http://i.gizmodo.com/5166649/ipods-and- ... oyed-music

Quote:

Students were asked to judge the quality of a variety of compression methods randomly mixed with uncompressed 44.1 KHz audio. The music examples included both orchestral, jazz and rock music. When I first did this I was expecting to hear preferences for uncompressed audio and expecting to see MP3 (at 128, 160 and 192 bit rates) well below other methods (including a proprietary wavelet-based approach and AAC). To my surprise, in the rock examples the MP3 at 128 was preferred. I repeated the experiment over 6 years and found the preference for MP3 - particularly in music with high energy (cymbal crashes, brass hits, etc) rising over time.

Goat · **Posted:** Thu Mar 12, 2009 5:56 pm

320 pls.

Lucifer's Son · **Joined:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:52 pm **Posts:** 2016

Depends on the music... The more info contained, the higher the bitrate should be... For example, an album with only soft acoustic guitar can very well sound good at 128kbps, on the other hand, death metal cannot settle for less than 256kbps.

I think the problem of these young people is that they're used to overcompressed music.

Thomas · **Posted:** Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:38 pm

FLAC plz!

Cú Chulainn · **Posted:** Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:39 pm

metal_xxx wrote:

FLAC plz!

Anything I download in FLAC won't play on iTunes! What is FLAC??

Thomas · **Posted:** Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:11 pm

Equal to CD-quality I believe. Not entirely sure, but the quality is awesome. No, not many norman music-players play it. Try VLC-player

Goat · **Posted:** Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:13 pm

Aren't 256k MP3s equal to CD quality?

Thomas · **Posted:** Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:17 pm

Well... Mp3's are often compressed and converted from .WAV-files which are raw-material and often 10 times the size of a MP3. If I'm not mistaen, that's often the file used on cd's.

Thomas · **Posted:** Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:19 pm

And, Flac stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. FLAC reduces bandwidth and storage requirements without sacrificing the integrity of the audio source.

heatseeker · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:19 am

If I rip a CD onto my comp, am I losing audio quality there?

Thomas · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:20 am

Lucifer's Son · **Joined:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:52 pm **Posts:** 2016

heatseeker wrote:

If I rip a CD onto my comp, am I losing audio quality there?

If your choice is either 256 or 320kbps, it would be hard to hear the difference from the actual cd, if not impossible to 99,99% of the people...

There's a lot of snobbery with the lossless thingy. Most of the peope who say they can hear a difference actually cannot.

Thomas · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:27 am

I know... But if you put an 320kbps MP3 cd in a great stereo, you will definitely hear the difference

Lucifer's Son · **Joined:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:52 pm **Posts:** 2016

Most people have mid-range equipment so why bother? :rolleyes:

Thomas · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:30 am

You'll hear it... My gf's father is a sound technician... He's taught me a fair share about sound, compression and various other useful stuff

traptunderice · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:59 am

Lucifer's Son wrote:

Most people have mid-range equipment so why bother? :rolleyes:

So true. On my laptop, I will never hear the difference between 256 and FLAC. Of course, FLAC would be the better choice but it simply doesn't matter in most cases.

Rhys · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:24 pm

What makes those horrible sounds where whenever the drummer hits something it makes a sort of psssh in the background? Is that from too much compression?

AlexandeR · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:03 pm

FrigidSymphony wrote:

metal_xxx wrote:

FLAC plz!

Anything I download in FLAC won't play on iTunes! What is FLAC??

FLAC ist krieg! :dio:

Friggie, if you want to play .flac in your iTunes, just download Fluke (google for it, lazy bitch

) and you're done :wink:

noodles · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:06 pm

following the reaper wrote:

What makes those horrible sounds where whenever the drummer hits something it makes a sort of psssh in the background? Is that from too much compression?

probably. i notice compression mostly in the drums, cymbals especially.

Cú Chulainn · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:00 pm

AlexandeR wrote:

FrigidSymphony wrote:

metal_xxx wrote:

FLAC plz!

Anything I download in FLAC won't play on iTunes! What is FLAC??

FLAC ist krieg! :dio:

Friggie, if you want to play .flac in your iTunes, just download Fluke (google for it, lazy bitch

) and you're done :wink:

Thanks, now I can listen to the version of Savatage's Streets that I downloaded ^^ Fantastic CD, I think I'll burn a copy for my bandmembers... Don't think they've heard it :omfg:

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Apparently, young people prefer compressed mp3s

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