The Quality of Streaming: Was Neil Young Right?

Neil will be back streaming at some point when he misses all that Sound Exchange income he was previously getting.
major dough on the table he left behind and no one's hearing what Neil Young seems to hear.

 

I've never heard cymbals sound like anything but horrible when played at 128 kbps. I don't remember what rate Sirius/XM's jazz channel broadcasts at, but that was the deal-breaker for me----it sounded BAD.

 

I'm also intrigued by this quote from the article:

"For the most part, though, I have been less than thrilled with the sound of music since the introduction of 44.1/16 bit CDs,” Cherney says. “Keep in mind that I spend the majority of my time in the studio working at a minimum of 48 khz sampling; usually 96 khz sampling through great speakers in a great listening environment. So when I get the manufactured product I’ve been working on, it typically pales in comparison to how we were hearing it in the studio.”

Has anyone done a blind listening test using 96k and then the same audio down sampled to 44.1? I'm skeptical that you could really hear a difference, let alone one that "pales in comparison."

 

Cymbal decay is the big bad culpret on any low-res mp3. Worse than a pre-recorded cassette IMO.

 

And it is very surprising to me that so few people notice that, or are bothered by it. It sounds like a cassette that got too close to a magnet.

 

There were no drums in the track I was listening to. And yes 128 kbps mp3s do have little weird things in the high end as well. But a normal listening room has horrendous standing waves, flutter echo, and comb filtering. When you get the chance to listen to music in a room that is (essentially) free of those, it results in more of positive difference than the negatives from the MP3.

 

The signal-to-exhausted cliche ratio in these discussions is deeply dispiriting. It's become really difficult to have a conversation about the pleasures and rewards of improving sound quality when everybody is scoring debate points. My favorite quote in the article under discussion is, "On this, like most things… I abhor the absolutists!”

 

It sounded to me as if he was using the built in speakers, not active monitors. Maybe I am mistaken - the article wasn't exactly very clear.

And if this guy is a musician with recording studio experience, and he's asking the general public "how to EQ a Mac" then that to me suggests he really doesn't have a clue on audio since he should already be familiar with EQing or various software know-hows.

Besides, if everything else on his streaming service sounds fine but Led Zeppelin doesn't, that would indicate the Zeppelin mastering is at fault, not the service as he seems to imply or state. He should know better in that case.

 

128 kbps mp3s have little weird things going on period - weird as in flippin' horrible - I can't see, regardless of how good your listening room and replay equipment is - you can equate that to any sort of pleasant listening experience - in fact, the more resolute your room/equipment is - that's only going to demonstrate the flaws of low res files even more!

I'd much rather live with any 'colourations' my room might create but with a high quality source, rather than disgrace a perfect setup and room and grin and bear the disgraceful sound of a 128 kbps MP3!

Have you been drinking too much night nurse too?

 

If that is true, than a high-resolution recording being played in this superior listening room you speak of would also benefit as much as the MP3 did and I have no doubt that a back-to-back comparison would easily reveal the differences between the two sources being compared.

 

If you knew what comb filtering, standing waves, and flutter echo were, you'd realize they make the weirdness of a 128 kbps mp3 look like nothing. Unfortunately you, and most people, are used to that, so you have no idea what you're missing.

Yes it would.

 

Well we'll have to agree to differ - because what happens to a source that's been subjected to the amount of degradation in quality generated by conversion to 128 kbps MP3 does not by any stretch of the imagination amount to "nothing" IMHO - a crap source is a crap source.

 

From the man who gave us A Letter Home and Time Fades Away (love them both.)

 

I'm sure if I paid for Spotify I'd complain at anything less than 320K. I don't, so I don't complain about the commercials or the fact that I get way less than that, and in fact I can listen to streaming Internet radio of old music at 64K that sounds far less distorted than whatever the default at Spotify Free falls to when they get busy, which was less frequent when they started but is now nearly constantly. I don't use it enough to pay for it or care. I'm sure there's a small audience who can in their normal day to day listening in their car make the distinction between an unfettered 320kbps stream and the lossless Tidal streaming like that one guy liked. I don't envy him his refined ears, but I do envy his mobile data plan, which must be cheap as hell if he doesn't care about paying to move those extra bits out to his speeding chariot - for me and a lot of other people that would mean spending $5-6 to play an album once on the go. And then he pays twice as much as a Spotify user every month for a smaller selection on top of it. How often is the cost of bandwidth considered in all these "can't possibly settle for streaming compressed sound" rants?

 

Just download the albums to your phone = no data usage.

 

The article also doesn't identify what type of Spotify he was using --- the free default bitrate or the Premium 320kbps setting.

 

Golden ears

 

The quality of streaming is not mersh. That is all.

 

Your comment in no way contradicts the prior post.

 

I find at times 320 kps can sound really good, but inevitably my ears will zero in on an anomaly or imperfection inherent to the lossiness of the bitrate. Sometimes its the cymbals, but usually I notice a lack of separation between the instruments. But that's why I think blind sound tests fail. It can take awhile for your ears to acclimate to the differing sounds. At least for me they do.

Though in the end I don't stream because I like to own my music.

 

Nope.

 

I agree with Neil Young's decision.

 

I think he's short-sighted, personally. It's like Dave Clark (glad) all over again and avoiding the CD reissue craze of the 80's and 90's. Remember how that turned out. Or think about Prince, if we want to use a more modern example.

Neil may not like it, but streaming is what young people primarily listen to. It's not going to go away and, over time, if he sticks to his guns he'll have an entire generation of music fans who may never be exposed to his music. And that's kind of a shame.

 

Neil Young is right. The quality of streamed music is diabolical! It's so bad I wonder how streaming services like Spotify get away with it. Neil has a big passion for the highest quality of music playback possible for the consumer and I applaud him for that. It's a pity more artists, record companies and studio engineers don't listen to what he has to say and take note.