Do normal people notice compressed audio (MP3 etc) sounds bad?

I think it's more the oddity of a site specifically dedicated to excellence in audio recording and mastering as well as playback attracting people who are opposed to the whole concept and finding it silly as Missan stated. Whether it is silly, that is the purpose of the Forum. It would be like a Wine aficionado site attracting people who aggressively tout the virtue of cheap sour tasting wines and sneer at anyone saying they are looking for a good tasting bottle. Or a car enthusiast site attracting people who say a VW beetle brings the greatest happiness to car driving and anyone who disagrees is an arrogant fool. Human nature is a complex thing.

 

There is one important thing about analogies, they never work, it´s better to avoid them.

I have e.g. several records and versions of Mozart´s 'Missa di profundi'. They are different recordings, recorded in different places, different singers, the year span is large, the difference in certain SQ aspects is large.
But what I´m hinting at in what I´ve written; they most certainly each one have their virtues, but to me in different ways. Another important thing is that it´s only up to me what parts I like, what singers I like in specific situations. It is rather silly if somone else is trying in telling what is a better record. If we want to we can of course tell which one we like the most, and if we feel we have any particolar reason for that, but it´s not the same thing.

 

There's nothing elitist or snobby about showing new worlds to explore to mates etc. At least opening the door. Do it lightly - who gives a stuff. Up to them whether they go in. Hey I didn't even know you could change YouTube video quality till recently when someone pointed it out and rightly called me a muppet!

 

The degree to which MP3s sound bad could be debated, but that they're a downgrade over CD, let alone high def audio, is a matter of mathematical certainty.

The problem with the discussion is the separation of people into "us" vs. "the normal people" is that I don't think there's anything special about "us" which would justify the creation of a separate group. I think, given the option, anybody would opt for better, punchier, and clearer music. If nothing else is available, yeah, they'll go for Spotify and MP3 much like most of us had no problems with our Sony Walkman and poorly dubbed cassettes back when. Thing is, given the choice, why accept the downgrade? MP3 is no longer necessary with storage cheap as hell and the tech having well advanced since the late '90s. We don't need it anymore.

I maintain that "normal" people (i.e. most everyone with ears) will take the better option given the choice. Thing is, they need to know there is a choice and they need to be aware of the options.

Again, I fail to see how it's snobbery to want to share the joy of music with someone and yeah, it does add to the experience to hear the instrumentation more clearly or to actually be able to pick out individual pieces of an arrangement. It is possible to emotionally AND intellectually enjoy something at the same time.

 

I'd say knowing when your satiated and you don't need to spend more money indicates a degree of intelligence and happiness. Whilst many of my friends enjoy music on my system they still don't feel any need to spend more than £200 on a replay system. They humor my obsession and I just laugh at myself.

 

Full agreement here. Honestly, I like my rig as it is and it's a bit of a Frankenstein's monster in terms of where I've picked up components. Barring some real mind blowing revelation about quality I'm missing out on, I'm probably going to stick with what I have. What I try to serve as an example of is that you can have quality AND not lose your shirt in the process.

 

No argument here. What a completely wasted opportunity to actually deliver high quality audio.

I remain perplexed on why anyone would actually pay money for this.

VP

 

Can we please reference my 8-track of Love Gun?

 

And yet, when given the choice between mp3s or CDs, people overwhelmingly opt for the former. So I'm not getting what point you're making here, or why you you quoted me in particular without addressing what I said in my post.

 

But we are, all of us, if listening to recorded music, listening to a certain SQ that is specific for the components we have, together with the source. There is in reality nothing that says that mp3s aren´t that good, and higher bit rates, or even vinyl playback, for that matter, by some miracle is good enough. If we believe that some music is intrinsically worse than other; how come we aren´t all just listening to the best there are, if You get what I mean.

 

I think that's a bad comparison. When you consider the cost of YouTube (free), Spotify (free or a small monthly fee), or iTunes ($9.99 or less), vs. the cost of CDs in the average big box media retailer where the markup is still pretty silly (often $14.99 to $17.99), I think it's more of a cost issue than it is a genuine quality seeking behavior. This goes double when you add back in my belief that most people really don't accept that there's a qualitative difference between the music in MP3 format vs. the same music on CD. There's no reason for them to WANT to pay the upcharge, which can be pretty substantial, or to shop around (particularly online) as many on here do.

As for why I quoted your post, I was speaking more to the snobbery thing. I don't think we're special in spite of some of the language being chosen in this discussion, so snobbery doesn't really apply to this as far as I'm concerned.

I know I'm veering dangerous close to "listening with math" here, but there are frequencies lopped off by MP3 even at the best encoding most consumer tools can manage and that's more what I'm referring to. I want to say it was Tangerine Dream's Phaedra I first tested in this way by taking a rip of my CD in 320kbps MP3 and comparing it to a FLAC file ripped in the same program. There were harmonics missing from synth drones. It sounds nuts and I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't heard the difference. It really changes the musical data. Granted, results vary depending on how heavily processed and compressed the source material is, but I've also heard a substantial reduction in bass "punch" in MP3.

You're right in that the rig does make a difference, but I can still hear the difference even on cheap computer speakers, even if it's less glaring. The effect is just magnified as the quality of the playback rig goes up.

Now, MP3 can be "good enough," and if it's all you've got, I won't talk smack on that, but it's definitely the poorer choice if you have access to better (i.e. if you're ripping from CDs you own so you can go mobile easily). Likewise, if you shop around, you can often get CDs new cheaper or at the same price as the $9.99 iTunes asking price, so I don't feel like it's an onerous burden to upgrade.

 

Use AAC instead.

 

I would agree with this, with a small change: Or a car enthusiast site attracting people who say a VW beetle brings the greatest happiness to car driving.

I'd leave out the arrogant fool part. Nothing wrong with someone loving their VW beetle as long as they're open-minded about it.

Did anyone call audiophiles arrogant fools in this thread? I saw forum elitists, but that's not exactly the same thing.

 

It's easy to say to ignore those who can't hear a difference or don't care, but they are also the ones who are affecting the way we audiophiles are (affordably) able to enjoy music in the way we see fit. Aside from a few audiophile labels and manufacturers, the industry and market listens to the unwashed masses.

 

Screw these blind tests! If I can hear the difference, that's all that matters to me!

 

To that, I would say: why are they here? I think the biggest mistake of this forum was to allow the de-emphasis on all things audiophile.

 

Again: I only subscribe to it because I like to listen to the news and certain talk shows that I can't get anywhere else.

 

The Beatles and Monkees threads. I thought that was obvious.

 

"They" aren't here. This thread concerns what "normal people" notice or don't notice about lossy audio. We already know what audiophiles think.

"Normal people" have no interest in this forum, and have not posted in this thread as far as I can tell. We're just speculating among ourselves, much like in similar threads about young people... or hipsters... or women.

 

Normal people have already been doing that for at least a decade.

 

No, the minute you had people coming in here and proudly proclaiming that they are not audiophiles, and would never want to be one.

 

Not sure what the mods could do about that, or about the de-emphasis of all things audiophilia. Requirement of hardware specs and deadwax info on all sound reviews? Or mass banning?

 

Really? My recollection was of huge shrillness, sounding like it was made from an LP eq'd master. But maybe that was yet another version?

 

We have had many threads on this issue. It's even caused some people to leave, and, from what I remember, it was those very people who either never discussed music or audio, or people who were either audiophiles or not.