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

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by head_unit, May 1, 2016.

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  1. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    I posted in another thread that I thought normal people (i.e. non-audiophiles and in particular, kids) could tell that the sound of very compressed audio is not good.

    Specifically, I find satellite radio sounds pretty mangled, and any 128k stuff (old iTunes files or rips, and some misguidedly ripped bootlegs etc). I'm not sure about some of the free streaming bundled with various cell phone plans (post data if you have it) but I'm sure they are not near 200kbps which for me and many other folks seems to be the threshold where the sound becomes at least reasonable.* Likewise I believe few if any YouTube streams (a big big music source for kids certainly) have higher bit rate audio. So it would seem all these folks are listening to bad sound.

    However, I then wondered-do such listeners REALLY feel the sound is not good? Or are they just used to it and don't know any better?



    *Please do not pollute the thread by arguing your personal views about whether higher bitrate compressed audio sounds OK! That is NOT the point of the thread. Yes, some people feel even 320k is terrible, but I am NOT talking about transparency or comparison to lossless. And, this thread is not about these bitrates anyway, I'm talking about down towards 100kbps and below.
     
  2. toddrhodes

    toddrhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Bend, IN
    I've posted before but I did a little test on "normal" folks a few months back and gave them access to tracks from Adele - 25 both from the Target (shopping) CD with a DR of 5 and the vinyl needledrop files with a DR of 11. On "Remedy" when the piano really kicks in around 2:30, on the CD it sounds like utter garbage. It doesn't sound like a piano for pete's sake. On the vinyl mastering it's fine - full, sharp, and sends shivers down your spine.

    The result was 50/50 as far as who liked which version better. It was at that point that I realized I need to stop advocating against compression; it's entirely pointless. Sit someone down in front of the real deal and they may have an epiphany but it won't change their actual plan on how to consume music.

    And XM is absolutely awful. I swear that medium is why I'm as turned off to digital as I am. Once you hear truly bad digital, even the good stuff gets a little soured, I'm afraid.

    Compression has its place and I generally won't stop listening to an album if a highly compressed version is all I can get. But if not, I'll seek out the more dynamic recording every time.
     
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  3. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.
    Well, this thread confuses 'ol Slick...not talkin' about bitrates and you mention a bunch.
    Anyhoo, I think I know where you want this to go(?).
    It's all relative, most everything is, if mp3 type files are all you have heard...through earbuds also...then it's all probably good.
    And then there is focus, are they multi tasking while listening? Or do they sit and listen without distraction.
     
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  4. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.

    It's my belief that XM was designed to be just like FM radio, so that the quieter passages of a song could easily be heard in a moving automobile...even when the windows are down.
     
  5. Further

    Further Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    For most people I talk to, it seems that even if some of them notice the lower quality sound, they don't really care or have a desire to search out something better. They're just happy to hear the music and groove to it - nothing more.

    That's the problem in trying to convince anybody that there is something better - to be successful, they actually have to give a **** and they don't. They have better things to think or worry about in their life and quality of sound is irrelevant, as long as the music's still playing.

    I think you have to really have an interest or obsession in these things and have music be your hobby to have the desire to pursue the best possible quality and a lot of people are more interested in other things.

    Even with me, I fondly look back on when I was a kid and how I was just happy to listen to music no matter what it was coming out of. I could always distinguish between good and bad sound but had no idea about different pressings, speaker placement, etc. Those are things that developed later as a result of my love for it. I just loved listening to music, period.

    There is a lot to be said for keeping it simple, that's for sure. It's true that ignorance is bliss. I find that as much as I would like to turn people on to better things, I'm wasting my breath because it just isn't important to them. If someone asks, that's a different story.

    I guess it's like anything else, I mean car fanatics feel the need to customize and upgrade everything to the nines in order to get as close as possible to perfection and others don't understand or see the point and are just happy with any old car that gets them from A to B.
     
  6. toddrhodes

    toddrhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Bend, IN
    Hey Slick, XM uses a bitrate of something like 64 mbps so everything sounds really "digitized" if that makes sense. Hearing the announcers is like hearing spoken words from a Nintendo 8-bit NES system :) With that said, we still listen to it all the time in my wife's car, the selection is good, the price is right, and not having to find new stations as you travel is worth it just by itself
     
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  7. The Pinhead

    The Pinhead KING OF BOOM AND SIZZLE IN HELL

    96 and under : horrid

    128: acceptable for earbuds and boomboxes but nothing else

    192 : good, but audibly still different from source. Can be played through a good rig though

    256 : darn fine

    320 : pretty much indistinguishable from source
     
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  8. Ephi82

    Ephi82 Still have two ears working

    Location:
    S FL
    It all comes down to how you listen.

    If you are on the move, in a car, on a bus, sitting in a plane, or doing other activities while you listen, its not surprising that most people don't hear a difference.

    I grew up doing this thing called "active listening" to music. Other than commenting about the music to who you were with, and perhaps partaking in a sensory enhancing smoke, all we were doing is listening, and intently.

    I knew instantly when I heard MP3 music because just about everything played within a song was at the same volume and there was "space around the notes" missing.

    My guess that its because I am a "active listener"
     
  9. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Using that comment of yours, I think most people (not just audiophiles) know that there's something amiss with the sound quality. Probably not as noticable on cheap earbuds or in the car, but when the hardware specs go up (decent DAP / headphones for example) they'll likely know.

    They may not necessarily care, but I think they'll know.
     
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  10. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.

    I agree, it has it's purpose and, as with FM, audiophile quality is not it's aim/purpose.
     
  11. The Pinhead

    The Pinhead KING OF BOOM AND SIZZLE IN HELL

    Even at higher bitrates ? Is it as critical when listening to let's say heavy metal vs. Norah Jones ?
     
  12. Ephi82

    Ephi82 Still have two ears working

    Location:
    S FL
    Well I am a rock fan, so put me with Stones, Beatles, Who Tom Petty etc......not metal

    so id say there was/is rock music that doesnt benefit from the compression associated with MP3 (and also the crappy remastering treatments done to many classic recordings)

    So, I can here differences sometimes, but not all.
     
    The Pinhead likes this.
  13. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Yeah, I non renew each year and they offer me like $96/year plus tax, which is about what it is worth to me. Plus some stations like Deep Tracks do come up with interesting stuff. I wish they had another classical choice, and I wish they had world music, but really there are too many channels eating up bandwidth. I'd kill the hair metal channel and the screaming metal channel but that's just me. Ozzy's Boneyard makes me vacillate between "So cool you played that!!" and "Oh dear LORD, you have 2 million CDs, why am I hearing this song AGAIN?!?!"

    But, despite Elton John sounding like he is gargling as he sings, avoiding arguments about what to listen to on CD/iPod on long trips is worth every penny.
     
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  14. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    I use Spotify from time to time on the stereo and am very impressed with it. Quality is excellent IMO. On the other hand, I've listened to internet radio stations and you can tell pretty well at 8kbps that is not right. That said, BBC 5 Live streams at 64kbps and it's okay. Listenable. Radio 3 at 320kbps is very good. This is via the Tune In app and the BBC Radio Player.
     
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  15. highway chile

    highway chile I know it goes a little deeper than that.

    Location:
    Lawrence, Kansas
    Further-Like you, I recall being a youngster and being happy to hear a song I liked, even on the AM car radio. But then when I got old enough to have my own money, I knew the Sherwood receiver, BIC turntable, and Electro-Voice speakers I saved up and bought beat the snot out my sister's crappy portable "record player" or JC Penney console we had at home. And I never looked back. That's where the difference is between you and I and the others on the board, and those nowadays who just don't care.
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2016
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  16. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.

    While vinylitis is growing at an alarming rate...I don't think that translates to lovers of finer audio presentation. I may be wrong as companies like MoFi/AF/AS are releasing titles at a level like never before, the mainstream folks don't seem to care. But then, with the death of stereo shops...where would they go for exposure?
     
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  17. Nightswimmer

    Nightswimmer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    Why don't you ask them?
     
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  18. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.

    I see your lips moving...but........:biglaugh:
    I am Out of touch?
     
  19. Mike Rivera

    Mike Rivera Senior Member

    Location:
    Northeast Florida
    My lowest bit-rate music (other a handful of 128kb songs when I first got iTunes) is 356k. I have about 10,000 songs I've purchased or ripped, and about half are 356k and half are lossless. Even my 128k songs sound better than the scratched 45's I used to listen to as a child on a cheap portable record-player in the 1960's (think Crosley-quality). The needle (we called it a needle in those days) had a 33/45 side and then you flipped it for 78s - ha. I grew into better-quality equipment and stratch-free LP as I aged.
     
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  20. BIGGER Dave

    BIGGER Dave Forum Resident

    I think most people could hear the difference IF you pointed it out to them (show them a comparison). But then I doubt they would do anything about it (wouldn't seek out better source material). They simply don't care!
     
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  21. The Pinhead

    The Pinhead KING OF BOOM AND SIZZLE IN HELL

    But it's called compression because the size of files is reduced, NOT dynamics !! At least not over 192 kbps.
     
  22. toddrhodes

    toddrhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Bend, IN
    Yea, I was thinking the wrong variation of compression there.
     
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  23. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    I think that people might not notice much of a difference in a car (not an optimal environment for music) or while on the go (when using the type of headphones designed to stay in your ears with the trade off of lower sound quality). However, I think they would notice in other environments, especially when able to compare different sources (such as the XM version and the CD).

    I used to use a set of Sony ear clips that I thought were okay and I liked them because they would stay firmly in my ears (if the cord got pulled on my CD player would go flying before the ear clips would come out of my ears). However, once I upgraded to better headphones I noticed how thin the ear clips sounded (very little bass) and it is likely that they also hid the sound quality of my low-bitrate MP3s (leading me to encode my MP3s at a higher bitrate using a better encoder). Changing my headphones made the difference noticeable.
     
  24. florandia

    florandia Forum Resident

    Location:
    Florida
    I was in the parking lot at my local Walmart , a tricked out Caddy SUV stopped to let me go across the crosswalk but did not turn down the bone shaking sound system coming from within the All black tinted window, vehicle. I could hear instantly that they were playing Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly' 'Alright' and that the recording was a rip and a very low bit rate rip at that 'cos I could not tell which mix it was .
    I watched the SUV park up down an aisle and went over to the 2 guys who were exiting the vehicle and proceeded to let them know that they were missing out on the recording's finer nuances and how if they did a rip at a higher bitrate the bass would be tighter and they would have the ability to differentiate between the various voices and would be able to hear the clear enunciation of the lyrics.
    The guy who looked like a young Mike Tyson looked contrite when he promised me that he would never again do a low bit transfer to a USB memory stick and thereby compress the audio.
    The other guy looked like a young Sidney Poitier and was instantly in my face and amongst other observations about my character asked me 'Who the ..... are you mother....... ect
    My reply cooled his heels ............ I am Captain Bitrate enemy of compressed sound and champion of higher bitrates in rips and downloads , if you think Neil Young is cheating you with his low bitrate downloads then call on me and I will show him the error of his ways .
    Sidney Poitier asked me 'Who the .... is Neil Young , but otherwise agreed that he would never again listen to any music in a compressed audio file and then thanked me for my intervention.
     
  25. dougotte

    dougotte Petty, Annoying Dilettante

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    The short answer is: no.
     
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