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Song that exposes - CD, SACD, Apple Music, Amazon HD - sound quality differences

maverickronin

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71zkjbSpiyL.jpg

rvPFRtV.jpg
 

fastfreddy666

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"Ultra High Definition 32-Bit Mastering! This Ultra HD 32-Bit Mastering CD will play on ALL CD players!"

If you want to have a good laugh you should read the article. I laughed so hard I nearly spilled my drink over my laptop.

Two random quotes:

"32-bit resolution makes possible maximized, undistorted dynamics, and the lowest noise floor, allowing even the quietest musical information to be heard more clearly"

"With some recordings, a lower sampling rate -- 96 or 176 kHz -- may offer better musicality and more homogeneous harmonics."

Say what now? Yes, they're definitely in the know about information Theory and the range of human earing. The frequency range of the human is 0 - ∞. So, that's why I'm hearing Extraterrestrial Intelligent higher beings inside my head.
O wait.... dolphins, are capable of sensing sound frequencies of up to 160 kHz. Researchers have discovered that the greater wax moth is able hear frequencies up to 300 kHz. The use of ultrasound in air is extremely difficult as such high frequency signals are quickly weakened in air. Might have something to do with the wavelength which is 1,6 cm at 20 khz. Ultrasound begins at 20 Khz according to the American National Standards Institute. And I don't think these animals are using those frequencies for listening to music. But it's an excellent way of navigating the world or finding your prey when it's pitch black.

This year's "Audio Thin Foil Hat Award" (ATHA) goes to.... Elusive Disc! Congratulations! Any comment?

MQA has been beaten! GAME OVER. It's over. Condolences to Bob Stuart (executive producer) and Peter Craven (director). I'm just kidding.
I don't now anything about it except that it uses a form of file fingerprinting aka Digitital Rights Management. Aka they're scared shitless that somebody will make copies. So they're protecting their IP.

I could start up iZotope Ozone 9 plugin in my DAW and then make some beautiful spectrograms of the material but Amirm already done that with other "HD" music formats.

Watch this video https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-high-res-music-antonio-forcione-video.23083/

or watch this "Jazzy" one: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s-music-jazz-at-the-pawnshop-naxos-dsd.23137/

HD audio. It's never not funny. What makes it even more funny is that the original recording was published by the Swedish label Proprius
in 1976. It's a wonderful piece of music. There's no doubt about that. Wait until you hear the 180 gram LP Version. I guarantee that your head will implode. My dad has the "ordinary" cd which was released in 1985. We have no complaints about the sound quality. We both like it and we aren't even religious. I believe it's a psalm.

Enjoy the music. And happy 2022.
 
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D

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i compared qobuz and tidal once with CD, because qobuz always sounded a smitch better than tidal, and guess what, qobuz sounded exactly if not better than the cd rip and tidal sounded off ( basses are not as deep "subjectivly" and it always got a "bright" treble to it )
so i suggest you to try out qobuz since it seems to be "truly" flac :)
i didnt try any other streaming services beside spotify, and i dont have to tell you that 320kbit spotify always sounded worse than either tidal or qobuz (beside tidal still "coloring" the sound somewhat)
tho i have to say my test is like 1-2 years ago and now tidal started streaming everything in mqa (if i remember right)
 

voodooless

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Two random quotes:
There is more gold there to be found:

This leading-edge system has achieved unprecedented sonority and musicality, reproducing as closely as possible the sound of the original master tape!
Tape? Mkay.. never knew you’d need 32 bit audio for that..

The benefits of Ultra HD 32-Bit Mastering:
Ambience of Analogue Sound
Higher Resolution
Undistorted Dynamics
The Lowest Noise Floor, allowing even the quietest musical information to be heard more clearly!
Richer Sound Field
Master-Tape Quality Sound!!!
Delivers what musicians originally intended!
:facepalm: What a load of bull..
No Audio ADC on earth is even capable of capturing 24 bits, let alone 32. Most DAW’s will use an internal resolution of 32 bit or better anyway, so nothing new there.

In any case, they don’t tell you how they retain all those magical qualities when they downsample to 44.1/16 Red Book? Must be one hell or a dithering algorithm…

Now, none of this means that this master can’t sound better. But if it does, it’s because the people behind the buttons, not the technology!
 
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Katji

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I hope this is the most fxked-up thread I see today.
 

ThatM1key

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This thread inspired me to do an ABX test. I could always tell between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC but the difference 320kbps OGG Vorbis & FLAC, I can almost tell.

foo_abx 2.0.6d report
foobar2000 v1.6.8
2021-12-30 06:29:08

File A: 01. Conway Twitty - Slow Hand.flac
SHA1: e007e2d0adbaa7b68cd0d1b68efe821e6a1c945d
File B: 01. Conway Twitty - Slow Hand.ogg
SHA1: 61f4507483b68e2c011194302d9c1678fecb686a

Output:
WASAPI (event) : Speakers (TOPPING USB DAC), 16-bit
Crossfading: NO

06:29:08 : Test started.
06:31:27 : 00/01
06:32:45 : 00/02
06:33:28 : 00/03
06:34:08 : 00/04
06:35:22 : 00/05
06:35:51 : 00/06
06:36:37 : 01/07
06:37:06 : 02/08
06:37:06 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 2/8
p-value: 0.9648 (96.48%)

-- signature --
3ed66ee7a648e527e809a364c812a77665dd2bcb
 

voodooless

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This thread inspired me to do an ABX test. I could always tell between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC but the difference 320kbps OGG Vorbis & FLAC, I can almost tell.

foo_abx 2.0.6d report
foobar2000 v1.6.8
2021-12-30 06:29:08

File A: 01. Conway Twitty - Slow Hand.flac
SHA1: e007e2d0adbaa7b68cd0d1b68efe821e6a1c945d
File B: 01. Conway Twitty - Slow Hand.ogg
SHA1: 61f4507483b68e2c011194302d9c1678fecb686a

Output:
WASAPI (event) : Speakers (TOPPING USB DAC), 16-bit
Crossfading: NO

06:29:08 : Test started.
06:31:27 : 00/01
06:32:45 : 00/02
06:33:28 : 00/03
06:34:08 : 00/04
06:35:22 : 00/05
06:35:51 : 00/06
06:36:37 : 01/07
06:37:06 : 02/08
06:37:06 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 2/8
p-value: 0.9648 (96.48%)

-- signature --
3ed66ee7a648e527e809a364c812a77665dd2bcb
How did you make the ogg file?
 

ThatM1key

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D

Deleted member 23982

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This thread inspired me to do an ABX test. I could always tell between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC but the difference 320kbps OGG Vorbis & FLAC, I can almost tell.

foo_abx 2.0.6d report
foobar2000 v1.6.8
2021-12-30 06:29:08

File A: 01. Conway Twitty - Slow Hand.flac
SHA1: e007e2d0adbaa7b68cd0d1b68efe821e6a1c945d
File B: 01. Conway Twitty - Slow Hand.ogg
SHA1: 61f4507483b68e2c011194302d9c1678fecb686a

Output:
WASAPI (event) : Speakers (TOPPING USB DAC), 16-bit
Crossfading: NO

06:29:08 : Test started.
06:31:27 : 00/01
06:32:45 : 00/02
06:33:28 : 00/03
06:34:08 : 00/04
06:35:22 : 00/05
06:35:51 : 00/06
06:36:37 : 01/07
06:37:06 : 02/08
06:37:06 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 2/8
p-value: 0.9648 (96.48%)

-- signature --
3ed66ee7a648e527e809a364c812a77665dd2bcb
nice :) im too lazy for it :D is this a function in foobar?
specially if you know the song and know what to listen for (mostly sibilance), 320 kbit mp3 vs flac is pretty easy
 

GaryH

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I could always tell between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC
ABX log please.

but the difference 320kbps OGG Vorbis & FLAC, I can almost tell
You can't 'almost tell' whether there's a difference between two things. You either can or you can't, and your ABX results clearly show you can't tell a difference between 320 kbps OGG Vorbis and FLAC.
 
D

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You can't 'almost tell' whether there's a difference between two things. You either can or you can't. And your ABX results clearly show you can't tell a difference between 320 kbps OGG Vorbis and FLAC.
there is a clear tendency tho, thats why i think blind tests are flawed, just because you are not 95% right doesnt mean you cant hear a difference... actually our mind gets too easy confused if you switch sources like that... ( tho listen for one week mp3 and then flac again and it becomes obvious again because the mind had a week to "remember" the sound signature and hears the sudden change (atleast thats me but this kind of testing is way easier imo and just works for me) )

actually, what i also do with this is, sounds strange but it works too -> if i make some changes on my setup and use my test songs i usually dont listen to all of them because (if i listened them enough "lately" before the changes) and i do more than one change, i actually listen to the songs i didnt listen to before after "all" the changes and can still remember how the song sounded before "all" the changes, maybe i have a strange auditory system but it really works that way for me... just dont listen to more than one setup or this doesnt work

tl:dr my brain always somewhat remembers how the song sounded the last time i heared it (but this doesnt work if i just listened to it once, i have to hear it multiple times without setup changes inbetween, like for a week or two) i cant "exactly" remember it but i certainly hear changes then
 
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voodooless

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tho listen for one week mp3 and then flac again and it becomes obvious again because the mind had a week to "remember" the sound signature and hears the sudden change (atleast thats me but this kind of testing is way easier imo and just works for me) )
Auditory memory is only a few seconds long at best. After a week, all notion of a reference is gone, and replaced with your cognitive bias.

Let’s have you listen to FLAC for a week, and then the next week, on one of the days, I’ll switch over.. now let’s see if you can tell me the day?
 
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ThatM1key

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ABX log please.


You can't 'almost tell' whether there's a difference between two things. You either can or you can't, and your ABX results clearly show you can't tell a difference between 320 kbps OGG Vorbis and FLAC.
That's why I can almost tell the difference between a OGG Vorbis and a FLAC. OGG Vorbis is a very good lossy codec. The top end of the Vorbis sounds a bit weaker than the FLAC but overall they sounded very similar.

I can definitely tell the different between MP3 320kbps's and FLAC's. Some of them have a sharp cut around 16khz while others barely reach it to 20khz.
 
D

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Let’s have you listen to FLAC for a week, and then the next week, one one of the days, I’ll switch over.. now let’s see if you can tell me the day?
this is what i mean, pretty sure i will hear it after 1-5 songs the day you changed it (if i had a week flac before, didnt hear other setups and specially listened to the same songs before, at best multiple times)
maybe thats just me, like i edited above, i cant remember it "exactly" (like the 5-10 seconds you are talking about) but i certainly here sudden changes since the "last time"

and thats why i dont like blind testing, you get so confused with close listening and switching back and forth that this will introduce errors (again, maybe thats just me...)
 

danadam

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just because you are not 95% right doesnt mean you cant hear a difference
You don't have to be 95% right. You have to be right enough times so that p-value is less than 0.05. You can do 30 trials with only 20 correct (66% right) and it will still be a significant result. It will show that you probably can hear a difference, but it will also suggest that the difference is very small (so just avoid saying that it is night and day difference :) )
 

voodooless

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this is what i mean, pretty sure i will hear it after 1-5 songs the day you changed it (if i had a week flac before, didnt hear other setups and specially listened to the same songs before, at best multiple times)
I’m pretty sure you can’t, and there is no research to suggest otherwise.
and thats why i dont like blind testing, you get so confused with close listening and switching back and forth that this will introduce errors (again, maybe thats just me...)
Classical argument against blind tests. That one really gets old fast.
 
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