A surprise on Qobuz...

[LouB]

It’s deceptive marketing. Not “fine”

OK, no argument. I bought a brand new 2021 Dodge RAM & it doesn't get anywhere near the advertised EPA window sticker gas mileage. Is that also deceptive marketing ? It's widely known that those window stickers that "everyone" knows about the EPA claims are BS. So, it's just marketing & where one draws the line on acceptable BS marketing is a personal choice. Me I'd much rather get suckered by some "bit rate" claim than shelling out thousands of dollars on crap gas mileage. But I know EPA stickers and Hi-Res claims are BS.
IMHO the consumer needs to figure out the BS marketing out for themself or get constantly suckered the rest of there life. With that said in today's world I think a business can make any claim they see fit & see what happens.

 

[IAtaman]

OK, no argument. I bought a brand new 2021 Dodge RAM & it doesn't get anywhere near the advertised EPA window sticker gas mileage. Is that also deceptive marketing ? It's widely known that those window stickers that "everyone" knows about the EPA claims are BS. So, it's just marketing & where one draws the line on acceptable BS marketing is a personal choice. Me I'd much rather get suckered by some "bit rate" claim than shelling out thousands of dollars on crap gas mileage. But I know EPA stickers and Hi-Res claims are BS.
IMHO the consumer needs to figure out the BS marketing out for themself or get constantly suckered the rest of there life. With that said in today's world I think a business can make any claim they see fit & see what happens.

I suspect maybe EPA claims might not reflect the real life usage because of the test conditions chosen. But I presume, not being an expert on them, that they are supposed to be consistent in that the EPA ratings of difference vehicles might be comparable. There is nothing remotely close to reality in the comparison of audio sampling rate example Qobuz has shared. I do not understand why we are justifying to each other its OK for companies to blatantly lie to consumers. I believe the reason they see no problem doing that is exactly the attitude you demonstrate.

 

[ahofer]

OK, no argument. I bought a brand new 2021 Dodge RAM & it doesn't get anywhere near the advertised EPA window sticker gas mileage. Is that also deceptive marketing ? It's widely known that those window stickers that "everyone" knows about the EPA claims are BS. So, it's just marketing & where one draws the line on acceptable BS marketing is a personal choice. Me I'd much rather get suckered by some "bit rate" claim than shelling out thousands of dollars on crap gas mileage. But I know EPA stickers and Hi-Res claims are BS.
IMHO the consumer needs to figure out the BS marketing out for themself or get constantly suckered the rest of there life. With that said in today's world I think a business can make any claim they see fit & see what happens.

At least the EPA tests are standardized but everyone games them. They aren't claiming that their engine doesn't use combustion or something, or compare their engine smoothness to two cylinder lawnmower engines.

 

[bluefuzz]

Sure, how's this?

You think the non-technical user knows or cares what Hz, dB or noise-shaping mean? The point of the graphic is mainly to convey to the potential customer why they should choose Qobuz instead of other services. Your attempt does quite the opposite ...

 

[voodooless]

You think the non-technical user knows or cares what Hz, dB or noise-shaping mean? The point of the graphic is mainly to convey to the potential customer why they should choose Qobuz instead of other services. Your attempt does quite the opposite ...

At least it shows the reality. I also don’t see how the graph would show an advantage over the competition. Basically all offer the same high-res audio anyway.

So it’s even worse: a double lie!

 

[amper42]

Once you have an outstanding audio system, the next hurdle which is just as important is the quality of the recordings played on your system. A poorly recorded track can make a $20K system sound pretty lousy. The graphic shown by Qobuz tries to indicate there is a difference in the resolution of audio recordings available. It's obviously not the best representation. In my tests, sometimes ripped CD's sound just as good or better than 96kHz or higher tracks on Qobuz but the difference is usually small. More important factors I find are if the gain of the recording is optimized and how the music was recorded. Some streaming music tracks can't match my CD's while some Qobuz tracks sound even better.

There's more to audio quality than just the kHz of the stream. However, all my MP3 tracks are audibly of lesser quality than my FLAC and AIFF rips. I can hear the difference. You have to decide what resolution is best for your system. MP3 is fine for lower end systems but if you are going to spend 5 figures on a really nice audio setup it's a bit silly not to use the best quality music you can find. Qobuz is a fine source for streaming, but so are CD rips.

 

[Galliardist]

Once you have an outstanding audio system, the next hurdle which is just as important is the quality of the recordings played on your system. A poorly recorded track can make a $20K system sound pretty lousy. The graphic shown by Qobuz tries to indicate there is a difference in the resolution of audio recordings available. It's obviously not the best representation. In my tests, sometimes ripped CD's sound just as good or better than 96kHz or higher tracks on Qobuz but the difference is usually small. More important factors I find are if the gain of the recording is optimized and how the music was recorded. Some streaming music tracks can't match my CD's while some Qobuz tracks sound even better.

There's more to audio quality than just the kHz of the stream. However, all my MP3 tracks are audibly of lesser quality than my FLAC and AIFF rips. I can hear the difference. You have to decide what resolution is best for your system. MP3 is fine for lower end systems but if you are going to spend 5 figures on a really nice audio setup it's a bit silly not to use the best quality music you can find. Qobuz is a fine source for streaming, but so are CD rips.

… except that the differences between low bitrate MP3 and higher quality files are such that they will be as audible on lesser systems.

 

[Overseas]

Qobuz says that detailed info was always in the master recordings, but until High Res came to Earth there was no way to... umm, access those details!? How the heck did the producers get it first, then?

 

[RayDunzl]

The wave picture is not entirely false.

If looking at the recording at the highest level of magnification, there are stairsteps in 16bit data that are not obvious in the 24bit rendition.

Like down around -80dB, below:

But we know that.

 

[voodooless]

No, there are no stair steps. Audacity’s sample representation is just wrong.

 

[rationaltime]

No, there are no stair steps. Audacity’s sample representation is just wrong.

Yes. A sequence of sampled data is represented as though it were an analog waveform.

Still, the display is useful. Plotting a line between consecutive samples makes the data
visible. The user can find audible features and see the effect of edits and mixes. Doesn't
most or all DAW software do it this way? Is there a better way to show the data samples?

 

[voodooless]

Is there a better way to show the data samples?

Yes: do the oversampling work upto the pixel resolution needed, and display that. That would actually be as accurate as can be.

 

[Saponetto]

Still don't understand the aim of this thread, sorry.
For sure they went badly wrong at their infographics, so could this impact on the quality of the musical content they offer? (rhetorical question, of course...)

 

[Multicore]

If you see those, you know your being hoodwinked. It’s like the flat-earther showing you a pancake rendition of the earth

It's almost justifiable as a way of representing differences of sample rates and bit depths but representing MP3 as lower sample rate and bit depth with a single sine wave is completely wrong.

 

[Multicore]

So can anyone suggest a simple graphic that conveys the difference between low sample rate / low bit depth and high sample rate / high bit depth together with lossy/lossless compression that is both scientifically accurate and can be grokked at a glance by a non-technical (and possibly indifferent) viewer?

Maybe. Idk. It's not my job to produce such graphics. But Qobuz did produce a graphic with technical content to educate readers. As such it's bad. The task at hand is to get people to buy Qobuz service. I believe there must be ways to do it that don't involve wrong educational technical diagrams.

 

[voodooless]

Still don't understand the aim of this thread, sorry.
For sure they went badly wrong at their infographics, so could this impact on the quality of the musical content they offer? (rhetorical question, of course...)

Yes. They claim that high-res makes it sound better, yet that is a largely unsubstantiated claim.

 

[Multicore]

Still don't understand the aim of this thread, sorry.
For sure they went badly wrong at their infographics, so could this impact on the quality of the musical content they offer? (rhetorical question, of course...)

We sometimes separate issues here on ASR. The quality of musical content is one thing and the explanation of digital audio coding schemes is another.

 

[Saponetto]

Ok, got it...

 

[Multicore]

The wave picture is not entirely false.

If looking at the recording at the highest level of magnification, there are stairsteps in 16bit data that are not obvious in the 24bit rendition.

Like down around -80dB, below:

View attachment 347379

But we know that.

I don't object much to the staircase diagrams comparing CD with higher sample rate and bit depth. That's justifiable for some purposes but could be done better.

I object to Qobuz showing 320k MP3 as having lower sample rate and bit depth than 16/44.1 CD. That's nonsense.

 

[voodooless]

I don't object much to the staircase diagrams comparing CD with higher sample rate and bit depth. That's justifiable for some purposes but could be done better.

I object to Qobuz showing 320k MP3 as having lower sample rate and bit depth than 16/44.1 CD. That's nonsense.

No, it’s all nonsense. The waveforms would look identical for all three instances. Staircases in audio are evil and should be punishable by a NOS DAC burning.