how does one achieve such excellent sound quality on youtube?

[TonyJZX]

there's quite a few vinyl clips on Youtube that are of this quality

i know Youtube doesnt use anything special... like AAC redbook and you're obviously going thru a heap of adc dac conversion until it gets to your ears but even so, i personally couldnt ask for more SQ if its day to day.

 

[sq225917]

Depending on the video format and resolution and type of account you get different encoding. 4k source gets the highest res audio. 720p gets lower quality audio.

 

[kemmler3D]

Just goes to show that properly functioning codecs tend to have a very small, often inaudible impact on sound quality. As sq225917 said, higher res videos (IIRC) do get better audio codecs too. So they're probably something like 256 or 320?

I would say (just to stir up controversy) the importance in terms of impact on audio quality goes like this:

Mixing > Recording > Mastering > Speakers > Room > DSP > Adequate Amplification > Format/medium > DAC/transport >>>>> Cables, other stuff

 

[TonyJZX]

i heard that was debunked... the SQ is the same whether its 480p or fhd etc.

HOWEVER this is google... they change shit at the drop of a hat

 

[restorer-john]

The Wham! track is pretty decent for an ancient PE TT, but the Carpenters recording is not good.

The sibilance is absolutely rotten, the TT is running slow and it has significant wow which is not present on the original recording. Listen to the clarinet notes at the start- they have a distinct waver. Listen to the last few piano notes on the fade out.

 

[Jim Shaw]

This issue reminds me of the ancient days of FM radio. Listeners almost never complained about the sound quality of FM because there wasn't anything to be done about it. It's about the same as modern broadcast television. Did anyone ever turn off a Superbowl game because the sound quality or the S/N was not 'audiophile' quality?

I find Youtube audio of serious music to be compressed enough to be easily heard. FFT analysis shows most of the frequency range is there.
But...
When choices aren't available, it is what it is.

 

[Doodski]

I find Youtube audio of serious music to be compressed enough to be easily heard. FFT analysis shows most of the frequency range is there.
But...
When choices aren't available, it is what it is.

I used Adobe Audition to perform spectrum analysis and many of the YouTube music files where cut off at ~13kHz.

 

[restorer-john]

This issue reminds me of the ancient days of FM radio. Listeners almost never complained about the sound quality of FM because there wasn't anything to be done about it.

But FM was really good. Plenty of live concert simulcasts on TV with FM stereo audio (long before stereo TV).

A good FM broadcast and an excellent FM tuner blows the doors off Youtube audio in general.

 

[Jim Shaw]

I used Adobe Audition to perform spectrum analysis and many of the YouTube music files where cut off at ~13kHz.

And my orchestral and organ samples showed low frequencies down to 16 Hz and up to 19 kHz. And S/N of about 60 dB (mostly due to the music source).
I used Audacity 3.2.0.

 

[Doodski]

And my orchestral and organ samples showed low frequencies down to 16 Hz and up to 19 kHz. And S/N of about 60 dB (mostly due to the music source).

This is from YouTube?

 

[Jim Shaw]

But FM was really good. Plenty of live concert simulcasts on TV with FM stereo audio (long before stereo TV).

A good FM broadcast and an excellent FM tuner blows the doors off Youtube audio in general.

Check your facts: stereo FM was specified at 30 - 15,000 Hz and S/N of not greater than 55 dB. And that was at the transmitter. The receiver couldn't improve on what was transmitted except through trickery.

The (L+R) signal is limited to 30 Hz to 15 kHz to protect a 19 kHz pilot signal. The (L−R) signal, which is also limited to 15 kHz, is amplitude modulated onto a 38 kHz double-sideband suppressed-carrier (DSB-SC) signal...

 

[Jim Shaw]

This is from YouTube?

Yes. 4K Youtube>Audacity recorded in 32bit float at 48 kHz, and the recording was analyzed with Audacity FFT.
Yeah, it was better than I thought. The S/N I observed during musical silence was bouncing around about -60 dB. It seemed to be recorded room noise.

Hmm... I hadn't considered that some of the highest frequencies -might- be harmonic distortion (?)

 

[Doodski]

Yes. 4K Youtube>Audacity recorded in 32bit float at 48 kHz, and the recording was analyzed with Audacity FFT.
Yeah, it was better than I thought. The S/N I observed during musical silence was bouncing around about -60 dB. It seemed to be recorded room noise.

I have a Pink Floyd file that exceeds 20kHz and no clipping. 2666 kbps. It sounds fantastic. From the RS500 Super Audio CD Sampler

 

[LeftCoastTim]

This is a "science" forum, so I'm going to show you the specs and not some imaginary magic bitrate.

Nobody knows what the original upload audio format is, but the highest quality audio for this video is 129kbps aac and 136kbps opus. Pasted below is the output from yt-dlp -F, which shows all the audio and video formats available for this video. To learn which format is being played for you, right click on the video, select "Stats for Nerds", and look at the Codec line. Mine says opus (251), which is 136kbps opus as per below.

Good, enjoyable audio recording can be achieved at pretty low bitrates. Audio encoding is a solved problem. Enjoy the music!

~ $ yt-dlp -F https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=bJkoVhn2_hw [youtube] bJkoVhn2_hw: Downloading webpage [youtube] bJkoVhn2_hw: Downloading android player API JSON [info] Available formats for bJkoVhn2_hw: ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── sb2 mhtml 48x27 0 │ mhtml │ images storyboard sb1 mhtml 80x45 0 │ mhtml │ images storyboard sb0 mhtml 160x90 0 │ mhtml │ images storyboard 139 m4a audio only 2 │ 2.24MiB 49k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash 249 webm audio only 2 │ 2.44MiB 53k https │ audio only opus 53k 48k low, webm_dash 250 webm audio only 2 │ 3.20MiB 70k https │ audio only opus 70k 48k low, webm_dash 140 m4a audio only 2 │ 5.94MiB 129k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 129k 44k medium, m4a_dash 251 webm audio only 2 │ 6.24MiB 136k https │ audio only opus 136k 48k medium, webm_dash 17 3gp 176x144 6 1 │ 3.63MiB 79k https │ mp4v.20.3 79k mp4a.40.2 0k 22k 144p 160 mp4 256x144 25 │ 3.24MiB 71k https │ avc1.4d400c 71k video only 144p, mp4_dash 278 webm 256x144 25 │ 4.09MiB 89k https │ vp9 89k video only 144p, webm_dash 133 mp4 426x240 25 │ 7.21MiB 157k https │ avc1.4d4015 157k video only 240p, mp4_dash 242 webm 426x240 25 │ 5.70MiB 124k https │ vp9 124k video only 240p, webm_dash 134 mp4 640x360 25 │ 11.04MiB 241k https │ avc1.4d401e 241k video only 360p, mp4_dash 18 mp4 640x360 25 2 │ ~ 17.38MiB 370k https │ avc1.42001E 370k mp4a.40.2 0k 44k 360p 243 webm 640x360 25 │ 10.46MiB 228k https │ vp9 228k video only 360p, webm_dash 135 mp4 854x480 25 │ 23.27MiB 508k https │ avc1.4d401e 508k video only 480p, mp4_dash 244 webm 854x480 25 │ 17.47MiB 381k https │ vp9 381k video only 480p, webm_dash 22 mp4 1280x720 25 2 │ ~ 57.94MiB 1233k https │ avc1.64001F 1233k mp4a.40.2 0k 44k 720p 136 mp4 1280x720 25 │ 50.60MiB 1104k https │ avc1.4d401f 1104k video only 720p, mp4_dash 247 webm 1280x720 25 │ 38.41MiB 838k https │ vp9 838k video only 720p, webm_dash 137 mp4 1920x1080 25 │ 133.75MiB 2918k https │ avc1.640028 2918k video only 1080p, mp4_dash 248 webm 1920x1080 25 │ 88.16MiB 1924k https │ vp9 1924k video only 1080p, webm_dash

 

[LeftCoastTim]

Depending on the video format and resolution and type of account you get different encoding. 4k source gets the highest res audio. 720p gets lower quality audio.

This is absolutely false. See my post above. Generally, Youtube plays the highest quality audio unless your bandwidth is very restricted. I was given 720p video but still highest quality audio (opus, format id 251). When I manually set the video quality to 480, it still gave me opus.

 

[Mnyb]

The original mastering shines trough there goes your format obsession's ...

 

[Frgirard]

But FM was really good. Plenty of live concert simulcasts on TV with FM stereo audio (long before stereo TV).

A good FM broadcast and an excellent FM tuner blows the doors off Youtube audio in general.

The compression is the FM.

it was fun to read audiophiles raved about the sound of the French classical music radio station France Musique which broadcasts in 128kb.

 

[sq225917]

If you upload it in 1080p or above you get the higher audio quality, it doesn't matter what you view, it matters what is uploaded. If you upload 480p you get lower quality audio.

 

[bkatbamna]

That channel has excellent sound and uses broadcast-type equipment. I've asked him how he gets such clean, pop-free records. He told me that he just uses dishwashing liquid soap and lint-free cloth.
He also has some vintage cartridges that sound wonderful, including Phillips. Also has some USSR turntables that sound great.

 

[Leporello]

Quite a few Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra performances sound excellent on Youtube.