What absolute bullshit.
They don't create the value any more than a DAC makes the music...
What a joke. Love these virtue signaling lectures on the evils of capitalism.
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
MQA Sounds Really Good!
- Thread starter watchnerd
- Start date
- Status
What absolute bullshit.
They don't create the value any more than a DAC makes the music...
What a joke. Love these virtue signaling lectures on the evils of capitalism.
No political talk!!!
dkinric
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I understand what you are saying, but that doesn’t make it correct. It may be true for you, but not for me, and not for a lot of people. I don’t archive, I listen, in the now, in real time. And I much prefer to listen in lossless. Maybe your next system will be able to benefit from it.
Bdwoody: 
Ah yes, the good old "your equipment just isn't good enough" nonsense. You can always fall back to that "you didn't spend enough" money gatekeeping.
Just because you prefer the placebo effect of lossless streaming doesn't mean it has any actual benefits over a good lossy codec at an appropriate bit rate.
Ah yes, the good old "your equipment just isn't good enough" nonsense. You can always fall back to that "you didn't spend enough" money gatekeeping.
Just because you prefer the placebo effect of lossless streaming doesn't mean it has any actual benefits over a good lossy codec at an appropriate bit rate.
dkinric
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I think the main point here is that since bandwidth and storage constraints are no longer an issue, there is no reason for lossy codecs. You know, for archival purposes.
The reason for my objection is you deciding what is good enough for everyone here, on a site full of objectivist, experienced users who are well aware of the technical and cognitive issues behind music reproduction. Would you be just as happy listening to 96 kps mp3? 128? Maybe? Perhaps you have decided that 256 kps is your bottom line, and lossless is just overkill. Unless you’re archiving, in which there is another line. Fine, good for you.
So we can agree there is a line where there are no detectable sonic differences but we just put it in a different place. My point is we all have different rooms, systems, ears, and yes, cognitive biases, and what you have decided is right for you is not necessarily right for all.
Cheers, and let’s all enjoy the music.
The reason for my objection is you deciding what is good enough for everyone here, on a site full of objectivist, experienced users who are well aware of the technical and cognitive issues behind music reproduction. Would you be just as happy listening to 96 kps mp3? 128? Maybe? Perhaps you have decided that 256 kps is your bottom line, and lossless is just overkill. Unless you’re archiving, in which there is another line. Fine, good for you.
So we can agree there is a line where there are no detectable sonic differences but we just put it in a different place. My point is we all have different rooms, systems, ears, and yes, cognitive biases, and what you have decided is right for you is not necessarily right for all.
Cheers, and let’s all enjoy the music.
Last edited:
Maybe we all need to behave.
That is exactly why I wrote "a good lossy codec at an appropriate bit rate", instead of a specific codec or setting. There is an appropriate lossy encoding for everyone, allowing for audibly transparent streaming while saving bandwidth.
I don't know how conditions are where you live, but I certainly don't get full-fat 4G/LTE coverage and bandwidth 100% of the time, even living in a reasonably big city. A lossless CD-quality stream at 1.4 Mbit/s (or ~700 Kbit/s for FLAC encoded audio) may not sound like a lot of bandwidth, but keep in mind that 3G originally topped out at 384 Kbit/s, sometimes you even have to make do with EDGE.
A lossless stream won't be able to degrade gracefully in situations with reduced bandwidth. For intermittent connection issues, you can use caching, but for situations with sustained reduced bandwidth, there really isn't anything you can do.
A lossy stream that normally runs at 320 Kbit/s will be able to degrade gracefully, in the case of Spotify to 160 Kbit/s and 96 Kbit/s, and in extreme cases 24 Kbit/s.
I don't know about you, but I much prefer a slight temporary decrease in bitrate over a complete interruption
(In the end, I've completely sidestepped the bandwidth issue by storing files locally on my phone in an appropriate format, which for me is 128 Kbit/s Opus)
dkinric
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I have a 1 Gbps fiber line into the home, with a Cat6 cable hardwired to my Allo Digione streamer. No dropouts ever handling up to lossless 24/192. So I have zero need nor benefit for compressed audio. So the "appropriate bit rate" in my situation is not bandwidth limited.
YMMV
YMMV
dkinric
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Yes.
Let's move on - the point is that what is best for you is not necessarily best for all. Whether it's fiber optic or 5G wireless - bandwidth (like digital storage) is becoming less of an issue as technology advances and the bandwidth "benefit" of MQA is less relevant than it would have been a few years ago.
Let's move on - the point is that what is best for you is not necessarily best for all. Whether it's fiber optic or 5G wireless - bandwidth (like digital storage) is becoming less of an issue as technology advances and the bandwidth "benefit" of MQA is less relevant than it would have been a few years ago.
You keep wanting to dismiss the points I'm making, by referring solely to your own preferences and circumstances. Not everyone has super fast connections. Not everyone has unlimited data allowances.
I happen to work at a telco and travel a lot, and I can tell you for a fact that even in the most developed countries, mobile data coverage and bandwidth is patchy, especially if you travel just a little bit outside of densely populated areas. It's worse when driving and especially on high-speed trains, you constantly hop from tower to tower and go through tunnels.
All the fiber and 5G in the world doesn't matter if no one wants to run it to your house or set up cell towers within a reasonable distance. That's why good lossy codecs matter, it's good engineering practice to not be wasteful of resources, be they memory, storage or bandwidth. Don't design only for the best case scenario.
That's why lossless is silly for streaming, and MQA is an additional layer of silly snake oil on top of that.
I happen to work at a telco and travel a lot, and I can tell you for a fact that even in the most developed countries, mobile data coverage and bandwidth is patchy, especially if you travel just a little bit outside of densely populated areas. It's worse when driving and especially on high-speed trains, you constantly hop from tower to tower and go through tunnels.
All the fiber and 5G in the world doesn't matter if no one wants to run it to your house or set up cell towers within a reasonable distance. That's why good lossy codecs matter, it's good engineering practice to not be wasteful of resources, be they memory, storage or bandwidth. Don't design only for the best case scenario.
That's why lossless is silly for streaming, and MQA is an additional layer of silly snake oil on top of that.
Nobody has disagreed with you. If a person struggles with insufficient bandwidth then streaming lossless would be a silly thing to do. For the rest of us, though, there’s no reason to settle for lossy codecs.
You’ve made it quite clear that your situation demands concessions due to bandwidth and I haven’t seen a single person suggest that you are wrong for doing so.
You're not "settling" for anything, they're audibly transparent.
What I described applies to everyone who listens to music on the go, have limited bandwidth and/or have download limits. This is the vast majority of people.
It's all good that you are lucky enough to have unlimited bandwidth. So do I, after all I do work at a telco, which has its perks. Not everyone is so lucky, far from it actually.
This insistence on using lossless streaming when it has literally no benefits at all, is a bit silly.
mp3 is not gapless, at least not with Deezer.
The bandwidth consumed by lossless audio streaming is inconsequentially small in today’s Internet that is dominated by 1080p and 4K HDR video streaming. This seems like such a strange hill upon which you’ve chosen to plant your flag.
There’s nothing silly at all about choosing lossless streaming for anyone who is not at risk of overages or saturating their bandwidth. This is the vast majority of people. Unless someone is at the limits of their Internet capacity there is literally no downside to it at all.
And, once again, you are of course free to use your bandwidth however you decide is appropriate for you personally. Like you said above, that is your preference and circumstance. The rest of us are free to make our own choices. If you prefer lossy streaming I’m sure it will continue to be available to you (at least in the near term future). Your choice will invariably make less sense over time, though, as consumer bandwidth increases and the Internet continues to devise new and interesting ways to consume it.
Your insistence on continuing to push your conclusions of what's silly on others seems a bit...silly...
I like my silly uncompressed music...
I hope that doesn't earn me another lecture.
dkinric
Addicted to Fun and Learning
MQA is an additional layer of silly snake oil
Agreed!
What I described applies to everyone who listens to music on the go, have limited bandwidth and/or have download limits.
Agreed!
This insistence on using lossless streaming when it has literally no benefits at all, is a bit silly.
Except where it's not. Like archiving, to use your example.
No one is saying here there is no need for quality lossy codecs - of course there is. But to dismiss lossless altogether as "silly" for everyone is just showing your inability to think outside your own situation. It is a worthy debate, but it's not settled science. Many factors come into play, such as how certain equipment handles the conversions, room acoustics, speaker properties, etc, etc.
I doubt we are going to get you to agree that your assertions are not necessarily correct for everyone. So, you go stream from your phone with your favorite 128 bitrate codec, and you can think I'm silly for enjoying my lossless hi rez streaming through fiber.
Agreed!
What I described applies to everyone who listens to music on the go, have limited bandwidth and/or have download limits.
Agreed!
This insistence on using lossless streaming when it has literally no benefits at all, is a bit silly.
Except where it's not. Like archiving, to use your example.
No one is saying here there is no need for quality lossy codecs - of course there is. But to dismiss lossless altogether as "silly" for everyone is just showing your inability to think outside your own situation. It is a worthy debate, but it's not settled science. Many factors come into play, such as how certain equipment handles the conversions, room acoustics, speaker properties, etc, etc.
I doubt we are going to get you to agree that your assertions are not necessarily correct for everyone. So, you go stream from your phone with your favorite 128 bitrate codec, and you can think I'm silly for enjoying my lossless hi rez streaming through fiber.
When you are streaming, you are not archiving. They are two completely different use cases.
Any competent streaming service uses codecs that handle gapless playback and have mechanisms to degrade gracefully under adverse conditions. A lossless codec cannot do this, at least not any of the ones in popular usage (it would have to degrade to lossy, which seems to be a Wavpack-only thing.
As I wrote earlier, a lossless streaming cannot degrade gracefully under adverse conditions, it cannot momentarily switch to a lower bit rate, it can only pause, interrupting playback.
There is literally no point in lossless streaming, aside from placebo.
Any competent streaming service uses codecs that handle gapless playback and have mechanisms to degrade gracefully under adverse conditions. A lossless codec cannot do this, at least not any of the ones in popular usage (it would have to degrade to lossy, which seems to be a Wavpack-only thing.
As I wrote earlier, a lossless streaming cannot degrade gracefully under adverse conditions, it cannot momentarily switch to a lower bit rate, it can only pause, interrupting playback.
There is literally no point in lossless streaming, aside from placebo.
Any competent streaming service employs buffers as a safeguard against adverse conditions. You are really reaching here.
Use whatever makes you happy
But that's enough of this endless bickering.
Please end it now.
But that's enough of this endless bickering.
Please end it now.
- Status
Similar threads
