The state of lossy audio in 2022.

[Ambient384]

In that case, increase the bitrate to 192kbps and call it a day. At 192kbps, modern codecs like Opus, AAC, and Vorbis are tied and essentially transparent.

Yeah AAC is 2nd when It comes to having support and I'm willing to agree that It blows MP3 out the water at 192kbps VBR after testing FHG AAC & Apple AAC more.

 

[Ambient384]

The gap is very wide 160kbps AAC is transparent at 100% with FHG covering other stuff that chokes on QAAC, while I need 256kbps MP3 to come close at 98% quality wise.

 

[Palladium]

My ears are getting more lossy for each year that passes.

Probably the reason why I couldn't tell any difference between the Hydrogenaudio's original castanet.wav and the 1999 Xing 64kbps MP3 encode on my Topping E50 + iLoud monitors. Before that I thought 64kbps would be an obvious slam dunk degradation like music coming out from a cellphone speaker.

 

[all24bits]

I've run extensive tests on Spotify vs Tidal. At 320 Spotify, the sound is more energetic and punchy and full. It sounds more "alive". I even prefer it to the 320 Tidal which sounds a bit washed out. When you get to Lossless on Tidal, that's where the sound pulls ahead, depending on your preferences - the Tidal Lossless sounds more laid back and expansive. But I can see people prefering the Spotify even over Tidal Lossless if they like a richer fatter sound.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

I've run extensive tests on Spotify vs Tidal. At 320 Spotify, the sound is more energetic and punchy and full. It sounds more "alive". I even prefer it to the 320 Tidal which sounds a bit washed out. When you get to Lossless on Tidal, that's where the sound pulls ahead, depending on your preferences - the Tidal Lossless sounds more laid back and expansive. But I can see people prefering the Spotify even over Tidal Lossless if they like a richer fatter sound.

That reads as if there is some normalizing / post processing involved on the streaming services end.

 

[ahofer]

That reads as if there is some normalizing / post processing involved on the streaming services end.

or the listener end

 

[Basic Channel]

or the listener end

He did extensive tests though....

Personally I'd stream spotify 320 to my sub for rich and fat low end and the tidal flac to my main speakers for the smooth laid back detail of lossless. Although if I am listening to something ambient, maybe I'd play it in tidal 320 so it sounds really washed out. And if I put music on and go for a shower in the nearby room I'd play spotify 320 because the alive nature of it runs down through the hallway and into the bathroom.

A format for all situations.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

or the listener end

How dare you question his scientific methodology!

Personally I'd stream spotify 320 to my sub for rich and fat low end and the tidal flac to my main speakers for the smooth laid back detail of lossless.

Would that even work, given that 2 online services will definitely have different latencies?

 

[Count Dacula]

MP3 is even marginal in the car.

 

[Ambient384]

Apple AAC at Q109 - Not very robust, I notice Industrial/Noise will have added Clicks/noise not in the Lossless version. Still view they switched to ALAC because of this.

LAME 3.99.5 at V0 - Pretty much transparent the only issue Is that block switching Is very basic It fails to detect transients assume It must be mix of Long/short, Instead of 225 ~ 320kbps with short blocks only. Also 17.5KHz needed in some music that very hot at 20KHz as the 21 band steals bit to reproduce It starving the lower freq's, It rare so I don't worry much.

Vorbis at Q8 - Pretty much transparent with zero issues.

 

[kelesh]

The state of lossy audio these days is that it is pointless, since we already have the affordable technology and cheap storage that allows us not to use lossy audio.

 

[shuppatsu]

The state of lossy audio these days is that it is pointless, since we already have the affordable technology and cheap storage that allows us not to use lossy audio.

I transcode my lossless library to Opus targeting 128kbps for my iPhone and it takes 45GB. That’s with leaving a significant portion of my collection out. If that were lossless I’d have to dedicate 500GB to music alone. Apple offers a phone that can accommodate this, but it’s $1,500. I’d rather not pay an extra $500 for no perceivable benefit.

“Affordable” and “cheap” are relative propositions. Of course I could buy it and it wouldn’t meaningfully affect my life, but if I had that attitude about everything in my life that offered so little marginal benefit for significantly greater price, I’d be poorer.

 

[kelesh]

I transcode my lossless library to Opus targeting 128kbps for my iPhone and it takes 45GB. That’s with leaving a significant portion of my collection out. If that were lossless I’d have to dedicate 500GB to music alone. Apple offers a phone that can accommodate this, but it’s $1,500. I’d rather not pay an extra $500 for no perceivable benefit.

“Affordable” and “cheap” are relative propositions.

Yes, granted, everything is relative. We've come a long way, though. $90 now buys a terabyte:

Amazon.com

It makes me wonder how much profit Apple is making on that $1500 device.

 

[shuppatsu]

Yes, granted, everything is relative. We've come a long way, though. $90 now buys a terabyte:

Amazon.com

It makes me wonder how much profit Apple is making on that $1500 device.

a LOT. They do it with their computers too. Soldered in RAM and SSD, so you have to pay up front—and through the nose.

That said their entry level stuff are remarkable bargains given the level of quality and refinement they provide.

 

[Ambient384]

Yes, granted, everything is relative. We've come a long way, though. $90 now buys a terabyte:

Amazon.com

It makes me wonder how much profit Apple is making on that $1500 device.

About 350GB free for music If you fill It up with Pics/Video/etc and It 931GB. MP3 with LAME basically transparent at V2 ~ V0, For me V2 is 99% close with the 1% upped to V0. Rather have varied collection at 14k files than a limited set of lossless files, My lossless collection at 360GB that 8k from 10 ~ 80 min long tracks them being Noise/Industrial that 0.9 ~ 1.3mbps.

 

[Andysu]

lossy rubbish movie like this got put into the food blender , worst ,soundmixer in history , ego for sub bass was utterly rubbish soundmixer
that is what happens to state of lossy rubbish sound mixes that are near field and do meet my tight THX approval , they end up in the food blender

 

[Ambient384]

lossy rubbish movie like this got put into the food blender , worst ,soundmixer in history , ego for sub bass was utterly rubbish soundmixer
that is what happens to state of lossy rubbish sound mixes that are near field and do meet my tight THX approval , they end up in the food blender

View attachment 375119

You joke, But this sums up my view on AC-3 as a codec WHICH is actually legit worse than MP3 on all fronts. Like It short blocks being 256 samples vs MP3's 192. No idea why MP2 wasn't used at 192kbps Stereo & 384kbps 5.1 surround.

 

[GandalfTheAudiofool]

I remember the Napster days, 33.6 k baud modems and 128 kbps mp3 files (heck, some switched from modem to DSL to be able to download mp3 files faster). Back then HDD with a capacity of 8 GB or something were a thing.

These days are gone.

These days I've got a TB+ SSDs which are 250x bigger and 250x faster than my 8 GB HDD.

These days I've got fiber optic to the home, which is something like 30 000 times faster than my baud modem.

Why would I use a lossy format which was a thing back when we still had freaking modems?

And that's in 2024. It's not as if we were going to have slower, smaller storage in another few years.

Most of my music collection is compressed but lossless FLAC I bit-perfectly ripped from my CDs collection and now I just subscribed to Qobuz, and I only stream (or download) lossless.