Thanks!
Is CD lossless or lossy?
- Thread starter Mike
- Start date
Thanks!
NorthStar
New member
Let me wave in my opinion:
There is more musical info in the grooves of vinyl than there is in the pits of CD.
The rest is up to us, lousy or seriously involved, lossy or lossless.
There is more musical info in the grooves of vinyl than there is in the pits of CD.
The rest is up to us, lousy or seriously involved, lossy or lossless.
Based on?
NorthStar
New member
Internet.
.JWhip
New member
Of course it is different. Nothing beats live. I have been to tons of live jazz shows at some of the best known clubs. How can you get all of that sound and atmosphere at home recorded with imperfect mics etc and with stereo? I don’t think you can.
So one poster thinks the transients are there but not the ambience, another thinks the ambience there but not the transients LOL.
Anyone who thinks transients are well captured by a recording hasn’t listened to much live music, IMO. As far as “ambience” or “atmosphere”, we may be talking about different things. I don’t really mean a sense of space, but more music’s inner details and the air and space around and between instruments. Yes, recordings do capture some transients (aka “dynamics”) and inner detail and space, but nowhere what is present in live music.
Anyone who thinks transients are well captured by a recording hasn’t listened to much live music, IMO. As far as “ambience” or “atmosphere”, we may be talking about different things. I don’t really mean a sense of space, but more music’s inner details and the air and space around and between instruments. Yes, recordings do capture some transients (aka “dynamics”) and inner detail and space, but nowhere what is present in live music.
AJ Soundfield
Well-known member
Well, here is a personal pic of where I spent last Thursday listening to live music, a private audition of the Fl orchestra, we had the whole hall to ourselves. Quite sure transients were present. You were saying?
Perhaps my 104db horns has something to do with my opinion, backed of course by hard science of the links I posted.
On what basis do you make the claim "we" can't capture transients like live? Digital recordings/modern mics can certainly capture greater than instruments peak dynamic ranges/pressure changes, so where exactly is this purported loss of transients occurring...unless you are talking deliberate compression by some knucklehead, rather than anything intrinsic?
Spatial rendering, well yes, that is hopeless with 2ch. Transients, "we" are more than capable of capturing. What is done with afterwards is a whole nother story.
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Simply that when I hear live music (or even people speaking) the sound quality that i think allows me to immediately differentiate live from recorded is transients (or dynamics). Yes, horns do that better than any other speaker type (just as electrostatics do the instrumental detail or ambience best). In neither case is it done well enough to allow more than a momentary suspension of disbelief (if even that).
still-one
Active member
Just so that I understand when AJ or Rob are speaking of "live" music it might help to define what that entails. I almost never attend unamplified musical events. In my mind it is easier to mimic in our home systems the sound of a couple guitars onstage. You can get pretty close. Pianos are on the opposite end of the spectrum. The larger the scale of the musical piece the harder it is to replicate that in our home systems.
About a week ago I attended a concert with two electric acoustic guitars and the third individual using either a electric fiddle and possibly a electric mandolin. It was pretty intimate venue and I was sitting exactly center stage, centered between the two main speakers and less than 30 feet from the stage. Almost triangulated like the chair in my two channel room. I will say that the vocals and instruments sounded virtually inditiguishable from what I hear at home. That does not happen often.
About a week ago I attended a concert with two electric acoustic guitars and the third individual using either a electric fiddle and possibly a electric mandolin. It was pretty intimate venue and I was sitting exactly center stage, centered between the two main speakers and less than 30 feet from the stage. Almost triangulated like the chair in my two channel room. I will say that the vocals and instruments sounded virtually inditiguishable from what I hear at home. That does not happen often.
Very true.
Yet I don't think analog (at least vinyl) has an upside on this compared to digital, even Redbook. I used to think it did, not anymore.
Of course, technically analog is even more 'lossy' than digital.
Analog vs digital... live vs studio vs at-home. All these paradigms are changing as technology changes. I was thinking about this the other day and it reminded me of the topic, seeing AJ's posts on this thread.
I think it's time we stop using analog/turntables as the benchmark for home listening quality. It's been a while since I've heard a high end analog system (I guess that mostly translates to turntable), but I'd guess that these days even a mid-range digital system can hold it's own with more expensive analog. And of course there are other variables, such as the quality of the sources used to create the vinyl or digital versions.
As far as live vs at-home/reproduced, imo there are too many variables to say "live is always better than home". I've been to many live events where the sound quality sucked, and listening to the same material at home was a far better experience. Sure nothing can really beat the visceral excitement of a live music event, but that's not a sound-quality thing, it's an experience thing, and we should stop confusing the two. So many of us harp on about live being the benchmark, and I'd bet that few of us have been to an intimate-enough live performance in an acoustically conducive setting to experience "the best of live".
People do love their black or white, all or nothing positions....
I think it's time we stop using analog/turntables as the benchmark for home listening quality. It's been a while since I've heard a high end analog system (I guess that mostly translates to turntable), but I'd guess that these days even a mid-range digital system can hold it's own with more expensive analog. And of course there are other variables, such as the quality of the sources used to create the vinyl or digital versions.
As far as live vs at-home/reproduced, imo there are too many variables to say "live is always better than home". I've been to many live events where the sound quality sucked, and listening to the same material at home was a far better experience. Sure nothing can really beat the visceral excitement of a live music event, but that's not a sound-quality thing, it's an experience thing, and we should stop confusing the two. So many of us harp on about live being the benchmark, and I'd bet that few of us have been to an intimate-enough live performance in an acoustically conducive setting to experience "the best of live".
People do love their black or white, all or nothing positions....
Regardless of medium or reproducing system, the gap between real and reproduced remains. In the end, I don't really care whether CD, MQA or whatever is "lossy" or not, or whether one is discussing analog or digital recording media; if the overall result of the chain is to better reproduce the original event, I would be pleased.
AJ Soundfield
Well-known member
Sorry, got busy out in the real world.
That's ok, few have.
No arguments there, I'm referring specifically to transients/dynamics. Those we have both encode/decode capability to match "live".
Of course, those are impossible to separate from spatial rendering in what listening sessions you have had, so there is a mix with one aspect (spatial) severely compromised. That takes away immediately from the "realness".
cheers,
AJ
So you've probably never heard a dipolar planar horn.
That's ok, few have.
Yes, but not the transients or dynamics with the right encode/decode. Of course, if you are talking archaic 2ch stereo, yes, forget it. As all my links have explained, you've thrown away about 90% of the soundfield with such a primitive sampling and decode.
No arguments there, I'm referring specifically to transients/dynamics. Those we have both encode/decode capability to match "live".
Of course, those are impossible to separate from spatial rendering in what listening sessions you have had, so there is a mix with one aspect (spatial) severely compromised. That takes away immediately from the "realness".
cheers,
AJ
AJ Soundfield
Well-known member
Depending on what century one exists in and who you ask, that might not be much of a question.
I'll say again, this sounds approximately zero like a 2ch TT analog rig playing a record.
Only crazy folks beg to differ. That does NOT mean LPs aren't enjoyable. I sure enjoy my Elvis LP far more than any digital version, or I wouldn't have bought it! It sounds sublime. The benchmark of home audio SQ? Maybe in the 19th century.
To approach the 21st, forget LP, please http://www.onhifi.com/features/20010615.htm
Now we are approaching "real". Whether that is preferred to archaic sound is entirely another matter. There is no right/wrong preference.
cheers,
AJ
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AJ Soundfield
Well-known member
NorthStar
New member
○
https://www.macworld.com/article/30...u-need-to-know-about-digital-audio-files.html
Compression: lossy and lossless
When you buy a CD, the audio on the disc is uncompressed. You can rip (or import) CDs with iTunes or other software, turning the CD’s audio into digital audio files to use on a computer or a portable device. In iTunes, you can rip in two uncompressed formats: WAV and AIFF (other software allows for other formats). Both formats simply encapsulate the PCM (pulse-code modulation) data stored on CDs so it can be read as audio files on a computer, and their bit rate (you’ll learn what the bit rate is below) is 1,411 kbps.
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● http://www.oregonlive.com/music/index.ssf/2014/11/does_vinyl_really_sound_better.html
"Vinyl is the only consumer playback format we have that's fully analog and fully lossless," Gonsalves said. "You just need a decent turntable with a decent needle on it and you're going to enjoy a full-fidelity listening experience. It's a little bit more idiot-proof and a little bit less technical."
The analog format allows for artists to transport their music from magnetic tape to LP to your speakers or headphones without the complications of digital conversion. This, ideally, is the closest one can get to what the artist intended — if the artist recorded on tape and sent the reels over to an engineer like Gonsalves to cut a lacquer master from. But whether its origins are digital or analog (more on this later), a vinyl disc should have more musical information than an MP3 file — so it should be an improvement on streaming sites such as YouTube or SoundCloud, especially on a good system.
https://www.macworld.com/article/30...u-need-to-know-about-digital-audio-files.html
Compression: lossy and lossless
When you buy a CD, the audio on the disc is uncompressed. You can rip (or import) CDs with iTunes or other software, turning the CD’s audio into digital audio files to use on a computer or a portable device. In iTunes, you can rip in two uncompressed formats: WAV and AIFF (other software allows for other formats). Both formats simply encapsulate the PCM (pulse-code modulation) data stored on CDs so it can be read as audio files on a computer, and their bit rate (you’ll learn what the bit rate is below) is 1,411 kbps.
_____
● http://www.oregonlive.com/music/index.ssf/2014/11/does_vinyl_really_sound_better.html
"Vinyl is the only consumer playback format we have that's fully analog and fully lossless," Gonsalves said. "You just need a decent turntable with a decent needle on it and you're going to enjoy a full-fidelity listening experience. It's a little bit more idiot-proof and a little bit less technical."
The analog format allows for artists to transport their music from magnetic tape to LP to your speakers or headphones without the complications of digital conversion. This, ideally, is the closest one can get to what the artist intended — if the artist recorded on tape and sent the reels over to an engineer like Gonsalves to cut a lacquer master from. But whether its origins are digital or analog (more on this later), a vinyl disc should have more musical information than an MP3 file — so it should be an improvement on streaming sites such as YouTube or SoundCloud, especially on a good system.
mep
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2013
- Messages
- 5,106
I will take that as a big “No.”