@binkle what's your opinion on lossless/flacs for music? Does it make a real difference if you have appropriate headphones (I do already). Try as I might it's honestly really difficult to get an apples to apples comparison where I know one of them wasn't just passed through shitty compression (for free anyway)
@RustyCrab eh not in my opinion. lossless is useful generally as a method of preservation but not especially for normal listening. Your standard equipment won't really be capable of exploiting any differences in the overall quality, even if you do have the right gear the differences will shrink over time with natural hearing loss as you age, and even if you're young enough to hear the differences and have the right gear it's debatable whether you'll really notice and then further whether it's worth it.
much of what people rave about with lossless formats comes down to a combination of placebo, as well as upgrading their gear such that they don't have massive device-based EQing going on
@binkle I'm listening to flacs from a band right now and the quality difference vs what I've been hearing is definitely perceptable in a way beyond placebo vs what I've had so far. However in order to really tell I'd have to get MP3s of the same same band, same songs and an assurance that it wasn't reprocessed by some kid through audacity. I may actually have to spend money to find out.
Then again what if they intentionally made the mp3s sound worse to sell FLACs :crabyss:
@RustyCrab the A-B tests are best accomplished through your own recordings to ensure you have complete control over the signal chain (large quantities of money required)
@RustyCrab """large""" its not actually that large it's a few hundred dollars (possibly more depending on how high you want the quality to be to reassure yourself of the flac thing)
@RustyCrab i should say it is possibly you hear the differences if you're young and have keen ears and a good setup. I wouldn't want to imply it's not possible or anything - I was just making a broader point about rhe way it works for most people
@binkle it is genuinely difficult to discern what makes a difference because of listener variables and placebo, which is why the whole scene is full of spooky woowoo audio ebonics
imo i wouldnt doubt your mp3s are dogshit. I remember trying 128KBPS opus files and some tracks simply needed more. 192KBPS is enough for opus audio, much better than mp3 v0 vbr
@mischievoustomato@binkle I usually end up getting opus when I get it from youtube but I suspect they fuck it up to hell and back with compression like they do video
kinda. i've noticed some opus tracks i get from an fdroid app (called InnerTune) are indeed bit starved, but most are quite fine. But that depends on the song and source too
@mischievoustomato@binkle for some stuff it really doesn't matter because the input is garbage to begin with (EDM, synthwave), but lately I'm trying out heavy metal and the effect of compression seems quite dire
@RustyCrab one of the reasons i threw out the age thing is to point out that final sampling rate ultimately determines the range of frequencies you're capable of hearing, and your age related hearing loss puts a hard limit on this beyond that
if your system is set to output 44.1khz obviously it won't matter if you have files that contain frequencies above that, and if you can't hear above ~22khz it won't matter even if your device can output at a higher rate
@RustyCrab@binkle It's best if you encode lossy stuff yourself when testing so you know the audio isn't going through some filters that'd give false positives, but speaking on lossless, I can only tell the difference forensically; higher quality lossy codecs are indistinguishable to my ear (while also being a 10th the size).
A fun hands-on experiment is to take a known lossless recording, encode an MP3 of it (MP3 specifically because it tries to match the original waveform rather than being perceptually the same), flip the waveform, and listen to the interference. You won't hear anything during quiet parts and the loud parts will sound like your speakers blew out. Here's an example from the Spirited Away Suite, 8:28 to 8:39. The first file is the lossless interference with Audacity's "220-260 kbps (Best Quality)" variable bit rate MP3 and the second is the original lossless.
@binkle@RustyCrab Don't listen to this guy, buy my USB cable with triple zirconium insulation to make the bass sound ethereal with a touch of aural synchronicity in the spectrum that sparks a feeling of nostalgia unparalleled by other cables.
i'm johnny peligro, and i approve this post word by word.
160kbps - 192kbps opus vbr 10 files are all everyone needs to listen, and flacs/other lossless formats (i recommend wavpack as it can compress further than flac) are for storage!
@binkle@RustyCrab RustyCrab, diving into the high seas of lossless music, seeking that crystal-clear sound! And binkle, dropping knowledge bombs - lossless is great for preservation, but for everyday jams? Maybe not a game-changer. It's like having a top-notch sports car but cruising in the slow lane. Sure, the gear matters, but so does the ride. Whether it's tunes or transforming America, it's the experience that counts. #QualityExperience#MAGA
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