Sick of the mp3 thing

[arv_foh]

well the bottom line is that most consumers are listening to their music on...

1.) iPod headbuds
2.) home stereos
3.) consumer computer speaker systems
4.) laptops

These systems are simply not capable of producing any difference between MP3 V0/256 AAC/FLAC. So why are companies going to offer a format that costs more for them (band width/server space, etc) when the majority of the market doesn't demand it? Sucks, but that's the bottom line, that AEs and audiophiles are a very small percentage of the total music market. A lot of audiophiles buy their music on vinyl, but that's definitely not supported as a major format by the music market, and honestly we probably can't expect FLAC to be either.

TBH, I can't hear a difference between MP3 V0/MP3 320/256 AAC/FLAC on my monitoring setup.

 

[Dexter_prog]

TBH, I can't hear a difference between MP3 V0/MP3 320/256 AAC/FLAC on my monitoring setup.

I would love to know if all of those here saying that lossless sounds better than 320/V0 have done proper blind tests... I believe that audiophilia (?) is sooo close to religion.

 

[Jind]

Rituals aside, I do think the ease of accessibility to music makes the entire experience feel a little more disposable.

Whenever I get the time I really like to flip the lights off, fire up an entire record, and just chill on the couch, staring at the ceiling. It's a way of listening to music that I don't think gets indulged in much anymore. I would think most consume it on the move, or as filler during other tasks in their daily lives... which is an attitude that fairly reflects how most of them acquire the music too.

Vinyls resurgence was a very welcome thing to me - I can't tell you how happy I have been since so much stuff is being also released in vinyl format. I actually enjoy having to get up to flip the disc It warms my soul.

 

[Max Morton]

Though I am unable to hear the difference between 256 and wav in most cases, the simple phase reverse between the wav and 320 made me feel like I'll never gonna enjoy the mp3 again))
http://www,maxmorton.com/wav_minus_320.mp3

here they are - the lost transients, the approximation algorithms that work in HF range, all that shit, naked!

 

[midget donkeys]

I listen to CD's alot because I end up breaking or misplacing all small tech devices such as mp3 players. But then again I also have no idea how to send a text message, thought Skype was the evil computer shit in the Terminator and live basically like a cave man.

When mp3's first came out they indeed sounded like dog poo. Now they sound way better, but I can still hear difference on my big home stereo speakers. On crappy ear buds not so much.

 

[Ermz]

hahahaha

i quit the industry because i was helping to perpetuate the cycle that you yourself are always fucking bitching about. you want change, but you wont do anything to get it, so fuck you, i will indulge your reply no more.

all this fucking pessimism and cynicism and apathy and no joy from a bunch of musicians and artists. disgusting.

No, you quit the industry because you couldn't handle the demands of working simple low-level projects with indie bands. It's easy to try and glorify the reasons retrospectively.

To my knowledge I'm not helping perpetuate anything other than bringing about my clients' desire to translate their music on record as they want it. None of them thus far have been 'manufactured' acts, signed to majors, nor in any way large enough to make a significant (negative?) impact on the industry. What would I want to change about that? I'm living the dream I set out 6 years ago.

Though not sure what any of this has to do with the thread in the least.

@Bormoleos: Scary stuff, but... you encoded the comparison in mp3?

@Dexter: Does it really have to be called audiophilia? I was hoping there would be unanimous acceptance that this is a problem on an engineering board of all places. It's scary that the day has already come that people have to defend their reasons for wanting CD-quality audio... much less some improvement (like 24/96 releases in the future).

@egan/jangoux: Yeah, that's the issue. There is no vote to be had.

It just comes down to the simple fact that it would be good to have the option. I imagine this will become an increasing problem as time goes on and mp3 becomes even more of an accepted standard.

I don't really care that the vast majority of music listeners are near deaf, and treat music the same way they would a trip to the toilet. I want to at least be given the option to enjoy a product in the way I do it best - the rest can keep their mp3s.

I recently heard that iTunes don't offer it because they 'can't afford the server/bandwidth costs'. Not sure how true that is, but somehow I would think the company who almost single-handedly toppled the music industry, and is now trying to monopolize its digital sales has a bit more responsibility (and cash) than that. Not to mention that the amount of people who would want to use the 'full quality' option would probably be below the 1% mark.

iTunes needs to support FLAC.

 

[jangoux]

You know what is funny? I remember a few years ago everyone talking about how MP3 pro or whatever would kick Mp3's ass in terms of quality and due to some corporate bullshit, it died. As much as technology has evolved, bandwidth augmented, there's not a single format even close to taking over Mp3's place and that may be the biggest issue. I know there's flac and bunch of other lossless formats, there's no widespread acceptance to no one of 'em. My car stereo doesn't support it, my cell phone doesn't support it, most mp3 players doesn't support it, so in the end, nobody wants to put money on something that won't be bought by a lot of people.

On a side note ahah Before xmas, a client left 18 songs to be mastered at the studio I work on. I was doing some M/S shit on a few songs, solo'ed the sides and BAM, I felt like I was talking to that star wars robot. The mofo sent a bunch of songs on 128k mp3 and then converted it to wave. I told him not to do so, but he did, so I ended up doing the job and getting paid. It is funny/sad but that kinda proves the fact that the average listener don't give a damn.

 

[egan.]

Apple has apple lossless and it's supported by all of their devices. The infastructure is there. I agree with Ermin than the bandwidth/server space issue should be a non issue for apple....especially if they charged 10-20% more for the lossless albums which they certainly would.

 

[Kazrog]

The average person CAN hear a difference, I argue, on a proper system. But hardly anybody has one of those anymore.

 

[Kazrog]

Apple has apple lossless and it's supported by all of their devices. The infastructure is there. I agree with Ermin than the bandwidth/server space issue should be a non issue for apple....especially if they charged 10-20% more for the lossless albums which they certainly would.

Every year I write Apple and ask them to do this. Every year I get no response. They still haven't done it. Fuckers.

In all seriousness, I think it's a conflict of interest - they wouldn't be able to advertise the storage capacity in terms of songs the same way anymore on their iPods and iPhones. They don't want to get sued for false advertising, nor do they want to market the song storage space in a conditional way, because most people wouldn't understand.

 

[GarethSE]

No, you quit the industry because you couldn't handle the demands of working simple low-level projects with indie bands. It's easy to try and glorify the reasons retrospectively.

um
YES
HAHAHAHAHA

 

[paladin shredder]

The only way I could see an improvement in the quality of audio files to be not only available to the consumers, but popular amongst consumers, is if apple decided to make a some kind of marketing strategy to make lossless formats available on itunes, and put a shitload of promotion behind it, calling them "high fidelity files" or something like that.

they would have to cost more than the regular mp3, which could in itself motivate people to buy them over mp3's, simply for bragging rights, "dude, the latest song sounds soo much better in this new format!! i'm going to buy all of my songs in this format now!" the question is, what could they change to make the average consumer notice a difference?

answer: surround sound mixes. think about it, all of your movies are in surround sound, why not our music? obviously, this already exists, but has not been a success at all for the music industry. that is why you would need a big company like apple to market it. maybe even make surround sound headphones that come with the new iphone or something, in their "premium package." but of course, not too expensive, just enough for the handful of kids at school with rich parents to buy it for them.

bottom line, is its all politics and marketing. they need to create a demand for something people don't know yet that they want. the lables need to look at how bluray and dvds became a success, and copy that.

 

[Ermz]

You make a fair point, but i think the relative failure of surround is due to how hard surround systems are to install properly. Most consumers just throw the speakers wherever. Lets not even go into how difficult it is to create a treated control room for surround mixing too.

 

[GarethSE]

DVD's may be surround mixes, but DVD is a very lossy format. I think the audio on most DVD's is 192kbps, but don't quote me on that.

(I could really go for more surround mixes that really take advantage of such a format though.)

 

[egan.]

SACD and DVDA were both viable, great sounding surround formats that arrived and died within the last decade. Surround has failed as a music format repeatedly b/c there simply isn't much of a market.

 

[paladin shredder]

true to both points. they would kind of have to be a reinventing the wheel kind of thing. surround sound headphones would have to be what would make the whole thing work. probably about the size of regular ear buds to make them look cool, with marketing like "soo much sound in such a small device!! latest technology blah blah blah!" however, making a device that you could hook up to an already installed surround sound (regardless of if it's properly set up) would be a big selling point as well.

possibly a new digital audio format that is loss less with 5 audio channels, and hell, even give it 10db more headroom over regular formats. that way when comparing any other file format to it, it would sound better immediately to the average listener because it's louder and you wouldn't have to squash your mix to do so.

so you have a new audio device (quite possibly a phone as well) new kind of headphones, and new audio format. this would be a pretty ballsy move if a company were to try this, however, if it were done successfully, this could change the music industry.

edit: egan, the key would be marketing. you would have to target younger audiences. you have to make them want it. make mp3's totally lame, thats how your mom and dad listened too in the 90's! our new thing is way cooler and better! blah blah blah.

 

[egan.]

Don't forget content. You would need to convince some major players to get behind you and historically even Sony has failed to do this despite being the parent company of a huge record label empire (part of my "I wanted SACD to be THE format" rant).

 

[Axonic Rot]

DVD's may be surround mixes, but DVD is a very lossy format. I think the audio on most DVD's is 192kbps, but don't quote me on that.

The lossless audio on a dvd movie can be up 24-bits/96 kHz.

 

[paladin shredder]

egan: totally agreed. you would need pretty much all of the big companies behind this; apple for product manufacturing, warner bros and disney for music, and wallmart and amazon.com for distribution. not to mention getting advertising on all the tv networks. the problem in the past i think has been the companies target audience: audiophiles. lets face it, if they were to market a product a product to kids/teens/young adults, it would explode. and really, its not about inventing totally new technology either, its taking existing technology to a new market.

edit: haha, I even thought of a name, the i5 (iphone with 5.1 surround sound, unrelated to that thingy audix makes)

 

[Sloan]

bandcamp.com lets you upload raw .wavs and customers can purchase whatever format they want. it's what i use for http://www.sloanstewart.com