Albums available in audiophile 96kHz/24bit

[Hat]

It's clearly the same mixes.

[jonisdead]

Which songs? All sound the same to me out of what I've checked out. A different mix would even be noticeable on a low quality stream.

 

But its always funny when mixing for others how people react differently to things that haven't been changed.

 

It's clearly the same mixes.

 

Do you guys actually have FLAC files of the original songs from every album? I'd have a better reference point naturally if I had those, but I don't so I'm basing off of the jump from 320 to FLAC (even if it is an upscale). What I did notice from the get-go was that Drones though was exactly the same.

[haze015]

Do you guys actually have FLAC files of the original songs from every album? I'd have a better reference point naturally if I had those, but I don't so I'm basing off of the jump from 320 to FLAC (even if it is an upscale). What I did notice from the get-go was that Drones though was exactly the same.

 

Just get the CDs, must be enough of them going cheap these days.

[sventington]

7digital seems to have a bunch of FLAC files available

[jonisdead]

I'm probably an idiot, I'm chalking up the differences I'm hearing to the fact I haven't heard anything pre-TR on FLAC before. I'd have to compare those FLACs to the supposed remasters to actually have a valid opinion on it but odds are as you've all said it's the same thing.

[haze015]

I'm probably an idiot, I'm chalking up the differences I'm hearing to the fact I haven't heard anything pre-TR on FLAC before. I'd have to compare those FLACs to the supposed remasters to actually have a valid opinion on it but odds are as you've all said it's the same thing.

 

You don't "hear" FLAC, its just a way of losslessly compressing PCM audio. So a 16/44.1 FLAC is CD audio essentially.

 

It serves no purpose to remaster a number of albums just for a niche product when those original masters would exist in that format anyway in most cases. Might see it for a vinyl release though, which has specific requirements.

Plenty of older albums are remastered because of poorly done masters in the early days of digital, or just trying to make them louder, a post-2000 set of albums though? A bit pointless really.

 

Listening in PCM won't create the illusion of a different mix, at least from 128k upwards mp3s, the differences are difficult to describe accurately. Plus those clips would be a lossy format of some kind, no one is streaming 24/96 right now! Let alone clips!

Edited May 24, 2016 by haze015

[jonisdead]

You don't "hear" FLAC, its just a way of losslessly compressing PCM audio. So a 16/44.1 FLAC is CD audio essentially.

 

It serves no purpose to remaster a number of albums just for a niche product when those original masters would exist in that format anyway in most cases. Might see it for a vinyl release though, which has specific requirements.

Plenty of older albums are remastered because of poorly done masters in the early days of digital, or just trying to make them louder, a post-2000 set of albums though? A bit pointless really.

 

Listening in PCM won't create the illusion of a different mix, at least from 128k upwards mp3s, the differences are difficult to describe accurately. Plus those clips would be a lossy format of some kind, no one is streaming 24/96 right now! Let alone clips!

 

Regardless, those lossy clips still sound better than my 256/320 files.

[haze015]

Regardless, those lossy clips still sound better than my 256/320 files.

 

Which is impressive as they sound exactly the same.

[jonisdead]

Which is impressive as they sound exactly the same.

 

I mean you can tell me that all you'd like, I've heard the lossy files I have hundreds and hundreds of times with the same headphones, and these other clips sound far different so... reality is subjective etc etc you don't exist I don't exist

[haze015]

I mean you can tell me that all you'd like, I've heard the lossy files I have hundreds and hundreds of times with the same headphones, and these other clips sound far different so... reality is subjective etc etc you don't exist I don't exist

 

There's this wonderful thing called "null" testing. This isn't as subjective as you'd think.

[jonisdead]

There's this wonderful thing called "null" testing. This isn't as subjective as you'd think.

 

I know what a null hypothesis is, my career is based around it. You're asserting now that the files are the same yet in a previous post you admitted there are differences, but to you they're difficult to describe "properly". Which is it, then? I think I know damn well the difference between a placebo effect and not, if the mix is flat then it's flat, if it's vibrant then it's vibrant. The sample clips sound almost entirely different from the files that I have, and it's silly to backtrack on your initial claim that it's "difficult" to articulate the sonic differences and say instead that there are no differences. I don't have to articulate them, the differences speak for themselves. The FLAC encoded file contains more musical information than the 320, and unless it really were an upcode (which it isn't) then I wouldn't be hearing any differences at all in my monitors or my headphones.

[haze015]

I know what a null hypothesis is, my career is based around it. You're asserting now that the files are the same yet in a previous post you admitted there are differences, but to you they're difficult to describe "properly". Which is it, then? I think I know damn well the difference between a placebo effect and not, if the mix is flat then it's flat, if it's vibrant then it's vibrant. The sample clips sound almost entirely different from the files that I have, and it's silly to backtrack on your initial claim that it's "difficult" to articulate the sonic differences and say instead that there are no differences. I don't have to articulate them, the differences speak for themselves.

 

The mixes sound the same to me.

 

And null testing in audio is not null hypothesis, its just a simple method of showing two bits of audio are the same by them cancelling each other out when put out of phase with each other.

 

There's a difference between articulating the artefacts of mp3 compression and claiming a different mix altogether.

 

Considering my dissertation was on the affects of compression and to what extent its legitimately perceivable, I think I'm in a far better position to talk about placebos regarding audio. Psychoacoustics is a wonderful area and also quite scary how easy it is to fool the ears.

[Hat]

It's amazing how some people believe that they're above placebo, which is exactly why placebo works.

 

Can you describe exactly what's different with the mix and in which song?

[haze015]

It's amazing how some people believe that they're above placebo, which is exactly why placebo works.

 

My favourite forms of it are quite subtle. Like if you go to tune your guitar and pick the wrong string, as you expect to be tuning the one you're doing, you perceive the pitch as changing, but never right. Or having controls that do nothing for people who you don't want to change things, tell them its the control for whatever and they'll perceive it as doing that.

 

Its the whole basis of the audiophile industry.

[Hat]

A bit unrelated but I used to have problems with the volume suddenly getting a bit lower, but it happened quite slowly, so whenever I said "THERE, NOW" to someone, they didn't notice it. But I could swear that it was, even though the volume control stayed the same. So I would have the raise the volume, but then after a while the volume would go back up just as much as it had gone down earlier, and all of the sudden the music was too loud. Still didn't show up in the volume control. I was going mad

 

Then I replaced the audio drivers, and after that I never had any problems. Placebo? Or was I just imagining the whole issue? I of course believe that I fixed the problem, but I could never prove to anyone else that it was happening

[haze015]

A bit unrelated but I used to have problems with the volume suddenly getting a bit lower, but it happened quite slowly, so whenever I said "THERE, NOW" to someone, they didn't notice it. But I could swear that it was, even though the volume control stayed the same. So I would have the raise the volume, but then after a while the volume would go back up just as much as it had gone down earlier, and all of the sudden the music was too loud. Still didn't show up in the volume control. I was going mad

 

Then I replaced the audio drivers, and after that I never had any problems. Placebo? Or was I just imagining the whole issue? I of course believe that I fixed the problem, but I could never prove to anyone else that it was happening

 

A couple of weeks ago my headphones started putting out sound through one channel with the laptop headphone out, so quickly hooked up to my interface and the headphones were fine, so back to the headphone out on the laptop and everything was fine.

 

Then there was issue of incoming audio into DAWs being 20db lower than they should be. :'( It is like being gaslighted constantly with this stuff!

 

Could be worse though, could own vintage synthesisers

 

 

The FLAC encoded file contains more musical information than the 320, and unless it really were an upcode (which it isn't) then I wouldn't be hearing any differences at all in my monitors or my headphones.

 

Didn't see this.

 

No it doesn't contain more "musical" information, just more data, some of which is debatably not perceivable due to particular psychoacoustic phenomenon, so lossy compression "removes" it. The more heavily, the more risk of audible artefacts.

Also I didn't say it was an upscale of a 320k mp3, the PCM data is available (A red book standard 16/44.1k CD, of which I own most on) and its easy to perform sample rate conversion with that and have something better than an mp3. You've claimed yourself you've not these albums in PCM format. You seem very confused about all these formats and also trying to claim things that I cannot replicate and not for lack of trying!

I'm comparing those clips to Spotify and the rips I have of the CDs, which were generally purchased when the albums were released using a MOTU Ultralite 3, KRK VXT6's and AKG K702's. Absolution here sounds no different to a rip of the CD with the incorrect track listing or Spotify streaming at 320k!

 

Any subtle change to any mix would still be noticeable, even with mp3. Any "colour" as a result of a format, digital or analogue, doesn't mean a different mix or master.

Edited May 24, 2016 by haze015

[jonisdead]

It's amazing how some people believe that they're above placebo, which is exactly why placebo works.

 

Can you describe exactly what's different with the mix and in which song?

 

I will based on the clips alone, the main differences I noticed months ago when I originally heard those clips as well as the ones I've noticed now were largely the same as well, and I picked up on a few other differences. I'll list them out when I'm done with this massive project