Re: What music are you listening to right now?
Reply #255 –
Going on a podcast I listen to and some half read follow up I did...
Online audio sources compress the audio (seemingly most do). To achieve higher sampling rates (quality) in less space by digitally approximating the sound (or somesuch

). Apparently some information can get lost and the ranges can be tampered with in the process. It seems complicated.

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Audio Fundamentals, Compression Techniques & Standards )
For my part, a CD just sounds better. And I don't see any real quality difference between digital audio and other formats. Vinyl Has its own distortions and downloaded music is just lacking something in the ranges (or overcompensating). Having the ranges peek differently for different speaker setups, e.g. portable speakers or headphones, makes sense, but there's often distortions I have to tweak out with the equalizer for my setup. Same song from a CD requires less manipulation on my part. Feels to me like the edge of the ranges lose something too. Songs I've ripped from CD stay at way more balanced and consistent levels. Without tweaking low & mid ranges. But then what sounds right to me and someone else can vary. The
psycoacustical part of it explains 'the loundness war'. Louder is better to a point. And sometimes I might push up the middle switches on the equalizer where you'd of left them alone. So you probably are right in that it doesn't much matter. Hi-res is just a throwaway term for a different sample rate and less or no compression. At any rate the loss isn't critical to enjoying some music.
I wish Youtube would standardize loudness for all its content. At least under 80dB @ half volume. You'll barely be able to hear one thing, then the next vid in que is like
but I'd definitely like to have one that could play my 78 rpm records.
Idk if I've ever gave real attention to the difference between 78s and like LPs. I assume higher sample rates with less on the disc? Prolly not much difference swapping digital glitches for mechanical noise.