murphy--occult.jpe
LED is pretty good, though. Difference between the cheap ones and the good ones is like $15 but since they last 10 years, that's not much. CFLs are the soy ones.
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@p @sjw @mintplague
I've done it some 10 years ago, with songs I was very familiar with and some decent headphones. Don't know if I could still do it now cause... well 10 years can have an effect on your hearing, but I know first hand that the difference is there.
In any case, the main thing was "If I can't tell the difference then I don't know why I should care", who can hear things isn't super relevant, but if someone brings their own headphones and I play mp3s and FLACs and oggs and they outperform a coin-toss, I'll quit drinking coffee forever.
@p @sjw @mintplague
Here's the issue with "experimental data".
a) these experiments usually involve random volunteers on the street that know jack shit about music, or worse think Kesha is the queen of music.
b) these experiments involve clips of music that you'll listen to for the first time, and won't get enough time to get familiarized with any of the details.
Basically, these experiments are usually the equivalent of telling an average person to tell the difference between the Mona Lisa and a high quality counterfeit and are give a few minutes time. Just because YOU can't tell the difference, doesn't mean it isn't there and that it isn't important. And once you notice the difference the first time, it's so blatant that it will scream at you forever more.
Sure, for some tracks I don't care about codec and bitrate either. I have a silly Boxxy song remix in my library downloaded from Youtube, just cause it's silly and hilarious, but it's by no means a musical accomplishment that would gain a benefit from a lossless codec.
And then there's the stuff I really care about, like Nightwish, for which MP3 feels like you're putting cotton in my ears just before playing the songs.
Thankfully there actually are lossy audio codecs that can indeed accomplish transparency, like AAC and OPUS. For songs where the difference between MP3 and FLAC were obvious, I have NEVER been able to tell the difference between AAC at 256kbps or OPUS at higher than 128kbps and the lossless source.
If you're position is "there is no difference between lossless and a high enough bitrate lossy" I can absolutely agree. Just don't bring MP3 into the mix. It's absolutely the worst audio codec anybody could use.
And stop assuming that just because you don't know what to listen to as to be able to notice the difference that nobody else is able to. I've literally heard testimonies of people saying they can tell the difference between the in studio master and what gets released on an audio CD. For the life of me I've got no idea what they could possibly pick up on, but seeing as audio engineering is their job, I don't doubt that the feat itself is possible.
If you don't care, that's fine. You can listen to vinyl and think it's the best audio equipment for all I care. That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is your arrogance of assuming you know what other people can or can't distinguish in the things they enjoy.
Imagine if someone told you they can't tell the difference between Linux and Windows, and that no one else can.
> And stop assuming that just because you don't know what to listen to as to be able to notice the difference that nobody else is able to.
I didn't assume anything. I said everyone claims something, data shows something else, and I'll believe it when it can be demonstrated.
> What bothers me is your arrogance
Good luck, my ego is undefeated. It will probably outlive me. It will somehow manifest itself as flesh and terrorize the coastline. I think it ate a cat once but I can't prove this.> assuming you know what other people can or can't distinguish in the things they enjoy.
All I said was data shows one thing, and my subjective experience shows the same thing, and that I will bet it cannot be demonstrated. I can't say for certain that it does or does not exist, but I'm pretty skeptical. I laid out a test, I'll believe it when I see it. Same for dousing and spoon-bending and Russell's Teapot. I've seen stranger things that I thought were impossible. I do know that if I look at the decoded bitstream and it is bit-for-bit identical, then I can say that anyone that says they can hear the difference between them is mistaken, but that isn't always the case.
> Imagine if someone told you they can't tell the difference between Linux and Windows, and that no one else can.
There are qualitative differences. It can be demonstrated conclusively that they are different. If someone told me that was not true and that they'd quit drinking coffee forever if I proved that I could tell the difference, then I can't imagine getting upset about that. I'd have no reason to dump a wall of text. For all I know, they were just shitposting.
You can tell me that you don't think there's a difference between trees and rocks and that's trivial, it can be demonstrated that a tree and a rock are different. You absolutely cannot demonstrate your subjective experience to another person, by definition. It's possible to demonstrate that you can tell the difference, I'll change my mind when someone demonstrates that to me, I'm not invested either way so I'm not going to argue about this any more.
@p @sjw @mintplague
>data shows something else
You miss the point of Dolby's studies. Dolby isn't interested in checking if there's a difference between lossless and lossy codecs. They already know there is. They're responsibly for making a few of them for god's sake. They're interested in seeing whether the average person is educated enough and has good enough hearing to where they can actually sell them a better technology. They want to see if they can get everyone buying their new product, and unless they get like 90% positive rates, they'll declare it a failure, cause they're not interested in making niche products.
A decade ago when I was still looking this stuff up, I'd come across the same kind of studies, where yes, a vast majority of people couldn't tell the difference between 320 MP3 and lossless, or between AAC and MP3 etc. But in every single study, there was always a significant minority of people, large enough to be more than a blip in the radar, that could tell the difference.
And that's just in the random average population. When you actually start scouring forums and see the experiences and experiments done by people who actually know a thing or two, results get a lot more clearer.
I was skeptical too back then, until I saw how detailed people were describing what and how they were hearing differently between testing samples, and then I tried applying the same things myself in a proper ABX test via foobar2000, and got convinced that they weren't making stuff up.
What I've learned from back then about all of this is that if YOU can't tell the difference, there's 3 key potential reasons:
1) you don't have good enough equipment, which is the least likely and easiest to fix, as I did it with headphones that were like $50 and an onboard audio card.
2) you don't know what to pay attention to when you listen. For me, I found it easier to pay attention to higher notes and certain instruments, which makes it extra easy for MP3 as it's notorious for sucking at encoding high frequencies. But this might be different for everyone, based on
3) how good your hearing is. If your hearing sucks ass, I'm sorry for you, but there's nothing for you to do but admit it to yourself, and realize that there are some people out there that can indeed hear things you can't.
>There are qualitative differences. It can be demonstrated conclusively that they are different.
And there aren't for audio? Strange that you admit that the bitstream is different, and I'm sure you'd acknowledge that if you showed someone two side by side spectrograms they'd also see the difference. But you absolutely refuse to believe that'd be possible to hear the difference?
Don't know fam, I can browse the web, play games and edit documents just the same with both Windows and Linux. I can't tell the difference in a 2 minute test and I don't see how anyone else can.
@p @sjw @mintplague
>I said I'll belive it when I see it
Except it sounds more and more like you won't believe it unless you HEAR it for yourself. And it seems pretty clear that you're either not able to (for one reason or another) or didn't really try.
> Except it sounds more and more like you won't believe it unless you HEAR it for yourself.
I said "outperform a coin toss", not "I HAVE TO HEAR IT MYSELF". You're looking for a fight, there isn't one: I'll believe it when I see it, but until I do I'm going to continue rolling my eyes when someone says they can tell. I'm sure you can enjoy music just fine without my belief that you can hear something that doesn't change the voltage on the line enough to move a magnet a micron.
09 - All the People Envy New My Guitar.mp3
> But you absolutely refuse to believe
This is the opposite of what I said, isn't it? I said I'll belive it when I see it.
I did imply and will say that all the walls of text in the world aren't going to make me any less skeptical. I also don't care, I'm not arguing this, I'm not even reading it. You are not the first person to make this claim, I have heard it a million times. What do you wanna accomplish? If it's real and I'm a deaf idiot, you don't need to get defensive about it.
Here, have a shitty 128kbps mp3.
uksubs-iliveinacar.mp3