Neil Young Says MP3 Isn't Good Enough; Neither Are CDs

Page 4 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Guide community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.

jecastej

Distinguished
Apr 6, 2006
134
0
18,630
One word, "DAC" for your computer devices. Get a good one.

Recently I started to update my 13 year old stereo system, and long story short what we the listeners need first is a decent DAC (Digital Analog Converter), and not to be confused with any PCI or USB soundcard but a proven DAC. That, and at least 256-320 bit rate files are the first step if you care for decent audio coming from your computer, laptop, mp3, phone, tablet or streaming system. These good DACs bypass the cheap DAC used in the motherboards, even on high end ones and reproduce the sound with much better quality. Yes, they all specify 192kHz/24bit, but just a few and more expensive ones are really Hi-Fi. However you could expect decent options for $150.

The next step will be to get our music in a better file format such as the "uncompressed" ones and obviously better audio components.

On the main topic I think better audio formats and devices will be available in a few years and those Neil Young proposes are simply put not viable yet but could make sense with a faster internet and more powerful portable players. Remember we come from the years when the mighty Walkman was all you could expect on the go and it was even good enough. But not all Walkman were made equal and more often the cheap ones where the most popular devices.
 

jaybus

Distinguished
Oct 20, 2006
31
0
18,580
[citation][nom]Thunderfox[/nom]How can someone as old as Niel Young have the hearing capacity to distinguish between an MP3 and anything else?[/citation]

Sorry, but people are not created with equal hearing. Perhaps there is a reason some people are such accomplished musicians. Perhaps they are so good with music precisely because they happened to be born with exceptional hearing? Just a thought.
 

n3ard3ath

Distinguished
Dec 11, 2008
118
0
18,630
[citation][nom]cchambers[/nom]I think most people today value convenience over quality. Therefore, I don't see a big enough demand for this higher quality music in my lifetime. Personally, I'd love it.[/citation]

What does convenience have to do with quality? As long as a popular device starts to adopt a higher quality medium, it becomes convenient.
 
G

Guest

Guest
I have listened to and purchased music in a wide variety or formats, from 256kbps MP3 to 24/192FLAC, from vinyl to CD's SACD's and DVD Audio. I have a high quality component stereo system with full range tower speakers. The conclusion that I have come to is that the quality of mastering is the single biggest factor that defines how transparent the music sounds. Overcompression and loudness during the mastering process will ruin the sound far more than a reasonable lossy codec. That said, we have the bandwidth and storage capacities now, and I am perplexed that more online stores don't offer music in a lossless format.
 
G

Guest

Guest
What we need are more live Neil Young performances. The very BEST in lossless audio :)
 

mcd023

Distinguished
Nov 9, 2010
144
0
18,630
I recently hooked up a record player and played some of my dad's old vinyls and, I gotta say, it totally makes me hate cds. I've also downloaded a few 24bit/192kHz audio files just to here what they sound like and (after being sure to adjust the default quality in Windows) I want nothing less now. Problem is that you cant' get it.
 

jaybus

Distinguished
Oct 20, 2006
31
0
18,580
How it sounds on current, average, high end, etc. etc. playback systems is not the issue. Most people cannot tell the difference? Nonsense. I think most people can tell the difference between live music versus music played back on a sound system, no? The point is, someday the playback equipment will very likely be good enough to sound just like live music. It will be a pity if today's recordings suck on those future playback systems simply due to inadequate or "good enough" recording techniques. The real problem with MP3 and CD is that it sets the "good enough" level for the master digital recordings. That is a pity, and I think what Mr Young is protesting. The digital master recordings should be made such that they are better, or at least as good, as the human ear.....not just good enough for CD or DVD or whatever. That way the music will be preserved for future generations who will have much better sound systems than we have. To them, CDs will sound old and distorted.

And BTW, Neil Young has been protesting digital recording techniques for many years. I used to agree with him that recording should continue to use analog tape. But not now, because the technology exists to record digitally with much better SNR than analog tape and with greater dynamic range. Not to mention the fact that even the best of tape will degrade over time, and the digital recording will never degrade. The corporate-ized recording studios just don't do this, because it is cheaper to record with "good enough" quality.
 
G

Guest

Guest
there are sounds and waves that the human ear cannot hear, much like a dog whistle, the dogs can hear it but we cant, I understand what neil is saying, but he is not factoring in what humans can or cant hear, some of the compression technologies take what we cant hear out first, but of course if you compress it to much you cant hear the quality loss.
 

dimar

Distinguished
Mar 30, 2009
290
0
18,930
Fkn finally! 24-bit 192Khz or higher in 7.1 surround PCM as blu-ray audio is the way to go! As long as audio engineers know how to do this right. Of course, highest-end quality equipment such as amp and speakers is a must!

This also might create higher demand for high capacity SSDs in portable media players/phones. And maybe manufacturers will start concentrating on creating highest possible audio quality in those devices.
 

alidan

Distinguished
Aug 5, 2009
1,681
0
19,730
[citation][nom]ivaroeines[/nom]There is a problem with most blind tests is that most of them ( if not all ) are conducted on a system that are set up by the ones that make the test, the participants will then be unfamiliar with the sound of the test system. The human brain have a marvellous ability to "correct"/ mask faults in any given input, either it being visual or audible. Think about this, the last time you bought a tv, pc-monitor or sound system, what was your first impression, was the picture/ sound better or worse than your old one, my guess is that the first impression was that the picture/ sound was worse or that it wasnt any better. For it to be a blind test that shows a real picture the test need to be made on systems the testers are familiar with ( basically their own system ). I do believe that blind tests are important, but they need to be conducted in the right way, the audiovisual field is full of placebo effects, if you truly believe a component or format is better than another then the impression will be that is better even if it produces the same or poorer results. There are even some people that think that blue ray are better than VHS, that just shows how easily fooled people can be.[/citation]

lol calling vhs better than bluray...
lets look at it this way, it all depends on how its handled, old vhs and i mean really old, had the best quality in everything, and non of the imposed limits just for the sake of old school coppy right protection. there are many cases where the old vhs surpass dvd in quality, im unaware of any bluray that are effected this way, its mostly that the quality is to high and you see things that you shouldn't or cant on a dvd/ld/vhs version

i went from a crt monitor to a 22 inch 1920x1200 monitor. so yea... i defiantly know what the flaws and advantages are... but if i went from lcd to new lcd... it wouldn't so much be i know its better as much as i thing its better.

people who say they cant tell the difference between a hq mp3 and a flac are just lieing... some cases i can see it being true, like if the original recording was crap... nothing is going to fix that. but it comes out more in classical music, where you can hear the difference. also, listening to music through a 10-20$ earbuds or a sub 100$ skullcandy so crap like that headphones, no crap you cant hear the difference. in mp3, i can hear the flaws in the format, where a sound should be and so forth more than i can with an flac...

i believe that we need a set of standards...

1) a lossless audio format.
2) to use said lossless audio format in an mp3 player, you must have quality parts.
3) when selling said player, you either give them good headphones or none at all, and make sure they know if the quality isnt what they thought it would be, its their own fault.

this way the only way to get that format support is to have quality parts, not like now where most things that support flac dont have the ability to render it properly at all.

[citation][nom]southernshark[/nom]That's one thing I don't understand about this "tech" website. It seems to be full of people who ravenously stick to old technologies and old ways of doing things. It reminds me of the big box PC arguments where people bash smaller/lighter technologies.In any event, unlike the other "tech" people on here, I actually do like new tech and new ways of doing things. The current MP3 quality is very poor and we would certainly be better off and be capable of enjoying our music much more if we had higher quality formats.As such I hope that Neil is right and that new formats are presented to the public within a reasonable time frame. I see a lot of people investing in higher quality speakers, but the reality is that those speakers don't do you much good if you are listening to an MP3, or even a CD.[/citation]

probably because there is already a format that is good enough, and thats flac. and with new formats we have to deal with with new drm and all that crap till there is enough backlash that they are forced to drop the drm. and who wants a smaller computer... rather have a big as hell one just for airflow purposes.

[citation][nom]ProDigit10[/nom]it would be a lot better to just start recording music at 24 bit 48kHz.As for MP3, it is an outdated technology, much like a Pentium single core processor.Developed in the early 1990's, it's been superseded by OGG, which at this moment still rains as king.After OGG is AAC, which is extremely good for ultra low bitrate recordings (like speech and teachings for mobile media or web media).MP3 shines in no area.The only issue with 24 bit music, is that it is yet not compatible with OGG or AAC encoders.24 bit music has a dynamic range higher than the ear can hear (more than 144dB, which is also more than vinyls), and at 48kHz recordings (in reality are 24kHz recordings as they are 2x24kHz audio signals), with interpolation, is going beyond the range of the ear. The ear can only hear somewhere between 20Hz and 20kHz, most of them only 30Hz to 16kHz.So in essence, there is no reason why to go as far as developing a new medium. Just develop new hardware that is capable of encoding/decoding 24bit 48kHz audio into an OGG container, and you'll end up with an indistinguishable audio from the original, minus the cracks and pops and wear that vinyls have!Why waste infinite amounts of raw data that one can't hear anyways?It's like saying "Let's create a tv that records X and Gamma rays too!", that way our recordings of 1 minute video can increase in size drastically, but people won't notice a thing anyways, because their eyes are still limited to the visible frequencies![/citation]

people may not able to hear the audio, but you can precieve it.

[citation][nom]bigcatface[/nom]@nebum: who is neil young?! only one of rock and roll's greatest performers, you ******* penis.[/citation]

lol, i had to google him too. ill say he is good, but i dont like that style of music, at least what i hear on youtube of things he did.

[citation][nom]jaybus[/nom]How it sounds on current, average, high end, etc. etc. playback systems is not the issue. Most people cannot tell the difference? Nonsense. I think most people can tell the difference between live music versus music played back on a sound system, no? The point is, someday the playback equipment will very likely be good enough to sound just like live music. It will be a pity if today's recordings suck on those future playback systems simply due to inadequate or "good enough" recording techniques. The real problem with MP3 and CD is that it sets the "good enough" level for the master digital recordings. That is a pity, and I think what Mr Young is protesting. The digital master recordings should be made such that they are better, or at least as good, as the human ear.....not just good enough for CD or DVD or whatever. That way the music will be preserved for future generations who will have much better sound systems than we have. To them, CDs will sound old and distorted. And BTW, Neil Young has been protesting digital recording techniques for many years. I used to agree with him that recording should continue to use analog tape. But not now, because the technology exists to record digitally with much better SNR than analog tape and with greater dynamic range. Not to mention the fact that even the best of tape will degrade over time, and the digital recording will never degrade. The corporate-ized recording studios just don't do this, because it is cheaper to record with "good enough" quality.[/citation]
lets hope that you mean live as in quality of sound, not as in live recording... if its just the instruments... live is fairly good... if you add in a voice... i cant stand the live versions of most songs. it comes down to a you have to be there to like it kind of thing.
 

jecastej

Distinguished
Apr 6, 2006
134
0
18,630
jaybus, I get you on the quality engineering for the master. Going back to the vinyl years I got some higher quality mastering recordings that were outstanding and Grammy awarded for the higher engineering in them. Many came from a series of Original Mastering Recording series and they were Half-speed Mastered vinyl on limited editions. A very prestigious series came from Sheffield Lab. They sounded as good as I ever heard something in my life on a very good stereo but also sounded very well on average components.

Now, try to hear those same recordings on compressed formats and you will be missing all the fun. I did. I'am telling you anyone could hear that difference so it is a very good idea to preserve the music on high quality masters. The better sound components will get cheaper and at the time people will want to get all the good sound a master could give.
 

wild9

Distinguished
May 20, 2007
456
0
18,930
[citation][nom]D_Kuhn[/nom]I was around for the record era, the tape era, the cd era... and the fad around record player sound quality is just that... a fad. People assume that since records are analog, they must automatically have better dynamic range and frequency response than digital formats... wich is absurd. Records have more limited frequency response (the mechanical bandwidth of the system is limiting) as well as issues with dynamic range (soft vs. loud), channel separation and playback device inherent noise injection (you're mechanically scraping a needle along inside a channel). Even back when records were king, everyone knew there were better ways to record and playback audio. Reel to reel was the audiophile device of choice. These days because records are getting rare, people are ascribing some super-physical properties to what is essentially an archaic audio storage medium... don't believe them. With a minimum of cost you can have a modern playback system that will objectively outperform records... and as far as subjective - since it's generally easy to detect the artifacts introduced by the 'record' media, it's virtually impossible to carry out a truely blind study since people sucked into the record fad will detect the audio defects and skew the results.You could potentially improve the playback performance of records by using a noncontact measurement (laser displacement most likely), but even then you'll have replication errors and be limited by the fact that the media was designed to be mechanically read back (limitations at higher frequencies). A high end digital system with lossless recording (FLAC) will far more accurately reproduce the original content... you may prefer how media encoding like making a record CHANGES that content (to make it more pleasing to your ear)... but I'd prefer to have the artists intent on file and then tweak using an effects rig (either digital on analog) to get the pleasing sound. (jmo)[/citation]

I think this debate will still be taking place some years down the line.
I still attest to vinyl sounding superior, and don't consider it a fad. If digital formats were superior to vinyl, then how come so many people still rate the former as being better to their ears?

I think that numbers, like synthetic benchmarks we often see with CPU’s, are only half the story. Naturally, the way vinyl decodes and delivers sound is fundamentally different to digital. You can hear the difference. The benefits far outweigh the physical limitations as well as the noise and distortion. It sounds inviting. Most of the CD’s I have collected over the years, compress the vocals and I don’t like that. I like the sound to jump out at me and engross me. I’ve gone through no end of CD players and amps, looking for the recommended combo and time after time, I turn to the retro side. So I’m still looking for a digital sound format that can come close to a good record. I have listened to digital through a range of audio equipment from cheap stereo hi-fi’s to high-end audio separates (including vale mono blocks, panel speakers and top-rated Beyer Dynamic audiophile headphones).

One of the few digital PC products that seems to stand out, is the Creative range including even their cheap sound cards (like the Soundblaster 512), however their driver stability and support has pulled a few hairs in the past. Their standalone products seem quite decent (remember the MuVo Mp3 player/flash disk? Very nice sound of such a humble device).

For restoring analogue media, I just don’t like digital. If an album is properly mastered in digital, then I can live with it. If I had a choice, I’d probably opt for vinyl. So for a new digital format, I look forward to being wrong, I can’t wait to try it out. But I personally think it will simply be a case of hey, let’s milk the cow’s some more by selling over-commercialised sludge.

I think in terms of outright sound quality a new digital format would make an inferior solution slightly more bearable but still not as good as its analogue predecessor. In my ears the format would I think be better compared only to CD.

p.s. Have you ever tried recording vinyl onto Betamax tape? I like the sound you get off these but if anyone is interested in this, use caution: if you don’t connect it right you can cause physical damage to your equipment. I like the ability to 'go into the red' on even a modest recorder, and push more out of the tape.
 

olaf

Distinguished
Oct 23, 2011
126
0
18,630
that is such horse crap. the maina streem user cant discern the diference. i like the fact that my music fits on a 200gb drive. i am not concerned about the dl size. i how ever hate the fact that it eats a lof of disc space.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Whoever wrote this article should understand waht they are talking about.
"The format uses 1-bit sampling at 2.8224 MHz, which is 64 times higher than the 44.1 KHz used by CDs."
Righhhhht... CDs use stereo 16 bit samples at 44.kHz which means 441000 x 16 x 2 which is 1.4112 MHz.
Half the bistream mentioned.
SA-CDs are much higher, I believe 4.2336MHz.
 

Ephebus

Distinguished
Apr 14, 2008
22
0
18,560
You can't edit or delete posts here anymore, not even in the forums. My previous post correctly formatted below.

* * *

Neil Young is totally right, but the main issue is what a few people have mentioned - the loudness war. People need to spread the word on this as much as possible:

Turn Me Up! Bringing Dynamics Back To Music

Wikipedia - Loudness war

The Loudness War

Another Loudness War Example

Iron Maiden - Fighting the loudness war

Curmudgeon by Nirvana (1992 vs. 2004) - The Loudness War

CD's tagged on Amazon.com as "victim of the loudness war"
 

applegetsmelaid

Distinguished
Apr 22, 2010
234
0
18,830
People don't value high quality audio because it cannot be interpreted by vision. Once people understand that sound affects the listener beyond the range of audible interpretation will they begin to value the quality of what they listen to. Sound is wave energy. There are measuring tools that measure perceived loudness (i.e. EBU), a scale other than dBfs.

Once people understand objectively (visual measurement) and spiritually (i.e. Plato's philosophy of music and the soul) will they even begin to consider high quality audio. Otherwise, they will continue to obliviously purchase audio in the "fast food" of music stores: itunes and friends.
 

joefx69

Distinguished
Nov 13, 2010
3
0
18,510
Its official. Toms Hardware is now only read by 100% cunts, as im leaving. Goodbye brain dead Darwinian knightmares, may you all drown slowly in your own drool
 

blurr91

Distinguished
Jan 9, 2004
171
0
18,630
Why spend the extra effort to reproduce sounds that human cannot hear? Sometimes good is good enough. It doesn't have to be excellent.

Here's a perfect example. LED light sources does not reproduce the entire electromagnetic spectrum the way sun does. It doesn't even produce most of the visible light portion of the spectrum. Yet we use them and love them. Why? They are efficient, small, light, and above all, does decent imitation of real light.

I like my incandescent light. I like the warm yellow glow it produces. It's much closer to sunlight than any other type of light source. But we now have people telling us it's "bad for the environment" and want to ban this technology.

Ironic....
 

A Bad Day

Distinguished
Nov 25, 2011
344
0
18,930
Right now, the only internet users that won't really mind the giant music files are the ones in South Korea. More than a year ago, SK's government announced all internet users in the country would have at least 1 gigabit connections.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.