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General Music Thread


Hiroki
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I just hate digital downloads. Most new albums in the UK are like £7.99/£8.99 to buy whereas the cd is pretty much the same price it's madness.

 

Plus most download sites are shite, they offer FHG encoded mp3's (ugh), don't really know how to rip cd's and they are just bollocks.

 

Besides hard drives can fail at any time so you get more security for your money with a cd

really?! albums are around $15 for hard copy and $10 for download here. I have to admit I do pay to download cause its cheaper and few of the albums I want are at wal-mart (which means i'll have to pay for shipping too). I do back them up with a blank disc though so i'll never lose them.

 

Maybe it's just me (well, just me until anyone else who comes into this thread and might agree with me) but isn't the point of buying music.......mainly about so you can actually listen to the music?

 

Yeah, so to be fair if I had to pay the same amount for a download as I would a physical copy, fuck that, but if the price was reduced since they didn't need to put together any packaging or anything, it's fine by me. Just make some art work, make it downloadable in JPEG form and I'm all set, I couldn't give anymore of a fuck cos I'd be happy that what I bought had quality MUSIC on it.

The production team and musicians set out to get some music down so to me the fact there is a physical copy with a little CD booklet etc just happens to be a bonus and if it's not there, either way, I don't care so much really.\

 

That said I did really feel uber excited upon receiving my Brand New Eyes Deluxe Box Set. Maybe not easy to picture a 20 year old guy jumping up and down and giggling like a little girl in excitement, but that's what I did when I got my Box set. Maybe at least for these kinda deluxe/limited edition type things those should at least be kept in physical form since it makes sense given you're gonna get all this stuff like posters/bigger booklets etc with it.

 

same. the only time i used a cd since i've gotten my ipod was when my ipod wasn't working (or when i'm in my car).

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really?! albums are around $15 for hard copy and $10 for download here. I have to admit I do pay to download cause its cheaper and few of the albums I want are at wal-mart (which means i'll have to pay for shipping too). I do back them up with a blank disc though so i'll never lose them.

You do loose quality though burning mp3's and what not to an audio cd format.

 

Is there no other places online you can buy albums cheaper?

 

btw £7.99 = $12.83 so almost the same price really.

 

I know! :lol: I might go along anyway, Young Guns are pretty good... Don't wanna have to 'sit' through the blackout though :???:

Thought you liked shite like ATL too?

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You do loose quality though burning mp3's and what not to an audio cd format.

 

Is there no other places online you can buy albums cheaper?

 

btw £7.99 = $12.83 so almost the same price really.

 

if it was $13 for a mp3 album I would buy cd's whenever i could. there probably is cheaper options but i don't have a job right now and therefore i don't have credit cards (and don't like using them in the first place). amazon sells used cd's for cheap but i'm not sure if i would want to take that risk (and once you spend a certain amount of money shipping is free but i can't remember what that number is). i only burn cds to audio cd format for my car and for backup (as technology can fail). i still like itunes and other mp3 sites cause if i only like two songs off the album i only have to pay for those two songs.

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So who do you think has been the most influencial band/artist this decade?

 

if it was $13 for a mp3 album I would buy cd's whenever i could. there probably is cheaper options but i don't have a job right now and therefore i don't have credit cards (and don't like using them in the first place). amazon sells used cd's for cheap but i'm not sure if i would want to take that risk (and once you spend a certain amount of money shipping is free but i can't remember what that number is). i only burn cds to audio cd format for my car and for backup (as technology can fail). i still like itunes and other mp3 sites cause if i only like two songs off the album i only have to pay for those two songs.

I see what your saying. I use amazon marketplace a LOT and always have good service and I goto indie record stores to buy albums cheap.....guess I have not really had a problem in buying music when money hasn't really been an option. Even when I was younger I used to save until I got the music I want.

 

Still i'd hate to see the physical format die out!

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Digital music downloads is such a young industry, we would probably have major online stores (like iTunes) selling lossless downloads if it wasn't for the fact that most people are more concerned about stuffing as much stuff as possible into their portable media players than about the sound quality of the music they have. I rip my CDs in V2 and I'm perfectly happy with that. Me and the majority of the world are the bigger market, so lossy downloads are dominating right now, that's the unfortunate truth for the audiophiles. There are websites for lossless music as well if you guys really need/want them, though.

 

However, isn't audio compression just a remnant of the time when you needed a massive reduction of the filesize to fit them into a computer/transfer files via the internet? I can remember the explosion of mp3 somewhere around 1996-1997, and it sure came in handy back then, but technology's advanced since then, and at its current rate, it's inevitable that we'll ditch lossy formats for good somewhere in the future. Hypothetically, if that means we'll be buying all of our music in a downloadable format online, then I'm all for it. I buy CDs all the time, but I won't miss them if I have to make the switch to a cheaper and easier solution. After all, I want the actual music, and nothing else matters THAT much to me.

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Digital music downloads is such a young industry, we would probably have major online stores (like iTunes) selling lossless downloads if it wasn't for the fact that most people are more concerned about stuffing as much stuff as possible into their portable media players than about the sound quality of the music they have..

 

So this is a stupid question but what are loseless downloads? Does that mean its really close to CD quality and is that what itunes currently sells? Googling is just giving me a bunch of people bitching about downloads so I thought it would just be better to ask here.

 

on another note, has anyone heard the new Foo Fighter's single entitled "Wheels"? I don't like it ... at all :(

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So this is a stupid question but what are loseless downloads? Does that mean its really close to CD quality and is that what itunes currently sells? Googling is just giving me a bunch of people bitching about downloads so I thought it would just be better to ask here.

 

on another note, has anyone heard the new Foo Fighter's single entitled "Wheels"? I don't like it ... at all :(

 

It IS CD quality. It's basically the same exact quality you get from the real audio CD.

 

Itunes sells 256kbps or 320kbps.. not sure which, since I buy physical CDs.

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As it is, I don't even feel the need to have my music in lossless formats.

Audiophiles can talk shit about lossless vs lossy all they want, but heh, they can read this and stfu:

http://www.geocities.com/altbinariessoundsmusicclassical/mp3test.html

 

All along I've believed as long as you rip at 256 kbps or 320 Kbps you will not hear a squat of difference and there has been more than a few studies like these that confirm that.

Lossless 'sounds' better because we constantly reassure ourselves because we've gone to the effort to rip something that takes up more room on our hard drive it 'should' 'sound' better. Purely psychological.

Personally for me, the extra hard disk space of lossless doesn't make it worthwhile for me, and I'm happy with the stuff I have ripped at 256kbps (any lower and I can notice a difference though).

Mind you, I listen through studio monitors, I'm currently studying audio engineering and I play guitar regularly go to efforts to make sure it sounds as good as it possible can under the circumstances tone wise, so to an extent yes I am kinda an audiophile yet feel no need to go lossless.

 

I find I can't really trust the opinion of many audiophiles anyway.

"OH MAN, LOOK AT THIS NEW 100 000 SOUND SYSTEM I'VE BOUGHT, BUT IT DIDN'T SOUND AS GOOD AS I HOPED", "Did you try acoustic room treatment" " Huh?"

A lot of clueless audiophiles like that, as well as the ones that believe 10 000 dollar connector cables are actually better than quality ones that only have to cost about 100 bucks.

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It IS CD quality. It's basically the same exact quality you get from the real audio CD.

 

Itunes sells 256kbps or 320kbps.. not sure which, since I buy physical CDs.

 

Amazon and Itunes sell 256kbps (i looked at my library to confirm it).

 

@harry: thanks for the study. its definitely interesting to hear that. i can definitely tell from 128kps (as for some reason my silly itunes imported my old cd's in that format.. gonna have to reimport them sometime) but i can't tell much difference from the higher quality mp3's and the audio cd (but i'm also a band geek that probably has lost some hearing during high school).

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on another note, has anyone heard the new Foo Fighter's single entitled "Wheels"? I don't like it ... at all :(

I heard it, and I don't like it either :neutral: But I'm more looking forward to Them Crooked Vultures to be honest.

 

Anyone listened to the new Editors album ? I thought their first album was decent, but the new song "Papillon" is pure crap.

 

I actually like Papillon :shifty: Mainly for the "dew dewwwwwwww" riff (that was meant to be the sound of it btw :P) I think they use it on Sky Sports for the football - I know I heard it before somewhere. The video for the song makes no sense though. Lots of random blokes running about.

 

I downloaded the album at work and forgot to put it on my removable flash drive so I haven't listened yet.

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I actually like Papillon :shifty: Mainly for the "dew dewwwwwwww" riff (that was meant to be the sound of it btw :P) I think they use it on Sky Sports for the football - I know I heard it before somewhere. The video for the song makes no sense though. Lots of random blokes running about.

 

I downloaded the album at work and forgot to put it on my removable flash drive so I haven't listened yet.

 

Well to be fair I haven't listened to it that much and I have changed my mind before. I like that they have taken a chance and changed their sound totally.

 

I also like the beginning of it, but it just continues in the same riff and becomes anoying. Most of all it reminds me of Pet Shop Boys and then with a voice similar to Ian Curtis.

 

But I also hated the new The Killers album when I first listened to it, but now I would call that an OK album.

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I had never read an actual study on the subject, so that was pretty interesting to read. :) So yeah, today I noticed how I had listened to VersaEmerge encoded to 64 kbps all this time without hearing anything weird at all, so I guess it depends on the original recording as well.

 

How about vinyl vs. CD, then? I've compared my vinyls with mp3s and I don't even hear much of a difference there, either. I guess there's some sense to the "warmth"-argument when talking about vinyls, though, since an analogue (vinyl) recording will probably sound a bit more natural when compared to its digital (CD) counterpart. CD is an exact copy of the original master recording (it's just 1s and 0s in the end), which some people might perceive as colder than the analogue recording that tends to be really sensitive to the physical condition of the vinyl, which, in turn, leads to small quirks in the music that make the recording sound more pleasing to the ears and more natural. I didn't hear vinyls as more natural, but I can't argue if some people really do.

 

Hell, I don't even know if I have speakers that are resolute enough to produce those sounds that the encoding algorithm of mp3 deems inaudible. :lol: Not to mention my ability/inability to hear really high frequencies...my hearing cuts off at about 20khz, so I do sometimes hear crash cymbals and such as a little flat, but that's basically it.

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Vinyls have a much higher frequency range that it can reproduce compared to CDs.

However that doesn't mean the actual frequency response is flat, far from it really.

Higher frequencies need to be attenuated somewhat as to not induce distortion/too much distortion, hence the perception of greater warmth.

 

So yeah, it sounds objectively warmer, but ultimately it's up to the individual to decide what's better to their ears, which is indeed highly subjective though.

Whether it's more 'natural' is highly subjective and debatable too quite frankly.

Personally I don't find either format better or worse, just different.

 

I'm highly skeptical of anyone who has gotten to that age and can still hear 20KHz.

Unless you've worn ear plugs all your life (and even then, probably ones so good they don't exist) there is NO WAY you can still hear 20KHz.

If you live in the western/industrialized world, if you've ever been to gigs/concerts without ear plugs, no fucking way you can hear 20KHz anymore.

Unless you are a genetic freak, you were in all likelyhood born with a hearing frequency range of 20Hz to 20KHz like pretty much everyone on this planet.

If you can hear 19KHz, you'd be extremely lucky as it is.

I can hear up to about 17.5KHz or so myself.

I'm really paranoid about my hearing and go so far as to even bring ear plugs to the cinemas. People look at me weird like I'm a doofuswhen I put them in my ears, but fuck it, their hearing loss, not mine.

And anyway, the power of cymbals is largely centered around 8-10Khz, so you hardly need to be able to hear 20KHz to hear them

 

Your monitors have a frequency range of 45Hz to 22KHz (trust me to the one that knows the specs of YOUR monitors Pekka:mrgreen:)

As we may or may not know, CDs have a sampling rate of 44 100 Hz, so according to the Nyquist Theorem everything over 22 050 Hz (which is 44 100 divided by 2) that's actually detectable as sound is non existent.

 

So ladies and gentlemen, what this means in the real world is those frequencies between 20 000Hz and 22 050 Hz we cannot actually hear, but those frequencies can bounce around our room after our speakers pump them out (assuming they have the frequency range capability and a good frequency response and as well as being dependent on factors as the physical shape of the room/ possible room treating which goes into the huge topic of acoustics) and then turn into something an octave lower (so say, 11 025 Hz) which in fact DOES effect what we hear.

 

So of course, the more we compress the file, the more of those frequencies we lose, seems pretty basic.

320kbps doesn't seem to lose enough of those ultra high end frequencies for anyone to really detect a difference fortunately (and arguably even 256kbps).

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Thanks for clearing that up, I guess it make sense.

 

I don't know what I was thinking yesterday, but I meant that the only place where I usually hear the compression is in drums, and I don't always hear it there either.

 

No, I don't always wear ear plugs to gigs, I only wear them to the really big ones like Prog Nation and such. Not to mention that I've had my share of rocket launchers, cannons, assault rifles and such firing next to me, so I've always assumed that I don't hear properly anymore. Maybe I am a genetic freak then, but I do hear up to 20khz. I just tested it again this morning.

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