Does Sound Quality Matter? - AbsolutePunk.net

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if a song sounds good it sounds good.

yea, my laptop speakers suck but these skull candy headphones i got for $10 are kick ass, so i'll stick with them

Sound quality is pretty important to me; I am no audiophile, but it still matters. That's why I still buy cd's. I rip everything to 320 mp3 and I just love hearing all the little details that go into making a song. I do download sometimes, but normally just to check it out. and then i'll end up buying it to get a decent rip.

i also can't have as much music on my iPod, but everything is still on my computer. and it sounds amazing with a pear of really good earphones/headphones. i love my shures...for me it's quality over quantity. i don't need any lossless music like flac, aiff, or wav. yet. but it still matters.

should because metal from the 80's & before sounds like shit. As I Lay Dying >>> sabbath

So this question is implying that musicians and "audiophiles" are mutually exclusive groups...sorry, studying for the LSAT, haha.

But, even with the supposed connotations (musicians as artists, "audiophiles" as technical nerds,) it still seems to me that most "audiophiles" would have some musical background (or at least an interest in music - why else would they care so much about audio?) and most musicians would be "audiophiles" to some extent - considering that sound technology is the medium of their art - at least for rock/pop music.

Quote:

Originally Posted by YouSmellExcited (Post 33441622)

should because metal from the 80's & before sounds like shit. As I Lay Dying >>> sabbath

...What?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ACA (Post 33409542)

- 95% of my friends can't hear the difference between 128 and 256.
- the only ones who can were heavily involved in the illegal trafficking of advances/promos/etc early in this decade where you HAD to learn
- about a quarter of my friends are musicians and very few of them have any idea
- it's because an entire culture/generation was raised on (old)Napster and (old)Napster-styled P2P such as Kazaa, Limewire, etc where 128 is most common

I know "professional" DJs (ie, they book regularly at weddings, bars, etc) who have 100s of gigs of music that is no higher than 128. No one cares. No one notices. People use shitty iPod earphones (they are absolute garbage, it boggles my mind how people use them). People use FM devices to play their iPods through their radios. There is no dynamic in (most) music anymore.. everything is peaked out, fighting for your attention every second of every song. "Louder is better."

-ACA

You make some good points. Though I think if you made people listen to back-to-back samples of 128kbps and 256kbps mp3's, they could tell the difference. I've tested myself using a blind testing program and was able to get 11/13, and I don't think my ears are that sharp.

Quote:

Originally Posted by decrescendo27 (Post 33413932)

once you go FLAC you never go back

Though I love love FLAC as well, for my iPod I'm still using "-v2" on lame 3.97 (or "--alt-preset standard" on 3.90.2 for older conversions). So I guess I cheat on FLAC with MP3?

Quote:

Originally Posted by poppa Q (Post 33421452)

I like your news posts Mike Kraft.

How about that sexy guy who submitted it? ;-) j/k

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmirand1 (Post 33444782)

You'd think so, but I think there are some people honestly care more about the equipment and encoding of the songs than the music itself. People that spend more time listening to samples encoded at different bitrates than actual music. Kinda like people who want to tune their cars to race but have no intention of ever doing so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clark (Post 33445272)

...What?

sound quality should matter. AILD sound better than maiden, sabbath, priest, slayer, etc.

.............it matters if you feel the need to listen to music at all. its all about clarity sonn

Quote:

Originally Posted by YouSmellExcited (Post 33447912)

sound quality should matter. AILD sound better than maiden, sabbath, priest, slayer, etc.

totally agree. also, an ocean between us was done with Adam dutkiewicz who is one of the absolute best.

I really hate overproduced shit. Quietdrive is a great example of a quality album spoiled by polish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ACA (Post 33409542)

God damn AP. I had typed up a long response and it didn't post.

Long story short:

- 95% of my friends can't hear the difference between 128 and 256.
- the only ones who can were heavily involved in the illegal trafficking of advances/promos/etc early in this decade where you HAD to learn
- about a quarter of my friends are musicians and very few of them have any idea
- it's because an entire culture/generation was raised on (old)Napster and (old)Napster-styled P2P such as Kazaa, Limewire, etc where 128 is most common

I know "professional" DJs (ie, they book regularly at weddings, bars, etc) who have 100s of gigs of music that is no higher than 128. No one cares. No one notices. People use shitty iPod earphones (they are absolute garbage, it boggles my mind how people use them). People use FM devices to play their iPods through their radios. There is no dynamic in (most) music anymore.. everything is peaked out, fighting for your attention every second of every song. "Louder is better."

-ACA

so true

Unfortunately I don't have enough space for all the ALAC I want on my iPod (I convert from FLAC to ALAC so I can have lossless on my iPod. yes, I can actually tell the difference.), so I'm stuck with 320 for most of my stuff. But since I refuse to change some back from lossless to 320, I'm kinda stuck with deleting things.