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Poll

Are "sound color" of codecs important for you?

I just prefer quality and fidelity, sound color is not important for me.
Sound color is important for me but I still prefer higher quality. (Please specify: which codecs/encoders are good and which ones are bad for you?)
Sound color is very important for me and I prefer a good sound color over higher quality. (Please specify: which codecs/encoders are good and which ones are bad for you?)
Topic: Sound colors of codecs (Read 7158 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #25 –
Am I the only person who prefers a good MP3 over Vorbis, Opus, and most of other modern codecs for music for all and especially low bitrates? (Yes, for example I prefer a 32kbps MP3 over 32kbps Opus, even with sinc interpolation. MP3's artifacts don't annoy me if it's encoded by a good encoder, but a 32kbps Opus is almost not listenable for me.)

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #26 –
Why would anyone want to destroy the intention of the musicians by replacing most of the musical content with ugly coding artefacts? We no longer use modems over analogue phone lines to transmit and 1.4MB floppy disks to store music  ;)

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #27 –
@Sunhillow They are not ugly artifacts for me. Have you ever listened a FhG MP3Enc encoded 16kbps or 20kbps MP3 with linear interpolation or played a flash game that contains a music in this format? If not, I understand you, because most of the MP3 encoders are ugly. I make some musics too, and I export my musics as 11025Hz MP3's.

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #28 –
Top: Original resampled to 44Khz
Mid: MP3 resampled to 44Khz
Bottom: MP3 resampled to 44Khz with alisased frequencies.

And the OP says that he likes the most the third one.

Obviously, it is the worst of the three in terms of audio quality, but aliasing causes a strange effect on low bandwith samples: Our ears perceive an increased frequency bandwidth, and given the bad quality in general, that aliasing fills a missing gap.

It reminds me of some tricks that existed in the beginning of MP3. There was a Soundblaster  (Live MP3?) that had a special algorithm to try to reconstruct part of the bandwith, which was something in between of an exciter and a non-parametric high frequency expander.

But the truth is that aliasing can produce more unpleasant distortion than pleasant one most of the time.
The reason it sounds sort of better in this example is because the music itself is already FM like and with many harmonics.

And then, the difficulty of having a player that actually does this badly resampled output, or a very bad soundcard that resamples itself like this.   Current Windows version (using the oldest audio API) is not even this bad.

So two things: 
- MP3 has no role in what the OP asks. It just happens to have a player that can cause this distortion.
- The op seems to want an exciter/expander, not knowing, or ignoring that using a better codec at a higher bandwith would be much better.


Addenum: One detail that low quality MP3 have that also can be perceived as improving audio is that when there isn't enough bitrate, like in this case, the background noise is almost killed.  So when the original is generated with low bit depth, or when the original is recorded from a noisy tape, the MP3 removes that noise.
But of course, if the MP3 is removing the noise, it is because it is not having enough bits, and most probably it will have artifacts, so the overall quality would also suffer.

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #29 –
Quote from: Sunhillow on
Why would anyone want to destroy the intention of the musicians by replacing most of the musical content with ugly coding artefacts? We no longer use modems over analogue phone lines to transmit and 1.4MB floppy disks to store music  ;)

Reminds me of the absolute outrage I had in the past that foo_dsp_effect even exists. "Artistic vision" and all.

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #30 –
Quote from: mudlord on
Reminds me of the absolute outrage I had in the past that foo_dsp_effect even exists. "Artistic vision" and all.
Well, your dsp, which I also use sometimes, is made to be used during playback and not to create a final archive version. At least this is my understanding of it  :))

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #31 –
Which is 100% true, but being used for playback was even enough cause for outrage apparently, since people wanted their music heard *exactly* as they intended, 0 DSPs at all.

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #32 –
Quote from: mudlord on
Which is 100% true, but being used for playback was even enough cause for outrage apparently, since people wanted their music heard *exactly* as they intended, 0 DSPs at all.
Some people are funny. I guess nobody was forced to use one of your DSPs by threat of violence  O:)

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #33 –
Quote from: [JAZ] on
Obviously, it is the worst of the three in terms of audio quality, but aliasing causes a strange effect on low bandwith samples: Our ears perceive an increased frequency bandwidth, and given the bad quality in general, that aliasing fills a missing gap.
This reminds me of a thread on the Arduino forum earlier this year where the OP claimed that, at low bitrates, MP3 sounds better than Ogg Vorbis, Opus, and pretty much every other lossy codec. They provided an example that "sounded better". It turns out that it was very low sample rate audio (like in the single digit kHz) that was upsampled using ZOH, so it contained a lot of nonharmonic aliasing, as in your example. The OP apparently liked that aliasing distortion.

@Klymins are you by chance registered as "jorank" on the Arduino forum?
Christopher

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #34 –
Quote from: christop on
Quote from: [JAZ] on
Obviously, it is the worst of the three in terms of audio quality, but aliasing causes a strange effect on low bandwith samples: Our ears perceive an increased frequency bandwidth, and given the bad quality in general, that aliasing fills a missing gap.
This reminds me of a thread on the Arduino forum earlier this year where the OP claimed that, at low bitrates, MP3 sounds better than Ogg Vorbis, Opus, and pretty much every other lossy codec. They provided an example that "sounded better". It turns out that it was very low sample rate audio (like in the single digit kHz) that was upsampled using ZOH, so it contained a lot of nonharmonic aliasing, as in your example. The OP apparently liked that aliasing distortion.

@Klymins are you by chance registered as "jorank" on the Arduino forum?

Yes.

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #35 –
Quote from: Klymins on
Am I the only person who prefers a good MP3 over Vorbis, Opus, and most of other modern codecs for music for all and especially low bitrates? (Yes, for example I prefer a 32kbps MP3 over 32kbps Opus, even with sinc interpolation. MP3's artifacts don't annoy me if it's encoded by a good encoder, but a 32kbps Opus is almost not listenable for me.)

You may be the only person on the planet that likes music in 16kbps in 11KHz, missing a huge part of the "information" related to said music, and I still don't know if you're just trolling. Do you also prefer a black and white, ultra blurry, copy of a copy of a copy of a copy VHS tape, in a 1950s TV?  I mean, to watch once for a different experience, ok I guess, but being the definitive way you watch TV?   That's like you having good hearing/vision, but complaining that you prefer to be almost deaf and with cataracts in the eyes.

So, yes, it's a "WTF"...

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #36 –
Quote from: pipoawas on
Quote from: Klymins on
Am I the only person who prefers a good MP3 over Vorbis, Opus, and most of other modern codecs for music for all and especially low bitrates? (Yes, for example I prefer a 32kbps MP3 over 32kbps Opus, even with sinc interpolation. MP3's artifacts don't annoy me if it's encoded by a good encoder, but a 32kbps Opus is almost not listenable for me.)

You may be the only person on the planet that likes music in 16kbps in 11KHz, missing a huge part of the "information" related to said music, and I still don't know if you're just trolling. Do you also prefer a black and white, ultra blurry, copy of a copy of a copy of a copy VHS tape, in a 1950s TV?  I mean, to watch once for a different experience, ok I guess, but being the definitive way you watch TV?   That's like you having good hearing/vision, but complaining that you prefer to be almost deaf and with cataracts in the eyes.

So, yes, it's a "WTF"...

I can prefer high sampling rates and bitrates for listening music, I prefer this sound color especially for Flash stuff.

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #37 –
Quote from: pipoawas on
I still don't know if you're just trolling.
[...]
So, yes, it's a "WTF"...
If not trolling, at least he's been like that, as @jaybeee‍ (probably bored to death) noted above, since April 1st this year,  (of all days!) when he registered to this board.

Apparently, he's been on "berserk mode",  desperate to gain some respect (as if!), as can be seen by the sheer quantity of his daily new threads, like the almost full dozen he created or rewarded with his opinion yesterday. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the lack of seriousness, as well as platitudes present in many of those iterations is what has really been getting on people's nerves, as a quick search will confirm.



Oh, dear! It looks like we're a magnet for this kind of weirdo, like the other nutter willing to create a transform lossy codec with the help of IA and nothing else, the other day... 😞
• The older, the lossier
• Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
• "União e reconstrução"

Re: Sound colors of codecs

Reply #38 –
Eh these discussions had me thinking twice about stuff, so i consider it net positive. its just a little frustrating that he has very specific illusions on how things should work and ignores all the suggestions that arent following that.

And so, with digital, computer was put into place, and all the IT that came with it.