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Topic: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off (Read 1340 times) previous topic - next topic
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Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Bought Kalandra's album "A Frame of Mind" in FLAC quality off Bandcamp, but looking at its audio spectrogram in Spek I get this:



As you can tell, the file is cut off at 21 kHz instead of 22 kHz, suggesting that it may not be lossless. The same thing happened with another FLAC album I got off Bandcamp. I'm not sure what to make of it, if I recall correctly it doesn't look as bad as an MP3 that's been converted to FLAC?
With the other album that had the same problem, I found another source to compare it with, which was 48 kHz instead of 44.1, and that version was filled all the way out to the 24 kHz cut-off of a 48 kHz sample rate. I suspect that maybe Bandcamp is performing lossy conversion of 96 kHz or 48 kHz source files to 44.1 kHz consumer files? Might that explain the gap or what do you think is going on?

Unfortunately no other place than Bandcamp is selling digital copies of this album, let alone in FLAC format...

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #1
Bandcamp sell lossless in the same quality as it was uploaded to it by artist/label. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #2
Bandcamp sell lossless in the same quality as it was uploaded to it by artist/label. Nothing more, nothing less.

Odd that this exact cut-off keeps happening then. They only sell 44.1 kHz versions but I'm quite sure that many labels use 96 or 48 kHz source files. When I procure the real source files, they don't have this cut-off, it's like it originates from Bandcamp.

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #3
They only sell 44.1 kHz versions but I'm quite sure that many labels use 96 or 48 kHz source files.
You are mistaken. This is as simple as it is. Label or artist uploaded 44.1 kHz.

BTW, there are many free albums available from Bandcamp in any quality to test.

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #4
They only sell 44.1 kHz versions but I'm quite sure that many labels use 96 or 48 kHz source files.
You are mistaken. This is as simple as it is. Label or artist uploaded 44.1 kHz.

BTW, there are many free albums available from Bandcamp in any quality to test.

Hmm, you are right. I just assumed since none of the albums I've purchased were higher than 44.1 kHz.

I'm still curious about what the cut-off actually means though. What happened? Is it lossless?

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #5
Hmm, you are right. I just assumed since none of the albums I've purchased were higher than 44.1 kHz.

I'm still curious about what the cut-off actually means though. What happened? Is it lossless?

It means the audio is 44.1 KHz.  If you want higher cut off, look for a 48k or 96k album.

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #6
Hmm, you are right. I just assumed since none of the albums I've purchased were higher than 44.1 kHz.

I'm still curious about what the cut-off actually means though. What happened? Is it lossless?

It means the audio is 44.1 KHz.  If you want higher cut off, look for a 48k or 96k album.

Other 44.1 kHz FLAC files go all the way up to 22 kHz, filling it out entirely. These ones cut off at 21 kHz instead. That's what you'd expect from a file that isn't lossless.

 

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #7
This is a result of how sampling works. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem

In order for digital audio to work, a low-pass is required. Some do this with a low-pass filter with a very, very steep cut-off, which means frequencies almost all the way to 22kHz are preserved. Others prefer a less steep cut-off, because humans don't actually hear much beyond 20kHz anyway.

In fact, when 44.1kHz was chosen as the sampling rate for CD audio, one of the considerations was that this leaves some room between 20kHz hearing limit and 22.05kHz theoretical sampling limit for the high-pass filter

So, this has nothing to do with being lossless or not. This is simply a choice made either conciously during mixing or mastering, or a result of whatever analog-to-digital device was used when recording.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #8
That's maybe what you would expect if it were recorded by an old fashioned 44.1 kHz ADC, then the filter has to start quite a bit earlier than when first recording to high resolution and then applying a brick-wall in the digital domain?

Anyway, Bandcamp cannot control how the uploader (artist/label) has treated the file before converting to WAVE/FLAC for upload.

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #9
This is a result of how sampling works. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem

In order for digital audio to work, a low-pass is required. Some do this with a low-pass filter with a very, very steep cut-off, which means frequencies almost all the way to 22kHz are preserved. Others prefer a less steep cut-off, because humans don't actually hear much beyond 20kHz anyway.

In fact, when 44.1kHz was chosen as the sampling rate for CD audio, one of the considerations was that this leaves some room between 20kHz hearing limit and 22.05kHz theoretical sampling limit for the high-pass filter

So, this has nothing to do with being lossless or not. This is simply a choice made either conciously during mixing or mastering, or a result of whatever analog-to-digital device was used when recording.

Does that means that the reason you can tell in Spek that, for an example, a file was originally a 128 kbps MP3, it's because the 128 kbps compression uses a much more aggressive low-pass filter which cuts it off at a much lower frequency (e.g. 16 kHz or whatever it is)?
So the frequency cut-off and the actual quality aren't entirely correlated? A FLAC that cuts off at 16 kHz could have higher quality than a 128 kbps MP3 even though they cut off in the same place?

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #10
And there are lousy filters that allow tons of aliasing but they will show content up to 22.05kHz with these funny spectral pics.
The first pic looks sanity bandwidth limited.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #11
And there are lousy filters that allow tons of aliasing but they will show content up to 22.05kHz with these funny spectral pics.
The first pic looks sanity bandwidth limited.
Are you saying it's a bad FLAC? It's the only one I can buy...

It sounds better than YouTube at least. Guess I did get something for my money, even if it's not everything it should be.

Is there a better way to analyze the quality of a sound file?

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #12
Hmm, you are right. I just assumed since none of the albums I've purchased were higher than 44.1 kHz.

I'm still curious about what the cut-off actually means though. What happened? Is it lossless?

It means the audio is 44.1 KHz.  If you want higher cut off, look for a 48k or 96k album.

Other 44.1 kHz FLAC files go all the way up to 22 kHz, filling it out entirely.

Those are probably downsampled from some higher sampling rate or have added dithering or other effects added.

Are you saying it's a bad FLAC? It's the only one I can buy...

It sounds better than YouTube at least. Guess I did get something for my money, even if it's not everything it should be.

Is there a better way to analyze the quality of a sound file?

It isn't good or bad, that is just what audio looks like on a spectrum analyzer.  For a better approach, try a coin toss. 

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #13
You might of course ask the band at https://www.kalandra.no/contact and hope it is read by someone nerdy enough.

Anyway, there are two free compilations at the label's bandcamp, and there are two Kalandra tracks on the most recent one. You see that they don't go all the way to 22, compared to say the top spectrogram which is off a track from label founder Einar Selvik (of Wardruna fame):
https://imgur.com/a/oVce6mG

And the first compilation:
https://imgur.com/a/Xg79O2E

Now playing: Kalandra's take on "Helvegen".

Re: Is Bandcamp truly lossless? 21 kHz cut-off

Reply #14
Some WAV/FLAC files cut at 21 and not 22. Doesn't mean it's not true lossless.