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Topic: True or fake high quality music ? (Read 32476 times) previous topic - next topic
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True or fake high quality music ?

Reply #25
If you want to be sure about the quality of FLAC, why don't take a WAV file (rip a track from a CD to a WAV), encode that WAV to FLAC, and then decode the FLAC back to WAV again.  Than do a bit-by-bit comparison of the 2 WAV files.  They should be the same.

But what if the CD was sourced from a lossy audio eg. MP3? Doing bit-by-bit comparison of the files would only result in "no differences" yet, it is from an MP3 source.
IMO, I think, well never know
sin(α) = v sound/v object = Mach No.

True or fake high quality music ?

Reply #26
I think we're being charitable, and assuming that at least some people are interested in finding whether a legitimate source (CD, legally downloaded FLAC, etc) is truly lossless. In a few instances, it's clear they're not.

If someone downloads a lossless file illegally, and it sounds fine and looks fine, but they're still worried it might be a lossy version and this impacts their enjoyment, then they've largely created their own torture. I wonder who is putting out not-really-lossless lossless files, so good quality that you can't hear the problem, with all the clues removed? And if you can't hear the problem....?! Also, if a tree falls down in a forest with no one there, does it really make a noise?

etc

Cheers,
David.

I accidentally found this thread while looking for a spectrum analyzer from which I could export the image - thanks to this very thread, I found Spectro!

More on topic, this is an excellent point (the latter paragraph, anyhow).  If you can't hear the difference - and this may make audiophiles cringe - what's the problem?  Clearly, our user-in-question can't pick out artifacts or anything by ear, so as far as he's concerned, it's transparent - for example, my family thinks I'm silly when I hear artifacts in songs that they don't.  It doesn't dampen their happiness with a mix-CD in the slightest because of what I hear, or see (when it comes to spectrograms) so to the owner/downloader, I fail to grasp how there is a problem here.

So what it really comes down to is: can you hear a difference between a legitimate master copy and your copy, or in this case, can you hear artifacts or any sound issues with which you are displeased?

True or fake high quality music ?

Reply #27
but really don't exist a method to detec a FLAC that is make from transcoding an MP3?

True or fake high quality music ?

Reply #28
@Antigen: Is there a method to know if someone is stupid just by looking at a (random) photograph of him/her?  You are asking something alike.

Audio is audio, lossy encodings can have a signature which programs like aucdtect and audiochecker use to guess if it could be lossy. That's all it can be done.

When you see a low quality video like those made with older mobile phones, or some of those in youtube you know that it is lossy because you see lots of blocks and image distortion.  With audio, the same can be done, but generally, audio is not encoded in such low quality so the signature is less obvious to these type of programs.


True or fake high quality music ?

Reply #29
Maybe this can help you in detecting what is "fake" lossless audio:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60080664@N04/5485470134/

It's WAV file from an MP3 320kbps CBR source, and an original FLAC ripped from an original CD. Note that the fake WAV has a cut thoughout the track in 22kHz meaning it has retained the psychoacoustic tricks applied to its MP3 source. On the other hand, the original FLAC retains its full quality. This is probably the best example to know what is FAKE lossless file.
Plenty of legitimate releases roll off the treble below 22kHz. Some even 20kHz. Not usually completely - the difference should be visible with close inspection.

Looking at this the other way round, I wonder how low a bitrate mp3 I could pass off as lossless, by adding fake hi-frequencies etc?

Cheers,
David.



Hi everyone.

I downloaded an album (that I owned on CD, that was destroyed mind you) that did just that. It had a dither applied to it and I could see using Q0Labs Frequency Analyzer that it was compressing on vocal passages and anything else that was not hard cymbals or drums. It was a decent encoding, but it fooled Audio Checker into thinking it was 100%CDDA. The album in question came out in 1988, so I am doubtful that the lossy encoding occurred in the studio.

I use Q0's software to verify FLAC. I use a Linear 1-22400hz at -120 to 0db to visually check to see if it is compressing anything. I agree with the rolloff as well. I have many albums and singles that roll off at 20Khz rather than 22Khz.

True or fake high quality music ?

Reply #30
I read (maybe here) a few years ago some publisher's announced plan to issue CD's sourced from marginal lossy compressed as a form of copy protection.  The theory was that the CD would sound good (or good enough), but if ripped and reencoded to 128 kb mp3 it would be noticeably sub-par.




True or fake high quality music ?

Reply #31
...And then they realized that the music they want to protect is top-40 stuff and most of those people obviously don't care about sound quality whatsoever.