Re: Apple moves to lossless audio is really making more audiofools
Reply #41 – 2021-05-24 18:10:58
You've got the wrong definition of 'transparent' then. Transparent in this context means audibly identical to the original . There is no use in telling me that a "lossy audio file sound natural" - this is useless. What if the original recording didn't sound natural? I'm not sure where your definition comes from but I do not agree with it at all. What is exactly the context we are talking about on the transparency word? In a context of A/B comparison, I agree with you, transparent mean indistinguishable. But In a context of music listening (e.g. streaming from a service that provides lossy files, or mass-encoded lossy files stored and played on a device), transparent have a different meaning. Because as you said, you can not compare (for obvious practical reason) what you're listening to any tangible reference. So a lossy file is claimed transparent when nothing wrong occurs. By wrong, I mean any defect usually caused by lossy encoders (pre-echo, ringing for audio, macrobloc or blurring for pictures). I remind that many people on this forum are listening for decades transparent MP3, MPC, Vorbis, AAC, LossyFLAC, WavPack Audio. None of them are ABXing everything they listen towards the CD Reference. I'm sure that a vast majority of them haven't even tried to ABX something. Some DACS are resampling 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz in a transparent way. It's not technically possible to ABX it and you can note that nobody seriously question the transparency of this process. In most case, you don't have to prove that something is transparent: but you have to prove that something isn't (TOS #8). So I believe that your definition of transparency is too restrictive and doesn't work outside the ABX workshop. So when peskypesky claims on 2021-05-21 19:05:21, “Audiofools can do what they want. I'm more than happy with my transparent lossy music ” I'm sure he exactly means that. To answer your question, which was “How do you know it's transparent if you don't have the lossless original to compare?” , transparent means excellent without perceptual issue.