I admit that I’m a pretty fussy audiophile kind of guy. I’m picky about trying to find the ideal sound coming from my speakers, headphones, or even lousy computer speakers. I bought a music player (which I’ve written about before) called Fidelia just because I was so annoyed with the playback on iTunes. Fidelia is designed for Macs/Apple computers and the sound is SO much richer than what iTunes can process. The secret is the kind of file conversion that goes on with Fidelia. With the, ahem, beloved mp3, you get maybe a tenth of what’s on the master tapes from what bands record in the studio. What Fidelia does is convert your mp3s to AIFF files so the playback is less compressed. That gives you a fuller sound — which is really pleasing if you like hearing all the flourishes bands put in the mix, but are often muted if you’re listening to the mp3 version.
I still buy CDs because the sound you get from them is better than mp3, but even those can sound shrill at times. So, what is my ideal audio playback? It’s not a three million dollar system, but does involve a lot of warmth that digital files often lack. Yes, I like listening to vinyl, but I lack a turntable that’s connected to my amp. Fidelia does bring out that richness, but I would love to hear music played through better speakers to see if it’s the sound I’m looking for.
Well, I think you get the idea that I like a certain sound when I listen to music. How ’bout you? Do you care about such things?
Gina
November 22, 2014 at 3:25 pmIt’s interesting that you are bringing this up, as I was just trying to explain to my son that the version of the Depeche Mode song he was listening to (from an mp3) was nowhere near what it should truly sound like.
He sort of got what I was trying to say, but I told him to even begin to appreciate what they were doing with the audio, he should at least put some headphones on.
I do care about the sound quality of my music, I just currently don’t have the time to do much about it! I need to get a turntable and have my son listen to some of my old vinyl.
Ted
November 23, 2014 at 2:46 pmMost of us are conditioned by crappy audio. I hope you’ll be able to do an A/B test so you son can hear the difference. 🙂
PunningPundit (@punningpundit)
November 22, 2014 at 11:58 pmAs true as it is that differing audio formats have better/worse sound quality, I’m not sure that taking a CD, converting it to an MP3 and then converting _that_ file to yet _another_ format would help increase the quality.
There might be some sort of reconstruction work going on with Fidelia, something to let it fill in whatever crucial bits (ha, get it? “bits”?) are missing. But since that information is compressed and stripped out during the original MP3 creation process, converting it to a superior format won’t be intrinsically better. Sort of like switching banks doesn’t replace whatever fees the first bank was charging you.
I have to admit, with a high-quality rip of a pop CD to Mp3, I can’t usually tell what information is missing. Honestly, most pop music is designed for whatever device it’s being played on. So anything in the last 5-10 years is actually going to be engineered for an iPod, that means an Mp3 is ” good enough “.
For an older CD (think Dire Straights), there is a lot of sound that can be captured by a 320 bitrate that won’t come out in a 128 bitrate. The standard iTunes rip is hilariously bad, though.
For classical music, an Mp3 is simply never good enough. Mp3s tend to cut out highs and lows that classical hits, and pop rarely attempts.
Ted
November 23, 2014 at 3:14 pmYou’re right about taking an mp3 and converting it to an AIFF file shouldn’t necessarily lead to better audio quality. Fidelia does some kind of enhancement that does decompress the mp3 file in the conversion to AIFF. I tried a little experiment to see if importing a FLAC file would be different in the playback to an mp3 conversion, and it’s was about the same in terms of audio quality — on Fidelia, that is.
With pop music of the last decade, the amount of technological sweetening and mastering the audio at such high levels means you won’t really hear much of a difference between “good enough” mp3 and the CD. Most producers and mastering engineers seem to be pushing levels so hot that it leaves very little room for the audio to breathe.
Have you watched Sonic Highways? You know, that HBO series on the making of the new Foo Fighters album? The one thing I notice is that they still record with 24 track tape. No ProTools, just analogue tape. Of course, the mastering is digital, but they are going for a more warm sound on the original master tape.
jellyjules
November 23, 2014 at 9:53 pmI wish we had a bigger place. We always had room for the turntable before. You have good speakers, just not on the computer or the TV. Mosly on the CD player, which ironically gets the least play in the house, right?