Best Way to Listen to Music

[mugz]

I grew up with the internet/MP3s and vinyl was just stuff my parents had in a box that I never got around to until the general resurgence in popularity. Vast majority of my listening has been on my iPods, which are still going strong for me daily.

I still managed to obsess over albums and know them inside out. It's entirely up to you how you choose to engage with music and I think we've never lived in a better time for it. Absolutely love how I can hear a song somewhere, make a note of some of the lyrics and then just find it in most cases. I do enjoy listening on vinyl as well, definitely a different experience, in the sense that it's rarely a "background music" scenario and it's a pain to skip.

I genuinely think the analogue vs digital thing belongs in the bin with the enormous pile of hocus pocus that seems to come with the territory of audio/music. I'm not buying the 320 claims for a second. I'd be willing to put money on no one here actually being able to discern the difference between it and uncompressed. That's not how the data compression works, it relies on exploiting an auditory illusion, if it sounded properly shite it wouldn't be standard. Not having a dig at anyone, I just think it's really overstated in these discussions.

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

For the laugh

I can hear the difference between different 'lossless' formats; that's one of the reasons for being tired of music- in some ways you can't beat a cd in a cd player, but we had 2 decades of trying every damned other way around it, it just gets tiring

[mugz]

that npr test is odd because it doesn't ask you which sounds best, just which seems to convey the most sonic information from a server through the www to my router to my laptop to my ears, in which case a compressed file will sound better, and the larger file can sound hissier and glassier.

so knowing that, I chose the glassiest one each time and got only one wrong.

[Yung Led Zeppelin]

Sweet.

I do agree CD is underappreciated. Crispy with very little in the way of limitations.

[Ducky]

Mugz, how do you hear the difference between different lossless formats? It's literally the same data (hence 'lossles') just organized differently so it takes up less space, so when you play it back, you get the exact same spectrum of audio.

[Ducky]

I'm very much in the "high quality MP3s are fine" camp. I've done ABX tests set up locally and I can hear a difference between FLAC/ALAC and good MP3s, but I have to concentrate on it. The difference is effectively imperceptible in a real world environment (and I need the other file type as reference and keep swapping between them).

[Juggz]

As an aside, I bought one of these two years ago and it's one of the handiest things to have.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anker-PowerPort-Family-Sized-Technology-Smartphones-Black/dp/B00PK1IIJY/ref=asc_df_B00PK1IIJY/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=214877336784&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6721229385399637525&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007895&hvtargid=pla-420046835187&psc=1

You can pick up electric sockets with additional USB ports for around a tenner. I've been upgrading sockets around the house, usually a couple every few weeks to spread the expense. Now every room has at least two USB ports for charging. Very handy.

[Caomhaoin]

Jaysus I might follow suit, great idea, and I the plug boards lying around all over the place drive me nuts.

If only I could remember which colour wire is which...Be grand if I make a mistake though yeah? I almost set my apartment on fire trying to solder a worn out cable jack once so I might get a sparky in just to be sure.

[astfgyl]

I'm very much in the "high quality MP3s are fine" camp. I've done ABX tests set up locally and I can hear a difference between FLAC/ALAC and good MP3s, but I have to concentrate on it. The difference is effectively imperceptible in a real world environment (and I need the other file type as reference and keep swapping between them).

I can handle a 320 just fine and have happily burned discs using that as the source. I do think there is a difference though, and it is in the clarity of the low end. I also think that difference only applies to newer albums (last 20 years) as the recording methods used before that didn't lend themselves to the same clarity of low end anyway so it isn't noticeable. Whenever I listen to remastered stuff the most noticeable thing to me is the use of exciters in the low end, which really gives added depth to the mixes. Unfortunately a lot of remasters still end up sounding worse than the originals anyway for one reason or another.

I will also say there is a lot of shite talked regarding clarity and there is no point killing oneself for the highest fidelity format, unless one has the system to highlight the difference.

[mugz]

Mugz, how do you hear the difference between different lossless formats? It's literally the same data (hence 'lossles') just organized differently so it takes up less space, so when you play it back, you get the exact same spectrum of audio.

it's a long conversation, but trust me there's a difference.

AIFF is the only format that nearly did the job, but even then it was less than a normal cd in a cd walkman. I use that combo as a guiding metric as it's got the 'cleanest' chain.

[Juggz]

Jaysus I might follow suit, great idea, and I the plug boards lying around all over the place drive me nuts.

If only I could remember which colour wire is which...Be grand if I make a mistake though yeah? I almost set my apartment on fire trying to solder a worn out cable jack once so I might get a sparky in just to be sure.

😂

They colour-code the terminals these days 😁

[mugz]

Jaysus I might follow suit, great idea, and I the plug boards lying around all over the place drive me nuts.

If only I could remember which colour wire is which...Be grand if I make a mistake though yeah? I almost set my apartment on fire trying to solder a worn out cable jack once so I might get a sparky in just to be sure.

😂

They colour-code the terminals these days 😁

brown for live, still can't understand that one

[Juggz]

230V running through you will open up the back door, with unpleasant consequences.

Also, Woodies are doing two switched double sockets with three USB ports for €16 at the moment.

[Ducky]

What kind of voltage do the USB ports provide?

I've got two on an extension lead and they're dreadful.

[Juggz]

https://www.woodies.ie/switched-double-socket-with-3x-3-1a-usb-ports-1138928

[Carnage]

I'll be having some of those myself. Pain in the arse that you can't charge an iPod via USB, it has to be connected to the computer/laptop etc.