Great video – Lossless and Bitrate Comparison

It’s a great video, and I can’t argue with his findings. I have to say I actually feel it just confirms the general consensus that to the human air and especially played on high output PA systems the difference is really not worth discussing.
Did you notice how load the uninverted track sounded at the beginning and the volume level of the “missing” bits?

In the latter part he talks about “distortion” because a straight line is no longer straight. Unfortunately he does not superimpose the necessary voltage changes in a speaker coil to produce anything audible. The distortion he mentions is so minute that even when amplified, I don’t think it will lead to anything audible. If the speaker is actually adding that distortion to the total sound, it will be drowned out (masked) by the actual sound of the track.

But is does give you a good picture of what it is that compressing audio does technically.

I was curious to see whether there was any difference with two MP3 files but one of them saved as a WAV. The two tracks did not cancel each other out.
This was unexpected for me because I’ve always assumed (and others have also it would seem) that if you edit an MP3 file such as re-editing it, as long as you save it as a lossless file you don’t lose any bits.
BTW I did not edit the other MP3 in any way, just converted it into a ‘false’ WAV file.

The thing is I have been using Platinum Notes because of over compression and clipping to convert 320kbps MP3’s to FLAC. Also I’m planning to use these converted files in a DJ mix, which I will record as a WAV but then convert to 320kbps MP3.
Would it not be better to use lossless files for the DJ mix since if I do the above the DJ mix will be degraded quite a bit by this point ?

Hi Dieverse, there is no point in UPscaling. It NEVER gets better than what it is. Actually because the converter has to start making stuff up the wasn’t there before, it’s more than likely that it will actually sound less.

It’s one of the reasons in the track quality discussion we urge people to make sure that their sources are trustworthy. Not everyting labelled 320MP3 is actually an MP3 straight from a lossless source.

It’s good practice in any audio chain to wait as long as you can with compressing. You might think you are editing an MP3 and saving it as the same mp3 (or wav), but the editing software WILL always convert the MP3 before even being able to edit it.

So, best practice is to work with lossless (WAV) files all the way until you have a finished product. So if you make a mix, use real WAV files (not MP3 to WAV conversions), record in WAV, do any editing and mastering in WAV and only when you are ready to put out the result, use a good encoder and go 320MP3 full stereo.

I use Platinum notes as first step in my preparation phase and try to use either WAV or high level lossy (not MP3). There is no reason to save as a higher audio format than you put in, rather the contrary.

Hope that helps.

Actually because the converter has to start making stuff up the wasn’t there before, it’s more than likely that it will actually sound less.

Thanks for the advice.

I remember some saying on this website that PN was not a good idea because you would essentially be altering your MP3’s and therefore losing bits from the file in the process. Guess that’s why one of the creator’s of PN said in an interview that you should start off with WAV’s for better results.

Also as you say if the converter is making up nonsense to compensate then that’s another good reason not to start off with MP3. I can only speculate that is why Audacity is looking at the MP3 and the MP3 saved as a WAV as two different files.

If I were advising anyone else I would say as long as you don’t have to alter a file MP3’s would suffice.

I think the consensus is that AAC256 (highest level) matches 320MP3 (also highest level). I am not so sure that the consensus includes the AAC being better at that bitrate than the MP3.

I would have to do a blind test with several people between MP3 and AAC to support your conclusion of that point. The test would have to be done at serious volumes in a venue, played from either CDJs off of a USB stick or from laptop through a controller. Preferably there would be an audience too, doing their regular thing (but that is asking a bit much perhaps).

We have done such a test many years ago and apart from one guy getting all 128 and 192 samples right (and even he couldn’t get the 256, 320 and WAV versions correct), everybody failed miserably above 128. While some got some right, the statistical analyses showed that of the 10 people present over the 6 or so tracks (times 5 samples: 128,192,256, 320 and WAV), there was no true correlation between the bitrates of 192 and the number of peopling “guessing” it correctly. FYI these were all DJs or sound engineers, guys used to listen to music (quality) with a discerning ear.

These results have been confirmed by numerous international listening tests.

For you to hear the difference between AAC and MP3 at those rates means you have excellent ears (absolute hearing even?) and that you have been playing your samples on a (far) above-average sound system when testing.

What is it you mean when you say going from lossy to lossy? Or better, why would you? Do you mean when you want to manipulate a track and re-encode it? I think I would stay with the same encoding as the one I started with. So AAC->AAC or MP3->MP3. But better, as said here before, starting with a lossless or high level lossy (FLAC) is preferred to starting with AAC/MP3.

I am not sure what you mean by the Audacity test, but quite frankly, I find the test in the video – although interesting on a theoretical level – a bit of a non-issue when it comes to what music is about: listening to.

I don’t necessarily agree with your opinion that hard disk space is an issue. 1TB is almost free and holds about 20.000 tracks, which should be plenty for just about any DJ. And a more reasonable core collection of 1.500-2.000 tracks takes up about 200GB, which would fit with the OS and the DJ software on a 256GB SSD even. All of it in WAV. Now I don’t want to be an advocate of WAV, due to it’s severely limited ID-tagging, but there are other lossless options with better tagging, with FLAC being the most well-known. FLAC can be decompressed to a totally identical copy of the original uncompressed audio. So, read FLAC into Platinum Notes and take the resulting MP3 into your collection. Or export to FLAC. Since FLAC loses nothing in the compression, it should -theoretically at least – be better than a mp3 decompressed to wav, manipulated and compressed back to mp3.

FLAC gives you about a 45% reduction in size and is supported by just about every DJ platform and most mediaplayers.
So using FLAC let’s you store almost twice as much music in the same space as WAV’s with NO loss in audio quality. It’s a serious alternative imho. It just means you will have to spend a bit more energy getting your tracks in lossless format.

At the end of the day, the premise of audio compression is based upon algorythms that take into account the way our ears and brain work. Our brain is perfectly capable of tricking us when it comes to translating what actually reaches our eardrums.

So, for all intents and purposes AS A DJ, if you use 320MP3 or better, you should be fine. If you want lossless quality, start with WAV or FLAC and compress to FLAC as format to use in your DJ software.

I thought that was what you ment.

Again, there is absolutely no discussion about the LOSS part in Lossy formats. Both theoretically and in controlled tests (like Audacity) you can and will notice differences, but … and I return to a previous statement … the whole premise behind lossy compression is the psycho-acoustical part of it, i.e. what our ears make us believe we are hearing.

So while there are MEASURABLE differences that can be easily proven, those difference don’t usually (and actually usually don’t) lead to AUDIBLE differences in the many blind listening tests out there.

As for the money bit. We are strong advocates here of not buying as much music/tracks as you can fit on your hard drive, but buying only the tracks you really, really, really feel will be an enhancement to your collection and which you will actively promote in your sets. This means being very picky about what tracks you actually buy, like in the vinyl days, when a single tracks was expensive, especially in 12″ format. Today, a lossless file – while more expensive than a lossy one – is still a LOT cheaper than it’s vinyl or CD predecessors back in the day.

So my advice here would be to be hyper selective, only buy the things you are 100% convinced should be in your collection and spend the money you save by not buying anything that halfway tickles your fancy on getting those fewer tracks in higher quality.

My two cents as usual.

@DieverseBeatz – Yes, this has been very helpful to me. What’s hard is just finding the wave files for many songs has been difficult for me, then to go through the hassle of loading them up into iTunes. Or at least it’s a hassle for me as opposed to just buying it from iTunes and it’s already loaded up.

Does anybody have an opinion on sticking iTunes songs (m4a) into Platinum Notes? Is that a decent workflow?

Or sticking iTunes songs into Audacity to make DJ Edits, then into Platinum Notes?