best 3/6 source?

Phish Live Shows
#12

You guys are silly. SBD phish is key. Plus, if you are going to try to tell me that you can hear imperfections in a 256kbps MP3 of a SBD…im going to call you a liar. 256kbps is a serious sample rate, and most human ears can’t hear the digital noise much past 160 kbps. Now I can understand wanting FLAC or WAV of an audience recording, because the quality is already fragile, so an MP3 would be just awful, but 256kbps SBD MP3? come on…I could play the 256 MP3 then the FLAC of the same soundboard and I bet no one could tell the difference without looking…

of course if you want to hear the audience for some reason…then aud recordings are always the way to go…

#13

^
I have absolutely no idea about anything you just said.

Just gimme my Phish, please.

#14

Enjoy your clicks and 0.1 second gaps.

#15

^I was simply stating that 256kbps MP3 (the bitrate of the ones from livephish is 256) are such high sample rate that it doesn’t matter that they’re MP3. No one can hear any difference in 256kbps MP3 and WAV as long as the sampled source is something clean like a SBD.

#16

Headphones and computer speakers, that may be true.

#17

^^I do agree it is difficult to get rid of gaps with MP3 unless you had a seamless MP3 of the entire show.

#18

Wait so you’re saying that you can tell the difference with the right speakers?

#19

A nice stereo makes ALL the difference.

::sizzle sizzle crack crack::

#20

mr. miners no spoilers was teh awesome. i listened to 3-8 on the way to work with a huge smile on my face monday morning.

and i thought his AUD was the best one i heard. you can really hear the audience going crazy during fluffhead.

#21

Will is right.

#22

Like always, hayo!!

#23

I got home yesterday and felt compelled to test this out.

Test Scenario:
Computer loaded up and ready to go.
ASUS Digital HD Audio Adapter
RCA Amp 600 watts
8ft digital SPDIF audio cable (coaxial)
Some very thick speaker wire
Bose speakers w/ 15" sub in wooden floor enclosure

MP3 256kbps SBD of 3/8/09 (livephish)
FLAC SBD of 3/8/09 (livephish)

Ok, so I ran my sound out of the computer through digital out (coaxial) with my HD sound card. I plugged it into one of the digital coax ins on my amp and cranked the volume to about 75%. I set the amplifier for stereo (better for music) and ripped the FLAC version first. It was LOUD and I could hear everything really well. I listened to Twist > 2001 > Moma. Next, I loaded up the MP3s of the same songs and had a really LOUD descriptive listen as well. I hope I didn’t piss my neighbors too much. So, now that I’ve run ALL DIGITAL sound through a nice amp and bose speakers and listened to one format right after the other, here are the results!

Results:

FLAC Listen: Very few imperfections at all other than general mixing issues including that Mike and Fish are mixed a little low. think I may have heard a peak or two, but nothing really noticable. Overall it sounded great.

MP3 Listen: Everything really sounded great here too. I thought for sure that my argument on the board was sound and that the MP3 sounded great. That was up until the climax of 2001 happened. At sections where there was intense sections with a very heavy waveform, you could hear a tell-tale scratching and sizzling at the most dense sections of sound. I actually went back and put on the same time sequence on FLAC and listened for it and it just simply wasn’t there.

Conclusion:
When in normal listening scenarios, MP3 sounds good enough to be very convincing. In fact, I didn’t notice any problems at all until I had turned it up very loud and arrived at sections of the songs that were very aurally intense. I actually stand by some of my original statements that you cannot tell the difference, but now I only believe it is true in certain scenarios. During the quieter, more chill sections of songs, there was no discernible difference in quality, and no cracks or sizzles. However, at the peaks of the audio, the MP3 showed its true colors.

I concede that Will owned me yesterday ;p

Analysis:
I believe that with proper refining of compression algorithms these problems with peak cracking and sizzling could be avoided completely, or at least enough to where the human ear doesn’t notice at all. I think the problem can be defined easily using a little knowledge about sampling, and a little common sense. At points of the highest waveform density (the loudest, densest sound with the most going on at once) the algorithm is failing because the sampling is causing error much like rounding error. MP3 consists of thousands (if not millions) of short pieces of audio pulled from an original source. These pieces (samples) happen so fast that the majority of the audio remains unscathed. However, at the points where the audio is very intense, it seems that instead of accurately sampling, the algorithm is just translating the wave sample into a peak at that point where one doesn’t really exist. This in turn causes you to hear a scratch or click or sizzle type of sound. So…

nuff said…i lose…buy the FLACs or download AUDs

#24

w00t w00t :wink:

Seriously though, you are not the first on one this board to get into this “argument” with me. I usually just drop it after I annoy ya a little :slight_smile:

I am very happy that you are the first one to actually compare the lossless to the lossy.

MP3’s cut off the top and bottom of the wavelengths, and that is why they are SO much smaller in file size.

Lossless is the way to go.

#25

I still don’t know what any of this means to my Phish listening.

#26

I did the full scientific writeup…

#27

standing ovation!!

nicely done wild wood

i just like the dynamics of the aud, the sbd’s have that sterile sound, it’s kind of thin

with the aud you get how the sound is bouncing around the arena, like you were standing where the taper was and listening, not like how the sound engineer has his headphones on and is listening to the show

the AUD’s have that warm feeling to them is all, and I was under the impression that the free mp3’s they gave out where 128 kbps, kudo’s to phish for doing them at 256 !

mr miners source, think it was jesse hulbert, sounded really f’in good to my ears

#28

I’m just fine with SBD MP3. It sounds better than mr miner’s auds to me so yeah. i usually get auds simply because they’re free and such. i love that so many people tape there shows. there is rarely a show you can’t find somewhere.

#29

I think this is my official pick. WAY better than the SBD, crystal clear and really, really beautiful sounding.

http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=523409

INFO:
Source: AKG 460B omni capsules > Crown phantom power > D8
Location: FOB - Approx 80 foot split
18 feet from left stack + 18 feet from right stack
Recorded on 2 Sony TCD-D8, each with a single omni. The 2
recordings were then put back together using ProTools.
Recorded By: Scott & Boris

#30

Don’t get me wrong i know what your saying. Aud DOES give you a better feel of whats goin on at the show. I just like to be able to hear every note that every band member plays.

#31

im downloading it right now, not sure i believe you, i have never personally heard a taper version sound better than soundboard