MP3 versus WAV, FLAC, AIFF, or...

[Finnish_Fox]

Unless you have 500 people inside his headphones, NO that doesnt refute my point at all.

What does 500 people have to do with him being able to distinguish between a .WAV and 320kbps? Wasn't the issue whether a difference could be heard between a lossless .WAV and a 320kbps, with you arguing that no difference can be heard? Seemed to me that, later, you acknowledged a difference could be heard but not on a huge system.

Either way, 98% of the general public won't notice a difference.

[mrkleen]

What does 500 people have to do with him being able to distinguish between a .WAV and 320kbps? Wasn't the issue whether a difference could be heard between a lossless .WAV and a 320kbps, with you arguing that no difference can be heard? Seemed to me that, later, you acknowledged a difference could be heard but not on a huge system.

Nope. Maybe you should go back and read my first post

Unless you are playing on function one level systems...you are NOT going to hear the difference between a well encoded 320 mp3 and a wav.

Either way, 98% of the general public won't notice a difference.

So now you are agreeing with me? Nice one.

[Finnish_Fox]

Nope. Maybe you should go back and read my first post

Was this your first post? And here was his response to the post I've quoted:

Unless you are playing on function one level systems...you are NOT going to hear the difference between a well encoded 320 mp3 and a wav.

Lolwut I can hear the difference between 320 and lossless in my HDJ-2000s and those are NOT accurate headphones.

Unless I am missing something...

You: "You cannot hear the difference between a .WAV and a good 320kbps .MP3 unless it is on this one particular soundsystem."
Him: "Umm, I can hear the difference in my headphones, actually."
You: "Yah, but thats not a club with 500 people in it."

So, while your point may have been that the overwhelming majority of people will not notice the difference on a large/powerful/good soundsystem, its not really what you said, at least from what I can tell.

Am I missing something?

So now you are agreeing with me? Nice one.

To play semantics, 98% of the public means that some people can tell the difference which isn't exactly what you said in the first place.

Sounds like we are on the same page overall.

[mostapha]

Either way, 98% of the general public won't notice a difference.

98% of the general public won't notice the difference between a good track and an awesome one either……and it's their loss. Quality should be no different.

You: "You cannot hear the difference between a .WAV and a good 320kbps .MP3 unless it is on this one particular soundsystem."
Him: "Umm, I can hear the difference in my headphones, actually."
You: "Yah, but thats not a club with 500 people in it."

So, while your point may have been that the overwhelming majority of people will not notice the difference on a large/powerful/good soundsystem, its not really what you said, at least from what I can tell.

Am I missing something?

Yes. MrKleen used "you" as a generic 3rd person pronoun–which should technically have been "one"–because American English has pretty much dropped that pronoun from its vocabulary. You inferred the 2nd person singular pronoun.

I also disagree with his post in that it doesn't take nearly a Function One system to hear the difference. I can hear it on my HD-25s and KRK RP5s. I can also hear it on NS-10s and nice, big main monitoring systems. I think I'd be less likely to hear it on Function One, but only because the only ones I've heard are so loud I wouldn't listen without earplugs. And the earplugs obscure the system's noise floor……which would make hearing reverb tails disappear more difficult. I don't know if I could ABX the difference while wearing plugs. And I can't do it at club volumes because I'm not willing to listen to anything that loud without protection.

Then again, maybe I'm missing something. At any rate…it's not relevant.

We've all come to basically the same agreement (that there is a difference and that it's audible to a non-zero amount of people) and just differ on what compromises we're willing to make in the hard drive space and transfer time vs. objective quality battle. I know what I want to do, and I don't really care what other people do except that I haven't yet heard a really good argument for lossy compression. Maybe 10 years ago…but not today.

Lets just say that if Apple made their entire iTunes library available as DRM-Free lossless files…they'd make a lot of money, because I'd probably re-buy my entire listening collection of hip hop and country in one fell swoop.

(disclaimer: I don't just listen to hip hop and country when I'm not DJing, but it's funnier that way)

[Finnish_Fox]

98% of the general public won't notice the difference between a good track and an awesome one either……and it's their loss. Quality should be no different.

True that.

Yes. MrKleen used "you" as a generic 3rd person pronoun–which should technically have been "one"–because American English has pretty much dropped that pronoun from its vocabulary. You inferred the 2nd person singular pronoun.

Well, the other guy did. I was just supporting what he said... Even still, you still doesn't make it 100% of the time. Haha.

Then again, maybe I'm missing something. At any point…it's not relevant. We've all come to basically the same agreement (that there is a difference and that it's audible to a non-zero amount of people) and just differ on what compromises we're willing to make in the hard drive space and transfer time vs. objective quality battle.

/Thread.

[mrkleen]

Unless I am missing something...

You: "You cannot hear the difference between a .WAV and a good 320kbps .MP3 unless it is on this one particular soundsystem."
Him: "Umm, I can hear the difference in my headphones, actually."
You: "Yah, but thats not a club with 500 people in it."

So, while your point may have been that the overwhelming majority of people will not notice the difference on a large/powerful/good soundsystem, its not really what you said, at least from what I can tell.

Yes you are totally missing the point. My point was that unless you are listening on a very very good sound system, or on a critical listening device like a pair of headphones an inch from your ear drum - you will not be able to hear the difference...and even if you can, the difference will be minuscule.

Maybe you play in rooms full of audiophiles, on pristine sound systems....but I doubt it. If anyone on this board has experience with this, it is Prince Sultan - who regularly plays at Stereo in Montreal, one of the 5 or 10 best sound systems in the world.

If HE can not hear the difference and (correctly) states that most guest DJs who he opens for are playing 320 mp3s - then I guess I dont get your point.

Take your average clubber, plop him down in the middle of a dancefloor at 5 a.m. - give him 100 db of sound ratting through a mediocre sound system - 5 Vodka Red Bulls and 2 pills - 1 girl whispering in his ear and 5 mates yelling at him....then add 500 other punters doing the same. You would NEVER hear a difference...and neither would any audiophile.

A bunch of bedroom DJs on this board claiming they can hear a difference between the wav and mp3 version of a song they are listening to in their headphones means NOTHING in the real world.

[Finnish_Fox]

Yes you are totally missing the point. My point was that unless you are listening on a very very good sound system, or on a critical listening device like a pair of headphones an inch from your ear drum - you will not be able to hear the difference...and even if you can, the difference will be minuscule.

That definitely wasn't clear the way you wrote it... even Mostapha misread it.

Maybe you play in rooms full of audiophiles, on pristine sound systems....but I doubt it. If anyone on this board has experience with this, it is Prince Sultan - who regularly plays at Stereo in Montreal, one of the 5 or 10 best sound systems in the world.

I do... First and foremost, I am my own primary audience. If I am not making mixes, I enjoy, I'd stop mixing. I mostly listen to my own mixes in the car or on personal listening devices, so I notice the difference, personally.

Would that stop me from playing 320kpbs files out and about? No... precisely because I know that 98% won't notice it and most soundsystems are not good enough to hear it.

If HE can not hear the difference and (correctly) states that most guest DJs who he opens for are playing 320 mp3s - then I guess I dont get your point.

So, just because one person who regularly plays on a superb sounndsystem can't tell the difference, no one can? Not sure I follow that logic. My point is that the difference is audible to some people in certain situations. You didn't exactly specify the situation in which the difference is noticeable or not which is where the disagreement arose.

Most people won't notice it on most systems...

Take your average clubber, plop him down in the middle of a dancefloor at 5 a.m. - give him 100 db of sound ratting through a mediocre sound system - 5 Vodka Red Bulls and 2 pills - 1 girl whispering in his ear and 5 mates yelling at him....then add 500 other punters doing the same. You would NEVER hear a difference...and neither would any audiophile.

You mean on someone would have a tough time distinguishing track quality through a mediocre source (with or without booze and drugs)? Go figure.

A bunch of bedroom DJs on this board claiming they can hear a difference between the wav and mp3 version of a song they are listening to in their headphones means NOTHING in the real world.

It means nothing except that they notice a difference in their headphones which is precisely what the guy said.

...and get off your "I'm a big club DJ" high horse buddy.

[mrkleen]

...and get off your "I'm a big club DJ" high horse buddy.

....and get off your, I give "theoretical" advice to people because I dont have any practical, real world advice to give horse buddy.

The last thing kids out here need is a bunch of BS about worrying that the songs they get on Itunes and Beatport are not high quality enough to play out with. You guys keep worrying about bit rate...while the rest of us will go out make a living with our mp3s.

[mostapha]

And I've said more than once that a good enough song means "screw quality." But there's still no reason to choose worse quality if you don't have to.

You're right, though…it's not a big enough issue to fight about.

[Moss]

My personal opinion on this is that to really hear the difference in quality , you have to be in the perfect situation. If a club has a djm 800 for example & a decent sound system, you wont hear a noticeable the difference. Your sound quality will be as good as your least good piece of equipment (whether it's cables , sound card , cdj's , mixer , speakers ...). I wish I could get all the tracks I want on wav or aiff , but it ain't the case.

At a club event I did with my buddy , we made a test. He was using his sl-3 and I was using my sl-1. He was always clipping the output of serato and the mixer's channel. Even though his sl-3 is superior in sound quality then my sl-1, I still had a much cleaner output.

(Sorry if my english is not perfect , it's not my fluent language )