Should I get over my prejudice/ignorance/snobbery for WAV and change to mp3?

[djproben]

Nice video here about our hearing capabilities here:

...

To my surprise this video reveals that Funktion One tested on the NI audio interfaces....

Love the interviewer's expression around 55:10 right after he brings up Marshall McLuhan -- it's like "mind = officially blown"

ROFL and then a minute or so later "so, an mp3 is like Stalin to you?"

this video is well worth sitting through the boring parts; this guy is ultimately really interesting.

[mostapha]

The Absolute Sound recently had a really strange series of articles comparing WAV to FLAC with some conclusions that defy basic principles of computer science, for example

That happens a lot. There's a lot of stuff out there that defies physics too.

Hell, Bernie Grundman (I think…could have been someone simlar) is a top-end mastering engineer who doesn't seem to know anything about digital audio. The guy's a genius at getting records to sound as good/loud as they possibly can and has a lot of grammys/platinum records to his credit.

But he also runs a word clock that–based on his description–seems to have been modded to run based on cesium decay……because he thinks that the commercial word clock (even the high end ones) aren't precise enough. He honestly believes he can hear jitter in stuff that makes the Apogee Big Ben look cheap. He also thinks he can hear jitter between different brands of CDs…which isn't really possible. And he prefers for people to mail him a hard drive because copying digital data–to him–reduces quality similar to copying a tape.

The guy's brilliant at what he does…but he spends a lot of money on crap that has zero audible effect.

Snake oil is huge in audio.

[djfreesoul]

I use mp3, from 256bps quality and upwards, even though I am an audiophile with a 10000 dollar hifi-system from Linn at home I have come to the conclusion that in a crowded club it doesn't matter as much the quality of your MP3, as the PA is not suitable of reproducing high quality sound, it's made to deliver booming loud sound to the crowd.

[keeb]

I'd bet you were smashing into the limiter.

It's not your fault. Between not having a good level meter on anything they make and default settings that are loud as hell and will clip anything, NI seems to be on a crusade to make all their customers sound like crap.

I'm convinced they only have customers because they're really good at the loudness war……and by really good at it, I mean they decided a long time ago that loud distortion sounded better than appropriate volume dynamics.

Probably true. But, as you've pointed out before, the S4's metering makes it very hard to not hit that limiter. Also, even when I turned down the gain to avoid clipping, it still sounded flat. YMMV, but I was not impressed with the sound quality.

[mostapha]

IDK…I've never used one extensively. But I'd bet money against the S4 being sub-bar. NI does make it really hard to run their stuff right sometimes. Part of me is amazed they're as successful as they are, but on the other hand……I'm still impressed when I see a DJ who isn't pegging the peak light of his mixer all night and Pioneer started incorporating a post-meter attenuator to try and fix those problems, so……yeah…

[MaxOne]

I actually think my s2 sounds pretty crisp. i got the limiter off and play well within any clipping (i think) and with a nice fresh Inland Knights AIFF (who always deliver their tunes at -6db for pro mastering and are pretty audiophile with their productions) and my vxt4s hooked direct all sounds super crystal and pretty lush.

In theory its a an audio 6 sc in there so no reason it shouldn't sound clean.

This has got a little OT but... yeah.

[Le Goat]

I raised this very thread on a completely different forum (a popular British psychedelic one<naming no names>) the other day and funnily enough the answers read pretty much identically the same.
Thing is, whilst the audiophile community may be technically correct, there are a number of different aspects at play for djs which change the criteria dramatically.
Firstly the way we hear it - I think for djs, while we might listen to our tunes ultra carefully on low volume in the middle of the night, when we're mixing it is all about how it feels, we sidestep the stage of critically analysing every sound and go directly to the overall feeling the tune gives us, in which scenario the microscopic details such as reverb and delay tails, and the dynamics in the highs and lows, suddenly take on much more importance than they would do in the traditional home listening environment, even on very hi-def equipment, simply because the way that we are listening to, and hearing, the music is different. That is why we use monitors, which might sound harsh in hi-fi terms, but allow us to perceive our music in a more "sound system oriented" kind of way.
Secondly, is a point raised, funnily enough, by the proponents of the audiophile point of view themselves, and that is, that the experience of listening to music is subjective. While it may be true that even the most seasoned DJ might fail to successfully identify the mp3 in a double blind test, nevertheless when you are standing in front of a crowd, and you know, even if nobody else does, that the music you are playing is a feeble imitation of the real thing on a lossy format, can you really, deep down inside yourself, throw it down with the same passion and voracity as you would if you knew you were blasting out the pure, unabridged, passionate fury as the artist put on the record?
This reporter says no.

[mostapha]

Nice post, goat. I agree with you very much in general with a few caveats.

First, people may not be able to articulate or scientifically identify a good source from a bad one (statistically, most people can't). But the difference is still there, and between the vibes of people who can tell and subtle things that people don't consciously perceive…there may still be a difference. Does it matter? Who knows?! I'm not a researcher, and I'm not a doctor (though I do play a laywer on TV sometimes).

There's at least one DJ whom I very much respect that posted–several years ago–that he believed CDJs were a horrible medium for DJs. It wasn't because of the sound quality, it was because vinyl records with a needle on them respond to the room. All the noise that the party makes, the reverb in the room, etc. gets picked up (to a very minute degree) in the form of feedback. Too much and it sounds terrible, obviously. But he believed that feeding that happy noise back to the party, however subtle, made a positive difference on the party. He suggested that CD DJs hook up a microphone and point it at the crowd (placed so it doesn't get feedback from the booth monitors) on an open channel with the gain really low all night to simulate the effect.

Was he full of shit? Almost certainly, yes. But he's still an amazing DJ, and if he believes it makes a difference…it makes a difference to him that comes through in his performance. Frankly, if I see a mic in the booth and have time to deal with feedback issues during sound check (if there is one) I'd do it just to pay homage to him.

……which brings me to this awesome metaphor:

While it may be true that even the most seasoned DJ might fail to successfully identify the mp3 in a double blind test, nevertheless when you are standing in front of a crowd, and you know, even if nobody else does, that the music you are playing is a feeble imitation of the real thing on a lossy format, can you really, deep down inside yourself, throw it down with the same passion and voracity as you would if you knew you were blasting out the pure, unabridged, passionate fury as the artist put on the record?

The only reason I haven't dropped Your Love by Jamie Principle at a party is because I feel weird not playing it on vinyl.

I can pass some blind ABX tests (though I've never done a full scale one with lots of repeated measures and statistics), and I feel bad playing MP3s if I have another option. Whether or not the difference in sound is perceptible to my audience…if I'm aware of what I'm playing, it might make a difference in my performance. I'm not at nearly a high enough level to really tell.

But that's worth $1/song…easily.

That being said, if the only way I had to play a dope ass song was a standard home audio cassette recorded straight off a broke-ass behringer recording console, you better effing believe I'd do it. But with what we're discussing, that's not at all the case. And if I were in that situation, I'd probably have the opportunity to re-record it for the artist anyway.

[Le Goat]

But that's worth $1/song…easily.

.

If we are talking about a certain website's "handling fee" it isn't the cost that people gripe at though, it is the bullshit.
Now, if Beatport sold only WAV, and it was only available at the higher price bracket, no option, would we complain? Would we fuck, we would talk about our music with pride, because we would feel like the cost reflected the value of the music, not some arbitrary bitchass mark up.
Please excuse my language, I fear I am somewhat in my cups....

[djproben]

And he prefers for people to mail him a hard drive because copying digital data–to him–reduces quality similar to copying a tape.

This was pretty much the conclusion of the Absolute Sound "study" - they claimed that if you converted WAV->FLAC->back to WAV that the resulting WAV file sounded worse. Supposedly in blind studies. And that if you did it again (back to FLAC, back to WAV) there was even further degradation, like copying a cassette tape. We're talking bit-perfect copies here; no different than copying the file from one hard drive to another. Bizarre.