What is the least compressed signal?

     Everyone knows the lovable geoffkait can be quite the quibbler. He's even adept at quibbling about whether or not he's been quibbling.  
     He was even named the 2018 Quintessential Quibbler by Quibbler's Quarterly magazine.
    Few people know geoffkait's hobby is duck quacking imitations in full duck costume.  He was officially cited at their last event for 'quibbling while quacking', which is an impressive and difficult feat to do well while wearing a duck bill, large webbed duck feet and still quibbling convincingly in a Donald Duck voice.  
    A fellow local quacker club member told me that, in the duck quacking gaggles geoffkait travels in, he's considered a quibbler's quibbler.

Tim

geoffkait:
"That’s why they call it the Loudness Wars. If there are no dynamics it’s not music. Digital is the new wimpy."

Hello geoffkait,

     I agree that the Loudness Wars, via recording mixing decisions, have caused a significant compression of dynamics on many cds released.  But it's my understanding that Redbook cd is fully capable of capturing and playing back the actual large dynamics naturally existing in music heard played live.  In other words, it's a conscious mixing decision to compress dynamics on cds and not a limit of the Redbook cd format itself.

    Is this your understanding as well?

Thanks,
  Tim

geoffkait,

     Everything you stated about Redbook cd makes sense to me but, if you don't mind, I'd like to know if you or any other tread readers have experienced direct to digital recordings of live music converted to,and played back as, 24 Bit/96KHz or higher FLAC or WAV computer audio files.
     I use a laptop running JRiver Media Center software, a NAS and an Oppo BDP-105 for the storage and playback of music files.  The NAS contains mainly 16 Bit/44.1 KHz FLAC files of ripped cds but also several 
 24 Bit/96 KHz FLAC files downloaded from Sound Liaison in Europe.
https://www.soundliaison.com/index.php/about-us
      These downloads are mainly recordings of lesser known small acoustic jazz and rock groups playing live at a high quality studio in Europe and recorded in real time direct to hi-res digital. These analog to digital recordings undergo minimal to no post recording mixing processes and represent the actual digital master.  Purchased downloads in the customer's preferred digital format are, therefore, literal exact copies of the original studio master.
     I've purchased and downloaded several Jennifer Gomes albums from this site that I enjoy and recommend, best described as a small jazz group doing covers of rock songs such as Springsteen's I'm on Fire and Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay.  
     My experience of the sound quality of these 24/96 downloads is that I clearly perceive them as superior when compared to Redbook cd; with a much lower background noise level (much higher signal/noise ratio), increased detail level, a consistently more solid and stable 3D soundstage illusion and definitely a lack of compressed dynamics that greatly increases the sense I'm listening to live music and not a recording.
     The main point I want to convey is that I believe the key factor I've identified in whether I perceive 24/96 recordings as superior to Redbook cds is how the recording was made.  I completely fail to discern any sound quality improvements in the unfortunately common practice of simply transferring the more popular Redbook cd albums from 16 Bit/44.1 KHz resolution to the higher resolution 24 Bit/96 KHz digital file format.  
     It is impossible to improve the sound quality of a Redbook cd by transferring it to a higher resolution format.  It appears that HD Tracks is one of the major offenders in intentionally exploiting this misunderstanding for their own financial gain.  They advertise their hi-res downloads of popular albums as being superior to Redbook cd versions, completely understanding they are just transfers with no sonic improvements and then charge you twice the cost of the original cd for a download nevertheless.  
     Not only is this an HD Tracks scam, it's also discouraging the use of higher resolution formats since HD Tracks customers rightly claim they discern no sound quality gains compared to their same album in Redbook cd format.  The only way they possibly would is if the original group rerecorded the same album utilizing a direct to digital recording method in a higher resolution digital format.


Tim

    Did you ever contemplate the notion that kosst somehow just might benefit by having his life ruled by numbers?

For example, I know kosst's wife numbers all his underpants with the number "1" and all his pants with the number "2" due to some embarrassing episodes he experienced at work.


Food for thought,
       Tim

     I agree, if readers here can't even agree that CDs generally have compressed dynamics mainly due to the Loudness Wars, and conscious decisions made by the recording engineers to compromise good dynamics for higher volume, then we either all go in for a group ear exam or we concede the obvious.
     CD as a format is still capable of recording and playing back musical content in high fidelity and with very good dynamics.  However, a sustained pattern of self-inflicted extremely poor executive decisions likely have damaged the general perception of the quality of CDs to such a degree that the whole format may just fade away due to disuse.  I know I've already moved on to 24bit/96KHz direct to digital recorded files that haven't been screwed up..... yet.


Tim  

    ddjr,

    MP3 is considered a Lossy audio codec.  This is a compression technique that does not decompress audio files to their original data amount. Lossy methods provide high degrees of digital compression, which results in smaller files but also results in some sound waves being  removed. This negatively affects the quality of sound in an audio file. 
     For high quality audio the preferred codecs are:   

1. Lossless audio: This is a compression technique that decompresses audio files back to their original data amount. Lossless methods can provide high degrees of digital compression, but there is no loss in size or sound quality.  Lossless compression music formats include FLAC, ALAC and WMA Lossless.

2. Uncompressed audio: This is an audio file that has no compression applied to it. The sound in uncompressed audio files remains the same as when it was recorded but are larger files than FLAC, ALAC and WMA Lossless.. Examples include PCM, AIFF and WAV formats.

Tim

geoffkait:
">>>>No loss in sound quality except for the compression, I.e., loss of dynamic range. And just to clarify a common misconception, aggressive compression does not (rpt not) provide benefits to resolution or any other audio characteristic, with the exception of loudness, which you could have obtained by turning up the loudness knob."


Hello geoffkait,

     I completely agree with you that compression of dynamics for the sake of increasing average volume level is to be avoided, I want my music dynamic, too.
     However, the compression mentioned in my description of Lossless audio files, such as FLAC files, refers to the codec's ability to compress the size of the file and then decompress it upon playback with zero loss of information, including dynamics.  My understanding is it's the same quality as WAV files without the very large file size.

Thanks,
 Tim