Should I get over my prejudice/ignorance/snobbery for WAV and change to mp3?
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Should I get over my prejudice/ignorance/snobbery for WAV and change to mp3? Posted on: 24.04.2012 by Lin Danek A combination of audiophile snobbery, ignorance, prejudice and an ability to convince myself that I CAN hear the difference has resulted in me only buying WAV files from Beatport and JunoDownload. I am also fortunate enough to have a 500GB ASUS NJ61 that only has my (stripped) OS, Traktor and music library on it. Our currency is about to hit 8 Rands to 1 Dollar and I am reconsidering the cost of WAV upgrades. I've read the science (I'm sick of reading about WAV's "voracious appetite for disc space" and "once lost with compression, always lost to compression") but want to hear from this community. 1. Is WAV REALLY worth it? 2. Will I notice the difference? I really appreciate the sound quality of the S4 and don't want it compromised. | |
| Danae Dumler 27.04.2012 | @SirReal and @soundmotiondj - did you record or publish these experiments? or do you have links to similar experiments? I'm actually finding less "hard data" on these topics than I expected while researching this, and there's a lot of bizarre claims being bandied about in the "audiophile" press regarding digital data (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). |
| Lin Danek 26.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by mostapha
Essential to this discussion surely - ie your WAV or mp3 at the heart of the source. |
| Dorie Scelzo 27.04.2012 | I'm with Sir in that I don't believe the audio interface makes that big of a difference. It'll never sound better than your source, for one thing, and the differences between a crap DJ interface and a good one are hardly evening & day. Diminishing returns kicks in real quick. |
| Antonetta Wikel 26.04.2012 | We'll have to agree to disagree on that. My tests were done on a high end, tuned to the 9's flat response professional sound stage and the difference between 320 MP3 & wav was evening and day. I do, however agree with your other points about the signal chain, hardware and extra DA/AD conversions, as the overall signal is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. |
| Sulema Eshel 26.04.2012 | Skipped to end of thread because I couldn't be arsed to read the whole thread. I saw the first page and all the hoo-haa about 'can you tell between MP3 and WAV', and to do a subjective listening test. Only issue with that is that it isn't pumping out of a 10K system. Music sounds so different at high volume! As an example, I tried using keylock on a CDJ that had always sounded totally fine at home, but through a large PA, it sounded absolutely awful. I love my 320 MP3s and use them all the time. On a 6K PA I used a 192 (and ashamed to say, a 128 of a tune that I couldn't find anywhere else) and none of these sounded as bad as keylock. I believe you'd be better off spending your time paying attention to interconnects and the quality of PA in general, rather than 320 vs WAV, because if the gear is turd, doesn't matter how much you polish it by putting through a 1000000Mhz 256bit file, it ain't gonna sound good. Also, no good running WAVs through a Realtek built-in soundcard... it's never going to sound as an MP3 through a top end Echo or Sapphire soundcard solution. Save the money you would spend on WAVs and put it into a pot to buy a better soundcard. As a final note, no-one ever seems to pay attention to digital outs. Everyone just uses RCA blindly. The DACs on a DB4 WILL be better than the DACs on a CDJ and using this option, you cut out a digital(CDJ)>analog(RCA)>digital(DB4) conversion which inherently adds noise. You will also not get any RF interference on the RCA line from the CDJ to the mixer using this method. Hell, why are we not lusting after all digital connects (AES/EBU) to speaker (esp. now that mixers are going all digital), rather than worrying about the minutiae of WAV vs MP3? Therefore to conclude, WAV or MP3 should be about #5 or #6 on your list when looking at audio quality. Admittedly, even with a shit system, a WAV will always be an unlossy WAV, so when you do get an absolutely kick ass system, the WAV will be ready to go in all it's uncompressed glory, but you'll STILL be pushed to tell the difference between the two. Save your money and get 320... and a badass soundcard. |
| Dorie Scelzo 26.04.2012 | Yeah……I hear that. I haven't bought new music in a while. I have big crates at 3 different online shops stored……but I just can't bring myself to actually buy the tracks right now. Too much other stuff to pay for: other toys, food, fucking gasoline. |
| Lin Danek 26.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by sarasin
True Adrian - some of it over my head. This Rand/Dollar rate is burying us 'bru - like Mostapha says, time to 'downsize'. |
| Lilliana Perris 26.04.2012 | Yep, this is where this debate will go on a music based community
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| Lin Danek 26.04.2012 | Interesting where this debate has gone. Staying with WAV for now. . |
| Dorie Scelzo 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by SirReal
Anyone not wearing earplugs has probably destroyed the parts of their hearing that would pick up on the subtleties. So, when it comes to your audience…you've got 3 groups of people: people who are too deaf to hear it, people who's earplugs are too cheap to hear it, and people who spent a lot of money on custom musicians plugs and wear them clubbing. Realistically, the 3rd group is effing small. I believe I just buy wavs at this point because of a combination of habit and the off chance that I'd want to do an edit. Plus, it bugs me when I'm listening for fun and believe about it.
Originally Posted by SirReal
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| Lilliana Perris 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by SirReal
Play one or the other. Mixing them is where the trouble starts. |
| Lilliana Perris 25.04.2012 | Yeah! I seen that video...and I must say, he is a WHACK character! He obviously knows a shitload about building sound....but his 'theory' on sound quality is a bit whack... Maybe I just don't understand, but saying that a thin little cable can run a bigass system?! Just a bit odd. On another note, the guy who owns Beartrap Productions, whom I play for, has met and discussed sound with Tony himself. He now owns the biggest TurboSound Rig in Cape Town (maybe the whole of South Africa) and only has good things to say about Tony. Funktion One is defintely one of the top sound systems in the world. |
| Bethel Himmelein 26.04.2012 | Nice video here about our hearing capabilities here: To my surprise this video reveals that Funktion One tested on the NI audio interfaces.... |
| Antonetta Wikel 26.04.2012 | It was said earlier, you have to "know how to listen" and what to listen for. My tests may be biased as subjects are almost always in an audio career, ie mixers, audio editors, sound engineers. I'm guessing my results wouldn't be quite so definitive if I took just random people off the street. The point is, though, with people who actually "listen for a living" the data shows there is a very discernible difference between 44.1k 16 bit wav and 320 MP3. I bet it'd be even more so with 48K 24 bit wav. That being said, if some DJ played an all 320mp3 set most people would never realize it but if they intermixed MP3 and wav I'm sure some people would notice a difference, I know I would and have and I have far from "Golden Ears" Nice topic and some great points. |
| Layne Koop 26.04.2012 | @SirReal: Interesting results. I have done similar tests...and found the results to be slightly worse than "random guessing" would produce (but not in a statistically interesting amount)...or when I add a "Can not tell" option...that option gets picked about 2/3 of the time. Either way...there is no substitute for controlled testing and measurement. |
| Antonetta Wikel 25.04.2012 | @ SOundinmotiondj, no self testing at all. Test has been and always is with numerous test subjects in a very controlled environment. I've done many different types of these tests both as the tester and the "testes" One of the first tests I put together was was the exact same song in four formats. 44.1 16 bit wav (CD quality) ATRAC, AAC, and 320kbps mp3 (This test was done quite a while ago so FLAC & Ogg Vorbis were still not on my radar). First the subjects were allowed to just listen to each of the four tracks in whatever order they wanted and for as long as they wanted, switching as mauch as they wanted. I then had them rate each in order from what sounded best to what sounded worst to them. 95% picked the wav as sounding the best and 100% had the mp3 as the worst. The AAC & Atrac were very close with AAC narrowly winning out 2nd and ATRAC 3rd. The second test was to play the same segment of the song of each encoded type in random order totaling 100 and have the test subjects pick which they thought each one was. This became even more muddled with .wav, ATRAC & AAC BUT the MP3 was still correctly identified 90% of the time. It was stated earlier, you can totally hear it in the reverb tails and dynamics of the track both in the highs and lows. |
| Dorie Scelzo 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by keeb
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. |
| Layne Koop 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by SirReal
Have you tried to test yourself in a "double blind" setting? Or using the method I described...of creating a "random" arrangement of source material, and then finding a "random" starting point?
Originally Posted by nubz69
Confirmation Bias runs rampant in the WAV/mp3 issue. Until you have done a "double blind" test....you will not know if you can tell a difference or not.
Originally Posted by mostapha
Could you identify a shape as a "circle" or an "octagon" 10 out of 10 times? Could you identify the color as "yellow" or "purple" 10 out of 10 times? Could you identify a song as "The Beatles" or "The Rolling Stones" 10 out of 10 times? Now...suppose I was a TOTAL bastard on the test...and I prepared nine samples. One at a "reference level", one at -0.5dB, and one at -1dB: 1) WAV (0dB, -0.5dB, -1dB) 2) mp3 @ 320 (0db, -0.5dB, -1dB) 3) mp3 @ 192 (0dB, -0.5dB, -1dB) Most people should know that "louder is better" is a real thing. To get a "fair" comparison, sources should be normalized within 0.1dB. Difference as small as 0.2dB (which is not consciously audible) produce a statistically significant preference for the louder sample. How confident are you that you could correctly identify the bitrate of the source....if the samples were NOT all as the same sound level?
Originally Posted by mostapha
And given the peculiarities of the Equal Loudness Curves, the differences in sound systems, differences in room modes and room acoustical treatment, differences in listening position, the acclimatization of people to listening on ear buds, the rise of streaming media as a "reference" for media content, and so on....it is *very* unlikely that anyone can definitively tell the difference between WAV and mp3 @ 320...or even 192. There are dozens of elements within the signal chain and room acoustics that all matter more than the difference between WAV and mp3 @ 320. For instance, I find that using unbalanced signal cables (as opposed to balanced) to connect the DJ mixer to the top of my post-processing effects rack is MUCH more noticeable than the difference between WAV/mp3 sources. |
| Hipolito Scionti 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by keeb
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| Ok Moroski 25.04.2012 | Wavs do sound different/better, at least on studio monitors. I'd assume they sound different on huge systems as well. Do they sound different enough to be worth the hassle? Not for me. I don't use Wav, and as far as I'm aware none of the DJs I've talked to in my area do either (it's the type of thing I'd expect to get brought up too). I'm sure I'll get flamed for this next sentence, but here it goes. Honestly, in my experience the sound quality difference between an S4 and a proper external mixer/decent soundcard (Mackie d.4 pro, then my DJM900) is more substantial than the difference between Wav and MP3. You might be getting better results with your S4 than I did, but I found it really killed the dynamics in my tracks in comparison. |
| Lilliana Perris 25.04.2012 | I have always and only played Wav's out to big festivals etc. I do believe that it sounds better....it HAS to. But when i am playing in the clubs and jamming Electro, I have been using MP3's (much to my mate and mentors disgust) and have not had any issues with sound quality there. If you not being paid big money's to be play out, then I believe its fair to say, you dont need the Wav's. If I was being paid PROPER money for my sets at a BIG show, then i would be sure to ONLY have Wav's and make my performance the best it can be. Regardless of the argument on these file types....I would do it to make myself feel like I did the most I could to sound the best. But if I am just jamming for my enjoyment at home or for friends, 320Mp3's are the way to go I reckon. |
| Nikole Resende 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by nubz69
I'd really like to know where you (legally) get those cheap WAVE files... Price per track (CD Price/# of tracks) of a CD should be somewhere around 1 |
| Dorie Scelzo 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by JonathanBlake
Honeslty, it's not that huge of a difference. It's not like the AAC files I get from iTunes aren't listenable in my car or even in my headphones or on my (low-end) monitors (in a basically un-treated room). And if it's a burden, don't worry about it too much. There are things you can do to screw up your sound way more than using mp3s…many of which people believe of as normal (like clipping a mixer's outputs or running Traktor way too hot). The difference is audible…and it's worth disk space and money to me. I can easily see how someone could decide differently if their priorities were different. But I'd still rather just buy less music than buy crappier music. |
| Lin Danek 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by nubz69
Well thought. Well put. |
| Lin Danek 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by mostapha
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| Dorie Scelzo 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by JonathanBlake
Originally Posted by JonathanBlake
Originally Posted by JonathanBlake
Originally Posted by soundinmotiondj
The last time I did that, I did it with 5 copies instead of 10 using an iTunes playlist on shuffle and only one trial |
| Anja Ursprung 25.04.2012 | We have to change from mp3 to wav or aiff or similar. There is a different in the sound, its a matter of to learn to hear it. I have been working with some really good sound engineers in club where they can tell if I play a mp3 (320kbps) almost all the time, with out a/b comparing. As long I still play mp3 they will look at me little as an amateur. We as DJs should always try to get the best sound ever, even if the difference is small. Better file format, better sound card, better cables, better handling of the mixer, etc. If we do that it will make a different in the end result and we can demand better sound systems without the club owner/ sound engineer says that it does not matter as we use bad stuff :-) |
| Lin Danek 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by SirReal
OP here - believe you misunderstood me. I'm WITH you on the noticeable audio difference - which is one of the reasons for my reluctance to change. I also am a fan (gulp ) of Monster Cable. My Rotel/Boston Acoustics hi-fi is interconnected and speaker-wired with MC. I use both MC Copper Pro and iSport IEMs which in IMHO are phenomenal. My 'credentials' are listening (and appreciating) experience, not professional. I did however change from MC to DJTT USB cables (with better results wrt to latency and drop-outs). Not trolling - respecting opinions like yours. |
| Audria Pechman 25.04.2012 | Stick with the WAV. There are multiple reasons for this but here is my quick run down. -You get the "whole" song - I understand and enjoy the convenience of mp3. I grew up buying CDs so I don't get paying almost the same price for a track (CD price / # of tracks) and geting less then 100% of what I pay for just doesn't make sense to me. -Storage is cheap - the mp3 format is going to lose it's relevance as storage continues to grow. You can buy 3TB for about $150 now, in a few years you will be at 6TB. - There is a difference - There are many people on both sides of the "I can hear a difference". "Nobody can hear a difference" debate. The fact there is a debate means it isn't definitive and most likely depends on the person and the system being listened too. Personally I can hear it and after joining me for a few listening sessions, so can my girlfriend. Granted I do have some higher end gear but you can still notice a difference in other ways. One way that we perceive a difference is through listener fatigue. I have been planing on writing an article about this and just have not sat down and spent the time yet. We don't hear listener fatigue but it does affect us, so does that count as hearing a difference? Yes. This also affects our audience in ways they may perceive, but not hear. If you want an extreme example, listen to cd or flac set for 2-3 hours on headphones or a nice set of speakers/monitors. Then listen to the same set that is from 128kbs mp3 for 2-3 hours. Aside from hearing a difference, you will feel different. 3 hours of 128kbs is very fatiguing for just about anybody. 320kbs is much closer to cd quality but if you listen long enough it will be fatiguing as well. Not exactly the feelings we want to get our audience to feel, huh? What I have found that is interesting is that the less fatiguing an audio system sounds, the more willing someone is to listen to music they may not normally enjoy as much. Granted that is anecdotal but I would not be surprised to find that to be a universal. Lets not even mention the problems with making a mix using mp3s and then compressing that into another MP3 to share. As they say, there is more to the story but I believe you get the idea. I do want to add that if the only way you can afford the songs you want to play is by buying the MP3, go for it. You can always improve your quality later on when you can afford it better. |
| Antonetta Wikel 25.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by JonathanBlake
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| Lin Danek 24.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by SirReal
I'll go with that, as with Monster Cable Pro-Copper IEMs. |
| Antonetta Wikel 24.04.2012 | I've said it before and I'll say it again Why the F doesn't any DJ software use Broadcast wav files? You can save so much more metadata with them. And yes, one absolutely can hear a difference between wav and 320 MP3 on any system with decent speakers. |
| Halley Wurzer 24.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by dope
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| Layne Koop 24.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by kevinmcdonough
I have played FLAC at a gig...but not enough to know if there are any latency issues. I do convert to mp3 depending on usage. 320 for Traktor, 192 for iPhone. |
| Kasi Marget 24.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by DJ SB
No doubt it feels better to you, you have music under your hand, physically. Still, to me it's pure snobbery (no offence intended). |
| Rhett Dysard 24.04.2012 | You cant tell the difference. On DJF 1.0 some members did some empirical analysis. There is a difference, but it is impossible to see, hear or feel it with out computer analyzation. |
| Alla Bluemke 24.04.2012 | I also do mp3. The compromise is minimal to me. |
| Halley Wurzer 24.04.2012 | My whole library is 320kbps MP3s. I recently started spinning vinyl records for fun, and I can honestly tell you that after mixing a set on vinyl, going back to playing digital is not as audibly enjoyable. On my decent sound system, vinyl sounds noticeably better to me. I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but it does make wish my files were better quality. |
| Classie Alvizo 24.04.2012 | hey Yeah I believe anyone would be very hard pressed to tell the difference between a good quality, properly converted 320 MP3 and a wave file even on a great hi-fi or high quality great cans. When your dealing with large PA systems, lots of background noise in the venue, often not ideally set up/maintained gear or venue acoustics that are less than desirable then there are so many other, far bigger weak links in the chain that the difference between MP3 and Wave is simply a non-issue. However agree that metatags is a big issue, and for the waves that I do have a few times have moved collections to different laptops or reinstalled and having to re-name/re- artist and re-genre a few hundred of tracks is a PITA! Someone needs to invent some wrapper format that can still be played back/understood as a wav file with any standard software but allows the addition of tags, they'll make a fortune |
| Elsie Golis 24.04.2012 | switch to Vinyl |
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