😵💫wow, it's really interesting to see from the comments that so many people listen to what others say, but they're still not hearing them without their own "filters."
it would be nice if TH-cam gave you an option to priorities Audio quality over Video if audio demos is the point is the purpose of the video. That said there are other platforms better for audio, like Soundcloud
It's not just a hifi issue. Some TH-cam TV reviewers think that we can see subtle picture differences between high-end TVs via their camera recordings of the screens. That video is eventually displayed on a phone or computer that is not physically capable of reproducing those subtleties even if their camera had the capability to detect them which it probably does not.
The "science" of audio is hard to understand. Maybe I'm dumber than most people but I appreciate explanations, as much as demonstrations, because it helps to inform buying choices. You're good at cutting through the marketing jargon and calling BS on overpriced, unnecessary gear. That's very helpful to the non-expert consumer.
I have no issue with Audio videos on TH-cam. I do get a little tired of product pushers and anyone who constantly dumps on Audiophiles. I love hearing about technical things like mixing techniques etc. I would love to hear someone explain how various mixing effects were made and done in the past. But then you run into Copyright issues if you try to play the part of the song your talking about
My visit to an Audiologist specifically with tinnitus was a waste of time and money and they are still polluting my letterbox after more than five years.
Ok the demonstration may not give a full story of is A better B but listening of line your viewer is aware that there may or may not be a difference. Tweets like having the middle section of a hifi system invisible due to balanced audio do make a difference. Other fix’s help as well. It’s more informative plus your fry wit a nod to Audio Phil which make your channel a must watch. Thank you! A.
You have raised some interesting questions. IMHO. For those seriously interested in audio equipment, hearing sound samples in a lossless format would probably be appreciated, especially when listening test comparisons between similar types of equipment can be provided. The problem remains though, of how any individual pieces of equipment will actually perform with the system someone has and the room where it is set up and playing.
few weeks ago a video with black board drawing of the audio waves in simple detail, compression (res____) something to do with how close the lines would be if signal wasnt turnt into wave, pitch loudness couple more items. can not find it any clue
My issue with audio demonstrations is this: If the system through which I'm playing back the video is not as good as the one you're demonstrating, then I'm not going to hear what is so special about the equipment you're using. If the system, on the other hand, is good enough to hear everything, then I don't need to buy the product you are demonstrating, as the one I have is better! Never mind, having a sense of humour helps and you have that in spades!
The reason why I watch (and listen) to your videos, is that I think your opinions are very informed, your explanations are very clear, the topics you address are interesting (as is the case of this video), you are very smart, you know a lot of whatever you talk about, and I like your sense of humor. I am perfectly aware of the limitations of TH-cam audio, so I understand that audio demos in TH-cam should not be the only source of my opinion on how a specific equipment sounds. I think that you also understand TH-cam’s limitations and that whenever you put audio on your videos, you do it very carefully, to highlight perceptible differences. Your content is very good 👍. Please keep posting your content. Greetings from Mexico-Tenochtitlan, capital city of the aztecs.
I’ve found that binaural recordings seem useful for serious audio demo purposes on TH-cam. Maybe look into that. It’s a lower bar for me to don headphones than to download wav files. For example, NRD channel with Ron does this sometimes. Cheers!
Another reason to ban them from UTube: everyone I have found are shills for companies whose product they review. Why don't HiFi channels advertise bed linen or dog food, products they do not review? We skip or fast forward the ads anyway!
The "average" mentality on TH-cam is completely ludicrous. Regardless of how you're listening, comparing, and evaluating "hi-fi" equipment, you can't get around the fact that you're not directly exposed to the sound equipment you're attempting to evaluate aurally. Some think that "relative" differences are valid, but the reality is that the sounds compared are actually tainted by what you are listening to them on, so you may choose one over the other, and that is not necessarily the right answer, even with the best quality of everything on the side of the listener.
@@CarlVanDoren61 The room doesn't dictate the sonic quality .. the room actually "modifies" the sonic quality of what's coming out of the speakers, dependent of course on the speakers' placement, and where the ears of the listener are in relation to the surroundings.
Listener hearing adopts to environment, Everybody expereinces it everyday in outdoor and indoor i all environments What he is not able adopt to is in 99% to multiple sharp phase shifts which are uniqualy found in every audio gear and eventualy make listening boring and dull. in compare all that "deficiences " in TH-cam are no worthy admitting. .
Another alternative is to upload the uncompressed audio to a file sharing service and link to it in the description box. That way you can download the file onto your own system and listen to it.
Tell the haters to eat sewage, it does not work but feels immensely satisfying. TH-cam bitrates etc are good enough unless you are into oxygen free copper and those little black squares we used to stick on Linn Sondek LP12's. Thanks for the chuckle.
I love audio demonstrations. TH-cam audio is way better than what we used to have to listen to. I dont know the specific audio rates but it seems to be at least as good as a CD. Going from lossy to lossless on the internet will never be as big a jump as going from tape to CD. Remember, there is a huge amount of great sounding music that was produces on tape and it still sounds great. TH-cam is the medium we have, so we just mix/listen around and trough it.
the youtube audio codec (opus 251) is 136 kbps vbr at 48kHz, regardless of the video resolution. is a great sounding compression algorithm for what it is :)
Opus is a truly impressive codec. Even with TH-cam's ~130 Kbit audio, I can only notice the compression when directly comparing it with lossless audio. On the other hand, I can notice MP3 artifacts from a mile away, even at rates more than double what TH-cam uses! I do wish TH-cam would dedicate more bandwidth to audio though. The 4k version of this video is using 10.4 Mbit video, meaning that it is using nearly 100x more data for video! If this video used lossless, uncompressed CD audio, the audio would only take up ~15% of the stream.
Opus and MP3 (when encoded with LAME in VBR mode) both reach perceptual transparency for almost anyone when averaging around 190kbps. The biggest problem when encoding to MP3 is people deliberately abusing the encoder by forcing it to CBR mode and using bitrates significantly below 320kbps. This still happens far more often than you might think despite LAME MP3 VBR's superiority being common knowledge for over 20 years.
Hearing a characteristic of one speaker through another speaker --- or headphones --- is at best a bad comromise. Other equipment is similarly affected.
"Boycott all HiFi channels that include audio demonstrations" is the choice of the viewer and not the content provider. There are countless popular videos of people reviewing songs that they've heard for the first time, reviews of comedy sketches and the tasting of food and drink. We value the opinion of the reviewer, or perhaps even their humour, sarcasm, mannerisms and/or appearance. Keep up the good work as long as you enjoy doing it :D
I'm watching your video on my iPhone 6...the audio through its internal iphone speaker is never going to sound good...(i never listen to any audio demonstrations on TH-cam from anyone).
can't you upload your lossless sample to some file sharing service that we then can download - of course you may have to spend some of your huge profits from youtube to do this I guess... but other channels have done this - seems to work ok... a separate d/l is good for me as it's easier to stream it to my main HiFi....
@@AudioMasterclass Probably because a difference can be heard anyway through the lossy youtube audio (I hear it). It will be only a partial difference, but it is enough to get an idea. With the original files, the difference would be presumably bigger. But to have the original files available would be always a good thing, if it is not too much additional work for you.
An interesting conundrum, to me the only solution is for the video sound track to be uploaded some place else for those who want the purest form to download. However I have seen a few 'reviews' where it was all recorded with a mobile phone, so then it would not matter how it was uploaded, it's kind of useless from the start. How many reviewers have a 'golden microphone', so even with lossless audio of the review, your still at the mercy of the reviewers mic, etc. etc. In the end it does not matter what the reviewer, or TH-cam do, it's never going to sound better than your speakers, DAC, and amp, as that's what your listening to it on.
I listen to TH-cam Music and its not bad, streaming music in Hires no accurate without Upsample and a proper DACand DDC . But my Digital Turntable built with the output circuits used to cut Vinyl give me perfect Analog when accessed from a local thumb drive.
I lean toward preferring talking more in HiFi reviews because I don’t think I can get an accurate sounds from a TH-cam demo. It’s not exactly the lossy nature of the audio, it’s that there is a chain in the way. You demo a set of speakers, the sound is recorded by a microphone of some kind, that gets recorded and edited, that’s uploaded to TH-cam, TH-cam does its thing, I play it through my system and speakers. That’s a good bit of separation and will I really be hearing your speakers or mine? It helps to have a “referee” to compare in the same video. Switching back and forth between two sets of speakers helps distinguish the differences, but it’s not the same as being in the same room as them. No method is perfect, which I understand. I don’t mind if an audio demo is done, but I do want to thoroughly hear the reviewer’s impressions since he is in that room. I suppose this is an argument for physical HiFi shops!
If they are din with quality microphones or direct feeds and listened to with a decent T DACa d headphones then yes I like them. They may not tell the whole story but if used to compare two components for example there is enough quality to let you hear the overall characteristics of each and their differences. I’ve used these videos to narrow down my buying list of components to audition and so far it worked for me. There’s a Japanese Audio Store called Sound Tek and they have some of the best comparison videos on TH-cam.
After several months of watching TH-cam videos about headphones after being out of the hobby for several years, I found that generally the language used to describe headphones helped me zero in on the right sound signature for me. All the channels I watched did not do demos. While demos I think can be good to compare one sound vs another, they certainly can't be used to demonstrate the benefits of this or that piece of equipment. You're after all limited or empowered by your own gear, first and foremost. Another learning I had is that through this process I've come to train my ears (really my brain) to pay attention to things I didn't listen for before. I hear more in terms of soundstage and timbre than I did before I started my journey. I suspect these kind reviewers are further along that path than most of us.
A very tongue in cheek, subtle and clever comment on comments regarding the quality of audio demonstrations accessed from TH-cam, you make some very good points indeed. However, I don’t think anybody is being critical of H-Fi channels per se, but instead just pointing out that the limitations that exist at our end make subtle differences in audio a little difficult to hear, not to mention the crap gear that some of us listen to it on, (guilty - well pointed out). As for giving up - good God, never ever do that, if you did then from where would people like me get access to intelligent, knowledgeable, droll (very) and above all extremely entertaining TH-cam commentary?
I (TES Productions and the Meadowlark label) have eight albums on TH-cam Music. YTM is one of the 150 music services that CD Baby distributes to. Of course, this is different than regular TH-cam. Here is one example --- Meadowlark Paper Hearts by Thomas Shea and one more --- Miles Away by Justice.
It is funny how someone thinks that recording something, then putting on youtube, will make someone else being able to hear what the person recording was able to hear. It is not about youtube lossy compression, in theory it is but in reality it is very small loss of fidelity. The problem is, LOL, in 1) recording equipment, and more importantly, 2) listening equipment on the other side. You can't demonstrate how combination of amplifier and speakers, recorded in your room, with your devices, sounds, being played on the listener's equipment in his room. What he is hearing is mostly how his equipment sounds, not how your equipment sounds. LOL again. With that being said, I love your channel, videos and presentations.
I really don't care so much about image quality, except in the photos that I make (been doing that for over 25 years now) and when I'm photoshopping. My tv is 10 years old and not 4K. On the computer I use F-Lux for less blue light. Only when I am using Photoshop, I temporarily turn it off. Audio though, now that's an entirely different story. That must really be good!
One thing about sound and audio is that it's very subjective. I have watched so many videos on TH-cam where someone tells me that one machine sounds so much better than the other, and I can't hear any difference what so ever. Whether it's because of the audio quality on TH-cam or not I don't know.
Simple solution: Host the lossless audio demonstration files on a cloud service and link them to your video so viewers who care about that level of detail can check them out for themselves.
There are a couple channels with cult followings that measure hi fi gear. Problem is, they do play with the results. They also favor certain brands that measure poorly. They scoff at less costly gear that measures as well as the brands they shill. For the viewer: "These $700 speakers have a slight dip here and there, they are really inferior" For themselves: "These $7000 a pair speakers don't measure well but they don't SOUND that way." It's all marketing and manipulation. It's all bias and opinion. Sadly, cultist viewers take it as gospel. TH-cam isn't just lossy, it's rolled off about 16khz.
Do you use a mic and record what is coming out of your speakers or take a line out? If the former we are listening to your room acoustics, and whatever you do I am still hearing my system not yours even if TH-cam was perfect.
I output from my iPhone 4 in my downstairs toilet and record it on my iPhone 6S Plus on the other side of the door. I stick a finger in one ear for better transparency and staging. I then transfer to cassette and have my parrot to repeat what it hears. Then I upload in 64 bps MP3 and ask my *audio enthusiast* viewers to form a judgement.
Don’t be swayed by what people say. I liked what you said in your earlier videos. 24/96 is good enough. Poorly recorded music is made even worse by good enough. Good recordings of good material are very. For snobs,let them spend their money and have fun. You keep doing what you do!
I'd much rather you feed my confirmation bias that so much of these expensive differences are imperceptible. Things that matter more are good quality content, good mic technique, good post-processing and editing, and good (even inexpensive) speakers.
Seems to me 4K video is a bigger data gobbler then lossless audio would be. Come on YT! For me, demos to portray a piece of gear is worthless. That said, many of the verbal descriptions of a piece of gear’s performance have more distortion than a Crosley TT. It’s all just good fun and a diversion from this damn spreadsheet I’m supposed to be updating!
Never found any use for audio Demos for obvious reasons and will say so. That being said, I am not going to badger someone into stop posting them. It is their content, who am I to tell them what and what not to post?
Several youtube reviewers already upload a lossless file of the recording of the test and share the link. Even then we would be hearing those recordings on our inferior equipment and its quality would be the ceiling. If my equipment is better than the one tested, why sould I change it? That is why a review is a demonstration and a critique of its features. Sometimes we may agree with the reviewer and then he/she becomes trustworthy.
There is no functional difference between lossless and lossy to an end listener, especially for a man of your advanced years. At least you are self-aware enough to question whether you can hear any difference at all, or whether you just think you can. Just about all hi-fi these days is good enough, so I prefer reviews to focus on build quality, functionality, flexibility, and cost.
Hifi reviews used to be in magazines! No audio at all there... I guess you could make lossless files available to download for people to listen to, if you can find somewhere to host the files? Much as I love hifi kit, I do have to acknowledge my age and hence hearing is barely able to detect the difference between CD and vinyl versions of the same album. No way I'm going to be able to hear difference in amps. Besides you tend to get used to listening to the kit you have and you have to learn to ignore the urge to go out and buy something more 3x the price because you think it might sound slightly better...
@@AudioMasterclass Ha! Well I guess nobody really cares and everyone is prepared to take your word for it! (not that you harp on about the amazing transparency and 3d sound stage like most reviewers do, thank god!)
I only watch your channel as far as Audio goes, your opinion is enough for me and I don't like audio demos. I want to know specifications, build quality and other stuff like that. I like a bit of technical input to from someone who can tell one end of a resistor from the other and I like to see inside if possible or explanations of industry terminology etc. The rest of my audio needs are catered for by electronic tutorials or the repair and design of amp's channels as I like to repair damaged audio equipment for fun as a hobby with a bit of design work (hackery) thrown in. My shite laptop and your channel are all I need along with other technical sites. Now to have a butcher's at what other people have written....cheers.
@@AudioMasterclass Back in the good old days of through hole parts, I used to arrange resistors so that the active end, useable as a test point, was always nearest the colour code bands. Made trouble shooting a lot easier. But, true enough, I don't think the resistors cared the first whit about that. These days... hell you can barely see the parts, never mind their orientation.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 with today's tiny chip components, package parasitics won't come out to play at 50 MHz or less like they did in the old days..even leaded metal film resistors were much better at 100 MHz than the old carbon resistors..
I think online audio demos are pointless. Irrespective of whether or not the source is lossy, the sound you hear is the sound of your device,, which in most cases is going to be a smartphone or a lap top.
I prefer better audio quality since I use a computer with a 13-inch screen most of the time, but with a DragonFly Red DAC and Sennheiser HD 598 CS headphones. I find it strange that people have moved to HD, then 4K and even 8K, but still listen to poor quality audio files in MP3, 128 kbits. As if people have more respect for their eyes than their ears. My car is a Tesla Model 3, I changed 10 out of 14 speakers to put in much better quality ones. It makes a very big difference. And what's more, the car's audio system reproduces flac format files well. I tested music streaming with Tidal. The problem is that the quality decreases when you are on the move. So I unsubscribed. I could clearly see the difference between a Flac file and Tidal streaming.
we all know that an mp3 removes whats known as the stuff you cant hear in a lossless file........can someone reverse this please? in other words - leave the bit you ''cant hear' and remove the stuff you 'can hear' .....what would that sound like ? BTW TH-cam audio is far from awful if the source is excellent.
That can be done in a good sound editor, Audacity or better. Take a lossless wav file ... make a copy as MP3 or AAC .... now decode the lossy copy back to a wav file, line it up with the original lossless one, invert it ... and what you hear is the difference between them ... what they didn't think we can hear.
@@kevinmcgrath3591 There are examples of "null testing" audio files, but none involving lossless-to-lossy-to-lossless transcoding, that I know of. But one thing I'm pretty sure of ... For a self-professed lazy person it would probably entail more work finding a good example than doing it for yourself. (Grin) You might want to get in touch with David (our humble host) and perhaps there's an interesting video in this for both of you.
I find some of them entertaining, referring to the snake oil . The way things are going in Australia with the government wanting to ban misinformation a lot might get blocked.
Always good content and great questions posed but one thing you MUST stop is the annoying emphasis zoom ins and zoom outs that are everywhere on TH-cam. It's as bad as the over-done shaky handheld camera shots on TV and movies. It's useless and annoying. Doesn't add anything and just takes you out of the moment. Most are barely zoomed in as it is so they are nothing more than needless strobes in and out. Lose them please. Everything else is great though. I learn a lot from your vids.
I suppose it begs the point that most folks aren’t watching YT on high end audio systems. For one thing, they don’t have screens - that would be the home theater YT crowd. Then there is the issue of tablet, phone, or ear bud speakers. I suppose all are better than transistor radios, but still. How about this: no demos but rather commentary that this sounds better than that under these circumstances, in that environment, for people that still can hear audio in the 8-15kHz range. Easy Peezy.
I listen to albums on youtube. Started years ago as a discovery tool for buying CDs. But then, I came from radio and vinyl so we have a knack for imaginations filling in the holes in the audio and somehow the music just takes over the format, regardless of what it is. Most of my sources as a child were mono and we still managed to have a good time around it and it too perpetuated my audiophile life. I just tend to look at it all as good and better, but it doesn't always take the best to lure me into a lengthy listening session. I get by at work plugging my budget cell phone with Pandora, directly into active speakers and listening all day, and more often than not, well inspire me to fire up my other system at night. I simply can't imagine having to worry about being put off by lesser SQ. What a miserable haunt that would be. I have small 5" speakers I travel with and use a Bluetooth Fosi to power them with. No subwoofers, nada. And when I am away from my main system, this is such a thankful setup to have in lieu of the alternative which would be nothing, since I am not an earbud or headphone guy.
There is only one demo worth having if you are thinking of buying a piece of gear and that is the one in person. All else is ridiculous due to the obvious restrictions of human experience shoved through an algorithm and a mixed set of transducers. It is however useful ,if you trust the reviewer to hear information and usually comparative information to equipment you are familiar with. I know from previous postings that you speak obvious sense and often have food for thought in the professional and domestic audio community that is fun to chew on. I don’t however need attempted subtle audio demos from you (or anyone) and would find it faintly silly if you tried to do one. Links to high resolution audio files externally might be an answer if you are talking difference in audio signal but trying to replicate an experience of listening in a room to equipment through this medium is just silly and should just be subjectively and objectively spoken about.
Truth is, nothing should be banned except for deliberate hurt. Bad info, ignorance? These things must exist in a free society. If one learns to discern, it will be their most precious skill. If not, well they will then be the noise we have to sort through in our free speech world. Make sure once you propose a cure that it is not worse than the illness. Be the change you wish for.
Honestly, I don't care much about youtube being an "old hat HD" or being even better than that, but when it comes to music: Isn't youtube just 160 Kbps? which is pretty pathetic, it should at least be 320 Kbps, 16 bits of Depth, at 44100khz, [then it would at least be basic CD standard]; of course then it would still be lossy, and not lossless, but honestly I could definitely live with that for getting music from youtube! Of course the presenter is right that then its about costs, how many servers, etc. does youtube use, and since they will be dumping the costs on to us, we get 160Kbps, etc. which colloquially speaking (US slang) SUCKS!
Skip U-Tube...bring back Circuit City listening rooms. At least back in the day you could hear the difference between bad audio and terrible audio and [they gave you free coffee].
I will have nightmares tonight about Lossy Audio! Summary: Utube audio quality is utter shite and not a suitable platform for HiFi. You could have said all this within 30 seconds.
Most people are probably listening on their phone, so who could tell the difference. I prefer 24/192 anyway for any real work. Otherwise 16/44.1 is good enough
Audio reviews ought to be silent but with lots of graphics of the actual sound measurements. No measurements? Not much value in the review, other than for functional definitions.
Demonstrations suck and I always skip them all together. Channels that only rely on them fail to capture my interest and in the long run I will un-follow them. Using words to describe sound is not easy, just like it is not easy to write a best selling novel. But those who manage that like Kelvin from Stereo review X, make for exceptionally good videos.
Hi-Fi demonstrations on TH-cam or any other internet based media are a waste of time, What you hear depends on how good your amp and speakers are that you listen to it through. Not many will use studio quality monitors and even then they will add their own tonal changes to the sound. Go and listen to a live band, record it with the very best equipment, then play it back on High end Hi-Fi and it will not sound quite as good as the live performance. As for banning it, that may be a step to far, what should be banned is sponsored gear reviews no way are they going to tell you the whole truth, buy Hi-Fi with your own ears and don't believe the hype from reviewers that have not paid for the equipment themselves.
I figure that if it sounds good through TH-cam, than it must sound good in real life. And if it sounds like Sh**, than it's even sh**tier in real life. So uploading an audio example is a good thing.
No need to ban them, they ARE on they way out. Most of the audiophiles will be dead in the next few decades, and I doubt if they will be replaced with new ones. Younger people wont care about sound, as long they can hear the tunes. Most younger people dont know about stereo, and the ones who do could not care less. Tha art form of critical listening on expensive equiptment is nearly gone. People only care how loud it goes, and of course, THE BASE! Dont forget about the BASE! They watch films, enjoy the loud sound, and pop on the subtitles to the hear the dialogue that you can barely make out! I could not care less if the stay or go! Its all BOLLOCKS !
It is as much pointless accusation as not allow to present in You tube paintings of art because of not enough milions of pixels in compare to original which cost 5 milions $.
This is a commonsense and entertaining HiFI channel. Always get a chuckle. Thank you.
You’re welcome.
If TH-cam gave an option, I would much prefer a 16/44.1 audio bit-rate option over anything above a 1440p video stream.
100%
Answer is to have links to lossless files in the description box that the viewer can download if they choose, i.e. external to TH-cam
Sarcasm, like Audio Masterclass, should be a prerequisite for all reviewers.
Problem is, the folks who are most in need of sarcasm are the same ones who don't register sarcasm!
Totally love the humor and honesty of this channel
I'm just here for your unboxing music.
Don't worry, the album is coming out later this year.
😵💫wow, it's really interesting to see from the comments that so many people listen to what others say, but they're still not hearing them without their
own "filters."
it would be nice if TH-cam gave you an option to priorities Audio quality over Video if audio demos is the point is the purpose of the video. That said there are other platforms better for audio, like Soundcloud
It's not just a hifi issue. Some TH-cam TV reviewers think that we can see subtle picture differences between high-end TVs via their camera recordings of the screens. That video is eventually displayed on a phone or computer that is not physically capable of reproducing those subtleties even if their camera had the capability to detect them which it probably does not.
The "science" of audio is hard to understand. Maybe I'm dumber than most people but I appreciate explanations, as much as demonstrations, because it helps to inform buying choices. You're good at cutting through the marketing jargon and calling BS on overpriced, unnecessary gear. That's very helpful to the non-expert consumer.
I like what you are doing, sir. I can't hear much over 6kHz anyway, so phooey on lossless codecs. I got a lossy codec in my skull.
I have no issue with Audio videos on TH-cam. I do get a little tired of product pushers and anyone who constantly dumps on Audiophiles.
I love hearing about technical things like mixing techniques etc. I would love to hear someone explain how various mixing effects were made and done in the past. But then you run into Copyright issues if you try to play the part of the song your talking about
Thanks!
This is very much appreciated thank you. I hope you continue to enjoy my channel. DM
My visit to an Audiologist specifically with tinnitus was a waste of time and money and they are still polluting my letterbox after more than five years.
Ok the demonstration may not give a full story of is A better B but listening of line your viewer is aware that there may or may not be a difference. Tweets like having the middle section of a hifi system invisible due to balanced audio do make a difference. Other fix’s help as well. It’s more informative plus your fry wit a nod to Audio Phil which make your channel a must watch. Thank you! A.
You have raised some interesting questions. IMHO. For those seriously interested in audio equipment, hearing sound samples in a lossless format would probably be appreciated, especially when listening test comparisons between similar types of equipment can be provided. The problem remains though, of how any individual pieces of equipment will actually perform with the system someone has and the room where it is set up and playing.
few weeks ago a video with black board drawing of the audio waves in simple detail, compression (res____) something to do with how close the lines would be if signal wasnt turnt into wave, pitch loudness couple more items. can not find it any clue
My issue with audio demonstrations is this: If the system through which I'm playing back the video is not as good as the one you're demonstrating, then I'm not going to hear what is so special about the equipment you're using. If the system, on the other hand, is good enough to hear everything, then I don't need to buy the product you are demonstrating, as the one I have is better!
Never mind, having a sense of humour helps and you have that in spades!
Yes, gents spot on 😊
Live, different animal
The reason why I watch (and listen) to your videos, is that I think your opinions are very informed, your explanations are very clear, the topics you address are interesting (as is the case of this video), you are very smart, you know a lot of whatever you talk about, and I like your sense of humor. I am perfectly aware of the limitations of TH-cam audio, so I understand that audio demos in TH-cam should not be the only source of my opinion on how a specific equipment sounds. I think that you also understand TH-cam’s limitations and that whenever you put audio on your videos, you do it very carefully, to highlight perceptible differences. Your content is very good 👍. Please keep posting your content.
Greetings from Mexico-Tenochtitlan, capital city of the aztecs.
I’ve found that binaural recordings seem useful for serious audio demo purposes on TH-cam. Maybe look into that. It’s a lower bar for me to don headphones than to download wav files. For example, NRD channel with Ron does this sometimes. Cheers!
Another reason to ban them from UTube: everyone I have found are shills for companies whose product they review. Why don't HiFi channels advertise bed linen or dog food, products they do not review? We skip or fast forward the ads anyway!
Yes, found actual users on FB groups 😮
Most are just self-appointed 'experts' with one slanted view or another and a modicum of video production skills.
The expression "conflict of interest " never occurred to them. Not to mention the " collabs" with companies whose products they review.
He talking about music played on TH-cam. Not HiFi equipment reviewers .
The "average" mentality on TH-cam is completely ludicrous. Regardless of how you're listening, comparing, and evaluating "hi-fi" equipment, you can't get around the fact that you're not directly exposed to the sound equipment you're attempting to evaluate aurally. Some think that "relative" differences are valid, but the reality is that the sounds compared are actually tainted by what you are listening to them on, so you may choose one over the other, and that is not necessarily the right answer, even with the best quality of everything on the side of the listener.
Room modifies sonic quality
Getting point across is main
@@CarlVanDoren61
The room doesn't dictate the sonic quality .. the room actually "modifies" the sonic quality of what's coming out of the speakers, dependent of course on the speakers' placement, and where the ears of the listener are in relation to the surroundings.
Listener hearing adopts to environment, Everybody expereinces it everyday in outdoor and indoor i all environments What he is not able adopt to is in 99% to multiple sharp phase shifts which are uniqualy found in every audio gear and eventualy make listening boring and dull. in compare all that "deficiences " in TH-cam are no worthy admitting. .
24/96 servers are upgraded every 3 years.Come on youtube.
I read your affiliate links. Ordered nose pliers. Hope they work better than the Harbor Freight model I was using.
Another alternative is to upload the uncompressed audio to a file sharing service and link to it in the description box. That way you can download the file onto your own system and listen to it.
I've tried that. Hardly anyone clicked.
Tell the haters to eat sewage, it does not work but feels immensely satisfying. TH-cam bitrates etc are good enough unless you are into oxygen free copper and those little black squares we used to stick on Linn Sondek LP12's. Thanks for the chuckle.
I would love to hear Hi-Fi audiophile demonstration, is there any other platform that allow .wav or .flac upload?
I have in the past uploaded demos to my own server so people can download them bit for bit. Hardly anyone did.
I love audio demonstrations. TH-cam audio is way better than what we used to have to listen to. I dont know the specific audio rates but it seems to be at least as good as a CD. Going from lossy to lossless on the internet will never be as big a jump as going from tape to CD. Remember, there is a huge amount of great sounding music that was produces on tape and it still sounds great. TH-cam is the medium we have, so we just mix/listen around and trough it.
the youtube audio codec (opus 251) is 136 kbps vbr at 48kHz, regardless of the video resolution. is a great sounding compression algorithm for what it is :)
Opus is a truly impressive codec. Even with TH-cam's ~130 Kbit audio, I can only notice the compression when directly comparing it with lossless audio. On the other hand, I can notice MP3 artifacts from a mile away, even at rates more than double what TH-cam uses! I do wish TH-cam would dedicate more bandwidth to audio though. The 4k version of this video is using 10.4 Mbit video, meaning that it is using nearly 100x more data for video! If this video used lossless, uncompressed CD audio, the audio would only take up ~15% of the stream.
Opus and MP3 (when encoded with LAME in VBR mode) both reach perceptual transparency for almost anyone when averaging around 190kbps. The biggest problem when encoding to MP3 is people deliberately abusing the encoder by forcing it to CBR mode and using bitrates significantly below 320kbps. This still happens far more often than you might think despite LAME MP3 VBR's superiority being common knowledge for over 20 years.
Hearing a characteristic of one speaker through another speaker ---
or headphones --- is at best a bad comromise.
Other equipment is similarly affected.
"Boycott all HiFi channels that include audio demonstrations" is the choice of the viewer and not the content provider.
There are countless popular videos of people reviewing songs that they've heard for the first time, reviews of comedy sketches and the tasting of food and drink.
We value the opinion of the reviewer, or perhaps even their humour, sarcasm, mannerisms and/or appearance.
Keep up the good work as long as you enjoy doing it :D
I'm watching your video on my iPhone 6...the audio through its internal iphone speaker is never going to sound good...(i never listen to any audio demonstrations on TH-cam from anyone).
In words, or in graphs? One can visualize some audio effects.
can't you upload your lossless sample to some file sharing service that we then can download - of course you may have to spend some of your huge profits from youtube to do this I guess... but other channels have done this - seems to work ok... a separate d/l is good for me as it's easier to stream it to my main HiFi....
I have tried that but few viewers had the time or inclination to click.
@@AudioMasterclass Probably because a difference can be heard anyway through the lossy youtube audio (I hear it). It will be only a partial difference, but it is enough to get an idea. With the original files, the difference would be presumably bigger. But to have the original files available would be always a good thing, if it is not too much additional work for you.
An interesting conundrum, to me the only solution is for the video sound track to be uploaded some place else for those who want the purest form to download.
However I have seen a few 'reviews' where it was all recorded with a mobile phone, so then it would not matter how it was uploaded, it's kind of useless from the start.
How many reviewers have a 'golden microphone', so even with lossless audio of the review, your still at the mercy of the reviewers mic, etc. etc.
In the end it does not matter what the reviewer, or TH-cam do, it's never going to sound better than your speakers, DAC, and amp, as that's what your listening to it on.
I listen to TH-cam Music and its not bad, streaming music in Hires no accurate without Upsample and a proper DACand DDC .
But my Digital Turntable built with the output circuits used to cut Vinyl give me perfect Analog when accessed from a local thumb drive.
I lean toward preferring talking more in HiFi reviews because I don’t think I can get an accurate sounds from a TH-cam demo. It’s not exactly the lossy nature of the audio, it’s that there is a chain in the way. You demo a set of speakers, the sound is recorded by a microphone of some kind, that gets recorded and edited, that’s uploaded to TH-cam, TH-cam does its thing, I play it through my system and speakers. That’s a good bit of separation and will I really be hearing your speakers or mine? It helps to have a “referee” to compare in the same video. Switching back and forth between two sets of speakers helps distinguish the differences, but it’s not the same as being in the same room as them. No method is perfect, which I understand. I don’t mind if an audio demo is done, but I do want to thoroughly hear the reviewer’s impressions since he is in that room. I suppose this is an argument for physical HiFi shops!
Demonstration even when lossy is better than any description that can be explained by words.
If they are din with quality microphones or direct feeds and listened to with a decent T DACa d headphones then yes I like them. They may not tell the whole story but if used to compare two components for example there is enough quality to let you hear the overall characteristics of each and their differences. I’ve used these videos to narrow down my buying list of components to audition and so far it worked for me. There’s a Japanese Audio Store called Sound Tek and they have some of the best comparison videos on TH-cam.
I use demos on my channel as a way to introduce new music to the viewer. I lack a sophisticated audio recording gear so I do my best. Good topic. Thx.
8K or 16K if I'm watching a nature video but Hi-Res if I'm listening to a track full of instruments.
After several months of watching TH-cam videos about headphones after being out of the hobby for several years, I found that generally the language used to describe headphones helped me zero in on the right sound signature for me.
All the channels I watched did not do demos. While demos I think can be good to compare one sound vs another, they certainly can't be used to demonstrate the benefits of this or that piece of equipment. You're after all limited or empowered by your own gear, first and foremost.
Another learning I had is that through this process I've come to train my ears (really my brain) to pay attention to things I didn't listen for before. I hear more in terms of soundstage and timbre than I did before I started my journey. I suspect these kind reviewers are further along that path than most of us.
A very tongue in cheek, subtle and clever comment on comments regarding the quality of audio demonstrations accessed from TH-cam, you make some very good points indeed. However, I don’t think anybody is being critical of H-Fi channels per se, but instead just pointing out that the limitations that exist at our end make subtle differences in audio a little difficult to hear, not to mention the crap gear that some of us listen to it on, (guilty - well pointed out). As for giving up - good God, never ever do that, if you did then from where would people like me get access to intelligent, knowledgeable, droll (very) and above all extremely entertaining TH-cam commentary?
I (TES Productions and the Meadowlark label) have eight albums on TH-cam Music. YTM is one of the 150 music services that CD Baby distributes to. Of course, this is different than regular TH-cam. Here is one example --- Meadowlark Paper Hearts by Thomas Shea and one more --- Miles Away by Justice.
It is funny how someone thinks that recording something, then putting on youtube, will make someone else being able to hear what the person recording was able to hear. It is not about youtube lossy compression, in theory it is but in reality it is very small loss of fidelity. The problem is, LOL, in 1) recording equipment, and more importantly, 2) listening equipment on the other side. You can't demonstrate how combination of amplifier and speakers, recorded in your room, with your devices, sounds, being played on the listener's equipment in his room. What he is hearing is mostly how his equipment sounds, not how your equipment sounds. LOL again. With that being said, I love your channel, videos and presentations.
I really don't care so much about image quality, except in the photos that I make (been doing that for over 25 years now) and when I'm photoshopping.
My tv is 10 years old and not 4K. On the computer I use F-Lux for less blue light. Only when I am using Photoshop, I temporarily turn it off.
Audio though, now that's an entirely different story. That must really be good!
I never rely on anything anyone says unless it's backed up by verifiable facts that I can check for myself. Anything else is just entertainment.
One thing about sound and audio is that it's very subjective. I have watched so many videos on TH-cam where someone tells me that one machine sounds so much better than the other, and I can't hear any difference what so ever. Whether it's because of the audio quality on TH-cam or not I don't know.
Simple solution: Host the lossless audio demonstration files on a cloud service and link them to your video so viewers who care about that level of detail can check them out for themselves.
I tried that. Hardly anyone clicked.
@@AudioMasterclass in that case, take it as a victory 😄
There are a couple channels with cult followings that measure hi fi gear.
Problem is, they do play with the results.
They also favor certain brands that measure poorly. They scoff at less costly gear that measures as well as the brands they shill.
For the viewer: "These $700 speakers have a slight dip here and there, they are really inferior"
For themselves: "These $7000 a pair speakers don't measure well but they don't SOUND that way."
It's all marketing and manipulation.
It's all bias and opinion.
Sadly, cultist viewers take it as gospel.
TH-cam isn't just lossy, it's rolled off about 16khz.
Audio Club member has a pro treated room at $120k, no clap echo! Alsyvox Botticelli X sound amazing on TH-cam 😊
Do you use a mic and record what is coming out of your speakers or take a line out? If the former we are listening to your room acoustics, and whatever you do I am still hearing my system not yours even if TH-cam was perfect.
I output from my iPhone 4 in my downstairs toilet and record it on my iPhone 6S Plus on the other side of the door. I stick a finger in one ear for better transparency and staging. I then transfer to cassette and have my parrot to repeat what it hears. Then I upload in 64 bps MP3 and ask my *audio enthusiast* viewers to form a judgement.
Audio demonstrations are great!
Don’t be swayed by what people say. I liked what you said in your earlier videos. 24/96 is good enough. Poorly recorded music is made even worse by good enough. Good recordings of good material are very. For snobs,let them spend their money and have fun. You keep doing what you do!
the thumbnail is scary you look so serious
I'd much rather you feed my confirmation bias that so much of these expensive differences are imperceptible. Things that matter more are good quality content, good mic technique, good post-processing and editing, and good (even inexpensive) speakers.
Regardless of cost aways audition audio hi fi and TV products live before you buy.
That's it:
Time for a true British audiophile platform that prioritises audio quality over video.
Let's call it "Me-Valve"
🎵🎶😀🎶🎵
Seems to me 4K video is a bigger data gobbler then lossless audio would be. Come on YT! For me, demos to portray a piece of gear is worthless. That said, many of the verbal descriptions of a piece of gear’s performance have more distortion than a Crosley TT. It’s all just good fun and a diversion from this damn spreadsheet I’m supposed to be updating!
TH-cam audio is 128 kbps Ogg Vorbis by they way, in case someone wants to know.
Never found any use for audio Demos for obvious reasons and will say so. That being said, I am not going to badger someone into stop posting them. It is their content, who am I to tell them what and what not to post?
Upload your videos to your cloud drive and give us the link to it. Instant 25 96 audio demonstrations. I do that all the time.
Several youtube reviewers already upload a lossless file of the recording of the test and share the link.
Even then we would be hearing those recordings on our inferior equipment and its quality would be the ceiling. If my equipment is better than the one tested, why sould I change it?
That is why a review is a demonstration and a critique of its features. Sometimes we may agree with the reviewer and then he/she becomes trustworthy.
There is no functional difference between lossless and lossy to an end listener, especially for a man of your advanced years. At least you are self-aware enough to question whether you can hear any difference at all, or whether you just think you can. Just about all hi-fi these days is good enough, so I prefer reviews to focus on build quality, functionality, flexibility, and cost.
Hifi reviews used to be in magazines! No audio at all there... I guess you could make lossless files available to download for people to listen to, if you can find somewhere to host the files? Much as I love hifi kit, I do have to acknowledge my age and hence hearing is barely able to detect the difference between CD and vinyl versions of the same album. No way I'm going to be able to hear difference in amps. Besides you tend to get used to listening to the kit you have and you have to learn to ignore the urge to go out and buy something more 3x the price because you think it might sound slightly better...
A number of commenters have made the same suggestion. I tried it a while ago but hardly anyone clicked.
@@AudioMasterclass Ha! Well I guess nobody really cares and everyone is prepared to take your word for it! (not that you harp on about the amazing transparency and 3d sound stage like most reviewers do, thank god!)
I only watch your channel as far as Audio goes, your opinion is enough for me and I don't like audio demos. I want to know specifications, build quality and other stuff like that. I like a bit of technical input to from someone who can tell one end of a resistor from the other and I like to see inside if possible or explanations of industry terminology etc. The rest of my audio needs are catered for by electronic tutorials or the repair and design of amp's channels as I like to repair damaged audio equipment for fun as a hobby with a bit of design work (hackery) thrown in. My shite laptop and your channel are all I need along with other technical sites. Now to have a butcher's at what other people have written....cheers.
I invite comment readers to explain why one end of a resistor is indeed different to the other…
@@AudioMasterclass :)
@@AudioMasterclass
Back in the good old days of through hole parts, I used to arrange resistors so that the active end, useable as a test point, was always nearest the colour code bands. Made trouble shooting a lot easier. But, true enough, I don't think the resistors cared the first whit about that.
These days... hell you can barely see the parts, never mind their orientation.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 with today's tiny chip components, package parasitics won't come out to play at 50 MHz or less like they did in the old days..even leaded metal film resistors were much better at 100 MHz than the old carbon resistors..
@@shipsahoy1793
Yes, and???
You can avoid youtube ads by setting your vpn country to Moldova. Try it.
Shh.. If I don't get my share of the ad money I can't run my channel. Set your VPN to USA where the ad revenue is higher.
I think online audio demos are pointless. Irrespective of whether or not the source is lossy, the sound you hear is the sound of your device,, which in most cases is going to be a smartphone or a lap top.
I prefer better audio quality since I use a computer with a 13-inch screen most of the time, but with a DragonFly Red DAC and Sennheiser HD 598 CS headphones. I find it strange that people have moved to HD, then 4K and even 8K, but still listen to poor quality audio files in MP3, 128 kbits. As if people have more respect for their eyes than their ears. My car is a Tesla Model 3, I changed 10 out of 14 speakers to put in much better quality ones. It makes a very big difference. And what's more, the car's audio system reproduces flac format files well. I tested music streaming with Tidal. The problem is that the quality decreases when you are on the move. So I unsubscribed. I could clearly see the difference between a Flac file and Tidal streaming.
we all know that an mp3 removes whats known as the stuff you cant hear in a lossless file........can someone reverse this please? in other words - leave the bit you ''cant hear' and remove the stuff you 'can hear' .....what would that sound like ? BTW TH-cam audio is far from awful if the source is excellent.
That can be done in a good sound editor, Audacity or better.
Take a lossless wav file ... make a copy as MP3 or AAC .... now decode the lossy copy back to a wav file, line it up with the original lossless one, invert it ... and what you hear is the difference between them ... what they didn't think we can hear.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 thanks, I could do it but im lazy 🤣is there an example already on youtube?
@@kevinmcgrath3591
There are examples of "null testing" audio files, but none involving lossless-to-lossy-to-lossless transcoding, that I know of. But one thing I'm pretty sure of ... For a self-professed lazy person it would probably entail more work finding a good example than doing it for yourself. (Grin)
You might want to get in touch with David (our humble host) and perhaps there's an interesting video in this for both of you.
I find some of them entertaining, referring to the snake oil . The way things are going in Australia with the government wanting to ban misinformation a lot might get blocked.
Don't worry, you'll always have a single source of truth.
Always good content and great questions posed but one thing you MUST stop is the annoying emphasis zoom ins and zoom outs that are everywhere on TH-cam. It's as bad as the over-done shaky handheld camera shots on TV and movies. It's useless and annoying. Doesn't add anything and just takes you out of the moment. Most are barely zoomed in as it is so they are nothing more than needless strobes in and out. Lose them please. Everything else is great though. I learn a lot from your vids.
24bit/96KHz?! no 24bit/192KHZ? or 24bit/176KHz?
I suppose it begs the point that most folks aren’t watching YT on high end audio systems. For one thing, they don’t have screens - that would be the home theater YT crowd. Then there is the issue of tablet, phone, or ear bud speakers. I suppose all are better than transistor radios, but still. How about this: no demos but rather commentary that this sounds better than that under these circumstances, in that environment, for people that still can hear audio in the 8-15kHz range. Easy Peezy.
I listen to albums on youtube. Started years ago as a discovery tool for buying CDs. But then, I came from radio and vinyl so we have a knack for imaginations filling in the holes in the audio and somehow the music just takes over the format, regardless of what it is. Most of my sources as a child were mono and we still managed to have a good time around it and it too perpetuated my audiophile life. I just tend to look at it all as good and better, but it doesn't always take the best to lure me into a lengthy listening session. I get by at work plugging my budget cell phone with Pandora, directly into active speakers and listening all day, and more often than not, well inspire me to fire up my other system at night.
I simply can't imagine having to worry about being put off by lesser SQ. What a miserable haunt that would be. I have small 5" speakers I travel with and use a Bluetooth Fosi to power them with. No subwoofers, nada. And when I am away from my main system, this is such a thankful setup to have in lieu of the alternative which would be nothing, since I am not an earbud or headphone guy.
Really cool! 💪🏼
Love demonstrations
There is only one demo worth having if you are thinking of buying a piece of gear and that is the one in person. All else is ridiculous due to the obvious restrictions of human experience shoved through an algorithm and a mixed set of transducers. It is however useful ,if you trust the reviewer to hear information and usually comparative information to equipment you are familiar with. I know from previous postings that you speak obvious sense and often have food for thought in the professional and domestic audio community that is fun to chew on. I don’t however need attempted subtle audio demos from you (or anyone) and would find it faintly silly if you tried to do one. Links to high resolution audio files externally might be an answer if you are talking difference in audio signal but trying to replicate an experience of listening in a room to equipment through this medium is just silly and should just be subjectively and objectively spoken about.
Truth is, nothing should be banned except for deliberate hurt. Bad info, ignorance? These things must exist in a free society. If one learns to discern, it will be their most precious skill. If not, well they will then be the noise we have to sort through in our free speech world.
Make sure once you propose a cure that it is not worse than the illness. Be the change you wish for.
Honestly, I don't care much about youtube being an "old hat HD" or being even better than that, but when it comes to music: Isn't youtube just 160 Kbps? which is pretty pathetic, it should at least be 320 Kbps, 16 bits of Depth, at 44100khz, [then it would at least be basic CD standard]; of course then it would still be lossy, and not lossless, but honestly I could definitely live with that for getting music from youtube!
Of course the presenter is right that then its about costs, how many servers, etc. does youtube use, and since they will be dumping the costs on to us, we get 160Kbps, etc. which colloquially speaking (US slang) SUCKS!
44.1 16 bit CD quality
Yep. It's all that's necessary.🙂
Reviews are fine. It's the demo's that are pointless. And hi-res is pointless as well.
I took way longer to say the same thing :)
Skip U-Tube...bring back Circuit City listening rooms. At least back in the day you could hear the difference between bad audio and terrible audio and [they gave you free coffee].
Any review on YT will likely be better than one of those meaningless What HiFi reviews where equipment has 'talent', or not ;).
I will have nightmares tonight about Lossy Audio!
Summary: Utube audio quality is utter shite and not a suitable platform for HiFi. You could have said all this within 30 seconds.
Most people are probably listening on their phone, so who could tell the difference.
I prefer 24/192 anyway for any real work. Otherwise 16/44.1 is good enough
As I know from many comments, people are indeed listening on their phones, on speaker, in mono. St. Jude should probably have a word with them.
Lord knows my life would be simpler if they did....
Ban all video that starts with "What's Up..... or "Whaaaaaattts Upppppp". IT would easily clear the servers for 24.96.
Audio reviews ought to be silent but with lots of graphics of the actual sound measurements. No measurements? Not much value in the review, other than for functional definitions.
Equipment make sound enhanced
Demonstrations suck and I always skip them all together. Channels that only rely on them fail to capture my interest and in the long run I will un-follow them. Using words to describe sound is not easy, just like it is not easy to write a best selling novel. But those who manage that like Kelvin from Stereo review X, make for exceptionally good videos.
No ban, just don't watch if you're that touchy.
What's the point of life?
Faster horses, younger woman, older whiskey, and more money!
Hi-Fi demonstrations on TH-cam or any other internet based media are a waste of time,
What you hear depends on how good your amp and speakers are that you listen to it through.
Not many will use studio quality monitors and even then they will add their own tonal changes
to the sound.
Go and listen to a live band, record it with the very best equipment, then play it back on High end
Hi-Fi and it will not sound quite as good as the live performance.
As for banning it, that may be a step to far, what should be banned is sponsored gear reviews
no way are they going to tell you the whole truth, buy Hi-Fi with your own ears and don't believe
the hype from reviewers that have not paid for the equipment themselves.
I figure that if it sounds good through TH-cam, than it must sound good in real life. And if it sounds like Sh**, than it's even sh**tier in real life. So uploading an audio example is a good thing.
No need to ban them, they ARE on they way out. Most of the audiophiles will be dead in the next few decades, and I doubt if they will be replaced with new ones. Younger people wont care about sound, as long they can hear the tunes. Most younger people dont know about stereo, and the ones who do could not care less. Tha art form of critical listening on expensive equiptment is nearly gone.
People only care how loud it goes, and of course, THE BASE! Dont forget about the BASE!
They watch films, enjoy the loud sound, and pop on the subtitles to the hear the dialogue that you can barely make out!
I could not care less if the stay or go! Its all BOLLOCKS !
If U can't play with the Big
🐕 Dogs stay on the porch
I don't care for demo audio.
It is as much pointless accusation as not allow to present in You tube paintings of art because of not enough milions of pixels in compare to original which cost 5 milions $.
Yes boycott audio masterclass 😆👍
All social media platforms should be banned