> Further is the belief that lossless codecs cannot be replaced compressed lossless or sufficient parameters of some lossy formats.
I'm a bit fuzzy as to what you're arguing here, but I think most people would agree that, at some bitrate, you're going to be effectively lossless with various compressed codes. That bitrate, though, is high enough that you're no longer saving that much over something like FLAC. Disk is cheap enough these days.
I just tossed Dark Side of the Moon into a test. It's all 16 bit, 44.1kHz sample rate (CD quality).
wav: 434MB
flac: 249MB
mp3 (-V0): 80MB
A factor of 3 savings for MP3 vs lossless, with no generation losses, seems worth doing for audio.
Tubes, the point isn't the "perfect reproduction" over digital, because a fairly cheap digital (relatively speaking) manages acoustically transparent reproduction (as long as the headphones or speakers can keep up). People just like how tubes sound. It's also a bit of a rejection of the digital, consumer tech, "can't build it, can't repair it, don't really own it" world we live in. I've got a Bottlehead kit half assembled on my workbench right now...
Vinyl, similarly, I think is a rejection of that which has become background noise and digital and data-logged. Also, in terms of sound quality, be careful not to compare "The technical capabilities of a CD" with "The technical capabilities of vinyl." Compare albums, as delivered - https://dr.loudness-war.info/ is a useful resource here.
In many cases, the CD mastering of an album is a brick wall compressed bit of rubbish, "optimized" for listening on earbuds on a subway. With both vinyl and the various "high def audio" formats, you're far more likely to find a master that's actually designed for a competent living room system - with the dynamics to match.
https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=Boston&album=Boston - look at the difference in dynamic range between some of the older vinyl pressings of the album and some of the newer CD pressings. One may very well find that the vinyl sounds "better" - because it's got dynamic range. The problem is that the capabilities of the CD aren't being used, because someone was told, "Compress it and make it louder."
I'm a bit fuzzy as to what you're arguing here, but I think most people would agree that, at some bitrate, you're going to be effectively lossless with various compressed codes. That bitrate, though, is high enough that you're no longer saving that much over something like FLAC. Disk is cheap enough these days.
I just tossed Dark Side of the Moon into a test. It's all 16 bit, 44.1kHz sample rate (CD quality).
wav: 434MB flac: 249MB mp3 (-V0): 80MB
A factor of 3 savings for MP3 vs lossless, with no generation losses, seems worth doing for audio.
Tubes, the point isn't the "perfect reproduction" over digital, because a fairly cheap digital (relatively speaking) manages acoustically transparent reproduction (as long as the headphones or speakers can keep up). People just like how tubes sound. It's also a bit of a rejection of the digital, consumer tech, "can't build it, can't repair it, don't really own it" world we live in. I've got a Bottlehead kit half assembled on my workbench right now...
Vinyl, similarly, I think is a rejection of that which has become background noise and digital and data-logged. Also, in terms of sound quality, be careful not to compare "The technical capabilities of a CD" with "The technical capabilities of vinyl." Compare albums, as delivered - https://dr.loudness-war.info/ is a useful resource here.
In many cases, the CD mastering of an album is a brick wall compressed bit of rubbish, "optimized" for listening on earbuds on a subway. With both vinyl and the various "high def audio" formats, you're far more likely to find a master that's actually designed for a competent living room system - with the dynamics to match.
https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=Boston&album=Boston - look at the difference in dynamic range between some of the older vinyl pressings of the album and some of the newer CD pressings. One may very well find that the vinyl sounds "better" - because it's got dynamic range. The problem is that the capabilities of the CD aren't being used, because someone was told, "Compress it and make it louder."