• aleph@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Don’t forget digital music stores like Qobuz and www.bandcamp.com.

      Artists get more money when you buy their music outright instead of stream it.

      • UckyBon@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        You do know that the content in the iTunes Store isn’t the same in each country?

        • kirklennon@kbin.social
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          7 months ago

          I am aware, but unless you’re saying iTunes doesn’t sell pop music in most markets, it’s not really relevant.

          • UckyBon@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Many people don’t listen to local music or pop music. It’s very relevant if you can only get real music on a physical medium.

            And out of everything available iTunes is your first choice too?

            Soms people here on Lemmy are even more insufferable than any other social media.

            Don’t you dare buy a cd with the music you like. BUY FROM ITUNES, while in the next thread they say FUCK APPLE.

            • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              You completely missed the point of what you are replying to. The point isn’t that you SHOULD buy music from online sources instead of CDs. The point is that CDs aren’t “the only way to buy a digital popular music in most countries.” They are directly contradicting a point someone else made by saying CDs are not the only way to buy digital popular music in most countries. They even specifically said popular music, not whatever niche music some random person is into. They also mentioned iTunes because it services 119 markets, which directly counterpoints the statement about being available in most countries. They never advocated for iTunes like you imply.

              It’s almost like you lack reading comprehension. “Soms people here on Lemmy are even more insufferable than any other social media.”

            • kirklennon@kbin.social
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              7 months ago

              Many people don’t listen to local music or pop music.

              I was responded to a comment about the availability of pop music.

              And out of everything available iTunes is your first choice too?

              Yes, the largest digital music store is, naturally, the first one I searched for availability numbers for (119 markets).

              I don’t really understand the rest of your rant.

            • olympicyes@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              I think you can use iTunes as a catch all for sales of digital files, including bandcamp. As opposed to a physical disc or a subscription. FWIW I was just looking this up on the RIAA website and you can run reports by year or year over year comparing media options. It’s really interesting to see which year each format peaked. Eg 8track 1978, cassette 1989, CD 2000, digital file 2012. It doesn’t include limewire /napster (non-revenue) so the unit counts are a bit depressed. I wish it included pre-iPod mp3 players and blank CD sales.

              https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/

      • Otter@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Internet access and existing devices would also play a role, but I don’t know a region like that to comment further

      • Link@rentadrunk.org
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        7 months ago

        The music on iTunes is compressed and doesn’t sound as good as a CD does.

        Not to mention they can revoke your access to your music on iTunes. No one can take away your CD unless they break into your house!

        • Thorry84@feddit.nl
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          7 months ago

          Even a human with very good hearing and knowledge of how a song is supposed to sound cannot tell the difference between CD quality audio and 256k AAC like iTunes uses.

          Don’t believe all the nonsense audiophiles keep spewing out. Human ears suck. If we hadn’t had our giant brains to compensate, we’d be practically deaf.

          • aleph@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            This. People assume that because it’s “compressed” it must sound flatter, less dynamic, or just vaguely worse than uncompressed audio, despite the fact that audio compression specifically uses psychoacoustic models to remove the bits of data that our human ears and brains cannot hear to begin with.

            Expectation bias is a helluva drug.

            • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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              7 months ago

              Even FLAC is compressed. Which is how I procure my music because I have the storage space.

              • aleph@lemm.ee
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                7 months ago

                Yup, although that doesn’t stop some weirdos out there claiming that CDs sound better than FLAC.

              • bamboo@lemm.ee
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                7 months ago

                FLAC is compressed, but unlike lossy codecs like AAC and MP3, FLAC is fully lossless. Lossy codecs delete information the authors believe you won’t notice, lossless compression keeps all the data and just tries to fit it in a smaller space. The original recording can be perfectly reproduced (taking into account sample rate and depth).

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              psychoacoustic models

              Sometimes they mess up. Actually only ever noticed it once and that was years ago CD vs. ogg vorbis at full quality level, this track. Youtube version is even worse, it seems (from memory): The guitars kicking in around 30 seconds should be harsh and noisy as fuck like nothing you’ve ever heard, they’re merely distorted on youtube.

              Then lossy codecs are a bad idea for archival reasons as you can’t recode them without incurring additive losses – each codec has a different psychoacoustic model, each deletes different stuff. Thus, FLAC definitely has a place.

              • aleph@lemm.ee
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                7 months ago

                Killer samples do happen, sure but vorbis at Q9? I’m highly dubious. That track in particular just sounds badly recorded to begin with. If you have that same version in FLAC i would be interested to see some ABX test results or test it myself.

                For archival purposes, though, I agree FLAC is the way to go.

                • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                  7 months ago

                  Killer samples do happen, sure but vorbis at Q9? I’m highly dubious.

                  Back in 2004, when the album released, the encoder was barely past version 1.0. Though after 20 years I could misremember “full quality” as “whatever people said wouldn’t degrade quality”.

                  That track in particular just sounds badly recorded to begin with.

                  Heresy. Next thing you’re going to tell me is that Sunn O))) should move the mics away from the amps so the sound is cleaner. Granted, though, Sunn O))) does that live, blackmail live is quite different because they can’t layer a gazillion tracks for the mix. But yes the deliberateness of just how much noise is in those guitars doesn’t get conveyed after getting mangled by ten year old youtube compression.

                  • aleph@lemm.ee
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                    7 months ago

                    Lol, I’m not saying that brickwalling the mix to achieve a certain effect isn’t a thing, but at the extreme levels of compression and clipping apparent on that track, it’s unlikely that a FLAC would sound even remotely different. Apparently the band agreed - in 2020 they issued a remaster which seems noticeably less crushed:

                    Dynamic range comparison screenshot

                    Incidentally, I saw Sunn O))) live once. I can still feel my bowels shake.

          • tal@lemmy.today
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            7 months ago

            I would guess that the fact that people aren’t all using some kind of standard-response reference headphones is probably going to have a considerably-larger impact on the human-perceivable fidelity of the audio reproduction than any other factor.

          • prole@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            This is true. That said, I’ve seen people claim that nobody can tell the difference between lossless and 128kbps mp3, but that’s complete bullshit.

            Though once you get above 192, it’s pretty indistinguishable.

            • Thorry84@feddit.nl
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              7 months ago

              Would really depend on the version of MP3. The first versions had some major issues with artifacts being introduced. People probably listened to that and concluded all compressed music must be shit. Later versions were much better, even though I would think 128k is probably too low and would be noticeable with some effort. I agree, starting at 192k and people can’t tell anymore.

              Does anybody use MP3 anymore? I don’t really know to be honest.

        • kirklennon@kbin.social
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          7 months ago

          Not to mention they can revoke your access to your music on iTunes.

          iTunes got rid of DRM a decade and a half ago.

          • Link@rentadrunk.org
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            7 months ago

            Sure but if you don’t have the song downloaded on your PC and they remove it from your library you can’t redownload it.

            Most people aren’t backing up the songs they buy on iTunes.

        • olympicyes@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I don’t agree. It depends how the song was ripped and how the original was mastered. I did so much A/B testing at the time and found I couldn’t tell the difference between VBR 256 AAC and the CD. 128k mp3 sounded worse, 320k mp3 is pretty safe, but there were a lot of improvements to LAME over the years so newer files sound better. The biggest difference is the mastering. Generally 1980s reissues of 1970s analog masters sound worst, 1990s is best, 2000s everything got remastered to make it loud and crush dynamic range. The only real innovation since is Dolby Atmos on Apple Music which really brings alive the promise of 1970s quadraphonic.

      • iopq@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        iTunes music store is not available in mainland China, which is 1/5 of the world’s population

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Yes, but this is about what is available in most countries, not what is available in all countries. That still leaves 119 markets and 80% of the world’s population being available. Pretty sure that counts as “most.”

          Also, the point isn’t about iTunes, it’s about alternatives to CDs for digital music. China likely has some online store to buy music, but I have no idea.

          • iopq@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            To make the claim 80% of population has it you have to have the numbers, since South Korea doesn’t have it, a lot of African countries (just going down the list, Algeria, Angola, Benin, etc) don’t have it

            It looks like half of the world doesn’t have iTunes music purchases

          • iopq@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            They do, maybe, but the streaming services often can’t get the original master so they play rerecordings of the songs

            I just pirate it