Youtube as a Music Source
- Thread starter Lance A.
- Start date
$11.99/month with unknown (likely quite low) bitrates and lossy music. Why not just pay for a service that isn't afraid to post its stats? I can stream in lossless FLAC for nearly the same price, not sure I understand the attraction here.
I've uploaded a few vinyl tunes to YouTube and, in my opinion, the source of the song makes a huge difference. That is the engineering, mastering, and specific pressing of the LP being recorded. I like Monarch pressings!
Run-Out: ST-A-753399-DD (MR) AT △19898(7) PR
loopstick
Lunatic Member
Actually we're talking about two different things. I'll leave it that.
loopstick
Lunatic Member
Don't get pissed. Reenlist.
Lance A.
Active Member
Exactly. It is because the content on Youtube completely changed the way I listened to music. I've tried Tidal and Amazon Music, and besides the fact I can hear no difference, I couldn't go back to the "listen to a song or album" mode. A lot of what I listen to, for example, can't be found any place else.
MTV changed audio listening by adding video. Youtube changes audio listening with a number of aspects: early live recordings of favorite artists, electronic mashups (which I listen to a lot), "every" (not most) audio and video recording in existence availabilty, add movies and news from the same source, all the up and coming cover artists out there, etc etc.
The positive features are too rich for me to ever go back. Youtube provides my one media source for everything I watch and listen to. And now that I know I am incapable of even hearing a difference in audio quality, I'm even more cemented.
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In my opinion, the ability to spend hours scouring YouTube for all kinds of topics and songs, outweighs the not perfect audio files. For near "perfect" listening I bought an SACD player. I never use it. Only my imperfect turntables and Pandora get used.
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That's cool, all my listening is casual.
cpt_paranoia
Addicted Member
Nope. Compression can be dynamic range compression, lossless compression (ZIP, FLAC), or lossy compression (AAC, MP3).
Same word, different meanings, unfortunately.
Lance A.
Active Member
All this got me thinking that there is no way our hearing threshold is flat out to whatever our personal limit due to age is. When we are young we had an fairly equivalent threshold regardless of frequency, But as we age our thresholds change with respect to frequency, with the higher frequencies experiencing increasingly poor thresholds.
Put more simply, aged listeners no longer hear flat therefore they must increase highs to maintain a "flat" data gather to the brain. Does anyone have any experience with this? For example, a typical 50 year old has a 10 DB rolloff as frequencies increase to 12 Khz with no ability to even hear frequencies above this.
Or would the change be so slow and subtle that the listener believes that he is hearing flat the whole time (which younger listeners would perceive as overly bright?
What I bet happens with many listeners is they set the tone controls to flat and declare that flat... and then use memories of what flat is to confirm that the current frequencies heard are close enough to memories to be declared flat .
Either way it would be fun to have a MiniDsp like device that would import a listeners actual hearing thresholds with respect to frequency.
Or I guess a treble control will work lol
Put more simply, aged listeners no longer hear flat therefore they must increase highs to maintain a "flat" data gather to the brain. Does anyone have any experience with this? For example, a typical 50 year old has a 10 DB rolloff as frequencies increase to 12 Khz with no ability to even hear frequencies above this.
Or would the change be so slow and subtle that the listener believes that he is hearing flat the whole time (which younger listeners would perceive as overly bright?
What I bet happens with many listeners is they set the tone controls to flat and declare that flat... and then use memories of what flat is to confirm that the current frequencies heard are close enough to memories to be declared flat .
Either way it would be fun to have a MiniDsp like device that would import a listeners actual hearing thresholds with respect to frequency.
Or I guess a treble control will work lol
The source is a big part of the sound quality. I uploaded this last night to YouTube. It's an Aretha tune off a well-used album. But, the SQ of some of these older vinyl are so good --- they can rise above the pops-&-scratches. Better than a lot of later repressing and remastering efforts. In my opinion, they have more soul, than most digital sources.
For Atlantic Records, look for those with CBS pressing plants (like Terre Haute and Pitman). Or Monarch and Presswell plants. Those seemed to have gotten excellent plates (prolly virgin) to use for pressings.
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/record-labels-guide/5-atlantic/atlantic-record-labels/
Aretha Franklin's I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You). Atlantic Records. SD 8139. STEREO. Terre Haute pressing. First variant. 1967.
Run-out: ST A-67987-1A CL | | | | | | | | 1-
Flat EQ. Mic'ed speakers.
For Atlantic Records, look for those with CBS pressing plants (like Terre Haute and Pitman). Or Monarch and Presswell plants. Those seemed to have gotten excellent plates (prolly virgin) to use for pressings.
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/record-labels-guide/5-atlantic/atlantic-record-labels/
Run-out: ST A-67987-1A CL | | | | | | | | 1-
Flat EQ. Mic'ed speakers.
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cpt_paranoia
Addicted Member
Doesn't sound too great on my phone...
Lance A.
Active Member
How do you compare the reproduction (through your stereo from Youtube) compared to the original vinyl in your listening environment.?
I played this through my system. The soundstage was mostly there but the sound sounded like it came from a mic reproduction (I do the same with my system... mic it and listen to it again... and hear about the same effect). I would say good but not great. At least not when compared to some of Youtube tracks that sound more lifelike and lean towards full 3D soundstage (Roger Waters Amused to Death has talking that comes from behind the listener in a properly setup environment).
Guess I’m lucky, I can still hear way out from 12kHz, lack of treble is no problem here. I set my tone controls flat to 12 o’clock 15 years ago when I hooked up the amp, it hasn’t changed since.
Sounds pretty close to what I hear live. Maybe, not quite the 3D effect. I'd need to have a distance microphone and mix it into the two front ones to get more room reverb. That is what I did with the guitar recordings. One mic close to the guitar amp (like right one top of the grille) and one about 6-feet away, then mix and blend the two.
WillVT
Super Member
Just be clear, Youtube Music is a separate music streaming platform similar to Spotify. It streams at 256Kbps.
I know this thread is about the quality on the Youtube video platform, but some seem to be confusing the two.
7.62
Infinity nutcase.
Hi Lance A,
I’ve been debating on this for awhile, is it really that much better. I really enjoy YouTube and all the music that can be found. Is it just the lack of commercials that makes it worth it ?
Thank you for sharing your experience if you read this.
Lance A.
Active Member
The lack of commercials (or should I say the existence of commercials) is a deal breaker for me. Youtube completely opens up to a viable music server, but only without the commercials.
Lance A.
Active Member
That's what I hear too in my own recordings; pretty close to original but missing some imaging. But I think this is a function of introducing another mechanical element in the mix (the microphone) rather than a compression thing.