reminiscing2004

reminiscing2004 is correct on the technical aspects of what he's pointed out. Don't know where all the rest of the drama came from though.
 
- Of course Hi-Res sounds better than a 256kbps mp3. A 320kbps mp3 will sound better too, and a 44.1/16 file will too
- a 256 kbps mp3 (variable bit depth as inherent to mp3 codec) and an actual 16 bit 44.1khz CD rip: two very different things
- The whole point of 24 bit audio as a superior tool in the studio is you have a wider signal to noise ratio (144 db vs 96 db of a 16 bit file).
 X2
 
Also
 
x2
 
Would also like to point out that though theoretically DAC's shouldn't matter and therefore sound different, but they do. And the reason you don't see the wide use of 24bit/16bit releases is simply because I don't think lossless compression/uncompressed audio was ever meant for your average casual listener so no efforts were made to make that available.  There was obviously a very small base of people who actually knew what lossless compression/uncompressed audio was or had the equipment to take advantage of it when you compare it to the general population. Simply think of the hard drive space limitations as well. All of this has been changing over almost 2-3 decades now, which is why you do see bands and artists now giving the option to purchase higher quality files such as wav  44.1/24 bit or whatever the original recording/master was at. 
 
Then of course whether you hear a difference or not comes down to how well developed and trained your ears are, the files your comparing, the equipment you're using, and the room you are in. The first 2 are the most important in most cases IMO.  Really do doubt most self proclaimed audiophiles or avid listeners online have spent years training their ears to listen for changes in depth, width, compression, frequency curves and small changes in db, among other things. Doesn't help if your knowledge on audio is inaccurate in the first place and you're making assumptions on what you're hearing based on that incorrect information. 
 
But back to the original post, yes I do I hear a difference. Would the difference be big enough for me to buy the Hi res version over the itunes? Yes it would, but under these 2 conditions; the "hi res" is at a higher rate then one I could get from a cd rip, and I would have to truly enjoy the mix and master on the release. Otherwise it doesn't make sense for me to buy an amazing ultra sounding turd, if the mix/master is bad, or if I could simply obtain the same quality from a 16bit cd rip.  And since I rarely buy digital, and almost always buy CD's, this isn't really an issue for me. 
 
On sidenote, I had no idea this release was a re-recording and had a different mix and master. Went back to the original recordings and unfortunately I'm not liking some of the mix decisions on this new release. I.e, what's with up with the dark and weighty snare on most of the songs? Sound boxy and disjointed from the rest of the kit and doesn't fit in tone with the rest of the songs. Too much room mic or verb on it too. 
 
  

DREAMS, by Akira Kurosawa. I already watched it three times, actually. It's like 8 short movies, every one with a different history, based upon Akira Kurosawa's dreams. It's great, just don't watch it under the influence of anything, lol.

The idea of banning discussion about an artist is a very slippery slope.

If the moderation team invokes a rule stating that an artist cannot be discussed here because we "don't care", that doesn't stop us from clamping down on discussion about any bands we don't really like. I'll be honest in that I don't care for YOHIO, but just because I do not doesn't mean someone else doesn't and they should be free to talk about visual kei in all its forms here, even white-washed kei. I also don't want to institute a rule banning all discussion of western visual kei, since that gets into a sticky discussion about what is visual kei and what isn't. Very few of us here are qualified to even begin that debate and I don't think the result would be very fruitful - just less discussion overall.
 
Also, YOHIO topics tend to be some of the most interesting on the forum since that's where everyone brings out their Sunday best jokes and memes.

I would be okay in instituting a rule restricting all YOHIO/western visual kei discussion to Global Music General Discussion.

Ro you must have smoked something bro.  Sounds like censorship yea.
 
Dont like a thread? dont post in it.

Well geeee, that sounds an awful lot like censorship...

Literally all people not interested in Western VK need to do is not respond and the threads will die on their own.

Yeah...no.

Of course Hi-Res sounds better than a 256kbps mp3. A 320kbps mp3 will sound better too, and a 44.1/16 file will too as @YuyoDrifthas mentioned. The real question should be does a Hi-res 24/96 file sound better than a cd quality 16/44.1 lossless rip. You're putting Hi-Res against a straw man to make yourself feel better about it, or you just don't actually realize how silly this is.
 
The fact that you made this thread after I pointed out how foolish you were in the Gazette thread (1 2 3) as some sort of attempt to prove yourself right (?) just further shows how little of your obsession with this is confounded in actual understanding.
 
Because you still don't seem to get it in the other thread, here is all the things wrong with your reply to me there @Aeolus:
>"And yes, depending on the vinyl they are the same"
 @Naaaaani tried to help you out – it doesn't matter what quality digital source you burn to vinyl, it doesn't quantize the information into steps like digital has to. You just can't physically write into a vinyl like that. Go read about the difference between digital and analogue. I don't see how can you be any semblance of an audiophile and not understand this basic distinction.
 
>"never said anything about mp3 haha."
Exactly the problem. Throughout your whole initial post you say what I have = 24 / 96, and what everyone else is itunes/cd quality (44/16). You were making no distinction between a 256kbps mp3 (variable bit depth as inherent to mp3 codec) and an actual 16 bit 44.1khz CD rip: two very different things. In that thread you were comparing your files to Himi like they were "CD quality", even calling them "16/44.1". I tried to point that problems in saying that, because while the sample rate is maintained the bit depth is severely reduced in an mp3 from a 16 bit lossless file. And yet again, you run off and make THIS thread where you are again seeming to confuse an iTunes store quality mp3 and a lossless CD rip (??).
 
>"I'm not saying i can here 50khz, all I said was that I can hear a noticeable difference between the itunes store quality and Hi-Res,"
Ahh, I think I'm starting to understand that you either didn't read my initial post it all, or gave it 0 energy to understand, or maybe tried and still don't. But I don't think you tried at all really. The whole point of what I'm saying, what Yuuyo and Shmilly is saying, is that there is an argument to be had over a 44.1 or 48k 16 bit lossless WAV/ALAC/FLAC etc etc file  being superior to even a high quality 320 kbps mp3 encode, HOWEVER !!!! believing that the extra 24 or 32 bit audio or 96k (when you yourself admit your DAC can't play it back) is what makes it sound better is bullshit, petty semantics at best. How do you not understand this is what people are saying? Many things will be better than a itunes store quality mp3 that aren't a 24 bit 96k HI RES PLACEBO. If you seemed to have even the slightest knowledge on these subjects, I would respect and consider your insistence on the additional fidelity compared to a CD quality lossless codec – but you don't have that, so I think I should give up explaining any of this.
 
>"I can say I like this version of 絲, I'm not much of a fan of pre-NIL. (*gasp* I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this huh?)"
Again, your completely missing the point. When I referenced just how shit the first 15 seconds of Ito sound compared to the original, it has nothing to do with "the GazettE" changing and everything to do with how fucking awful the Guitar tone and mixing/mastering sound. It's the same exact riff!!! That's why I pointed it out. It's literally just to do with the engineering and the reason I emphasized it was that its so PAINFULLY obvious how much better the recording and frequency balance is on the original guitar tone. It doesn't matter whether your a fan of pre-NIL or post-NIL. Play the two intros side by side to a panel of industry professionals and they'd tell you the same story.
 
Regarding what was said in the thread, YuyoDrift's overall point is good, but also said some things I want to clarify.
 
>"8bit (Think Video Game Music), 16bit (FLAC Quality), and 24bit (HD, Hi-Res, SACD)"
The whole 8bit = video game music or chiptune quality is largely a myth and just poor understanding of the system. As I sort of went into in my initial reply to Aeolus , mp3's function outside of the domain of bit depth in the traditional sense, and are very often far below 8 bits!! Furthermore, a 16 bit audio file can be reduced in bit depth by processes that will make the file compression 100% transparently. And finally, as @Shmillyintelligently gathered, there is no audible difference between 16 bit and 24 bit of the same sample rate. Which leads me to:
 
>It is intended for Audio Engineers, who use low-pass filtering for master recording and/or editing (kinda like a graphic designer/photo editor using RAW formatted images)."
The RAW analogy doesn't make any sense as the systems can't really be compared. The whole point of 24 bit audio as a superior tool in the studio is you have a wider signal to noise ratio (144 db vs 96 db of a 16 bit file). On playback, what you're hearing in this release is slammed through a limiter at 0db the whole time anyway. The argument for 24 bit playback could only be made if you were listening to incredible dynamic music, something that had passages at like -50db, which is something you don't find in any music period these days. Also, low-pass filtering has 0 to do with why people use 24 bit.
 
 

Of course Hi-Res sounds better than a 256kbps mp3. A 320kbps mp3 will sound better too, and a 44.1/16 file will too as @YuyoDrifthas mentioned. The real question should be does a Hi-res 24/96 file sound better than a cd quality 16/44.1 lossless rip. You're putting Hi-Res against a straw man to make yourself feel better about it, or you just don't actually realize how silly this is.
 
The fact that you made this thread after I pointed out how foolish you were in the Gazette thread (1 2 3) as some sort of attempt to prove yourself right (?) just further shows how little of your obsession with this is confounded in actual understanding.
 
Because you still don't seem to get it in the other thread, here is all the things wrong with your reply to me there @Aeolus:
>"And yes, depending on the vinyl they are the same"
 @Naaaaani tried to help you out – it doesn't matter what quality digital source you burn to vinyl, it doesn't quantize the information into steps like digital has to. You just can't physically write into a vinyl like that. Go read about the difference between digital and analogue. I don't see how can you be any semblance of an audiophile and not understand this basic distinction.
 
>"never said anything about mp3 haha."
Exactly the problem. Throughout your whole initial post you say what I have = 24 / 96, and what everyone else is itunes/cd quality (44/16). You were making no distinction between a 256kbps mp3 (variable bit depth as inherent to mp3 codec) and an actual 16 bit 44.1khz CD rip: two very different things. In that thread you were comparing your files to Himi like they were "CD quality", even calling them "16/44.1". I tried to point that problems in saying that, because while the sample rate is maintained the bit depth is severely reduced in an mp3 from a 16 bit lossless file. And yet again, you run off and make THIS thread where you are again seeming to confuse an iTunes store quality mp3 and a lossless CD rip (??).
 
>"I'm not saying i can here 50khz, all I said was that I can hear a noticeable difference between the itunes store quality and Hi-Res,"
Ahh, I think I'm starting to understand that you either didn't read my initial post it all, or gave it 0 energy to understand, or maybe tried and still don't. But I don't think you tried at all really. The whole point of what I'm saying, what Yuuyo and Shmilly is saying, is that there is an argument to be had over a 44.1 or 48k 16 bit lossless WAV/ALAC/FLAC etc etc file  being superior to even a high quality 320 kbps mp3 encode, HOWEVER !!!! believing that the extra 24 or 32 bit audio or 96k (when you yourself admit your DAC can't play it back) is what makes it sound better is bullshit, petty semantics at best. How do you not understand this is what people are saying? Many things will be better than a itunes store quality mp3 that aren't a 24 bit 96k HI RES PLACEBO. If you seemed to have even the slightest knowledge on these subjects, I would respect and consider your insistence on the additional fidelity compared to a CD quality lossless codec – but you don't have that, so I think I should give up explaining any of this.
 
>"I can say I like this version of 絲, I'm not much of a fan of pre-NIL. (*gasp* I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this huh?)"
Again, your completely missing the point. When I referenced just how shit the first 15 seconds of Ito sound compared to the original, it has nothing to do with "the GazettE" changing and everything to do with how fucking awful the Guitar tone and mixing/mastering sound. It's the same exact riff!!! That's why I pointed it out. It's literally just to do with the engineering and the reason I emphasized it was that its so PAINFULLY obvious how much better the recording and frequency balance is on the original guitar tone. It doesn't matter whether your a fan of pre-NIL or post-NIL. Play the two intros side by side to a panel of industry professionals and they'd tell you the same story.
 
Regarding what was said in the thread, YuyoDrift's overall point is good, but also said some things I want to clarify.
 
>"8bit (Think Video Game Music), 16bit (FLAC Quality), and 24bit (HD, Hi-Res, SACD)"
The whole 8bit = video game music or chiptune quality is largely a myth and just poor understanding of the system. As I sort of went into in my initial reply to Aeolus , mp3's function outside of the domain of bit depth in the traditional sense, and are very often far below 8 bits!! Furthermore, a 16 bit audio file can be reduced in bit depth by processes that will make the file compression 100% transparently. And finally, as @Shmillyintelligently gathered, there is no audible difference between 16 bit and 24 bit of the same sample rate. Which leads me to:
 
>It is intended for Audio Engineers, who use low-pass filtering for master recording and/or editing (kinda like a graphic designer/photo editor using RAW formatted images)."
The RAW analogy doesn't make any sense as the systems can't really be compared. The whole point of 24 bit audio as a superior tool in the studio is you have a wider signal to noise ratio (144 db vs 96 db of a 16 bit file). On playback, what you're hearing in this release is slammed through a limiter at 0db the whole time anyway. The argument for 24 bit playback could only be made if you were listening to incredible dynamic music, something that had passages at like -50db, which is something you don't find in any music period these days. Also, low-pass filtering has 0 to do with why people use 24 bit.
 
 

Of course Hi-Res sounds better than a 256kbps mp3. A 320kbps mp3 will sound better too, and a 44.1/16 file will too as @YuyoDrifthas mentioned. The real question should be does a Hi-res 24/96 file sound better than a cd quality 16/44.1 lossless rip. You're putting Hi-Res against a straw man to make yourself feel better about it, or you just don't actually realize how silly this is.
 
The fact that you made this thread after I pointed out how foolish you were in the Gazette thread (1 2 3) as some sort of attempt to prove yourself right (?) just further shows how little of your obsession with this is confounded in actual understanding.
 
Because you still don't seem to get it in the other thread, here is all the things wrong with your reply to me there @Aeolus:
>"And yes, depending on the vinyl they are the same"
 @Naaaaani tried to help you out – it doesn't matter what quality digital source you burn to vinyl, it doesn't quantize the information into steps like digital has to. You just can't physically write into a vinyl like that. Go read about the difference between digital and analogue. I don't see how can you be any semblance of an audiophile and not understand this basic distinction.
 
>"never said anything about mp3 haha."
Exactly the problem. Throughout your whole initial post you say what I have = 24 / 96, and what everyone else is itunes/cd quality (44/16). You were making no distinction between a 256kbps mp3 (variable bit depth as inherent to mp3 codec) and an actual 16 bit 44.1khz CD rip: two very different things. In that thread you were comparing your files to Himi like they were "CD quality", even calling them "16/44.1". I tried to point that problems in saying that, because while the sample rate is maintained the bit depth is severely reduced in an mp3 from a 16 bit lossless file. And yet again, you run off and make THIS thread where you are again seeming to confuse an iTunes store quality mp3 and a lossless CD rip (??).
 
>"I'm not saying i can here 50khz, all I said was that I can hear a noticeable difference between the itunes store quality and Hi-Res,"
Ahh, I think I'm starting to understand that you either didn't read my initial post it all, or gave it 0 energy to understand, or maybe tried and still don't. But I don't think you tried at all really. The whole point of what I'm saying, what Yuuyo and Shmilly is saying, is that there is an argument to be had over a 44.1 or 48k 16 bit lossless WAV/ALAC/FLAC etc etc file  being superior to even a high quality 320 kbps mp3 encode, HOWEVER !!!! believing that the extra 24 or 32 bit audio or 96k (when you yourself admit your DAC can't play it back) is what makes it sound better is bullshit, petty semantics at best. How do you not understand this is what people are saying? Many things will be better than a itunes store quality mp3 that aren't a 24 bit 96k HI RES PLACEBO. If you seemed to have even the slightest knowledge on these subjects, I would respect and consider your insistence on the additional fidelity compared to a CD quality lossless codec – but you don't have that, so I think I should give up explaining any of this.
 
>"I can say I like this version of 絲, I'm not much of a fan of pre-NIL. (*gasp* I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this huh?)"
Again, your completely missing the point. When I referenced just how shit the first 15 seconds of Ito sound compared to the original, it has nothing to do with "the GazettE" changing and everything to do with how fucking awful the Guitar tone and mixing/mastering sound. It's the same exact riff!!! That's why I pointed it out. It's literally just to do with the engineering and the reason I emphasized it was that its so PAINFULLY obvious how much better the recording and frequency balance is on the original guitar tone. It doesn't matter whether your a fan of pre-NIL or post-NIL. Play the two intros side by side to a panel of industry professionals and they'd tell you the same story.
 
Regarding what was said in the thread, YuyoDrift's overall point is good, but also said some things I want to clarify.
 
>"8bit (Think Video Game Music), 16bit (FLAC Quality), and 24bit (HD, Hi-Res, SACD)"
The whole 8bit = video game music or chiptune quality is largely a myth and just poor understanding of the system. As I sort of went into in my initial reply to Aeolus , mp3's function outside of the domain of bit depth in the traditional sense, and are very often far below 8 bits!! Furthermore, a 16 bit audio file can be reduced in bit depth by processes that will make the file compression 100% transparently. And finally, as @Shmillyintelligently gathered, there is no audible difference between 16 bit and 24 bit of the same sample rate. Which leads me to:
 
>It is intended for Audio Engineers, who use low-pass filtering for master recording and/or editing (kinda like a graphic designer/photo editor using RAW formatted images)."
The RAW analogy doesn't make any sense as the systems can't really be compared. The whole point of 24 bit audio as a superior tool in the studio is you have a wider signal to noise ratio (144 db vs 96 db of a 16 bit file). On playback, what you're hearing in this release is slammed through a limiter at 0db the whole time anyway. The argument for 24 bit playback could only be made if you were listening to incredible dynamic music, something that had passages at like -50db, which is something you don't find in any music period these days. Also, low-pass filtering has 0 to do with why people use 24 bit.
 
 

protip: don't date people online. long-distance relationships are exhausting and stressful.

Hi-res sounds better than iTunes, using Audio Technica studio headphones, a Dragonfly DAC and correct playback settings.
 
24-bit does not sound any different to 16-bit.
 
This is because 24 or 16 bits refers to the bit depth, not the bit rate, and on the vast majority of recordings (excluding perhaps orchestral music) the only difference is 8 bits of noise. There is no way we could truly take in the full audio range of 24-bit music without turning up the volume so high it would essentially be fatal (because of course decibels refers to pressure). That's why when making CDs, the remaining bit depth is simply filled out with inaudible noise frequencies. And this is even before all kinds of filtering and editing that go on in the studio.
 
Simply, there is no such thing as a perfect digital representation of music recorded in analogue sound, which is why even the studio files will probably sound no different to the CD itself. So those extra 8 bits of depth are incomprehensible to the listener.
 
For recording music, go 24-bit. For listening, 16-bit is more than enough for 99.9% of listeners.

Sorry to derail the gazetto thread, but I couldn't leave this unattended.
 
>"CD and itunes rips are 44.1khz / 16bit"

Yes, a lossless rip from a CD will be 44.1/16. However, while an mp3 does have a sample rate of 44.1k, it doesn't even function in the domain of "bit depth" in the traditional sense. "MP3's store the sound as amplitude over frequency, whereas a normal WAV has it as amplitude over time. The two are not directly comparable. In reality, most MP3's have a variable bit depth which often goes as low as 1 or 2 bits of ACCURACY, but with a much larger RANGE."
The logos behind mp3 and any lossy file type designed to compress information as transparently as possible is using variable rates to omit inessential information. Even a 320kps CBR mp3 still can't be viewed as constant in the same way a PCM file would.
"Additionally, as frames are not limited to a fixed size in bits, parts of the audio signal with complex sounds can use bytes from preceding frames, in essence giving all MP3:s variable bit rate."
 
 
>"Hi-Res is 44.1-192khz / 24-32 bit (the quality of a vinyl)"
 
I'm shocked that you would compare vinyl to a high fidelity digital audio file, let alone consider them equivalent. Vinyl is an ANALOG medium and doesn't have a bit depth or sample rate. I'll add the SNR of vinyl is quite poor (50db) in comparison to 16 bit (96db SNR) and 24 bit (144db SNR) digital audio, notwithstanding all of the other quality issues with vinyl.
 
>"This is what everyone has been listening to a standard 44.1khz/16bit rip -- And this is what I have 96khz/24bit"
 
Spectrograms are helpful to get a visual representation as confirmation for one's suspicions when listening to a poor rip. They are often used to demonstrate transcodes, because low bit rate mp3's have a harsh cut on the high end. It can make a 128kbps mp3 stick out like a sore thumb within a moment of listening, because you're missing quite noticeable information in the 16-20khz range, the very edge of the audible spectrum.
 
Speaking of which, I've sat in a large room full of people who were tested with a sine sweep to determine the edge of their hearing. They were all under the age of 25, so if any of their super-high end response was significantly missing, it was likely the result of hearing damage or genetics. The earliest point at which someone couldn't hear the tone was 15khz. Most of the room lost track of the sound around 17.5khz and only a select few people could hear just past 18khz, admitting it was very faint. By 19khz, no one could detect it. The human range of hearing does not surpass 20khz – common knowledge.
 
The first image of Himi's 256kbps / 44.1khz mp3 rip displays signal cutting off at 22khz, well beyond the edge of our hearing. Nice! The spectrogram of your hi-res files reaches all the way to nearly 50khz... Now, I have no problem with people preferring lossless formats for archival purposes and desires to preserve the original material in source quality, but acting like all that shit above 20khz is making your files sound better is foolish. Furthermore, all of that information above 20k is ridiculously quiet, most of it around -100db, at the loudest -80db. Even if you could hypothetically hear past 20k, the spectrogram is already telling you its irrelevant. Listen at your normal listening level and see if you can hear something playing back at -80db. Give it a try!
 
Speaking generally about the never-ending arguments surrounding lossless formats, there is a minute, though audible on correct systems, difference between a 44.1khz 16 bit lossless file and an efficiently encoded 320kbps mp3. Albeit, this is a difference at least 90% of people are unable to detect in a blind test. Furthermore, a difference between 48khz and 44.1khz is perceptible on state of the art equipment, though even less people than the latter are capable of noticing. The difference between 16 bit and 24 bit will never be perceptible, especially when listening to modern metal music where the master level is peaking at ~ -0.1dbfs at all times anyway. The only difference there is dynamic range, so you'll only be noticing it on the fade in from silence on the first sound of a song and the fade out from silence at the end, assuming you can hear quieter than -96db to really enjoy that 144db dynamic range of 24bit audio. (Remember what I said about -80db?)
 
With this in mind, while I do believe qualms between an mp3 and a CD quality rip are valid, believing that 24bit (let alone fucking 32 bit floating point [???]) or 96khz sample rate audio is perceptibly superior to a 44.1/48khz 16 bit file is bullshit. In addition to training my own ear, I've read numerous books on audio mastering and have had this very conversation with a number of veteran recording and mixing engineers (20+ years in the business) who have all told me a similar conclusion: Even on monitoring equipment the cost of your yearly income, what your missing beyond a 48k 16bit wav is null. There are technical reasons that some top-top-top of the line studios record at hard disk annihilatingly high sample rates and 32 bit, but they are in regards to the complexities of the record production process and their benefits are reaped even in a final master that's been reduced to a 44.1/16 standard – however, that is a discussion for another day.
 
I don't think you actually understand what you're fretting over and I think you're perpetuating an obsession with higher numbers being better, despite things not being that straightforward. Take this tool as an example of such possibilities, that bit depth, for instance, can be reduced with transparent playback. I want to stress that audio quality is only as good as the quality of its recording and the quality of its post-processing – and of course the performance! A poorly mixed or mastered record with an unnatural sounding frequency response will sound just as shit to me in 96/24 as it will in a 128kbps mp3. And of course vice versa, a beautifully engineered record's sheer SLAM value can't even be held back by a shitty mp3 – though I'd prefer a flac if I had the luxury
 
Finally, if anyone here is able to listen to the first 15 seconds of this newly re-recorded 絲 Ito and believe it sounds better than the original, I'm convinced your lying to yourself. Doesn't matter how high fidelity I hear it, there is no comparison – it is like night and day.
 
 

Sorry to derail the gazetto thread, but I couldn't leave this unattended.
 
>"CD and itunes rips are 44.1khz / 16bit"

Yes, a lossless rip from a CD will be 44.1/16. However, while an mp3 does have a sample rate of 44.1k, it doesn't even function in the domain of "bit depth" in the traditional sense. "MP3's store the sound as amplitude over frequency, whereas a normal WAV has it as amplitude over time. The two are not directly comparable. In reality, most MP3's have a variable bit depth which often goes as low as 1 or 2 bits of ACCURACY, but with a much larger RANGE."
The logos behind mp3 and any lossy file type designed to compress information as transparently as possible is using variable rates to omit inessential information. Even a 320kps CBR mp3 still can't be viewed as constant in the same way a PCM file would.
"Additionally, as frames are not limited to a fixed size in bits, parts of the audio signal with complex sounds can use bytes from preceding frames, in essence giving all MP3:s variable bit rate."
 
 
>"Hi-Res is 44.1-192khz / 24-32 bit (the quality of a vinyl)"
 
I'm shocked that you would compare vinyl to a high fidelity digital audio file, let alone consider them equivalent. Vinyl is an ANALOG medium and doesn't have a bit depth or sample rate. I'll add the SNR of vinyl is quite poor (50db) in comparison to 16 bit (96db SNR) and 24 bit (144db SNR) digital audio, notwithstanding all of the other quality issues with vinyl.
 
>"This is what everyone has been listening to a standard 44.1khz/16bit rip -- And this is what I have 96khz/24bit"
 
Spectrograms are helpful to get a visual representation as confirmation for one's suspicions when listening to a poor rip. They are often used to demonstrate transcodes, because low bit rate mp3's have a harsh cut on the high end. It can make a 128kbps mp3 stick out like a sore thumb within a moment of listening, because you're missing quite noticeable information in the 16-20khz range, the very edge of the audible spectrum.
 
Speaking of which, I've sat in a large room full of people who were tested with a sine sweep to determine the edge of their hearing. They were all under the age of 25, so if any of their super-high end response was significantly missing, it was likely the result of hearing damage or genetics. The earliest point at which someone couldn't hear the tone was 15khz. Most of the room lost track of the sound around 17.5khz and only a select few people could hear just past 18khz, admitting it was very faint. By 19khz, no one could detect it. The human range of hearing does not surpass 20khz – common knowledge.
 
The first image of Himi's 256kbps / 44.1khz mp3 rip displays signal cutting off at 22khz, well beyond the edge of our hearing. Nice! The spectrogram of your hi-res files reaches all the way to nearly 50khz... Now, I have no problem with people preferring lossless formats for archival purposes and desires to preserve the original material in source quality, but acting like all that shit above 20khz is making your files sound better is foolish. Furthermore, all of that information above 20k is ridiculously quiet, most of it around -100db, at the loudest -80db. Even if you could hypothetically hear past 20k, the spectrogram is already telling you its irrelevant. Listen at your normal listening level and see if you can hear something playing back at -80db. Give it a try!
 
Speaking generally about the never-ending arguments surrounding lossless formats, there is a minute, though audible on correct systems, difference between a 44.1khz 16 bit lossless file and an efficiently encoded 320kbps mp3. Albeit, this is a difference at least 90% of people are unable to detect in a blind test. Furthermore, a difference between 48khz and 44.1khz is perceptible on state of the art equipment, though even less people than the latter are capable of noticing. The difference between 16 bit and 24 bit will never be perceptible, especially when listening to modern metal music where the master level is peaking at ~ -0.1dbfs at all times anyway. The only difference there is dynamic range, so you'll only be noticing it on the fade in from silence on the first sound of a song and the fade out from silence at the end, assuming you can hear quieter than -96db to really enjoy that 144db dynamic range of 24bit audio. (Remember what I said about -80db?)
 
With this in mind, while I do believe qualms between an mp3 and a CD quality rip are valid, believing that 24bit (let alone fucking 32 bit floating point [???]) or 96khz sample rate audio is perceptibly superior to a 44.1/48khz 16 bit file is bullshit. In addition to training my own ear, I've read numerous books on audio mastering and have had this very conversation with a number of veteran recording and mixing engineers (20+ years in the business) who have all told me a similar conclusion: Even on monitoring equipment the cost of your yearly income, what your missing beyond a 48k 16bit wav is null. There are technical reasons that some top-top-top of the line studios record at hard disk annihilatingly high sample rates and 32 bit, but they are in regards to the complexities of the record production process and their benefits are reaped even in a final master that's been reduced to a 44.1/16 standard – however, that is a discussion for another day.
 
I don't think you actually understand what you're fretting over and I think you're perpetuating an obsession with higher numbers being better, despite things not being that straightforward. Take this tool as an example of such possibilities, that bit depth, for instance, can be reduced with transparent playback. I want to stress that audio quality is only as good as the quality of its recording and the quality of its post-processing – and of course the performance! A poorly mixed or mastered record with an unnatural sounding frequency response will sound just as shit to me in 96/24 as it will in a 128kbps mp3. And of course vice versa, a beautifully engineered record's sheer SLAM value can't even be held back by a shitty mp3 – though I'd prefer a flac if I had the luxury
 
Finally, if anyone here is able to listen to the first 15 seconds of this newly re-recorded 絲 Ito and believe it sounds better than the original, I'm convinced your lying to yourself. Doesn't matter how high fidelity I hear it, there is no comparison – it is like night and day.
 
 

This makes me not want to listen to the album even more. I don't see any point in changing old songs.

I saw last week, after years of not following them, a preview of their 2nd ballads album with the oldies and... i got an "awwww the gazette!!" feeling, i then started stalking  looking for Ruki's insta and see what's up. I still like the old songs better, as for the videos, Chizuru is my fave and that hasn't changed. I confess I was expecting a diferent sound, listening to Dogma the other day i don't know what really, but something that tells me This is Gazette a decade after... I think it was hard for me to follow them the way i used to, after DIM. The works that came after kinda made me search somewhere else. But they are definitly one of the bands i cherish. Prob always will. 

Maybe by the end of the year? Afaik the Dark Age concept is now finished so they'll most likely recalibrate a little bit and come back with something different. In all honesty I've disliked this last spur of releases so much that I'm downright begging they'll go back to something more light hearted and jovial. 
 
 
Unjustly unheralded Gazeballad. This one really gets what they used to be about; they're [the gazette] like a middle schooler writing notes class about girls and running out of allowance. Every once in awhile this entity runs away from home to see concerts at smokey concert halls in 90's Tokyo and ends up passing out while sneaking a ride back home in a lorry. Such a sweet voice Ruki used to have, as opposed to the consumate professional of today who takes classes and pays his taxes. 

Mmm, I feel you on this. At the time, I wasn't nearly as into Kagrra as I am now, but for me I think Jasmine You's death was the first death I was really shocked and bothered by of someone I didn't personally know (family/friends, etc.) At the time, I remember just feeling that it was unfair he had to die, especially just after Versailles went major. Ascendead Master and Prince & Princess were really great maxi's and the future looked bright for them then. Very wtf

Downloading western music: log into rutracker, download the band's entire discography in flac in just a few clicks.
Downloading japanese music: search each album individually on MH, jpopsuki, soulseek, rutracker and random brazillion blogs, then spend half an hour finding the rar password and fixing the tags only to find out the rar was corrupted.

why do I feel so alone? for some reason... I think of home.

holly shit my parents sent me like nearly 20 kgs of food & other stuff what the hell

Hi! My name is Paul and I am an art student in the UK  
 
I just joined, but I hope to get to know the community more as I post here ^^