S8 audio I/O?

Most people have been trained in very small steps over years and years to accept lower (and even still descending) quality unitl they take it as usual standard....

... and this is not generally related just to sound.

 

Ever since there are lossless codecs around I am a big fan of these and using FLAC wherever possible. Often tracks are only available in mp3 and then I'm playing those of course. I am no technical expert but I guess at bitrates from 192 - 320 kbps they are ok when properly encoded.

So just from a playback view I want to make sure to have the best sounding output possible. Doesn't matter if the drunk audience won't hear the difference, it's important to me as some sort of sound fanatic you could say. Therefore files with high bitrate, good levels and headroom in software and mixer put trough an excellent interface should provide that.

And my subjective believe is that you can hear more difference at higher levels. Mp3 even at 320 are missing some top and back end and with that lose clarity, power and brilliance compared to lossless files. So I think lossy files and poor soundcards are two sides of the same coin. If you have both combined it's always average or bad sounding.

 

I'm not interested in that argument. I'm genuinely interested (i.e. not trolling) to hear if anyone who is, as your are, interested in the quality sound card also cares about that format you play with.

Without trying to discuss which is best or worse, which one do you think is more important? The sound card or the file format?

I'm just curious. You won't get an argument from me.

 

Hi Damen,
Thanks for clarifying and apologies for jumping to the conclusion that you might have been trolling (which I did not state, but you correctly guessed that I was starting to wonder about). To answer your question: I'm interested in the quality of a sound card and I care about the file format quality.

Simply put, I want the best that I can get for both. But how much it really matters truly depends on the setting and context.

Although most 'tests' will tell you there's no real perceivable difference (from a listening point of view) between 320 MP and lossless, I agree with Teufelzkerl and will always buy and play lossless wherever possible. Having said that, as mentioned and unlike purists, I don't think MP3's thrown into the mix (whether live or a recorded mix at home) will ever make or break a good set. Heck, I don't even think a set played only with MP3's could be called bad if it was really rockin' the crowd. Sure it could 'sound' better. But one thing I'm sure we can agree on is this: what matters is if the people are having fun. Some of them might be drunk, high, whatever (as someone mentioned); these are occupational hazards so to speak, and sometimes in the right quantities can even add to the vibe. Yes, as Slarti Bartfass said we as a society are being socially engineered to accept less and less quality when it comes to sound. But it all depends on the context. I just heard one of the best sets of my long life in electronic music at a small (30-40 ppl) Halloween party at a friends country house last night. The setting was amazing: small wooden chalet, sky full of stars, fireplace in the main space / dance floor, the costumes were lots of fun, there was an overflowing buffet of snacks and good food abundance in the kitchen, people where interacting, letting their wild side out, being playful.

A friend of mine who's a maniac for collecting good music was the only DJ and playing his first 'official' dj set on his own sound system (two smaller QSC portable powered speakers and a portable sub bass). For sure he was playing MP3's. His mixing wasn't all train wrecks, but it was off a lot of the times, and he'd hold the mix trying to correct it but not quite getting them aligned. On the other hand he did transitions that I would have never thought of that were often times quite brilliant; he also experimented: occasionally playing with the BPMs drastically and intentionally to segue way at the end of one wave into a different wave of music in a different range of BPMs, connecting themes or sounds, or transitioning into a different flavour of beats; trance, techno, house, electro-cumbia, indie influenced electronica, folk influenced electronica, even drum n' bass (which I normally never like), whatever. Over 5 hours, he went through coherent waves of music, all cutting edge, mostly underground, trippy eletronica stuff that sounded like music from the past and future blended together and took us on a journey. Could he play Ibiza tomorrow, or even in a year? No. But that was seriously one of the best parties I've ever been to (hands in the air goodness), and that night, MP3 or no, slightly distorted sound or no, he was the God of music. I've been to Ibiza, and to be honest, I don't believe for one second any party in Ibiza (even with its expensive sounds system and international DJs) was ever half as much fun as we had last night.

As for sound cards, I paid $800 for a Babyface, because I wanted the best, clean, and portable sound I could get. But there's always better, and there's always worse. But what you have is what you have.

As an experienced DJ, I want the best quality that I can get my hands on because I love good sound, and want to share the music the way it's meant to be heard with the people. But I also know that every setting and sound system will not always do justice to the music, and sometimes you just have to roll with it. Perhaps we as DJs are too obsessed with chasing after the perfect sound, and should instead focus more energy on experimenting with our music and performance, taking risks (as A-Track) says. Who knows? I've been in the game for over 20 years and I'm still learning so much. But what I realized last night was that even as someone known as a fairly versatile DJ who can play a wide array of styles (separately or together) well, I've been playing it safe for too long. I think it's time to start taking more risks. But I still want the best sound I can get.

 

That makes sense.

 

Sorry you lost me...you didn't understand? I doubt I could make it much clearer.

 

I'm not arguing either, just trying to get down to the nub of some ideas with you all....it's actually refreshing to have a thread like this in the Traktor forum.
Sample rate isn't a case of 'buying in' or not. All other things being equal, if the original track was produced/mixed/rendered at a higher rate then played back at this rate it has greater information density/fidelity than the same thing at a lower rate. Whether this has a 'noticeable' effect in club environments is another question. As we've noted higher sample/bit-rate music is basically as good as non-existent in terms of the music most people in this forum play, myself included.

This is not comparing mp3 to lossless either. That said, reliable double-blind testing has shown that a significant number of people cannot hear the difference between a properly encoded 320 mp3 and the original 16-bit lossless. In some cases more people prefer the 320. That said I'm another person who will always buy/play the lossless version where possible and about 80% of my music is lossless, the rest (other than literally single figures) is 320. What I want is to play back even my mp3s as well as practically possible and my orginal post was about that. In my frequent experience conversion quality differences are far more noticeable than 320 vs lossless. Whether that 'far more' is noticeable by party people in a club situation is again another question but all these things add up and above and beyond anything I was hoping to make 2 points : as music lovers/providers isn't it our duty to pursue the best sound practically possible? Isn't it NI's duty to pursue improvements in the sound their products deliver, especially in their cutting edge, flagship box? 2014 vs 2010? And of course you're right AntonA, tune selection and sequencing trumps pretty much anything.

 

Here we go

This is something you keep hearing the research actually shows the opposite. Even kids raised on MP3s can tell the difference between the two given a decent sound system and a clean source.

The problem is that everyone in the signal chain is giving up on this. Most club owners don't care and use shitty sound system, most DJs don't care and play MP3s, most producers don't care and don't know how to master their tracks properly.

I've said this somewhere else but "we get the listeners the we deserve". If our crowds can't tell the difference, it's our fault and not theirs.

 

Thanks for patronising me

You're just trying to trump my unqualified statement with another.
For a start http://imgur.com/a/lHnP3
http://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/1903bi/lossy_vs_lossless_results/

It's not just something I keep hearing that I randomly pulled out of the air. I was very specific - a significant number of people, not all or even a majority and a properly encoded 320 not a 10 year-old 128 from the Pirate Bay. Generalising doesn't help.

I honestly have little interest in the mp3 vs lossless thing, for me it's a given, I'm all lossless as far as I possibly can. EIther way, 320 or lossless will both sound better with superior DAC as opposed to average or crappy, no? Mate, we're on the same side. There's no 'giving up', that's EXACTLY my main reason for starting this, because I was concerned whether or not there had been an improvement in NI's audio output quality with the S8. As I said, when I listened to an S4 and a Vestax VCI400, even on headphones the difference was obvious enough to have me going back and forth saying 'really?'. Good 320 vs lossless is more a 'mmmmm, maybe....play it again...' and I have good ears and some great gear.

WIth someone else's help there's the possibility to do some kind of DAC shootout with a few boxes sometime, hopefully including the S8.

 

Fair enough. I'll leave this here then: http://seanolive.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/more-evidence-that-kids-even-japanese.html

I wholeheartedly agree on everything you say, apart from the 'people can't hear the difference'. People can, they're just not given the chance to.

And by 'giving up' I was not targeting you personally, just the industry in general. It should be a very important thing (just like it is to you and I) but it isn't. And that's why more and more people don't care.

That's all I meant.

 

All good.

In terms of the format comparisons in your link that was 128 mp3 vs lossless. All mp3 are not equal.

 

Agreed, but the tradeoffs used to get better compression are the same unfortunately (even at 320kps).

Someone who really needed the space saving would have much better results with AAC for example which is a way better algorithm.

 

There is a tradeoff in all compression but the extent and implications of those tradeoffs are not the same.

Money saving (~$1/track) and convenience (tags, portability to devices) are much larger concerns for most people now.

I'm not advocating mp3/320, just trying to be accurate and open-minded.