[Rob Tweed]

Here's an observation I thought I'd share and see what others think.

I work from home and typically have music playing in the background
throughout the day from my system which is some way behind me. So
we're talking about music that is not particularly high volume (I find
it otherwise too distracting for my work) and coming from speakers
angled away from me and playing into the other end of the room in
which I work.

My main music collection is a combination of uncompressed WAV and
Apple Lossless tracks ripped into iTunes. I can happily work all day
having this playing in the background.

Occasionally, for a change or to check out some music or artist, I'll
listen to internet radio stations or, recently, Spotify, through the
same system. For the former I'll choose as high a rate as possible
(typically 128k). Spotify apparently uses 160k. So it's not unduly
compressed stuff.

What I've found is that whilst the music sounds superficially OK,
after an hour or two I feel on edge and on the verge of feeling a bit
ill. It's a difficult sensation to describe, but I find there comes a
point where I just have to turn off the music or revert to my iTunes
collection whereupon it's an almost immediate "ahh that's better"
feeling.

I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of
course maybe it's just my imagination...... :-)

---

Rob Tweed
Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd
Registered in England: No 3220901
Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR

Web-site: http://www.mgateway.com

[bob]

On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote:

I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of
course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-)

I'd guess neither. You're ignoring the most important and obvious
variable—the music itself. Surely that has a greater effect on your
mood than the encoding scheme used.

My guess is that what you become "fatigued" of is the music that the
Internet radio station is playing. So you switch to your own music—
something you like, and more importantly something you've chosen at
that moment. Of course you feel better!

It isn't always about the audio. Sometimes it's about the music.

bob

[Codifus]

On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote:
Here's an observation I thought I'd share and see what others think.

I work from home and typically have music playing in the background
throughout the day from my system which is some way behind me. *So
we're talking about music that is not particularly high volume (I find
it otherwise too distracting for my work) and coming from speakers
angled away from me and playing into the other end of the room in
which I work.

My main music collection is a combination of uncompressed WAV and
Apple Lossless tracks ripped into iTunes. *I can happily work all day
having this playing in the background.

Occasionally, for a change or to check out some music or artist, I'll
listen to internet radio stations or, recently, Spotify, through the
same system. *For the former I'll choose as high a rate as possible
(typically 128k). *Spotify apparently uses 160k. *So it's not unduly
compressed stuff. *

What I've found is that whilst the music sounds superficially OK,
after an hour or two I feel on edge and on the verge of feeling a bit
ill. *It's a difficult sensation to describe, but I find there comes a
point where I just have to turn off the music or revert to my iTunes
collection whereupon it's an almost immediate "ahh that's better"
feeling.

I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of
course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-)

---

Rob Tweed
Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd
Registered in England: No 3220901
Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR

Web-site:http://www.mgateway.com

Because it's internet radio, there are several external factors that
may be affecting the sound, not just compression. The source of the
audio might be questionable. Maybe it was not a good source even
before the compression. The encoder that makes the MP3 stream may be
only so so as well. When I used to experiment with several MP3
encoders I found that only 2 could really make a great sounding MP3,
LAME and the MP3 encoder within CoolEdit 2K. For example, the MP3
encoder within iTunes is terrible. Avoid it. iTunes has a great AAC
encoder so its built in MP3 encoder is redundant.

CD

[JWV Miller]

On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote:

snip

I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of
course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-)

[quoted sig deleted -- deb]

You might try taking some of your lossless files and compressing them
to perhaps 128 kbs and set up identical play lists for the compressed
and lossless files. Then have somebody randomly select one of the play
lists each day for several weeks and see if you can tell the
difference. Many people in this news group might be very interested in
the results of such a test.

[Rich Teer]

On Mon, 17 Aug 2009, Rob Tweed wrote:

I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of
course maybe it's just my imagination...... :-)

My bet would be the former. Listener fatigue is a real phenomenom.

--
Rich Teer, SCSA, SCNA, SCSECA

URLs: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richteer

[Rob Tweed]

On 17 Aug 2009 15:47:29 GMT, bob wrote:

On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote:

I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of
course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-)

I'd guess neither. You're ignoring the most important and obvious
variable—the music itself. Surely that has a greater effect on your
mood than the encoding scheme used.

My guess is that what you become "fatigued" of is the music that the
Internet radio station is playing. So you switch to your own music—
something you like, and more importantly something you've chosen at
that moment. Of course you feel better!

It isn't always about the audio. Sometimes it's about the music.

bob

Of course you may be right, but on the other hand, the last couple of
times this has occurred, I've been checking out new tracks from
artists I already listen to, so it's familiar stuff and stuff I wanted
to hear and would normally enjoy listening to. "Gut feel" tells me
there's something related to the sound rather than it being related to
the content.

Interestingly I get no such problems listening to recordings I've made
of the BBC Proms which are 192k MP2 streams broadcast over the
terrestrial digital TV network here in the UK.

--

Rob Tweed
Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd
Registered in England: No 3220901
Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR

Web-site: http://www.mgateway.com

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:47:29 -0700, bob wrote
(in article ):

On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote:

I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of
course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-)

I'd guess neither. You're ignoring the most important and obvious
variable—the music itself. Surely that has a greater effect on your
mood than the encoding scheme used.

My guess is that what you become "fatigued" of is the music that the
Internet radio station is playing. So you switch to your own music—
something you like, and more importantly something you've chosen at
that moment. Of course you feel better!

It isn't always about the audio. Sometimes it's about the music.

bob


But, ostensibly, wouldn't he be listening to music HE LIKES both from his own
collection and from the internet radio feeds? I'm certainly not going to
listen to an internet radio station that plays music that I don't like, even
(or especially) as background. So, perhaps it is the compression, after all
because I too get listening fatigue after a while with internet radio, even
"stations" like Radio Switzerland from Zurich, which has a classical music
format (and 128KB/s data rate) that I like. I find I can only listen to it
for an hour or so at a time before I get start getting edgy and annoyed, and
have to switch it off or go to FM or my own music collection.