> Of course, it's not only the compression that's at stake-- it's also the mastering quality.
HN threads on lossless music so often descend into "well, you couldn’t hear the difference". But historically a key reason for people to prefer e.g. SACD releases of recordings is not because one can hear the extra frequencies of this format, but because the SACD release – being targeted at people with a good stereo and silent listening environment – is mastered with more dynamic range. The mainstream release of the same music, on the other hand, often features a different mastering with levels pushed up, because they assume that ordinary people will be listening to music in noisy environments, like through earbuds in the metro. This is often a problem for re-releases of 1960s recordings of jazz where the producer and engineer really exploited dynamic range, but that is lost in the most recent of the digital-era re-releases.
(Another reason to prefer SACDs and Blu-ray releases of recordings is for the possibility of 5.0 surround sound, because of course CD and mainstream downloads or streaming are limited to mono or stereo only.)
HN threads on lossless music so often descend into "well, you couldn’t hear the difference". But historically a key reason for people to prefer e.g. SACD releases of recordings is not because one can hear the extra frequencies of this format, but because the SACD release – being targeted at people with a good stereo and silent listening environment – is mastered with more dynamic range. The mainstream release of the same music, on the other hand, often features a different mastering with levels pushed up, because they assume that ordinary people will be listening to music in noisy environments, like through earbuds in the metro. This is often a problem for re-releases of 1960s recordings of jazz where the producer and engineer really exploited dynamic range, but that is lost in the most recent of the digital-era re-releases.
(Another reason to prefer SACDs and Blu-ray releases of recordings is for the possibility of 5.0 surround sound, because of course CD and mainstream downloads or streaming are limited to mono or stereo only.)