What audio system do you have, or plan on getting?

[hopefullytrusting]

This obvious straw man argument offers us a good chance to get back on topic!

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

I don't use bargain-bin earbuds, but I do use bargain-bin headphones - wired Oneodios (20 bucks). I do have fancy headphones with all the fixins, but my ears simply couldn't tell the difference, even though I know, empirically, it is perceptible. It is not dissimilar to my eyes in that I cannot really see the difference between 480p and 720p, and that I attribute to how much time I spent gaming in the era where the fps was 30 or below, but my eyes just aren't seeing the value of the definition or rendering, again, I know that empirically it exists and is perceptible.

[steve ridgway]

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

No, I could never get earbuds to stay in well and comfortably, bought wired open ear headphones based on reviews of gear within my budget.

[71 dB]

There's never any lack of people eager to insist that MP3 is perfectly identical to FLAC, proudly declaring they can't hear or prefer not to hear any difference. Naturally, they'll cite the sacred blind tests.

Hardly anyone says mp3 is perfectly identical to FLAC, but mp3 at 320 kbps is very hard to tell apart from lossless sound and this is shown in blind listening tests. The type of music affects how easy the lossy coding artefacts are heard. So, if you listen to music that reveals coding artefacts more easily, you may want to stay lossless and not use lossy formats, but it is everyone's own choice.  Nobody tells you to use mp3 if you don't want to, but the truth is mp3 at bitrates of 192 kbps or more can sound completely fine in portable use when you are listening to music in whatever less or more noisy environments and 256/320 kbps can sound fine at home in your livingroom unless the music happens to be "Japanese killer music." 

Meanwhile, they enjoy their classical music through tiny little boxes and bargain-bin earbuds, happily assuring everyone it all sounds marvelous. And for them it does, thank heavens for that. Suum cuique, as they say.

They? My speaker system is pretty high quality diy system that goes down to 25 Hz and my headphones are "bang for the buck" Sennheiser HD 598 with diy crossfeeder that improves headphone spatiality for my ears with almost all recordings. I don't know how you define "marvelous", but I am completely happy with my system. My problem is with the recordings and how they are mixed and mastered. My system has the resolution to reveal those problems. Even if something is mixed and mastered to perfection, not all music is that great. Even the greatest artists have their duds...

[Todd]

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

Maybe not bargain bin, but I use some JBL wireless earbuds in the ~$50 range when I walk, and I listen to classical music on occasion.  They are fit for purpose. 

[Fëanor]

Hardly anyone says mp3 is perfectly identical to FLAC, but mp3 at 320 kbps is very hard to tell apart from lossless sound and this is shown in blind listening tests. The type of music affects how easy the lossy coding artefacts are heard...

I always rip CDs to lossless, usually FLAC.  On rare occasions I will create a 320 kbps MP3 copy for a mobile device.  On my full stereo system I can't randomly play the MP3 and say to myself, "Oh that's MP3" in case of 320 kbps.  However 128 kbps copies are usually quite obviously not full resolution.

I have ripped some CDs to lossless ALAC (Apple) format;  my Foobar2000 decoder will show the instantaneous bitrate when playing back.  From what I've seen, the least compression occurs on Jazz recordings when a cymbal is struct with a wire brush -- almost full lossless rate in most cases.

[hopefullytrusting]

I always rip CDs to lossless, usually FLAC.  On rare occasions I will create a 320 kbps MP3 copy for a mobile device.  On my full stereo system I can't randomly play the MP3 and say to myself, "Oh that's MP3" in case of 320 kbps.  However 128 kbps copies are usually quite obviously not full resolution.

I have ripped some CDs to lossless ALAC (Apple) format;  my Foobar2000 decoder will show the instantaneous bitrate when playing back.  From what I've seen, the least compression occurs on Jazz recordings when a cymbal is struct with a wire brush -- almost full lossless rate in most cases.

I think my collection would drive everyone here mad.

I don't even pay attention to any of the above, in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if most my recordings were 128, lol.

[Spotted Horses]

I'm a bit puzzled, to be honest. One objectivist refuses to admit that all DACs sound the same, while another insists that DACs don't have emotions (was anyone suggesting they did?) and that they produces the same audio output. Perhaps you should have a chat among yourselves, sort it out, and come back once you've reached a consensus.

Now, digital cables. In theory, they all carry the same data, ones and zeroes, so there shouldn't be any difference. That's the theoretical model: if the bits arrive intact, the job is done.

You got so close to the right answer there. If the bits arrive intact, the job is done. That is correct in theory and in practice.

In practice, though, cables are built differently: different materials, different shielding, different resistance to interference, varying quality of connectors. They all carry the same information, but with differing degrees of reliability and stability.

All modern digital transmission systems contains ECC (error correction code) usually in the form of CRC (cyclic redundancy check). The device that receives information can detect if some sort of signal degradation has caused data corruption. If an error is detected the receiver may be able to restore the correct data or ask for retransmission. To give a concrete example (more simplistic than what would be implemented in a real system) I can send 1,000 numbers, then add all of the numbers together and send the sum. The receiver gets the 1,000 numbers and the sum, it adds the 1,000 numbers together and see if it gets the same sum. If they don't match there is an error and the receiver instructs the sender to re-transmit. Error correction schemes used in real systems would be much more sophisticated. I copied a 4TB hard disk using a $5 USB cable. It transmitted all 30,000,000,000,000 bits without losing a single one.

[71 dB]

However 128 kbps copies are usually quite obviously not full resolution.

I don't recommend 128 kbps mp3s to anyone. Use 192 kbps or higher.

I have ripped some CDs to lossless ALAC (Apple) format;  my Foobar2000 decoder will show the instantaneous bitrate when playing back.  From what I've seen, the least compression occurs on Jazz recordings when a cymbal is struct with a wire brush -- almost full lossless rate in most cases.

That kind of sound is almost completely noise. It means there is very little information redundancy. When there is no redundancy, you can't remove anything (losslessly) and the file size doesn't shrink.

[Mapman]

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

I bought some Moondrop Quarks a few years ago, for about $10/pair. I found them surprisingly adequate. And most importantly, they fit in my ears nicely so that they are comfortable to wear when lying in bed.

However, with those and other inexpensive IEMs, after a few months one ear is noticeably quieter than the other. I'm not sure if there are any solutions to this, so I'm hesitant to try more expensive IEMs.

[Fëanor]

I have ripped some CDs to lossless ALAC (Apple) format;  my Foobar2000 decoder will show the instantaneous bitrate when playing back.  From what I've seen, the least compression occurs on Jazz recordings when a cymbal is struct with a wire brush -- almost full lossless rate in most cases.

That kind of sound is almost completely noise. It means there is very little information redundancy. When there is no redundancy, you can't remove anything (losslessly) and the file size doesn't shrink.

Haha    I'm sure those Jazz drummers don't consider it "almost completely noise", but hey, I take your point.

[71 dB]

Haha    I'm sure those Jazz drummers don't consider it "almost completely noise", but hey, I take your point.

Noise as in signal type. Mathematically noise means unpredictable signal. You can't predict what noise does next based on what it did in the past. Music and not only jazz contains a lot of noise that is considered musical, but math doesn't care what humans find musical. The word "noise" doesn't have the same negative connotation in signal theory it has in music.

[DavidW]

This obvious straw man argument offers us a good chance to get back on topic!

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

Funny enough, many audiophiles listen to high-end planar magnetic IEMs connected to expensive DAPs. It is a misconception that small = cheap or that small = bad.

[Spotted Horses]

This obvious straw man argument offers us a good chance to get back on topic!

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

I use Apple EarPods Pros sometimes. They are the ones that have an ear seal and decent noise cancellation. Not for serious listening, but suitable for listening to pop or jazz, especially in a noisy environment. I also have ordinary EarPods (gen 4) which I use for phone calls and video conferencing.

[StudioGuy]

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

I do use bargain-bin earbuds occasionally, I've got a pair of wired Apple earpods (-$20) that I sometimes use when the wife and I are using our tablets and watching different things. I also have some AirPods for out and about or occasionally for referencing a mix but I don't use either of them for listening to classical music.

I have ripped some CDs to lossless ALAC (Apple) format;  my Foobar2000 decoder will show the instantaneous bitrate when playing back.  From what I've seen, the least compression occurs on Jazz recordings when a cymbal is struct with a wire brush -- almost full lossless rate in most cases.

As 71dB stated, that is because a cymbal, particularly the decay phase of a cymbal hit, is typically just noise, although it depends somewhat on the type of cymbal and how its's played. One way to think of how this affects data compression is to consider that digital audio data tends to contain quite a few strings of identical numbers, say 8 zeroes, followed by say 6 ones and then another string of say 20 zeroes. So, this could be compressed as say "8x0,6x1,20x0" rather than actually storing all the zeroes and ones individually. Noise however is defined as random amounts of all frequencies, so you don't get long strings of zeroes or ones and it's not easily losslessly compressible. This is an oversimplification just to help visualise the process, the way the lossless compression codecs work is far more sophisticated in practice.

Incidentally, an old engineering trick from many years ago, back in the analogue recording days when high frequency content was lost (due mainly to analogue tape "generational loss"), was to mix in some band-limited white noise with the cymbals (typically splash cymbals), which was audibly virtually identical, to restore some of the lost higher frequency sizzle and air. Consumers, audiophiles and even the drummers themselves never noticed and didn't know this was being done.

I don't even pay attention to any of the above, in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if most my recordings were 128, lol.

Even MP3 at 128kbps can be audibly transparent with certain types/genres of music. Around 170kbps is generally the threshold of audibility but it varies a bit depending on the exact codec. Audiophiles who claim to be able to hear the difference between lossless and MP3 320 (or AAC 256) are typically just fooling themselves/suffering from "placebo". This is not always the case though, there are some exceptions.

An obvious and surprisingly common mistake is comparing lossless with a MP3 of a different master, which will of course produce an audible difference. Another case, which also occurs more frequently than many will admit, is that a 128kbps MP3 will be re-encoded and delivered to consumers as a 320kbps MP3.

Lastly, there are still some old MP3s floating around. In the '90s and early 2000s, it was *relatively* easy to differentiate MP3s, even at 320kbps. Then LAME encoding was introduced with a far more sophisticated "perceptual model" and over the next few years it was tweaked, until by around the mid 2000s the number of songs/tracks that could be differentiated was virtually zero. By the late 2000s other encoders had achieved the same level of transparency and AAC at 256 VBR was also already audibly transparent. So it's possible that an MP3 320 from before that time or created with an old MP3 encoder in the late 2000s, could be audibly differentiated.

[Daverz]

This obvious straw man argument offers us a good chance to get back on topic!

Q. Does anyone here use "bargain-bin earbuds" to listen to classical music? Or any earbuds at all?

Not Apple-type default earbuds, but I do have few pairs of IEMs (in-ear monitors),

- the Linsoul 7Hz Salnotes Zero.  Under $20.  These sound very good, but the edges of the body hurt my pinna.  YMMV.

- TRUTHEAR x Crinacle Zero.  Currently $59.  These are more comfortable. Very neutral, with fantastic bass.

- TOPPING Arpegear Hane.  Currently $129.  These have little built-in EQ switches.  I use them set with the first level of bass boost, since they sound more balanced to me that way.

I've been using the Topping Hanes lately -- perhaps they sound a bit more refined than the others, but it's pretty marginal.   I'd still recommend the Truthear Crinacle Zeros.

I also have a pair of Sennheiser HD650 over-ear, open backed headphones.

I use a Topping DX3 Pro DAC/headphone amp to drive all these 'phones.

[Fëanor]

As 71dB stated, that is because a cymbal, particularly the decay phase of a cymbal hit, is typically just noise, although it depends somewhat on the type of cymbal and how its's played. One way to think of how this affects data compression is to consider that digital audio data tends to contain quite a few strings of identical numbers, say 8 zeroes, followed by say 6 ones and then another string of say 20 zeroes. So, this could be compressed as say "8x0,6x1,20x0" rather than actually storing all the zeroes and ones individually. Noise however is defined as random amounts of all frequencies, so you don't get long strings of zeroes or ones and it's not easily losslessly compressible. This is an oversimplification just to help visualise the process, the way the lossless compression codecs work is far more sophisticated in practice.

Well again, I can't argue with the technical definition of noise. But I'm saying that if the musician is producing noise, we listeners want to hear that noise as authentically as possible -- if it takes higher bit rates to capture that noise, then that's what we want.

Incidentally, an old engineering trick from many years ago, back in the analogue recording days when high frequency content was lost (due mainly to analogue tape "generational loss"), was to mix in some band-limited white noise with the cymbals (typically splash cymbals), which was audibly virtually identical, to restore some of the lost higher frequency sizzle and air. Consumers, audiophiles and even the drummers themselves never noticed and didn't know this was being done.

No doubt there was & is trickery going in the mastering process.  But I hope that modern recording and equipment can reduce the number of tricks  that are necessary to provide the listener with some like a "live" experience.