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Topic: Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing? (Read 11187 times) previous topic - next topic
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Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #1 –
yeah, they said it was a crock...one guy on slashdot mentioned that even if it WAS possible, you would have to basically stop listening to anything besides mp3 or other encoded media...so basically go deaf to everything in the REAL WORLD besides mp3.  The guy who wrote the article even blames the compression of radio and TV broadcasts for his hearing problems...where are the other billion people with hearing loss because of watching TV regularly
WARNING:  Changing of advanced parameters might degrade sound quality.  Modify them only if you are expirienced in audio compression!

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #2 –
He starts with a basic description of the anatomy of the ear, and then takes a running leap into space with wild speculation and complaints of earaches. And he slams the record industries while he's at it.

If you run spectral analysis on a lossy-compressed audio file, don't you usually have data across almost the whole frequency spectrum (minus high frequencies)? It's just that the data is lower in resolution (noisier). And high frequencies have been missing from recorded music since well before MP3 was developed.

There are plenty of low-quality, unbalanced audio reproduction devices in use today, with huge frequency peaks and valleys. Are those devices tearing our ears to pieces too?

...looks like he started his own religion too...

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #3 –
Look at what else the same guy says:

http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...ologie/pink.txt

This line is especially amusing:

"People those wore or had to wear pink sunglasses always became very aggres-
sive, nervous and distracted.  After removing these glasses for a longer time the
symptoms vanished."

LOL!  I suppose if a person driving a car and wearing pink sunglasses (and couldn't tell the color of traffic lights) got nervous & distracted, it would be due to the pink color, right?  This "reasoning" kind of reminds me of the way drug companies determine potential side effects.  Anything that happens to a person while they're taking a drug gets noted down as a side-effect, depending on the frequency it occurs.  Thus, cancer would be listed as an "uncommon" but definite side effect for sugar pills .

Cheers,

fewtch

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #4 –
Even if we listened only to MP3s, the encoder and bitrate would have to be absolutely perfect in order to emulate the ear psychoacoustic response. The slightest bitrate increase would restore parts of the missing audio.

About watermarking :
Quote
How a so persistent, artificial signal that repeats over the entire length of an recording affects brain and hearing is very uncertain


The action of a butterfly at 4000 km on whether your next CDR will be a coaster is even less certain, not to speak about the astral configuration influence on our health, love, and money !
I take this "very uncertain effect" as "very surely no effect" 

But first, if he doesn't want his paper to look like nonsense, he should add a bibliography, at least about these "calibration signals for the ear".

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #5 –
Quote
yeah, they said it was a crock...one guy on slashdot mentioned that even if it WAS possible, you would have to basically stop listening to anything besides mp3 or other encoded media...so basically go deaf to everything in the REAL WORLD besides mp3.

I'm planning to patent a special hearing aid for people who suffered hearing/brain damage from listening too much to mp3s.

From the outside it looks like an ordinary hearing aid but inside is the technology:

Between the tiny microphone and the output there's a mp3 encoder/decoder implemented. So everything in the real world would be transformed into mp3 and you'll still able to hear it. For those who have very strong damage, there'll be a special xing model.

Great, isn't it?

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #6 –
Quote
"People those wore or had to wear pink sunglasses always became very aggres-
sive, nervous and distracted.  After removing these glasses for a longer time the
symptoms vanished."

It's probably a case of "wannabe blond bitch with ugly fashion clothes"... They're always bitching and moaning... Nothing new...

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #7 –
 

Something for a friend on mine.
He can't even notice a difference between WMA 64 kbps and original WAV.
And he isn't working with pneumatic hammer or anything like that.
I've changed only because of myself.
Remember, when you quote me, you're quoting AstralStorm.
(read: this account is dead)

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #8 –
Quote
He starts with a basic description of the anatomy of the ear, and then takes a running leap into space with wild speculation and complaints of earaches. And he slams the record industries while he's at it.

Wild leaps of logic unsupported by credible evidence seem to be fairly common at Slashdot.

Everytime someone links there it seems the discussions on audio compression are wrong, and the person with the most refined bullshit wins the day.

Not even as accurate as a tabloid.

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #9 –
 Funny

First problem with his finding is that modern perceptual audio coders do not REMOVE sounds that are inaudible,  instead they introduce narrow-band white noise up to the level where that noise becomes audbile  (do  mix/paste with cooledit of the original and compressed signal - but with exact time offsets - and you will get quantization noise as the result)

White noise is everywhere and human ear is perfectly tolerating it (unless it becomes way too loud 

Quote
But here definitely exists acute research need, therefore I request hereby all politicians and neuroacoustics scientists to be concerned with the danger potential of neuroacoustic data reduction and to postpone the abolishment of the analogue radio and TV standards until all risks have been clarified.


Perhaps he should start reading some books about audio coding before making wild claims
Or maybe someone could explain basic things about quantization in MP3 audio coding

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #10 –
Blaming the world for his problems! Bleh if that were true I think everyone on this board will be complaining of earaches, headaches and any other problem with the ear. So far the only problem with peoples ear's on this board is that it aches after too many hours of ABX testing  hehe keep it up though its these test that make the audio codec closer to perfect.

/me goes to have a rest this MP3 is giving me an earache 

**EDIT**
Hehe forgot the "h" in hours.
-=MusePack... Living Audio Compression=-

Honda - The Power of Dreams

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #11 –
It might be true 
I will have earache after listening to:

LAME mp3 < 64 kbps
FhG mp3 < 160 kbps
Vorbis < 160 kbps
MP2 < 192 kbps

I'm serious!

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #12 –
People who watch DivX encoded movies are in real trouble. They are at risk to becoming deaf and blind!

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #13 –
I was too lazy to read it...

could someone tell me the point what the guy had to say?

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #14 –
Everyone will need to have at least a US$ 5000.00 speakers!
  If not everyone will be deaf
Those who are listening to sound that is produced by speakers that is not "Perfect" will face serious trouble..

So funny?????                     

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #15 –
Quote
People who watch DivX encoded movies are in real trouble. They are at risk to becoming deaf and blind!

ROFLMFAO!!! HAHAAHHAAHHA

nice one man, the entire mankidn is doomed!!

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #16 –
Quote
Quote
People who watch DivX encoded movies are in real trouble. They are at risk to becoming deaf and blind!

ROFLMFAO!!! HAHAAHHAAHHA

nice one man, the entire mankidn is doomed!!

Let's make sure they don't look at p0rn, either.  Deaf, blind and hairy palms!  Pretty soon mankind will start devolving back to a single cell... 

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #17 –
Quote
I was too lazy to read it...

could someone tell me the point what the guy had to say?

He says that the masking effects are a natural filter of the inner ear in order to improve the frequency perception, and that it will atrophy if no more masked frequencies are heard.

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #18 –
To give this guy any credibility at all would be more than a little foolish, imho:

http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...ie/Logologi.faq

"The cyberyogi is basically a human being which learns to control and recon-
figure his nervous system in a way that he becomes capable to use his skin's
nervous system to create in it additional vibration patterns similar to a
SIS-struct(but much more variable),with the main purpose of becoming capable
to use it to receive the holy software of cosmic consciousness and also to
perform telepathic broadcast for sending messages to the mankind to lead it
to higher levels of spiritual development."

"I started experimenting with hatha-yoga,and half a year later around eastern
I got a second great enlightenment where I was told to make a religion of
"logologie" and I was instructed a lot about consciousness physics,ethics
and the laws of cosmic cybernetics there."

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #19 –
OK i've had enough ...
Watch out, loud sound is everywhere! Your stereo system is very likely to make you deaf. WARNING! The visual complexities of TV sets can destroy your vision and eventually make you blind. Be very careful not to be exposed to certain types of sounds such as those crickets make for long periods of time, deafness will not be far away for you.
And put wierd blanket like covers on your kids' heads so they won't suffer from air polution.
Protect yourself always,  for your body is your only true possession.

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #20 –
My hearing was damaged years before I even had a computer, or knew anything about lossy audio compression.

The guy is "probably" the type of complaining individual who would take a fast food restaurant corporation to court for him becoming fat.

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #21 –
Oh... interesting !
Anyway, I'm a death metal singer and my hearing is obviously destroyed... so i don't care  B)

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #22 –
Quote
I'm planning to patent a special hearing aid for people who suffered hearing/brain damage from listening too much to mp3s.

From the outside it looks like an ordinary hearing aid but inside is the technology:

Between the tiny microphone and the output there's a mp3 encoder/decoder implemented. So everything in the real world would be transformed into mp3 and you'll still able to hear it. For those who have very strong damage, there'll be a special xing model.

I'm planning to patent an even better hearing aid: from the outside it looks like an ordinary hearing aid, but it's actually a hollow piece of plastic.  I bet people will swear it works great.

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #23 –
Don't forget to tell them it takes some weeks to burn-in, otherwise, they'll return it.

Lossy audio compression to damage your hearing?

Reply #24 –
 

I can't say his article really makes sense, the world is full of sound and sure some of it damagers our hearing and titinus is on the increase,but to say Mp3's will damage the ear is nonsense, when its  well known it's prolonged loud sounds that cause damage to the ear.

I Do have titinus in my right ear and I've become very aware what kind of sounds place stress on my hearing system.

I don't think it's any mistery why more and more people are having hearing problems.

More noise!

I Believe playing music at a comfortable level is actually good for the ears , thats why many musicians or passionate music listenners have a finer and larger sound vocablorary than say casual listenners.
It's not just how good your ears,eyes,nose etc are,it's how much you appreciate the sense's they give you.