E-Commerce Times wrote an article about sound quality in compressed formats.
And of an Intel move to DSP audio signals on motherboards.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/32012.html
But the title of the article is misleading.
Full Version: Article about sound compression and quality
What's up with "so-called 'lossy'"?
If someone wants to comment this :
From the article :
From SonicFocus website:
From the article :
QUOTE
Since May 2003, all of the company's motherboards have shipped with new technology from a Northern California company called SonicFocus. According to SonicFocus CEO Tom Paddock, his company's technology returns sound quality lost in the compression process.
"SonicFocus refines files by removing granularity and adding more detail, taking holes and putting [in] information we think is missing" from the file, Paddock told the E-Commerce Times.
He said SonicFocus technology works by interfacing between the music file and audio codec I/O, using the processor to translate the digital audio signal. Indeed, the translation process is controlled by a specific processor-based algorithm that acts much like a piece of system software -- except that it operates behind the scenes.
"SonicFocus refines files by removing granularity and adding more detail, taking holes and putting [in] information we think is missing" from the file, Paddock told the E-Commerce Times.
He said SonicFocus technology works by interfacing between the music file and audio codec I/O, using the processor to translate the digital audio signal. Indeed, the translation process is controlled by a specific processor-based algorithm that acts much like a piece of system software -- except that it operates behind the scenes.
From SonicFocus website:
QUOTE
The Sonic Focus DSP engine:
An artificial intelligence-based audio technology that re-energizes and clarifies digital sound
The 64- and 32- bit proprietary digital signal processing engine, includes listening distortion reduction along wtih performance quality dynamics and recording environment restoration algorithms
Sonic Focus refined audio is rich and surprisingly clear, even at low bit rates
An artificial intelligence-based audio technology that re-energizes and clarifies digital sound
The 64- and 32- bit proprietary digital signal processing engine, includes listening distortion reduction along wtih performance quality dynamics and recording environment restoration algorithms
Sonic Focus refined audio is rich and surprisingly clear, even at low bit rates
Taken to the ultimate conclusion, you might be able to make a program to scan a low bitrate mp3 and generate from that a midi file of the song. When that is rendered to a wav file, you would indeed have taken out the noise and "filled in the holes." As long as you don't mind that the song is maybe being played on a piano instead of a harpsichord, it will be perfect.
The last 2 albums I've bought were delivered as a flac file downloads, so there is a better solution.
The last 2 albums I've bought were delivered as a flac file downloads, so there is a better solution.
It sounds to me like Sonic Focus is hyping themselves pretty well to get included in an article about lossy compression
??
Like Don said, I'd rather download a FLAC than use a proprietary system to try to guess at what the recording "might have" sounded like before it was compressed to high hell....
QUOTE
MP3 audio quality restorer and decompression engine. Brings higher rate MP3 files to near CD quality. Lower rate MP3 files are noticeably improved.
Full-range clarity enhancer - vocal warmth, movie & game dialog intelligibility and solo instrument clarity are significantly improved. Listening fatigue is never a problem.
Automated Dynamic Range compensator - dynamic performance characteristics are restored and made adjustable.
Sound stage & audio environment modeler for all types of digital audio. Room acoustical characteristics are enhanced and you can adjust them. Stereo and sound stage perspectives are deepened, balanced and adjusted to optimum.
Bass definition processor - low frequencies are analyzed and dynamically managed. The deep-bass range is intelligently augmented.
Desktop, hi-fi & surround speakers or headphones - multiple monitoring types are supported.
Golden Ears Quality - Sonic Focus is designed by professional recording engineers and meets or exceeds all professional audio quality criteria for a 'golden ears' mastering tool.
Full-range clarity enhancer - vocal warmth, movie & game dialog intelligibility and solo instrument clarity are significantly improved. Listening fatigue is never a problem.
Automated Dynamic Range compensator - dynamic performance characteristics are restored and made adjustable.
Sound stage & audio environment modeler for all types of digital audio. Room acoustical characteristics are enhanced and you can adjust them. Stereo and sound stage perspectives are deepened, balanced and adjusted to optimum.
Bass definition processor - low frequencies are analyzed and dynamically managed. The deep-bass range is intelligently augmented.
Desktop, hi-fi & surround speakers or headphones - multiple monitoring types are supported.
Golden Ears Quality - Sonic Focus is designed by professional recording engineers and meets or exceeds all professional audio quality criteria for a 'golden ears' mastering tool.
??
Like Don said, I'd rather download a FLAC than use a proprietary system to try to guess at what the recording "might have" sounded like before it was compressed to high hell....
QUOTE
"Reencoding is very secondary to the [store's] priority of recouping its investment in its infrastructure and attracting and retaining new customers."
...exept if reecoding attracts new customers...
Here's the comment, with minor modifications, that I sent them. It seems that they moderate all messages before allowing their publication, thus it's not online yet :
There are some misconceptions is this article
QUOTE
To audiophiles, compression is the worst
This one is not a misconception in itself, this is right, but this is the audiophiles that are wrong. Most of the times, this claim is based on the expectation for compressed audio to sound bad, but when the audiophile is asked to prove that he can hear a difference in a blind test, with very high quality compressed music, either he can't, either he refuses to pass the test. Audiophiles having passed the test with success are rare (hello Xerophase
).QUOTE
John Atkinson, editor of Stereophile Magazine, told the E-Commerce Times that, to some extent, the better the equipment, the better the compressed music will sound.
This seems to be pure speculation. It goes against the belief of audiophiles, that on the opposite, compressed music will sound worse on better equipment, because the quality of the equipment reveals sublte alterations to the sound that go unnoticed on cheaper equipment. But this is also an unfounded assumption. The common experience is that the quality of compressed music is unrelated to the equipment. Though there is no technical relationship, it is the same as the rightness of the notes sung by a singer. They'll be as right on a cheap or on an expensive speaker.
QUOTE
the most dramatic improvement to compression formats may occur as a result of changes to computer motherboards, [...] According to SonicFocus CEO Tom Paddock, his company's technology returns sound quality lost in the compression process.
This is plain impossible. The information was erased during the process. All it can do, mathematically, is replacing the information with noise.Sonic Focus' website doesn't give any information about the process used. This is just a post processing algorithm. It can make the sound nicer to the ear, and mask some compression artifacts as a declicker masks clics, but the sound won't be closer to the original after the process.
For example, if we consider transient sounds, like castanets, and smooth sounds, like maracas, after compression, they will sound the same. Sonic Focus can't guess which smooth sound were castanets and which ones were maracas before the compression. Either all is restored as maracas and the castanets are wrong, either all are restored as castanets, and the maracas are wrong.
I can't resist:
Nope, right time, right place roberto.
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