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Quality of You Tube music videos

I haven't been a member of PFM long but have really enjoyed reading the various threads recently.
Can anyone explain why listening to you tube music videos with reasonable headphones (Meze 99 classics) plugged in to my MacBook sounds in many respects much better than a CD of the same music with greater dynamic range and a thoroughly enjoyable presentation that is totally lacking on the CD? I am referring to live recordings of David Gray with the LSO at St Lukes for example to name but one of many. I have a very reasonable system to my ears of the latest Rega Saturn, Naim Nait XS2 AND Proac DT8 speakers.
I am genuinely surprised and wondered if I could enhance the listening experience by adding an external DAC such as a Dragonfly.
Many thanks in anticipation of being educated by those with much more knowledge and experience than me.
 
Almost certainly down to you actually preferring the compression! Also bare in mind vision has a simply huge psychological effect, so to really compare the two you should turn off the TV screen!
 
Yes I agree with you that music videos on youtube can sound better than some CDs. The data rate on youtube is dire compared to cd but if we think it sounds great and it gets our foot taping and we are swept away with the music thats all that matters. I just tried a track called ghost rider make us stronger. No vision. It sounds great on my set up of shahinian arcs and naim supernait 2. I couldnt wish for better sound. Some People have a hard time telling the difference between a Cd and HD audio. Theres obviously more to it than just high data rates. The sound is also superb through my hifiman arias just connected to the macbook. I did try a dragonfly but it added so much bass weight that it unbalanced the sound for me. It probably works better on high data rate recordings.
 
Youtube music uses the most advanced lossy codec(OPUS) currently available. It can sound extremely good at bitrates that would sound horrid on MP3 or even AAC.
 
I've found instances where audio tracks on officially-published YouTube videos have greater dynamic range than their CD counterparts, but I'm not sure if this is an artefact of the lossy conversion process or if the audio file supplied to YouTube was mastered with more DR. It's a shame YouTube still apply lossy codec compression with a 16kHz brickwall filter to audio that's uploaded. Given that the bandwidth occupied by audio is a fraction of that of video you'd think there'd be plenty of space for 256k AAC or 320k MP3.
 
Given that the bandwidth occupied by audio is a fraction of that of video you'd think there'd be plenty of space for 256k AAC or 320k MP3.
Actually OPUS outperforms them at less than half the bitrate. I believe there is actually high frequency content above 16khz.
 
Listening with headphones removes the impact of the room.

Also:
SNIP ...bare in mind vision has a simply huge psychological effect, so to really compare the two you should turn off the TV screen!

You might also have relatively low expectations for Youtube, and are pleasantly surprised that they have been exceeded? Conversely, likely higher expectations for the reproduction from a 'proper' hi-fi system, playing CDs?

Perhaps your main system is not entirely to your liking?
 
Almost certainly down to you actually preferring the compression! Also bare in mind vision has a simply huge psychological effect, so to really compare the two you should turn off the TV screen!
Foobar2000 can play both CDs and Youtube with a plugin. With another plugin you can even control playback from a web browser on your phone. Finally using the ABX plugin a blind test can be made so a definitive answer can be made.
 
Any chance of a link to the well recorded stuff on YouTube?
Whenever I've done a comparison, the YouTube music always sounded a bit dull or soft compared to the CD.
 
I’d like that too. Same conclusions regarding YouTube vs Spotify, with CD winning the game.
 
Pretty sure, as Tony said earlier, it is down to being able to see the performance.
Just think about concerts that you have been to where, in "hifi" terms, the sound is pretty rough but the overall impression is great :)
 
Youtube music uses the most advanced lossy codec(OPUS) currently available. It can sound extremely good at bitrates that would sound horrid on MP3 or even AAC.

Curious about that as the few videos I've got (using yt-dlt) tend to max the audio rate at 128k aac. Pointer?...
 
Any chance of a link to the well recorded stuff on YouTube?
Whenever I've done a comparison, the YouTube music always sounded a bit dull or soft compared to the CD.

Hi, will do my best but frankly not very good at this stuff! Having seen David Cray live twice recently and been amazed at the quality of the performance and his musicians I found this and was amazed :

David Gray - Babylon & Please Forgive Me @ LSO St. Luke's

This is not available on CD or Spotify.
Also
found some great videos of Mike and the Mechanics and also Lady Antebellum both live.

 
Listening with headphones removes the impact of the room.

Also:


You might also have relatively low expectations for Youtube, and are pleasantly surprised that they have been exceeded? Conversely, likely higher expectations for the reproduction from a 'proper' hi-fi system, playing CDs?

Perhaps your main system is not entirely to your liking?

I have recently changed my speakers to Proac DT8s from ATC scm 11s and have horrible feeling that I have made a mistake in my room with too much base that is overdriving the room. They also seem rather bright to me compared to the ATCs. I did listen to them extensively at the dealers with the same amp and they sounded excellent. I have have tried toning the lowest base and the treble down with a Schitt Loki with limited success.

I have a horrible feeling that I need to go back to floorstanders and am wondering about the Alchris Audio AR6 stand mounts but that would be a gamble as it is not possible to demo them. The safest albeit galling thing to do would be to go back to the ATCs which were not popular with my partner as she disliked the colour and the metal grilles!
 
Curious about that as the few videos I've got (using yt-dlt) tend to max the audio rate at 128k aac. Pointer?...
I always use yt-dlp -x and it's almost always opus. Make sure you have ffmpeg installed.

Code:
yt-dlp --audio-format best -x (URL)
 
I always use yt-dlp -x and it's almost always opus. Make sure you have ffmpeg installed.

Code:
yt-dlp --audio-format best -x (URL)
As a Mac user I use ClipGrab. It's admittedly been several months (possibly a year!) since I last analysed audio from youtube videos downloaded with ClipGrab, but the audio has always been brickwalled around 15.5kHz-16.5kHz. This is the same regardless of whether I use ClipGrab to download 'Audio Only' or if I download the video and then extract the audio from it using QuickTime. When did YouTube move to OPUS?
 


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