You were robbed of your data and his suggestion is to purchase another copy? And on an archaic medium? Name and shame, please.

You’d be right — I did wince. The fact that you don’t demand at least 128 kbps (the standard for normies) is a red flag that you’ve suffered at least some permanent hearing loss. If you’re not especially old I’d recommend getting a hearing test.

So dramatic.. he probably just doesn't have much space on those devices.
(not that I don't agree that 128 is the absolute minimum)

I don't really think most normies are using Opus in the first place, to be honest. With earbuds and my car stereo (along with gravel), I'm not going to notice any noticeable distortion with Opus at those bitrates with the device in question while casually listening. At roughly 96kbps with Opus you get probably the most efficient quality to size ratio you can so it works out good for portable players. I could go 128kbps if I wanted some extra buffer room but it's not really worth it with the lossy codec in question and the filesize increase for what I specifically use lossy music for.

EDIT: Not that I'm speaking against lossless music or this topic in general. Again, having lossless sources to originally convert from, even if you use lossy formats, is still an important option, esp. when it's being offered as an option by other storefronts.

Remember folks, never go lossy to lossy or lossy to lossless.

Would you care to do a blind test to hear if you can tell which is different? I can set one up for you. It might be fun for everyone in this tread to try it out.

Would it be crazy if I suggested that I can hear more depth and clarity in FLAC?

Perfectly sane to me, I discovered the difference on Google Music at first and in game soundtracks I can spot a few differences although admittedly not in every track.

---------

I directly emailed a few devs a few days ago, no response yet but will keep you posted.

I am so on board with this topic. I am a big master quality audio fan, we have the space now to do it and digital delivery is cheap with no physical production cost so I don't understand why every artist or game doesn't give this option.
On a side note I would love for Capcom to still have the OST for Onimusha and include it as a .FLAC file from the Source audio. I mean it's the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra for crying out loud.
What a waste they said new soundtrack. Ugh.

Oh and that artist who told you just buy vinyl is an idiot, Vinyl has only become more desirable because of the shitty mastering of cd's in turning the loudness up where you can't do it on Vinyl. So by extension, anything CD(16/44 kHz) and up will sound better than vinyl if it hasn't been touched up on the loudness.

Not an audiophile but definitely a fan of FLAC.

Eh, I don't want to come across as unbelievably petty about the situation (not to say I'm walking away from it as a saint - the EP was a 1 AUD deal and I paid the minimum for it, so in total I'm out less than $1USD on the conversion rate at the time and on their end most of the payment was probably eaten in Paypal fees anyway so it's probably a loss all across the board) . At most, I won't be forking over any amount (minimum or otherwise) to the game or its soundtrack again thanks to its composer being a bit of a bonehead.

It did feel insulting to essentially be told to buy the vinyl (I have nothing against it, but find that the general cost-to-play ratio is often not worth it for my own listening habits and I will usually either just point-blank buy digital or a CD, assuming it's offered, if I really feel the need to hold something in my hands).

Not really, but I think a lot of people claim that they can tell the difference without doing any type of blind test.

Let me know if you can tell which of these files is lossless without using any visual cues (bit-rate fluctuation, spectrum etc.)

Fidelity Test
*See below post for links*

Please don't post results in the thread, if you need to know which is which send me a PM.

Back on topic:

The first time I remember really noticing audio compression was in the early 2000s era of PC gaming. I had a super cheap speaker setup, but could tell easily that GTA: Vice City had a compressed soundtrack, meanwhile many games of that (pre-DVD) era had compressed sound fx which bugged the crap out of me.

Granted, the examples above were highly compressed files, lossless is more "future proof". So, if the files exist in lossless format, I would absolutely prefer they include them with the GOG bonuses, hell I wish they could get the source files and provide lossless files for all in-game audio as well.

Hi guys, I'm all in favor of lossless audio, but please check out this comparison of files, and let me know what files you think sound the best (put them in order, or in tiers if possible, thanks!)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hqBYsL1LrJHM-it9OKNcim7sPNJEabWf

Thanks for checking it out, both are MJ, the second file is just 2 additional files.

I do the same, lossy on my phone, I do tests like this to try and figure out what format to use precisely for mobile.

They probably don’t, but that’s what struck me as odd in the first place; even tech illiterate soccer mums insist on more and here you are using Opus. Why would somebody who knows what Opus even is settle for a mere 96 kbps?

Ah, that explains it. I didn’t even think of the possibility that somebody would be listening to it in their car. Which was stupid of me to begin with, but especially stupid of me considering you explicitly stated that you use 96 kbps on portable players.



Alright, I can understand that. In retrospect, it possibly wasn’t even his fault, depending on how convoluted the licensing was. Still, what an inconsiderate prick.

Just because I might not be able to hear it doesn't mean I'm going to be a bastard and freeze out the people who can by supporting Lossy instead of Lossless.
Bottom line, I would rather see recordings released that please that crazy small audiophile percentage because if they're pleased EVERYONE is pleased.
Also it's just the principle of the thing for me and losing that complete thing, anything taken out of a complete product and diminished more.