[jegreenwood]

Or maybe not, but it annoys the heck out of me. This thread was inspired by a post stating that AAC+ is “light years” ahead of MP3. What does that mean? Well, for me it means I should ignore the post (and probably its author).

When someone says, “the difference is night and day,” does that mean they think the two items being compared are opposites? Maybe one can use the phrase to describe a mirror canon. I’ll go so far as to accept it when comparing a Morton Feldman work to The Rite of Spring. But 99.9999999% of the time it simply indicates the writer’s lack of a sense of proportion.

n.b As far as I can recall, I have used hyperbole in a post once. But I noted the fact. And in that one instance, it was subjectively true for me.

 

[jegreenwood]

Well, if it was true for you....


Especially considering a lightyear is a measure of distance... not time.

I found my 2014 post (on another forum). I was referring to Songs for Swingin’ Lovers and A Swingin’ Affair.

I try to avoid hyperbole when I post here, but speaking only with respect to my own music listening experience, these two releases may be the most revelatory audiophile albums I own. My dad had all of the up-tempo Sinatra Capitol releases, as well as some of the Reprise releases, and I listened to them a lot growing up. As an adult, I bought a number of them on various media, but overall my interest waned, compared to Ella for instance. Now I understand why. I was hearing a poor Xerox copy of Sinatra at best. Listening to these two discs in particular (where every measure is ingrained in my deepest memories) I heard the richness, depth and complexity of his (excuse me - the) Voice.

A Proustian moment for me and more.

And by the way - does the Nelson Riddle orchestra sound great or what?

 

[jegreenwood]

I thought 'hyperbole' was a very large bowling alley - but then again I know nothing

No, hyperbole is a cosmically large bowling alley.

 

[jegreenwood]

Hyperbole is not a sin, it is a flourish of the impassioned. It is born of emotion, and emotions are good because they reveal passion and true conviction. Those who want to approach every topic with a detached, nuanced, dry and boring academic style do so because they are useless, Apollonian degenerates incapable of imparting any real influence on anything, their minds muddled with a thousand conflicted thoughts.

And they feel this when comparing AAC+ with mp3? See my original post. And frankly, those in technical circles should know better. It doesn’t have any meaning. Even something like “magnitudes better” is potentially more accurate e.g. in measuring processing speed.

 

[jegreenwood]

To answer your question: MP3 is derived from Mpeg-1 video. Which is roughly VHS quality. AAC+ is derived from Mpeg-4, capable of compressing 1080p Hi-Def video to the same filesize as, or smaller than DVD/Mpeg-2 video. And it still looks much better than DVD video. In terms of technical advancement, AAC+ is in fact far more advanced than MP3. Would you prefer I spelled it out the way I just did, or would you rather read vernacular summarizing it's far more advanced? And BTW "light years ahead" does in fact refer to distance traveled, not time elapsed. The rate of technological advancement is exponential, making it effectively incalculable purely on a time scale.

As for processor speed, the difference between a Core 2 Duo, and 11 Generation i7 is in a completely different universe from the difference between the 8088 of the original IBM PC, and the 80386DX33 when Microsoft Windows became a thing. "Magnitude" would itself be woefully inadequate describing the difference between just those 2 scales. Never mind comparing the actual speeds.

Far more advanced is more accurate, although in my user experience that is not the case. And of course we - actually you, although I omitted your name from my original post - were comparing audio in the thread that I referenced.

I know what light years means. Magnitudes can involve any type of measurement, for example compression ratios (if one were 100 times more efficient than the other). But what in the world does light years (about 6 trillion miles multiplied by the number of years) have to do with compression algorithms?

Couch is is correct that hyperbole has a place in communication - I noted an instance where I used it.
But for the most part, it is better used in communicating subjective feelings, responses, etc.

Edit - do you consider lossless formats light years better than lossy formats? And what about hi-res? Now we’re getting into some serious numbers!

Edit - I probably should have used orders of magnitude instead of simply magnitudes.

 

[jegreenwood]

This very forum is loaded with classical colloquial. "Atonal" for example. If read literally, and echoing Schoenberg's objection to the term, atonal music is utterly devoid of any musical tones whatsoever. An atonal piano sonata would be literally described as an a cappella piano sonata. If we're going to purge this forum of all non-literal language, we have our work cut out for us.

Considering the 16/44.1 format was established in the late 70s, early 80s, a time when computer memory was upgraded in chunks of either 4 or 16 Kilobytes, Hi-Res absolutely surpasses CD quality by leaps and bounds. Oops, sorry. I forgot we're not supposed to use non-literal language.

You may not have named me, but it's no mystery to whom you were referring.

I didn't mention you, because your post was simply a trigger for me to respond to a general problem. And I can't see what how "atonal," a term of art meaning the absence of tonality (i.e. key), has the slightest relation to hyperbole. In any event, I am not complaining about all metaphors, just the ones that strike me as ridiculous.