Skip to content
HomeVideos
AllLongsCategoriesPlaylists
BooksBlogsPodcasts
HistoryListsWatch laterLiked videosFollowing

The videos, books, blogs and podcasts Hacker News keeps recommending, all in one place.

VideosBooksBlogsPodcastsAboutPrivacySettings

Data from Hacker News, HackerTube, HackerBooks, HackerBlogs and Open Library. Credits · Not affiliated with Y Combinator.

HomeVideosBooksBlogsPodcasts
Ctrl K

    Hold music used to sound better. Here's why.

    Tom Scott

    2 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2018–2023

    YouTube

    3:36 · 2.9M views · Nov 27, 2017

    Tom Scott explains why hold music sounds worse than it used to, tracing it to old telephone exchanges and the audio compression applied by modern switches. It is a short visit to the Milton Keynes Museum.

    HN links it as the standard answer to why phone hold music sounds poor.

    Hardware & ElectronicsAudio & video engineeringInformation theory & signal processingHistory of computing
    1. 23:53
      D/A and A/D | Digital Show and Tell (Monty Montgomery @ xiph.org)FL Studio647K views • 13 years ago
    2. 1:54
      The Loudness WarMatt Mayfield Music2.7M views • 20 years ago
    3. 4:20
      Why Snow and Confetti Ruin YouTube Video QualityTom Scott10M views • 10 years ago
    4. 22:46
      Cassettes - better than you don't rememberTechmoan2.8M views • 10 years ago
    5. 41:12
      Trackers: The Sound of 16-BitAhoy2.1M views • 4 years ago
    6. 40:03
      Google I/O 2013 - High Performance AudioGoogle for Developers62K views • 13 years ago
    7. 1:16:21
      Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read MusicTantacrul1.8M views • 3 years ago
    8. 10:19
      Vintage Electronics - The TefifonTechmoan1.5M views • 11 years ago
    9. 24:13
      Gaslighting Your Fans w/ Dolby ATMOS™Benn Jordan889K views • 3 years ago
    10. 5:31
      The hidden background noise that can catch criminalsTom Scott5.8M views • 4 years ago
    11. 16:29
      Why Sony's Beta Videotape System Failed--and failed hard (Part 1)Technology Connections1.5M views • 9 years ago
    12. 29:22
      Samplerates: The Higher the Better, Right?FabFilter571K views • 6 years ago
    13. 1:45:38
      The Unanswered Question 1973 1 Musical Phonology Bernstein Nortoncagin742K views • 12 years ago
    14. 4:32
      The Visual Microphone: Passive Recovery of Sound from VideoAbe Davis's Research1.9M views • 12 years ago
    15. 9:51
      Justin Bieber 800% Slowerturinpt24.4M views • 16 years ago
    16. 28:03
      AT&T Archives: Similiarities of Wave Behavior (Bonus Edition)AT&T Tech Channel474K views • 14 years ago
    17. 52:11
      string theory lied to us and now science communication is hardAngela Collier 1.5M views • 3 years ago
    18. 31:39
      The Secret Life of the Radio - Remasteredtim hunkin360K views • 5 years ago
    19. 38:01
      I published music on Tidal to test MQA - MQA ReviewGoldenSound610K views • 5 years ago
    20. 2:00
      Shouting in the DatacenterBryan Cantrill5.7M views • 17 years ago

    3 comments from Hacker News

    1. @colejohnson66Jul 2023· in “Computer memory prototype ditches 1s and 0s for denser data storage”

      There's a legitimate reason for that. Tom Scott did a video on it.[0] It basically boils down to telephone switches starting to compress the audio. Compress and decompress multiple times (by various companies) on the way to you, and the quality degrades very quick. [0]: this video

      RecommendsView on HN
    2. @eliasproMar 2018· in “Ask HN: Why is telephone “hold music” still such poor quality?”

      Relevant Tom Scott's "Things You Might Not Know"-Video: "Why Hold Music Sounds Worse Now" - this video

      RecommendsView on HN
    3. @SvenskungankaMay 2018· in “Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone”

      Doesn't most carriers heavily "compress" the sound, removing all sounds/frequencies that a human can't hear, etc? this video

      CitesView on HN