“Relevant Tom Scott's "Things You Might Not Know"-Video: "Why Hold Music Sounds Worse Now”
Explains why hold music sounds worse now
Full comment
Relevant Tom Scott's "Things You Might Not Know"-Video: "Why Hold Music Sounds Worse Now" - this video
Hold music used to sound better. Here's why.
2.9M views · Nov 27, 2017 · 3:36 · 2 HN recommenders · 3 mentions · discussed 2018–2023
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.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN links it as the standard answer to why phone hold music sounds poor.
“Tom Scott did a video on it.[0] It basically boils down to telephone switches starting to compress the audio.”HN comment, 2023
What Hacker News said 3
“Tom Scott did a video on it.[0] It basically boils down to telephone switches starting to compress the audio.”
Switch compression repeatedly degrades hold music quality
Full comment
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
Phone audio compression explanation
Full comment
Doesn't most carriers heavily "compress" the sound, removing all sounds/frequencies that a human can't hear, etc? this video