How accurate is the application?

[stewejo]

Hello,

I'm currently running my music through the app, it seems to be working really well. I have a lot of 'fake' files from early on in my collection when I used to use a P2P network for my tracks, I have since changed my ways as I understand the importance of supporting the artist etc... However, the app flagged up a recent download from Beatport, the file came is as 256, not 320. I would have thought Beatport would have very stringent checks before allowing tracks to be sold on their platform? Any help would be greatly appreciated, cheers.

[Fake No Funk]

Hi, sorry for the delayed answer.

"Fakin The Funk" is a frequency spectrum analyzer: It tries to check if the spectrum is valid according to the claimed bitrate.

It is very accurate for upscaled files up to 192. It gets tricker above and it is very, very hard to distinguish between 256 and 320 kbps

That's why there is an option "Allow cutoffs above ... khz" and why there is an aggressive analysis mode.
There is always a chance of "false positives", that means that the app reports a file as "fake" and in fact it is not.
Using these features, you can reduce the chance of "false positives" -  but on the other hand, this increases the risk of keeping "fake" ones...

According to wikipedia, normal users cannot hear a difference between 192 kbps and 320 kbps. At least above 256, it shold be absolutely impossible. From my point of view, those files are OK to go "live"... But this is my opinion; I have users that insist that flac files MUST have frequencies up to 22kHz. That's why the user can decide...

Beatport is - as far as I know - a trustable platform. Nevertheless, you should have a close look at such files and check yourself. Trust your ears: What sounds good IS good :-)

[Fake No Funk]

Also see: Is it possible that purchased songs are marked as fake

[Ves]

Using Fakinthefunk I discovered that some tracks purchased from Beatport that have been on there for some time were at 128 bitrate. I send in a form and they reimbursed me the tracks with store credit.

So it is possible even reliable sources have tracks that might have a poor encoding or are truly of lower quality.