Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Tue, Aug 17 2010, 10:28AM
Greetings,
As an alternative to buying CDs, I am considering purchasing “downloads” of classical music from any suitable website (eMusic, iTunes, maybe Linn Records)
MP3 format at 320kbps might suffice, but I would prefer something closer to CD-quality, such as WMA Lossless, Apple Lossless or FLAC.
I envisage playing the music on a portable player (e.g. iPOD), via a dock, through my existing hi-fi system.
(Hooking up hi-fi to PC might be better, but initially I would prefer to play the music in a “standalone” way).
I am considering purchase of an Apple iPOD Classic, 160GB, and the Arcam irDock.
On the other hand, if I decide to go for “FLAC” downloads, an iPOD might not be the best choice.
Does anyone have any advice on buying and playing downloads in Lossless format?
e.g. which websites provide a good range of classical music in WMA Lossless, Apple Lossless format, and FLAC?
At present I am not sure how to playback music in FLAC format, except via rather expensive Media players.
so any advice on playing FLAC would be welcome.
(Apologies if this topic has already been covered in this forum)
Regards,
Wed, Aug 18 2010, 8:40AM
#2
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
FLAC will always sound better through any medium (such as a laptop) but needs a hi-fi system to do it justice, it seems to me.
My advice would be to add a digital stream player (mine is from Linn, but other companies, such as Naim make them too.) A computer will store the lossless files but a NAS unit has a huge capacity and is worth the additional investment. Mine is a Linn recommended Ripnas.
An added advantage of a DS player is access to internet radio, which if you choose stations that use high bitrates, the quality is stunning. I have been blown away by live Prom broadcasts this year - and a few other stations use far higher rates than the BBC. Try Linn Classical or Radio Suisse Classique. Amazing.
I believe the cheapest Linn DS player is under 1K and many claim that is beats any CD player for quality.
I proselytise as one who defended vinyl analogue passionately until I heard DS - and my player is a third of the cost of my LP12.
Thu, Aug 19 2010, 8:49AM
#3
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Thanks for your interesting replies. The Cowon D2+ looks interesting, and perhaps even better is the Cowon J3. I can see the benefits of adding a digital stream player also, so will not make a hasty decision!
Fri, Aug 20 2010, 7:32PM
#4
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Things People Forget When Dispensing Advice On This Subject:
1. "CD Quality" isn't always that high (e.g AAD, ADD, early DDD)
2. 320 kbps doesn't necessarily mean 320 kbps. Quality (even at the same notional bitrate) depends on encoding methods, compression methods, original material quality
3. Many blind tests have shown that even 'experts' can't often tell the difference between different audio qualities, even when they think they can
4. Audio quality depends above all on what equipment you're using and what your listening environment is like
Sat, Aug 21 2010, 6:33PM
#5
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Wigmaker,
Two of us have replied to GeoffPF's question and I'll leave to others to interpret the tone of your capitalised first sentence.
I believe, however, that your other points need further comment.
FLAC (free lossless audio codec) will reproduce one hundred percent of what's on a CD or download. Even the best CD players, using a mechanical process (the disc spins) cannot do this. This is why DS players sound better than CD players playing the same CD. Almost anyone should hear the difference for themselves with a blind a/b comparison. For the same reasons, downloads sound better than CDs, other things being equal, such as three of your four points.
Point One.
"CD quality isn't always that high." This is certainly true but it has nothing to do with whether the recording trail is analogue or digital (AAD, ADD, DDD). Most people's experience of their own CD collection reveals this as obvious.
Point Two.
320kbps means 320kbps. Of course some claim it and don't deliver it. Some degrade it as you suggest, and of course, a poor original recording will not be improved with any bit rate. But for the purposes of GeoffPF's question, buying downloads from the sources he mentions, studio masters via FLAC at 24bit 192kH, or internet radio at 320kbps will deliver amazing quality recordings.
Point Three.
But this doesn't mean that because "some experts" can't, nobody can, and at every quality point too. I suspect few reading this could not detect the superiority of 24 bit downloads over any CD on any CD player.
Point Four.
Undeniably true but it would take a very inferior hi-fi system (and poor listening environment) not to be able to reveal the superiority of a well recorded, high bit-rated, FLAC captured piece of music. And of course, the maxim is: garbage in, garbage out. The best hi-fi system in the world cannot make a bad recording (with the attendant fault you list) sound good.
Well recorded CDs, and downloads from reputable outlets, captured with FLAC and replayed through reasonable hi-fi systems are amazing, and with the exception of systems costing tens of thousands of pounds, the best sound quality available.
And I'm not dispensing advice, I'm passing on an opinion, based on personal experience.
Vic.
Sat, Aug 21 2010, 9:24PM
#6
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Backing up your files is a key thing with hard drive based music storage. If your hard drive packs up you may lose the lot.
FLACS look good, but I'm not convinced that they're going to be the industry way forwards (despite their superiority)
P
Mon, Aug 23 2010, 9:12PM
#7
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless
>FLAC (free lossless audio codec) will reproduce one hundred percent of what's on a CD or download. Even the best CD players, using a mechanical process (the disc spins) cannot do this. This is why DS players sound better than CD players playing the same CD
This is simply wrong. CD players have various levels of error correction to correct the errors that arise in the optical reading of the disc. The data that is subsequently presented to the digital-to-analogue convertor inside the CD player should have had all errors perfectly corrected (if the disc is in reasonable condition etc).
>This is why DS players sound better than CD players playing the same CD.
They should sound the same. If they don't (and it's a blind test) the most likely issue is that the output levels of the 2 systems differ by more than a very small amount (0.1dB) - the louder one will always tend sound better.
>I suspect few reading this could not detect the superiority of 24 bit downloads over any CD on any CD player.
I disagree. At usual listening levels the increase in resolution of 24-bit over 16-bit is undetectable by the human ear. I am not aware of any properly conducted blind tests that show anyone can hear the difference between the two if the levels are properly matched, etc.
Ted
Tue, Aug 24 2010, 9:11AM
#8
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Linn Products make some to the best hi-fi products in the world and they have stopped making CD players for the reasons I state above. See an explanation on their website.
Their biggest selling lines at the moment are DS players.
Their 24bit downloads outsell by a large margin their 16bit ones. Why are people paying more if there is no audible difference? I, myself, clearly hear a difference and have bought a 24bit and a 16bit download of the same piece of music to make the comparison for myself.
CD player do have error correction, and some very expensive ones are very good indeed - but they are still a mechanical device and prone to errors. There will, in theory I suppose, be times when they do achieve 100 percent error correction but the cheapest DS player will achieve it every single time. That's how they work. (Not that I understand how!)
Let me state that I have no connection with Linn Products (other than owning some of their products) and that other good companies make digital streaming products too (like Naim and Meridian.)
My 16 year old Linn CD player is now unused and has been replaced by a DS player that cost less than the CD player did in 1994. It is as close to good quality vinyl reproduction as makes no difference to me (and I have and use a fairly high spec. Sondek LP12.)
Convenience of use is not my primary consideration but it is good to know that once ripped (copied) no degradation in sound can occur, no damage done with continued use or long-term storage, and in the future, with high quality downloads, no need for the physical medium at all.
Tue, Aug 24 2010, 1:52PM
#9
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless
The error correction capability of CD players has been there from the start in the 1980s, because the original designers perfectly understood the limitations of optical readout even on a brand new disc. Even the cheapest CD player has perfectly sufficient error correction to play all but very badly damaged discs without any issue at all. (Some older CD players may have problems with e.g. CD-Rs, but I am talking about proper pressed CDs.) I guess Linn cannot make money from CD players which is why they're promoting DS.
I don't dispute that many people think that 24-bit must somehow be better than 16-bit and often claim to hear a clear difference. But did you compare the 24-bit and 16-bit files in a proper blind test on the same system at usual playback levels and check these levels are matched to better than 0.1dB? In virtually all cases where people do this sort of test then the clear difference they claim to hear disappears.
Ted
Tue, Aug 24 2010, 7:52PM
#10
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Apologies to Vic for any offence - I meant my capitalised title merely in an AA Milne kind of way.
Ted's reply to your response to my points illustrates my own intended point - both that the whole area is far more subjective than many people think, and that even the 'scientific bits' are not necessarily all they seem.
Personally I think too many people waste too much money (and time) on new technology that gives them no more than minute imporvements on what they already had.
It's easy to kid yourself that you really can hear qualitative differences when you've paid a lot of money for something (or you're about to and you're trying to justify it to someone or yourself). All things being equal, everyone should have the best they can afford, but surely it's better not to get locked into a spiral of continual upgrading demanded by little more than industry hype.
Personally, I can hear a watch ticking at a hundred paces but I can't tell the difference between CD and 320kbps mp3.
Wed, Aug 25 2010, 12:27PM
#11
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
How interesting, after half a lifetime of seeking the best possible access to the music I
love to be told that what I am hearing I am, in fact, not hearing, or that I ought not to be hearing it.
Now happily retired, I can and do spend hours most days listening to music. No day seems
complete without great music reproduced with the most involving clarity and musicality.
Over the years I have invested resources to achieve this aim. From times of relative
austerity through to comfortable surplus, I have thought it reasonable to devote about the same amount to this as to the car I drive. As I choose and buy both with great care and with longevity in mind, my cars and hi-fi systems have long lives. On retirement I
upgraded a system enjoyed since 1994. In sum, I am not subject to whims, hype, upgraditis.
What I am listening to now is the best I have ever heard. For me, DS is better than CD;
streamed internet radio through the DS is better than FM; FLAC 24bit 192kHz 2,292.3MB downloads are better than their 16bit equivalents.
I can make these claims because I hear the difference.
I don't make these claims because there is a clear consensus amongst those who use them (although there is.)
And I know that everyone (or almost everyone) reading this can hear the difference for themselves.
Wigmaker's points in the second, third and fourth paragraphs are obviously and clearly
true for some, and perhaps, for many. The improvements I claim are, of course, relative. Most hi-fi systems today are very good. Even mp3 compressed music on an ipod is startlingly better than systems not so very long ago. And the differences I hear are not, as many on
hi-fi forums claim, “night and day” differences. They require active, not background, listening, and, of course, they require systems capable of delivering them. But for me, in my home, and for my visitors, they are real, palpable, satisfying and enjoyable.
What does it tell us if a major respected hi-fi manufacturer cannot sell CD players to
customers who have heard their (cheaper) DS players (in sufficient numbers to stop making them!)?
What does it tell us that people are choosing, in significant numbers, to buy 24bit
downloads at nearly twice the cost of a 16bit equivalent?
Why are internet radio stations selected for the highest Kbps rate?
You cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Innovation and improvements are in one
direction. Enough people choose on the basis of personal experience, and that experience is available to anyone in any owner's living room, or any seller's demonstration room.
Everyone is free to explore for themselves or not, and if you can't hear a difference, what have you lost? But denying the reality of something on the basis that it cannot, in theory, be true, or that some people are deluded or disingenuous for whatever reason, is not a strong position to take a stand on.
Wed, Aug 25 2010, 2:37PM
#12
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless
I disagree. What we are talking about is the psychology of hearing which is well understood with a vast scientific literature. All human beings (including myself) are limited by our acoustic memories (e.g. it is hard to tell whether 2 tones are exactly the same volume when played some time apart), the non-linear loudness curves of human hearing (which is why comparing 2 sound sources requires precise volume matching) and we are all prone to the effect of suggestion and bias. This is not even debatable.
Thus there can be a perfectly acceptable scientific explanation for why people can claim 2 sources sound different when the laws of electrical engineering say otherwise.
To doubt this is bizarre - for instance do you doubt that optical illusions exist? If not why do you doubt that your hearing can be fooled as well? Do a google search for "chess board optical illusion" which shows two squares on a 3D chess board with a green cylinder on it. No matter how hard you try you will see the 2 squares as being different shades even though they are actually exactly the same shade.
Wed, Aug 25 2010, 4:27PM
#13
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Ted,
Please clarify what you disagree with.
I am talking about differences in the quality of music reproduction systems.
Like FM v AM, moving coil cartridges v moving magnet cartridges, vinyl v digital, one CD player v another, that kind of thing.
If what you seem to be saying were true, we would all still be using crystal sets.
Vic.
Wed, Aug 25 2010, 5:41PM
#14
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Hi - I agree there are differences between different sources (FM v AM, lp versus CD) - these are in general audible (and science agrees they should be so) and these differences are completely measureable scientifically. Everything agrees!
The problems come when people start comparing digital sources. Take CD players. The measured differences between CD players you can buy in a decent hifi shop (say 200-20000pounds) are in general too small to be detectable by the human ear. Virtually all CD players have a flat frequency response over a frequency range larger than humans can hear, negligible distortion, a signal to noise performance better than human hearing and these days very good digital filters which cause no problems.
Yet most hifi reviews will often find one CD player is much warmer than another or has much greater clarity. These claims are simply not possible given the specifications. Why then do people hear these differences? Well the first problem is output level - this probably varies by 10% between different CD players and this is easily enough to make one CD player sound clearer or "better" because of the way the human ear perceives sounds at different volume levels (its the same reason that some hifis have a loudness button which boosts the bass when you listen quietly). I'm sure there are some unscrupulous hifi dealers who always make the more expensive item sound a little louder.
The other issues are bias and suggestion. and the limitation of human audio memory. When proper blind tests rapidly switching between matched CD players are done, then the perceived differences go away and people find CD players sound virtually the same as science predicts. The same is also true for people comparing 16-bit and 24-bit I'm afraid.
As to the original question about formats, FLAC should sound identical to the CD. Mp3 is a little more subtle. Most people cannot hear any major difference between ~192-320kbps mp3s from a decent encoder (like a recent version of LAME) and the original source. However it important to understand that mp3 encoders like LAME have evolved continually with different users tweaking the performance of the psycho-acoustic model used to decide which bits of the sound to discard. They do this by finding strange transient sound samples (like clapping or strange percussion instruments) that are not properly reproduced and then adjust the model. The latest version of LAME appears pretty stable but it's possible that further examples they haven't considered will still turn up. For that reason FLAC is much preferable for archiving etc.
Ted
Wed, Aug 25 2010, 7:06PM
#15
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Thank you Ted.
So it comes down to this. There is no real difference in sound quality between a £200 and a £20,000 CD player, and I and every other DS user, experiencing 24bit downloads and Proms broadcasts at 180kbps might as well buy our hi-fi systems from Tesco.
I don't think many would be convinced by this.
My personal experience recommends giving it a trial. After all, there's nothing to lose by doing so, and if you hear a difference, it seems you will be defying the laws of physics! Now that's something that doesn't happen every day!
Vic.
Hi,
I would suggest shifting to Flac. Flac is infinitely superior to most formats. Get a Cowon player say the D2+. I am an audiophile whose ears are sensitized and I can tell you that this combination will give you sound as good as a cd. Flac doesnt have the glare of mp3. Linn and DG supply their high quality downloads as Flac. It is unfortunate that cd/dvd players as of today dont typically support Flac. I have a fairly reasonable collection of cds and plan to convert them to Flac for my personal use. You can play Flac on a laptop through the Songbird player and use Exact audio copy for ripping. Regards Anand