Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Sat, Sep 4 2010, 6:56AM
#2
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Opting now for mp3/iTunes burns bridges.
If there is not a difference in sound quality, or if there is but you can't hear it, or if you are happy with iPod (etc) and are sure you always will be - fair enough.
But think what you've lost if one day you have access to what better systems can do with FLAC and all your music is compressed.
[Damn! Broken a resolution to have no more to do with this thread!]
Vic.
Sat, Sep 4 2010, 9:51AM
#3
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
"But think what you've lost if one day you have access to what better systems can do with FLAC and all your music is compressed."
Better hope that one's ears have similarly improved in that time.
Sat, Sep 4 2010, 10:09AM
#4
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Lossless formats are just that. Good as they are, however, they can't do much about hearing loss, unfortunately. Or for that matter, an unwillingness to hear them in the first place.
Sat, Sep 4 2010, 3:56PM
#5
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Rip your cds using the aiff standard, rather than wav. It captures moreof the
dynamics.
Load the file into Audition, Wavelab or whichever wave editor you possess.
Apply audio processing with Sonnox's Oxford Dynamics Native plugin.
Choose to Load Sony Buss: The setting should read, top left, threshold
-16.33db, ratio 3.260, access Compress - In, Warmth - In. Finally, Dither 24
bits.
Apply this setting.
The result should give you a maximum level of 99, without clipping. You can
analyze the resulting file with CD Wave Editor.
After that, you can either compress the file with a lossless format, or FHG's
MP3 Pro. I use the maximum setting of MP3 PRO CBR at 96, Codec Current
Best Quality, leaving all the other little boxes empty. Give it a whirl sometime.
Sat, Sep 4 2010, 8:29PM
#6
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
WAV and AIFF give identical codings. What you do with the codings after ripping is up to you, but they are simply uncompressed lossless representations of the PCM audio
Sat, Sep 4 2010, 10:22PM
#7
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Interesting to read this thread, in particular how otherwise reasonable people are still so prone to Galileo-style errors in assessing audio formats.
After all, how could science possibly provide a more reliable guide to the workings of the world than the received wisdom of generations and the evidence of our senses?
My eyes clearly tell me the Sun circles the Earth, and the truth of that observation is equally obvious to anyone else who doesn't wilfully blind themselves to the self-evident facts. Such an authority as the Inquisition must be right, after all ...
Sun, Sep 5 2010, 6:55AM
#8
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
What style of error did Galileo make?
Not sure which side of the fence you're coming from here Seal4us.
Care to elaborate?
Sun, Sep 5 2010, 12:49PM
#9
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Galileo was staring at things so hard and so long, some of the patterns he was seeing on a planet turned out to be just the blood vessels in his own eyeball.
Mon, Sep 6 2010, 1:09PM
#10
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Thank you very much for your very clear reply.
Given my age I doubt if my ears will improve(!) so I think I'll go for the mp3 - getting time to listen will be the hardest part...
Tue, Sep 7 2010, 6:57AM
#11
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
I have just found out (via the Linn Forum) that BBC Radio 3 is experimenting with 320kbps broadcasts of the remaining live Proms. See this website for details:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2010/audioexperiment/
Now, at last, everyone can easily judge this debated issue for themselves. Initial reports suggest that even reasonable headphones with the computer reveal the superior quality.
There is a questionnaire on the site for listeners to post their responses. Hopefully, the nay-sayers will do so after they have listened!
Thu, Sep 9 2010, 8:26AM
#12
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Re the above post about Radio 3's 320kbps experiment.
After listening to the experimental broadcasting of the Proms and completing the survey on the Radio 3 Proms website, I would like, not to give a personal reaction, but to direct attention to the page after page of enthusiastic responses, of surprised and delighted reactions to the perceived improvement that 320kbps makes over the usual 192kbps and FM.
So much for listeners not being able to hear the difference between bit rates at high levels, even on quite modest equipment in many cases.
Sound quality is important and deepens the experience of listening to music.
Thu, Sep 9 2010, 8:56AM
#13
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Won't get into 192 vs 320 here (other than to say I don't find that much difference), I'm surprised that people say that it's better than FM, since the theoretical bitrate of that is 1411kbps...
Thu, Sep 9 2010, 9:19PM
#14
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
Re the above post about Radio 3's 320kbps experiment.
After listening to the experimental broadcasting of the Proms ... I would like ... to direct attention to the page after page of enthusiastic responses, of surprised and delighted reactions to the perceived improvement that 320kbps makes over the usual 192kbps and FM.
So much for listeners not being able to hear the difference between bit rates at high levels, even on quite modest equipment in many cases.
Of course "listeners [were] able to hear the difference between bit rates at high levels" – the event was presented as an "extra high quality audio stream", with listeners therefore going in expecting (and, from the comments, often hoping) to hear said "extra" sound quality. After such a build up, what other outcome do you really think was likely?
The power of suggestion (and hope) is not to be lightly dismissed, my friend.
If Radio 3 had carried out a double-blind experiment, with clips of various pieces of music – at the same volume, but at the different bit rates – presented back-to-back in random order without listeners knowing in advance which were "extra high quality" and which weren't, that might have been a useful test of how much discernible difference there really was.
But you've been arguing in this thread against the results of a scientific approach to discovering perceivable differences in sound quality, in favour of the "evidence" supplied by popular wisdom (even when potentially motivated by self-interest, e.g. to sell product or attract listeners) and by our easily fooled senses.
As I suggested, applying the same logic you would think Galileo wrong to postulate a heliocentric solar system on the basis of scientific enquiry, when our eyes and popular wisdom backed by the Inquisition said otherwise.
Thu, Sep 9 2010, 9:23PM
#15
RE: Buying and Playing Lossless formats
The power of suggestion (and hope) is not to be lightly dismissed, my friend.
If Radio 3 had carried out a double-blind experiment, with clips of various pieces of music – at the same volume, but at the different bit rates – presented back-to-back in random order without listeners knowing in advance which were "extra high quality" and which weren't, that might have been a useful test of how much discernible difference there really was.
If I could find a thumbs-up smiley I would use it...
iPods and most other portable devices can handle 320kps files (which means Variable BitRate VBR files are no go). SONOS systems are similarly limited in not being able to handle a number of lossless formats.
If you get a lossless format like FLAC or Lossless WMA then you can use a program like dbPowerAmp to make a smaller/lossy version for these devices, but it will mean keeping two libraries of files.