MP3 320kbps CBR vs Loseless

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Leros
Is there any way to legally acquire lossless music online?

They Might Be Giants has at least one of their albums available on FLAC format. They also sell some albums in MP3 format - LAME encoded.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
It doesn't matter to me whether I can only hear the difference in 1% of my collection.

Having my CDs in lossless FLAC format means
1. I don't have to wonder about that 1%, it's exactly the same audio as on the CD.
2. I can transcode to other formats/bitrates as often as I want to with no lossy-to-lossy conversion artifacts. The transcoding from FLAC is exactly the same as ripping fresh from the CD.

Storage is cheap. On one 500 GB hard drive ($140 at newegg) I have over 1,000 CDs in lossless FLAC format plus about 800 of them transcoded to 192kbps MP3 for my iPod.

Ditto, except they're in Apple Lossless so I don't need to transcode for my iPod (and I don't have half as many CDs as you do).

Another ditto, although for FLAC.

FLAC on my main rig -> convert to ogg for my laptop and mp3 for some mp3 CD players (car and portable)

 

[Tiamat]

Past 224, its extremely tough. The ambient noise has to be very low, and the recording has to have revealing highs.

My problem with 320 is that its faster for me to rip into .wav and I am lazy. Also, mp3s seem to get corrupted/ damaged (blips) while my .wav rips have yet to develop errors over time.

 

[fire400]

for trance music, never go under 128kbps. when the EQ and sound tweaks are adjusted for the aftermath finals, you will notice some losses in the quality and integrity of the original. so it's important to go at least 192kbps if you're a series audio-mixer.

 

[KPACOTKA]

Sure I can. We did blind test with my friends and in 90% lossless was clear recognized.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: KPACOTKA
Sure I can. We did blind test with my friends and in 90% lossless was clear recognized.

So that means you got more than 10 friends together to do a blind test?
Ya sure.

 

[George P Burdell]

I rip at 192kbps and I'm happy with what I hear.

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: astroidea
There's a poll I made a while ago doing a blind test comparison between 128kbps mp3 and 320kbps mp3s. Half the guys here couldn't get it, and even then, the half that did get it right, a good percentage of them got it from guessing.
Unless you have REALLLLLY trained ears, you're not going to hear the difference between 320 and lossless.
Lossless is mostly for elistist nerds to brag about.

Eh-hem.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...hreadid=1405519&enterthread=y&arctab=y

Super-pwned!!!

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: alm99
What software plays lossless FLAC? I have always done 320k MP3, but have considered doing lossless. Anyone have any guides anywhere or software to use?

any player will play any file so long as you have the right codecs. download ffdshow.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: bababooey

Originally posted by: Sheep

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
What mp3 portable players can decode OGG and FLAC?

I love my old school iRiver H120. :heart:

Can't do FLAC but does have OGG support and has never failed me once.

myold RIO KARMA played OGG / FLAC ...man I miss that ol cube or at least the UI / Options..

Same here. I "upgraded" to a Zen Vision M and its nowhere the same. The Rio was and 3+ years down the line, still is the best pure MP3 player and best interface i've ever used. Too bad it had so many build and quality issues...

 

[Siddhartha]

Back when I was deciding what rate to rip my CDs I compared the CD to 320, 256, 192, and 128 kbps using my home stereo. With everything except classical, I could not hear the difference between CD and 320 and 256 kbps. So I rip everything at 320 kbps

 

[Rubycon]

This thread has turned chanobaric.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Oh the memories...
Text

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
It doesn't matter to me whether I can only hear the difference in 1% of my collection.

Having my CDs in lossless FLAC format means
1. I don't have to wonder about that 1%, it's exactly the same audio as on the CD.
2. I can transcode to other formats/bitrates as often as I want to with no lossy-to-lossy conversion artifacts. The transcoding from FLAC is exactly the same as ripping fresh from the CD.

Storage is cheap. On one 500 GB hard drive ($140 at newegg) I have over 1,000 CDs in lossless FLAC format plus about 800 of them transcoded to 192kbps MP3 for my iPod.

Same. Except I use 256 kpbs MP3 for my iPod.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Originally posted by: alm99
What software plays lossless FLAC? I have always done 320k MP3, but have considered doing lossless. Anyone have any guides anywhere or software to use?

WinAmp.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
It doesn't matter to me whether I can only hear the difference in 1% of my collection.

Having my CDs in lossless FLAC format means
1. I don't have to wonder about that 1%, it's exactly the same audio as on the CD.
2. I can transcode to other formats/bitrates as often as I want to with no lossy-to-lossy conversion artifacts. The transcoding from FLAC is exactly the same as ripping fresh from the CD.

Storage is cheap. On one 500 GB hard drive ($140 at newegg) I have over 1,000 CDs in lossless FLAC format plus about 800 of them transcoded to 192kbps MP3 for my iPod.

Same. Except I use 256 kpbs MP3 for my iPod.

Can someone explain to me why someone obsessed with quality would choose to encode their portable music in mp3 format, rather than AAC or OGG?

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
It doesn't matter to me whether I can only hear the difference in 1% of my collection.

Having my CDs in lossless FLAC format means
1. I don't have to wonder about that 1%, it's exactly the same audio as on the CD.
2. I can transcode to other formats/bitrates as often as I want to with no lossy-to-lossy conversion artifacts. The transcoding from FLAC is exactly the same as ripping fresh from the CD.

Storage is cheap. On one 500 GB hard drive ($140 at newegg) I have over 1,000 CDs in lossless FLAC format plus about 800 of them transcoded to 192kbps MP3 for my iPod.

Same. Except I use 256 kpbs MP3 for my iPod.

Can someone explain to me why someone obsessed with quality would choose to encode their portable music in mp3 format, rather than AAC or OGG?

Does the iPod play ogg?

I already had a bunch of mp3s so I decided to just keep it that way for my portable device. Besides, it's just an iPod to run around with on the bus, at the gym, etc. I was going to go for apple lossless but it'd be more than the 30 GB my iPod holds.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Does the iPod play ogg?

I already had a bunch of mp3s so I decided to just keep it that way for my portable device. Besides, it's just an iPod to run around with on the bus, at the gym, etc. I was going to go for apple lossless but it'd be more than the 30 GB my iPod holds.

AAC is more efficient than MP3 at any given bit rate, I'm just curious as to why you would use MP3 for anything at this point rather than AAC

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: silverpig
Does the iPod play ogg?

I already had a bunch of mp3s so I decided to just keep it that way for my portable device. Besides, it's just an iPod to run around with on the bus, at the gym, etc. I was going to go for apple lossless but it'd be more than the 30 GB my iPod holds.

AAC is more efficient than MP3 at any given bit rate, I'm just curious as to why you would use MP3 for anything at this point rather than AAC

mp3 -insane baby.

Check out my blind test thread....like one person guessed it correctly.

 

[b0mbrman]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
It doesn't matter to me whether I can only hear the difference in 1% of my collection.

Having my CDs in lossless FLAC format means
1. I don't have to wonder about that 1%, it's exactly the same audio as on the CD.
2. I can transcode to other formats/bitrates as often as I want to with no lossy-to-lossy conversion artifacts. The transcoding from FLAC is exactly the same as ripping fresh from the CD.

Storage is cheap. On one 500 GB hard drive ($140 at newegg) I have over 1,000 CDs in lossless FLAC format plus about 800 of them transcoded to 192kbps MP3 for my iPod.

Isn't that the point right there?

I have all of my music in the same format and never have to switch...

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: silverpig
Does the iPod play ogg?

I already had a bunch of mp3s so I decided to just keep it that way for my portable device. Besides, it's just an iPod to run around with on the bus, at the gym, etc. I was going to go for apple lossless but it'd be more than the 30 GB my iPod holds.

AAC is more efficient than MP3 at any given bit rate, I'm just curious as to why you would use MP3 for anything at this point rather than AAC

The main reason is because I'm running linux and I found a script that will batch encode a directory (say /music/flac/ ) and turn it into all mp3 (/music/mp3/) while retaining all the directory structure, file names (with the exception of the extension), and will convert all the tags as well. It's a single command and just takes time. It doesn't do aac unfortunately, although I'm sure I could edit it to do so. I just wanted to get everything transferred over with the least amount of effort. The several hours it saved me to issue one command rather than find and use an aac encoder definitely compensate for the lack of quality. And I'm sure that I would be hard pressed to notice the difference on my iPod anyways.

Furthermore, I have a bunch of old stuff that was ripped straight to mp3 that I don't have access to the cds to anymore (friends' stuff etc) and going mp3 -> aac wouldn't really do much for me.


However, if I had my entire collection in flac, then I'd probably just edit that script I found to output aac.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: silverpig
Does the iPod play ogg?

I already had a bunch of mp3s so I decided to just keep it that way for my portable device. Besides, it's just an iPod to run around with on the bus, at the gym, etc. I was going to go for apple lossless but it'd be more than the 30 GB my iPod holds.

AAC is more efficient than MP3 at any given bit rate, I'm just curious as to why you would use MP3 for anything at this point rather than AAC

The main reason is because I'm running linux and I found a script that will batch encode a directory (say /music/flac/ ) and turn it into all mp3 (/music/mp3/) while retaining all the directory structure, file names (with the exception of the extension), and will convert all the tags as well. It's a single command and just takes time. It doesn't do aac unfortunately, although I'm sure I could edit it to do so. I just wanted to get everything transferred over with the least amount of effort. The several hours it saved me to issue one command rather than find and use an aac encoder definitely compensate for the lack of quality. And I'm sure that I would be hard pressed to notice the difference on my iPod anyways.

Furthermore, I have a bunch of old stuff that was ripped straight to mp3 that I don't have access to the cds to anymore (friends' stuff etc) and going mp3 -> aac wouldn't really do much for me.


However, if I had my entire collection in flac, then I'd probably just edit that script I found to output aac.

You're missing my point; when you rip a new CD, you may as well rip to AAC rather than MP3. There's little value in transcoding your current collection however, (unless you're running out of space on your Ipod) as the quality will not improve drastically.

 

[Rubycon]

I've gotta say that 440kbps CBR WMA Pro (24/96) sounds pretty decent.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
I've gotta say that 440kbps CBR WMA Pro (24/96) sounds pretty decent.

agreed.


btw, does wma 10 pro improve on wma 9 ?

 

[vshah]

Originally posted by: potato28

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
What mp3 portable players can decode OGG and FLAC?

Any Rockbox supported device can. 4th gen iPod's are the easiest to setup for though.

iaudio devices support it w/ default firmware as well

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: Rubycon
I've gotta say that 440kbps CBR WMA Pro (24/96) sounds pretty decent.

agreed.


btw, does wma 10 pro improve on wma 9 ?

Better DRM options.