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Old 08-16-2005, 11:01 PM   #1 (permalink)
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audio format debate

Ok first I don't even know if this would be the proper section to put this in but looking at the threads in Tilted Music I assumed it would be.

I decided to make a network drive to rip all my CDs and assorted music into one directory. As I was doing this I was thinking about the actual quality of the music I have and starting looking into it. Apparently most of my rips have been in .wav which don't seem to get many raving reviews so I'm asking here.

Not only do I need to know what is the best sounding format but also what would be the best format for iPods. I ask for iPods because I keep reading that .ogg format is the best for audio but iPods don't support it. Quality is what I'm going for and space doesn't really matter much unless your talking about 70-100MBs per song (.wav)

Another thing would if someone could give me a good breakdown of bit rates, sample rates, VBR, channel modes and random assorted stuff like that. Or possibly just a good guide

All of this stuff could be pulled up on google but a lot of the "tests" that they do is based on the persons own ears. I can't tell the difference in any of the files at all but somehow they did which makes me skeptical.

Thanks
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Old 08-16-2005, 11:53 PM   #2 (permalink)
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I did the same thing a couple of years ago, and realised that in the environments that I listen to digital music, the quality difference between formats is not perceptible because of background noise etc.

So I use WMA files at 64Kbps (reasonable quality - low size).

Let the flaming begin.
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Old 08-17-2005, 12:25 AM   #3 (permalink)
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When ripping songs from CDs, I like to use EAC which is Exact Audio Copy, its a fantastic program that is absolutely free and OpenSource which is great.

it gets songs at around 320kbps which I believe the quality of most music CDs; it will 1st rip it as a .wav or .wma file which are huge, but it'll then reduce down to a very good .mp3 file which sounds crystal clear.

I've never really noticed too much of difference between the quality of the songs until I listened to songs that I ripped off with EAC, you tend to notice the smaller things in your music, everything seems to come out better.

My suggestion is to try out different ripping programs for yourself, I've tried Winamp, Realplayer, Windows Media Player, iTunes, and I've finally been satisfied with Exact Audio Copy.

Here a link to a guide that tells you how to set up and install everything for EAC to work properly.

LINK: http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/arch...deneaclame.cfm
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Old 08-17-2005, 01:15 AM   #4 (permalink)
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In mid-bitrates, 128-160kbps, I think Vorbis (aka OGG) is the best, followed by MP3, and worst of all, WMA. I haven't listened to AAC, but I imagine it's somewhere around Vorbis or MP3. The quality of MP3s seems to vary the most between files at the same bitrate, which I think is because there are so many different encoders, some especially bad. I don't claim to have especially good hearing, but I've found the 128 kbps WMAs you get from services like Napster to have noticeable and distracting artifacts, which along with the DRM is why I refuse to pay current rates for such services.

That said, I rip all of my CDs to FLAC. (Lossless compression, usually to about 60% of the original file size) There are a few reasons for this:
-Obviously, it's True CD quality unlike the "CD quality" which is not really CD quality at all claimed by many lossy codecs at low bitrates.
-Hard drive space is extremely cheap nowadays, so having large files is not much of a problem.
-If my original CD is damaged, destroyed, or lost, I have a perfect backup copy.
-It's not a practical format to put on a portable player, but the files can be easily recompressed into any other format without the additional quality loss caused by redoing lossy compression.
-Unlike WMA Lossless, Apple Lossless, et. al., FLAC is free as in freedom. (I guess this is probably not much of a concern to most iPod owners though) This is another reason to prefer Vorbis for lossy compression in addition to the fact that it just sounds better.
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Old 08-17-2005, 04:39 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Everyone has good points. I think it boils down to personal preference. Each person's audio perception is different. Some like it loud and some don't. Some can tolerate higher picthc sound and some can withstand megabass. I suggest ripping songs in several different formats/settings and listen to them using a set of good quality headphones. It doesn't matter what others suggest as long as rippped format sounds good to you, right?
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Old 08-17-2005, 05:27 AM   #6 (permalink)
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If you really want to geek out on this subject, check out the Hydrogenaudio Forums. They even have blind side-by-side listening tests to check the different formats.

You stated your interest in the iPod. For the iPod, you would use either MP3 or AAC (it can also read WAV and AIFF, but those are completely uncompressed, and you'd only be able to fit like 30 albums on a 20 GB iPod that way). MP3 is an old format, so it isn't as efficient as the newer formats and loses some high end no matter how high of a bitrate you encode. AAC is more efficient, but doesn't play on many other portable MP3 players. So, it is quality vs. portability.

I rip AAC at 128 kbps, which seems good to me.
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Old 08-17-2005, 05:35 AM   #7 (permalink)
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There's nothing better than FLAC .. plain and simple. I don't think flac is supported on iPods though. You've never heard music until you hear it in lossless. It's like orgasm's for your ears.

Someone above me mentioned EAC+Lame. Those programs are great. The best imo for ripping cd's. In my personal music collection I don't listen/download/rip anything lower than 192kpbs. 128 is rejected by most people now (sorry redlemon). The albums I really like.. I'll rip into FLAC.
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Old 08-17-2005, 06:33 AM   #8 (permalink)
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The only place I listen to ripped music is in my car, which has a CD/mp3/wma player. I use 128kbps-wma for everything.

My reasons are simple: I find Windows Media Player the easiest way to copy music and 128kbps is the lowest bitrate I can comfortably tolerate, although I do agree that there is a clearly audible difference at 192kbps.
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Old 08-17-2005, 06:49 AM   #9 (permalink)
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..man I hate windows media player so much..

if I'm burning a cd I use nero.. that's just as easy as WMP plus I don't have to worry about crappy wma files.

/end psuedorant

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Old 08-17-2005, 07:00 AM   #10 (permalink)
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Well, hang on. If you're interested in quality and space isn't an issue AND every device you want to play the music on supports it, I say go ahead and leave your rips in WAV format. That's totally uncompressed, raw audio data. It's pretty expensive in terms of disc space, but you're not making any compromises on sound quality.

FLAC is supposed to be lossless, but it doesn't play on a very wide range of devices. If you're ever interested in sharing your collection with anyone, they'll have to have an iPod too.

A good high-quality mp3 (say, over 196kps) is plenty good enough for all but the most golden-eared audiophile. Oggs can do better with similar compression, and support is pretty decent (all desktop players, many portable devices). The other plus about ogg is that it's an open source codec, which I support. Mp3 is actually proprietary.
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Old 08-17-2005, 07:09 AM   #11 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gooch
..man I hate windows media player so much..

if I'm burning a cd I use nero.. that's just as easy as WMP plus I don't have to worry about crappy wma files.
It's good enough for me. I only listen to techno music, such as the chemical brothers and the prodigy.


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Old 08-17-2005, 07:27 AM   #12 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jwoody
It's good enough for me. I only listen to techno music, such as the chemical brothers and the prodigy.

I listen to mostly electronic such as DnB and Jungle.. but ..it sounds so much better in higher bitrates..
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Old 08-17-2005, 07:41 AM   #13 (permalink)
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I've also found that at high bitrates (above 190) the music tkaes on a different sound problem. Difficult to describe.. sort of like a.. not muffled.. but.. shit, I don't know how to describe it but I can definitely hear it.
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Old 08-17-2005, 07:46 AM   #14 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jwoody
I've also found that at high bitrates (above 190) the music tkaes on a different sound problem. Difficult to describe.. sort of like a.. not muffled.. but.. shit, I don't know how to describe it but I can definitely hear it.

are you sure it's not just your speakers?


I've heard what you are trying to describe.. but when I play the high bitrates on a good set of speakers I don't hear it.

:shrug:
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Old 08-17-2005, 08:20 AM   #15 (permalink)
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While I was reading throught this thread, I found a lot of the comments were innacurate.

Ratbastid got it right though. If you want the best quality and don't care about space restrictions, WAV format is the best. The fact is, it is the raw format that is digitally extracted from the cd (44,100 samples per second at 16bit).

Quote:
Originally Posted by ratbastid
Well, hang on. If you're interested in quality and space isn't an issue AND every device you want to play the music on supports it, I say go ahead and leave your rips in WAV format. That's totally uncompressed, raw audio data. It's pretty expensive in terms of disc space, but you're not making any compromises on sound quality.
Speaking of digitally extracting music, it's important to go into HOW you get the music from your CD! I recommend using EAC in "secure mode". It's a bit slower, but well worth it when you know that the file will be an exact digital replica of the CD.

There is some debate if it is better to rip the individual tracks to separate WAV files, or the entire CD as one large file and use a CUE sheet - but that's more of a personal preference (unless it's a live cd!).

WAV format is also great when you want to have your music available in several different formats (ie: AAC for your iPod and MP3 for your car MP3 player, or WMA for your brother's PC etc...).

LOSSLESS ENCODING:

Usually, people don't have the luxury of having several hundred gigs to store their music library. This is where "lossless" encoding comes in.

As the name implies, you do not lose any quality by encoding your music in this format - you only gain space at the cost of processing power. Lossless compression works much the same as zipfiles, but are optimized to handle music. The waveform output from a lossless encoded song is IDENTICAL to the original WAVfile ripped from the CD.

There are several different lossless encodings: FLAC, APE etc... I personally like FLAC, and it seems to have a strong following.

The one gripe I have about lossless encodings, is that in order to encode it into another format (such as AAC for your iPod) you need to first convert it back to a WAV file. It doesn't take long, but it's just one more step...

LOSSY ENCODING:

As the name implies, lossy encoding DOES discard parts of the waveform in order to increase compression ratios. depending on the codec, it can range from unnoticable to sounding like total garbage.

There are a lot of formats for you to choose, but each has some disadvantages. You cannot directly compare quality based on bitrate among the different codecs. 128kbs MP3 is NOT the same as 128kbps AAC!!!

MP3 - This is the one that started it all. As an old codec, it's started to show it's age in overall quality, yet is still "good enough" for most people. Encoded properly most people CANNOT tell the difference in quality. Bitrates are the number one factor for sound quality. Most prefer at least 192kbps CBR (constant bit rate). Most of my old stuff is all 192CBR. Lately, I've upgraded to using VBR (variable bit rate), which dynamically increases the bit rate for complex waveforms. I would recommend using LAME with the --alt-preset standard switch. This is what is recommended by the guys at the Hydrogenaudio site, and they know what they are talking about!

The one benefit that MP3 has over any other format (excepting WAV) is that it is pretty much a universal format. pretty much every player out there can play the format.

MP3Pro - This brings a lot of improvements to the MP3 codec, but does not have the support that MP3 does.

MPC - Don't know enough about this one yet... glowing reviews for Hydrogenaudio though...

OGG - If there was one format that I'd love to see supported by more people, this is it. It's an open source format, meaning that anyone can support the format, or use it on their hardware without paying a dime. it's also one of the best formats IMHO. It's just not used widely enough.

WMA - I'm definitely biased against WMA.. my advice is don't use it!

AAC - A new generation format, very similar to MP3Pro but has two major forces behind it pushing it's growth: A) iPods, and B) iTunes. I had considered moving my library to AAC, but it was just too much work, and it was not supported by my car MP3 player. As I noted above, you cannot compare the bitrates for AAC to MP3. I'm not sure what the ratio is exactly, but 128kbps AAC is somewhat equivilant to the quality of 192kbps MP3.
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Old 08-17-2005, 08:32 AM   #16 (permalink)
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I really think it all boils down to what you are using to listen to the music.

For example, most of the MP3's I have are AT LEAST 128kbps ..... 95+% of them sound just fine. Now, I have a PocketPC with a 512mb CF card. In order to store more songs on there, I cut the rate down to 64kbps with Nero's codec. The results are OK if I'm wearing headphones, but if I hoook my PPC to speakers, the results are acceptable but not great.
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Old 08-17-2005, 09:02 AM   #17 (permalink)
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..good post there..

I have a question though.. you aren't saying you can uncompress a MP3 back into wav then code it into flac are you? I've heard that it's impossible and that you can't "add" quality. The only time I FLAC something is when it's a direct EAC to FLAC process.
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Old 08-17-2005, 09:32 AM   #18 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by guccilvr
..good post there..

I have a question though.. you aren't saying you can uncompress a MP3 back into wav then code it into flac are you? I've heard that it's impossible and that you can't "add" quality. The only time I FLAC something is when it's a direct EAC to FLAC process.
I'm not sure I'm following you there...

Yes, you can convert a MP3 back into a WAV, but you should never do that. Uncompressing a MP3 and turning it into a FLAC completely voids the whole reason of using lossless compression... It's like taking a photocopy of a photocopy - the quality just gets progressively worse.
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Old 08-17-2005, 09:33 AM   #19 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ambient1
I'm not sure I'm following you there...

Yes, you can convert a MP3 back into a WAV, but you should never do that. Uncompressing a MP3 and turning it into a FLAC completely voids the whole reason of using lossless compression... It's like taking a photocopy of a photocopy - the quality just gets progressively worse.
Good analogy, but I'm not quite sure if that's waht the previous poster was talking about. Then again, I'm not sure.
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Old 08-17-2005, 09:42 AM   #20 (permalink)
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what I was saying.. is.... shit I don't know

I know you should never do that and I don't. I've heard some people that do. I misread something in mikesty's first long post that appeared to say it was ok. I reread it later and realized it didn't.. but you guys called me out too fast
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Old 08-17-2005, 11:59 AM   #21 (permalink)
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You can't throw something away (by converting to MP3 from WAV) and then expect FLAC to get it back.

The information is gone ... period.

You CAN convert from MP3 to FLAC but by then the damage is done.

Some MP3 encoders find the highest frequency and the lowest frequency and then throw those out. So you've already lost those.

The high frequencies are important for music to "breathe." When they're gone the music just sounds kind of dull. Your ears can't really detect them ... but when the freqs are gone it's noticable.

The lows aren't as noticable at first. But it can mean the difference between a kick drum sounding big and boomy to just sounding like a dull thump.

Anyway ... I encode MP3's at the highest bit rate that my disk space affords me. Sometimes 320 but never below 128. They still sound lifeless to me ... but then I don't listen to them all that much. I prefer plain old CDs ...
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Old 08-17-2005, 01:05 PM   #22 (permalink)
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I never made a long post? LOL!
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Old 08-17-2005, 01:21 PM   #23 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeSty
I never made a long post? LOL!

hehe.. so I was still a little tipsy.. sue me


damn.. I really need to start paying better attention


for the record I never ever go from mp3 back to wav..
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Old 08-18-2005, 02:33 AM   #24 (permalink)
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I think this whole debate can be summed up by saying, if you like to hear your music as the artist intended, don't copy it to your computer / portable audio device - buy the original and play it on a CD plaer / turntable.
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Old 08-18-2005, 05:12 AM   #25 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by propaganda
Apparently most of my rips have been in .wav which don't seem to get many raving reviews so I'm asking here.
Wav's don't get many rave reviews because essentially you're copying the contents of the CD to your hard drive. While this maintains nearly perfect audio quality, it also takes up the maximum amount of space (10 MB/min as a general rule of thumb) and also is usually void of any artist/title/album data.

Quote:
Originally Posted by propaganda
Not only do I need to know what is the best sounding format but also what would be the best format for iPods. I ask for iPods because I keep reading that .ogg format is the best for audio but iPods don't support it.
OGG is a good format, but then again, if your iPOD doesn't support it, no point bringing it into the discussion. And it is unreasonable to assume that you'll be encoding the wav file into both mp3 for your iPOD and ogg for your computer, might as well stick with mp3.

Quote:
Originally Posted by propaganda
Quality is what I'm going for and space doesn't really matter much unless your talking about 70-100MBs per song (.wav)

Another thing would if someone could give me a good breakdown of bit rates, sample rates, VBR, channel modes and random assorted stuff like that. Or possibly just a good guide
When you're talking about quality, you have 3 main variables
1) the steps involved in extracting the data from the CD
2) the steps involved in encoding the extracted data into mp3
3) what speakers will you be playing the media through

Details:
1) As many people have mentioned, Exact Audio Copy (EAC) is the way to go. The program will keep trying for hours to get the data off a CD, even if other programs say it can't. I've used it to pull data off scratched CDs and while it took 5 hours, it did it. It also has all the usual goodies such as looking up artist/title/album information from online databases and importing the information into the software, etc.

2) There are many encoders available. Which encoder you want to use depends on what target mp3 you want to create. Some encoders work better at high bitrate, others at low, some handle VBR, others are only good at CBR, and others can do ABR. Some forms of hardware can't handle VBR/ABR, and I'm not sure about the iPOD, but this is something you'll want to check. It used to be considered that 128 kbit/sec was what everyone used, but now most people are encoding to 192 for better quality. Generally going up to 256 kbit/sec is the max you want - above that you're just using up a lot of space for not much increase in sonic gain.
Most people recommend LAME for encoding their mp3s, and it is quite good. (Check out this comparison link). To make your life easier, as LAME is a command line program, either get a front-end for it (Like RazorLame) or just point EAC to the directory where LAME is installed, and EAC will rip and encode everything for you. Lame does have additional settings you can use to tweak the resulting mp3 (highpass/lowpass filters, quality values, and many more) but normally you can just use the preset ones and you should be fine.

3) A lot of the above discussion is dependent on what you will be playing the output on. A pair of bud earphones that come standard with an mp3 player will barely be able to produce the quality needed to tell the difference between 128 and 192 kbit/sec. Playing them through a 5.1 stereo system however, and you'll start to notice things at the high and low ends of the spectrum - muffling, softer pitches, and so on.

I'd recommend you take some of your favorite music tracks that you like to listen to, rip and encode using a few different methods, and then listen to them the way you'd normally be listening to your full collection. Whichever one is most pleasing to your ear, go with that.

Final points - as people said correctly, you cannot reliably go from lossy -> original. Upon encoding the lossy format the data is actually removed from the stream. The computer will try to recreate it, if you rip a WAV file, encode it to mp3, decode it back to wav, and then load that and the original wav file into an audio editor, you'll notice a difference in the waveforms. And if you really want to see/hear the difference, invert one of the forms and subtrack the waveforms. The resulting form is what was lost.

And for your own ease of listening, make sure you normalize your data as your rip and encode. It saves having to readjust the volume everytime you change albums!

Good luck.
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Old 08-18-2005, 05:34 AM   #26 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheProf
Some forms of hardware can't handle VBR/ABR, and I'm not sure about the iPOD, but this is something you'll want to check.
The iPod can handle MP3 VBR. (link)
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Old 08-19-2005, 03:16 PM   #27 (permalink)
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Well I have been working on it for the pasted 3 days the tips you guys have given have been awesome thanks for all the help.
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Old 08-19-2005, 10:21 PM   #28 (permalink)
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As said here: if space is not a problem, just copy the wav files to the iPod. For me, I break down my files a little different. For general MP3, I really don't like to be below 192. Then again, hard to argue with free sometimes. For my more favorite stuff, I will just copy the wav file off of CD onto my desktop with IsoBuster, then rename them myself, and copy to iPod. For the really high-end-gee-thats-an-amazing-recording stuff, I upsample the 44/16 wav files to 96/16. The sound is just truly amazing.

A few comments.

jwoody: you mentioned that at high bitrates (above 190) the music tkaes on a different sound problem. Music on a CD is at 44K/16bit. When an MP3 is ripped, it is converted, filtered, and compressed to make the file smaller. Depending on the bitrate, sometimes there are math errors and portions of the music are literally just dropped. You might try a higher (or lower) bitrate and listen with headphones if you can. 320, to me, sounds pretty close. Not totally correct, but close!

Also: jwoody: YOU DA MAN! You mentioned turntables. Yeah!!!!

And vanblah: I agree with everything you said. Everything. Great post.

Last edited by jujueye; 08-19-2005 at 10:23 PM..
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Old 08-20-2005, 04:14 AM   #29 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by jujueye
For the really high-end-gee-thats-an-amazing-recording stuff, I upsample the 44/16 wav files to 96/16. The sound is just truly amazing.
I thought that you can't add data back in. How do you accomplish an upsample?
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Old 08-20-2005, 10:18 AM   #30 (permalink)
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*scratches head*
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Old 08-20-2005, 10:43 AM   #31 (permalink)
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Well seeing as this thread has been jacked in all kinds of directions :-P the best thing to do, if you're using the ipod is to encode all your music into apple's lossless codec through itunes. on a the pc it's Edit>preferences>Importing>pulldown menu: "import using" then change it to Apple lossless encoder.
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Old 08-20-2005, 01:01 PM   #32 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Redlemon
I thought that you can't add data back in. How do you accomplish an upsample?
...and some head scratching from MikeSty...haha....

OK, first off, no data is added back in. You are correct.

Upsampling just takes the 44/16 data, and converts it to a higher rate format. I know it seems a little weird. (It is obviously not as good as sampling it at the 96/24 or whatever in the first place.) But this wasn't my idea...lol... A company called Elgar started doing it in their $10K cd players and DACs a few years back. Others followed (and not in an "if your friends jumped off a bridge" way either...lol) Often some extra bits are added in during the conversion, I believe. There's lots of information about it to read, but it still is a bit confusing.

Here is an article from Stereopile about diggin in to what it does and maybe why it sounds so good. Or just google it as always.

For home use, I have a copy of CoolEdit and can read and create files. One feature available is to "Convert Sample Type" which allows conversion from just about any data format to another. Sample rate (44100, 9600, etc) as well as resolution (8, 16, or 32 bits) can be selected as well.

So, all this to say: the iPod can handle 96/24 data, and sounds pretty damn good with it to boot. But I only use it on my really favorite or really good recordings.

PM me if I've made your head hurt!

Edit: BTW: I'm not so sure I could hear this with the stock iPod headphones. I did hear it with some Sennheiser HD600 headphones and a dedicated headphone amplifier. YMMV!

Last edited by jujueye; 08-20-2005 at 01:16 PM..
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Old 08-20-2005, 01:30 PM   #33 (permalink)
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Hey - where's the mention of ATRAC !??! [sony's proprietory format for some players]
[and don't forget .ape either, but I've never used them]

Personally, I used to rip mine in 192kb/MP3/VBR....Then I moved to the same rates, but in OGG. I'd love to spread the open source goodness of OGG, as well as their tag situation [slightly different than MP3].

FLAC, IMHO is just overkill - won't gain any ground until most internet users have a fat T3 Pipe
Also, while on the FLAC FAQ, it said that there isn't any ability to include tags with your files [a bit confused on that, if someone would like to clarify that for me]
[jeez, those audiofiles are a bit too picky !]

One question I have for the scenesters: Why does the music scene still stay with MP3 ?!? Seriously - I'm surprised that they haven't moved onto OGG by now, or even FLAC.

A couple more gripes/questions about the format debate:
- Is it possible to make DRM'ed OGG/flac files ? IIRC, it's possible with MP3 and one of the music stores sells them in a DRM'ed mp3 format.
[I'm not for DRM, but that's tangential to this topic.]

- Why doesn't a linux program with EAC capabilities exist [and if so - I'd love the link !] ?!?!
- Frustrated that more digital audio players don't use OGG [or even FLAC].
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Old 08-20-2005, 07:53 PM   #34 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by keyshawn
Hey - where's the mention of ATRAC !??! [sony's proprietory format for some players]
You know your format is doomed if the acronym is a homonym for "8-track". (*shudders*)
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Old 08-20-2005, 10:14 PM   #35 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by keyshawn
[jeez, those audiofiles are a bit too picky !]

One question I have for the scenesters: Why does the music scene still stay with MP3 ?!? Seriously - I'm surprised that they haven't moved onto OGG by now, or even FLAC.
First, audiophiles couldn't give a rats ass about MP3. The format is too compressed, and on good high-end audio gear the music is flat and lifeless. So, ultimately, I think the lack of tags is more aobut programmers who want to get away from the norm.

One reason that MP3 is still popular is likely the complete opposite: most people just want the music. If it sounds like crap or just mediocre, that's okay. So they stick with the common format and leave it at that. Next to that, providing a higher end ripoff of the original source is probabaly just too much to bother with. It's really too bad. There's so much more music inside the music if people would take the time to listen.
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Old 08-25-2005, 06:39 PM   #36 (permalink)
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Sheesh, none of you get it. When it's digital, it sucks. You can only listen to music on vinyl. Anything digital will be terrible. /sarcasm
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Old 08-26-2005, 09:03 AM   #37 (permalink)
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despite being of lower quality I still use vinyl sometimes, it has a sound I like. In the end it is all about personal preference. I have a hard drive full of flac backups of all my cds, from there I convert them to AAC (sometimes apple loseless) and put them on my ipod. I have tested myself and with my current equipment I can detect the difference between about 320kbps (constant bit rate) mp3's and the original cd. (mind you it's hard but I can do it most of the time.) For portable listening however I make do with about 192kbps AAC which isnt' wonderful but it's acceptable for me.

It really is all about personal preference in the end. I know people who think 128kbps mp3s are fine and dandy while I can't stand them. and I know people who think that loseless is the only way to go.


btw EAC is not open source last time I checked.
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Old 08-27-2005, 05:04 PM   #38 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jonjon42
despite being of lower quality I still use vinyl sometimes, it has a sound I like. In the end it is all about personal preference.
OUCH! Well, I'm not going to start a flame war. Personally, I've heard vinyl kick complete ass on digital many times. It really isn't lower quality.
If you're not totally satisified with your vinyl, upgrade your rig. It may have seemed to go away with all the digital upheaval, but it's still there and stronger than ever. Try tables by Music Hall or Thorens to start. (Okay, now I'm way off topic......)
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Old 08-27-2005, 05:17 PM   #39 (permalink)
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I don't think that's what he meant..... noting "I still use vinyl sometimes, it has a sound I like."
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Old 08-28-2005, 01:38 AM   #40 (permalink)
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In terms of DRM, it's theoretically possible with ogg, which is an open source format, so anything is theoretically possible. I didn't think it was possible with mp3 or flac, but I've never tried so I can't say for sure. DRM is just a bad idea and possibly in violation of copyright laws (if I've paid for the music I own the right to maintain and copy it for personal use, which DRM largely prevents).
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