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FLAC - Page 3

post #31 of 128
7/31/07 at 11:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by McNubbins View Post
Hard drive space be damned! FLAC is the only way to fly.
Preach it brother!!!

Just bought one of *these*

One of *these*

And one of *these*



Total cost = $1837


Getting the PC installed in my car as I type this, and the coast will be around $1000


And I did ALL this J-U-S-T to be able to listen to my music catalog, in my car, in FLAC format. There isn't a single mp3 player out there, with a hard drive big enough to store my entire catalog of over 1000 CDs in lossless format. Otherwise I wouldn't have gone through the trouble of buying a CarPC with a freakin 250Gb drive. And even at 250Gb, I STILL don't have ALL my music in there(left out the Ambient and Anime stuff), but it was able to hold 90% of it.

THAT, my friends is how important lossless files are to me. And being the indecisive brat that I am, and one who is incredibly anal about what to listen to from minute to the next, I cannot wait until the installation is done, and the freedom of accessing over 15,000 songs, all in lossless format, and in my ride, is at my fingertips,

It's a pricey and unique setup, but one that shall bring great rewards! No WAY would I think of going back to mp3s.
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post #32 of 128
8/1/07 at 12:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lowfront View Post
I have finally started to convert my collection and even on my sr-60 and move I can notice a huge difference.
I recently made the effort to try out some FLACs. First I went out and asked about some CDs that had excellent recordings with detailed music to use for some good A/Bing. Then I got Exact Audio Copy and set it up to do secure ripping. I picked the best (most detailed) songs and converted them to FLAC. Then I went ahead and converted the same songs to 128kps MP3 using a standard ripper (no multiple sampling). I then loaded both copies of the songs into a playlist and randomized the playlist to make it a blind test. I listened to the same sections of the songs very carefully and would switch between the two files. Could I tell the difference?

The Results: Yes, I could tell the difference. But it took me about 5 minutes of A/Bing to determine which was which. It was quite subtle, but the difference was there.

Conclusion: For what it's worth, I didn't find a difference significant enough to A: notice, and B: be worth the disk space / effort. Plus mp3's are so readily available online that the convenience of them is unparalleled. I would say, for a few select songs that are really well recorded and you love to listen to the fine details of, sure, rip them to FLAC. But for daily listening, MP3 is great, and you'll be none the wiser.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Febs View Post
We had a poll a while back about whether people could hear a difference between -V0 and lossless. The rules for the poll specified that you had to use an ABX test to determine whether you could hear a difference. Only 2 out of the 100 respondents could hear a difference in an ABX test. About 25 of the 100 respondents claimed to be able to hear a difference, but did not follow the rules of the poll regarding supporting their claim with an ABX test. Even if you accept the responses from those people who did not provide ABX results, the poll indicated that the substantial majority of the respondents could not distinguish between -V0 and lossless.

Bottom line: While bad MP3 encoders can certainly make bad MP3s, good encoders can make MP3s that sound indistinguishable to lossless for the majority of listeners.

(Incidentally, EnYOiN was one of the two people who proved with ABX test results that he could hear the difference.)
Thank you for pointing out this test, that's really interesting. This reminds me of a very similar blind test that was done with interconnects. Check this thread out, its worth a look.
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post #33 of 128
8/1/07 at 4:07am
Even though I can't tell the difference between FLAC and v0, I like to keep FLAC rips around in case I want to transcode from a lossless source.
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post #34 of 128
8/1/07 at 11:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lowfront
I have finally started to convert my collection and even on my sr-60 and move I can notice a huge difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay B View Post
I recently made the effort to try out some FLACs. First I went out and asked about some CDs that had excellent recordings with detailed music to use for some good A/Bing. Then I got Exact Audio Copy and set it up to do secure ripping. I picked the best (most detailed) songs and converted them to FLAC. Then I went ahead and converted the same songs to 128kps MP3 using a standard ripper (no multiple sampling). I then loaded both copies of the songs into a playlist and randomized the playlist to make it a blind test. I listened to the same sections of the songs very carefully and would switch between the two files. Could I tell the difference?

The Results: Yes, I could tell the difference. But it took me about 5 minutes of A/Bing to determine which was which. It was quite subtle, but the difference was there.

Conclusion: For what it's worth, I didn't find a difference significant enough to A: notice, and B: be worth the disk space / effort. Plus mp3's are so readily available online that the convenience of them is unparalleled. I would say, for a few select songs that are really well recorded and you love to listen to the fine details of, sure, rip them to FLAC. But for daily listening, MP3 is great, and you'll be none the wiser.

The old old story, you and your set-up may well be satisfied with low bitrate today, but whose to say in 5 years you might have a £20,000 stereo with some Orpheus's.
Then if you hear crap, you know with certainty its not your Lossless music files.
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post #35 of 128
8/1/07 at 11:45am
And also It's worth pointing out that if you rip a CD
  • with Exact Audio Copy (secure mode)
  • in FLAC
  • with proper 'read offset' settings
  • and create a CUE sheet

You've essentially created a bit-by-bit copy of your CD. That means that with the correct 'write offset' and a good burning program you can recreate your CD on a CD-R.
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post #36 of 128
8/1/07 at 11:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by isamu View Post


And I did ALL this J-U-S-T to be able to listen to my music catalog, in my car, in FLAC format. There isn't a single mp3 player out there, with a hard drive big enough to store my entire catalog of over 1000 CDs in lossless format. Otherwise I wouldn't have gone through the trouble of buying a CarPC with a freakin 250Gb drive. And even at 250Gb, I STILL don't have ALL my music in there(left out the Ambient and Anime stuff), but it was able to hold 90% of it.
I hope you won't try to use the laptop while driving.
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post #37 of 128
8/1/07 at 12:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by isamu View Post
Preach it brother!!!

Just bought one of *these*

One of *these*

And one of *these*



Total cost = $1837


Getting the PC installed in my car as I type this, and the coast will be around $1000


And I did ALL this J-U-S-T to be able to listen to my music catalog, in my car, in FLAC format. There isn't a single mp3 player out there, with a hard drive big enough to store my entire catalog of over 1000 CDs in lossless format. Otherwise I wouldn't have gone through the trouble of buying a CarPC with a freakin 250Gb drive. And even at 250Gb, I STILL don't have ALL my music in there(left out the Ambient and Anime stuff), but it was able to hold 90% of it.

THAT, my friends is how important lossless files are to me. And being the indecisive brat that I am, and one who is incredibly anal about what to listen to from minute to the next, I cannot wait until the installation is done, and the freedom of accessing over 15,000 songs, all in lossless format, and in my ride, is at my fingertips,

It's a pricey and unique setup, but one that shall bring great rewards! No WAY would I think of going back to mp3s.
All that and I wonder if you will actually hear the difference over lossy files considering car and road noise. I can understand lossless for a quiet listening environment but in a car it's a bit too much IMHO.
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post #38 of 128
8/1/07 at 12:52pm
This depends a great deal on what you're listening to and what you're listening with. When I first got a pair of good phones, I started hearing all these faults in mp3s that I had at 192-256. From then on I usually go with V0, which is a pretty good compromise between quality and size. Even then, there are some recordings which just don't survive being compressed well. A lot of classical CDs I have are prime examples of this (in particular Rostropovich's Bach cello suites), along with anything really bass heavy. I was listening to a V0 of Sunn O)))'s first album, and it was unbearably clicky.

If I had the drive space, I'd definitely go FLAC with all my CDs, especially since it's faster to encode them.
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post #39 of 128
8/1/07 at 2:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeysAteMe View Post
I hope you won't try to use the laptop while driving.
Heh, it's mounted in the trunk. With an LCD touchscreen up front in the dash. All I'll need to do is click on a playlist of my choice and I'm good to go on the road. Plus, when traffic is jammed, I got plenty of time to fiddle around with Foober and Patchmix.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Alleyman View Post
All that and I wonder if you will actually hear the difference over lossy files considering car and road noise. I can understand lossless for a quiet listening environment but in a car it's a bit too much IMHO.
Well, maybe, maybe not. But I can tell you that when I had my Creative mp3 player hooked up to my stereo via cassette adaptor, the sound started degrading over time and after a while it just became terrible. Don't know what caused this, but it got to the point where I figured my mp3 files just weren't cutting it anymore, so I started using the CD changer.
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post #40 of 128
8/1/07 at 4:10pm
keep in mind those tape deck hookups don't offer great sq generally, regardless of the way the music has been ripped/encoded
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post #41 of 128
8/1/07 at 4:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay B View Post
I recently made the effort to try out some FLACs. First I went out and asked about some CDs that had excellent recordings with detailed music to use for some good A/Bing. Then I got Exact Audio Copy and set it up to do secure ripping. I picked the best (most detailed) songs and converted them to FLAC. Then I went ahead and converted the same songs to 128kps MP3 using a standard ripper (no multiple sampling). I then loaded both copies of the songs into a playlist and randomized the playlist to make it a blind test. I listened to the same sections of the songs very carefully and would switch between the two files. Could I tell the difference?

The Results: Yes, I could tell the difference. But it took me about 5 minutes of A/Bing to determine which was which. It was quite subtle, but the difference was there.

Conclusion: For what it's worth, I didn't find a difference significant enough to A: notice, and B: be worth the disk space / effort. Plus mp3's are so readily available online that the convenience of them is unparalleled. I would say, for a few select songs that are really well recorded and you love to listen to the fine details of, sure, rip them to FLAC. But for daily listening, MP3 is great, and you'll be none the wiser.

.

A good mp3 rip and FLAC are hard to tell the difference between, but with a bit rate of 128kps I would say there is fairly noticeable quality loss. I have the majority of my music collection in mp3 (about 10% or so in FLAC), but its all 192 or above (mostly v0, or 320, I should really just use a standard encoding bit rate, but my standards have changed over time and its a pain in the ass to go back and re rip music with a slightly bit rate, so c'est la vie I suppose).

I'd say mp3 is also easier for people with portable mp3 players as most will not play flac (my ipod for instance, however there is apple lossless, but I'm not sure if that will work with a 2nd gen, and I'm too lazy to rip in flac and apple lossless).

I think it comes down to personal preference on the most part on what they want, but I would recommend when encoding to mp3 to use a decent bit rate (192 or above)
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post #42 of 128
8/1/07 at 4:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay B View Post
I then loaded both copies of the songs into a playlist and randomized the playlist to make it a blind test. I listened to the same sections of the songs very carefully and would switch between the two files. Could I tell the difference?

The Results: Yes, I could tell the difference. But it took me about 5 minutes of A/Bing to determine which was which. It was quite subtle, but the difference was there.
I'm not convinced that this qualifies as true ABXing. There's too much room to fool yourself with flaws in execution driven by wishful thinking (a human failing that infects us all). If you really want to ABX excluding the placebo affect, load the two versions into Foobar and do a true ABX where you guess which is which going back and forth. If over a minimum of 10 (prefereably 20) compares Foobar declares a significantly less than 50% probability that you are guessing, you are really onto something.

Quote:
Originally Posted by carlineng View Post
Even though I can't tell the difference between FLAC and v0, I like to keep FLAC rips around in case I want to transcode from a lossless source.
Amen. I rip to FLAC images securely in AutoFLAC/EAC with Cue Sheets, and archive those to DVDs. I then reencode in Foobar to Lame V2 vbr new which to me is transparent and saves a lot of space. I keep Classical Music in FLAC just on principle .

No doubt I will someday have a big hard drive and go fully FLAC. Why not? And I won't have to rerip which is why doing FLAC images in the first place makes sense. But honestly I can't hear the difference in a true ABX with Lame V2. And it is nice to have all my music on my H140 to feed my Micro DAC.
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post #43 of 128
8/1/07 at 5:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by walt93 View Post
I'd say mp3 is also easier for people with portable mp3 players as most will not play flac (my ipod for instance, however there is apple lossless, but I'm not sure if that will work with a 2nd gen, and I'm too lazy to rip in flac and apple lossless).
Rockbox (http://www.rockbox.org/) is always an option if you want to play FLAC on an iPod, but I don't really understand why anyone would. I use my iPod mainly for travel/exercise, so most of the extra detail of the lossless files is unnoticeable due to the environment.
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post #44 of 128
8/1/07 at 5:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dagur View Post
And also It's worth pointing out that if you rip a CD
  • with Exact Audio Copy (secure mode)
  • in FLAC
  • with proper 'read offset' settings
  • and create a CUE sheet

You've essentially created a bit-by-bit copy of your CD. That means that with the correct 'write offset' and a good burning program you can recreate your CD on a CD-R.

That reason also means you have essentially an identical, undamageable[tangible damage] copy of the CD on your HDD. So, ripping is a one-stop job.

I use Burrrn with a .cue at a stupidly slow speed.
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post #45 of 128
10/23/11 at 10:55pm

dont know if this thread is still alive but I recently purchased some songs off of iTunes, 256 kbps AAC, and while they are of excellent quality, I always had the impression that FLAC would always sound noticeably better and more detailed than any lossy format especially when played through the appropriate audio equipment like a high-end DAC, amp and good quality headphones. So, after some time and out of curiosity, I acquired FLAC versions of the songs I had and played them in Foobar. They sounded pretty normal to me, nothing special. I then used the ABX Comparator plugin to compare the AAC version of the songs to the FLAC songs directly and to see if I could distinguish the two, but I couldnt tell a difference. They sounded virtually similar. so its either:

a) my ears arent that good

b) AAC is a much better format than we give it credit for

c) FLAC is overrated

or maybe a bit of all of the above.

 

Needless to say, I dont think I'll be going out of my way to obtain FLAC files anymore. FLAC  files are good for archiving purposes, but for music listening, when an FLAC file is 3-4 times larger in file size than the corresponding AAC or MP3 and yet sounds virtually the same, I dont think it justifies its large file size.

 

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