Lossless audio?

If you have 320kbp mp3s, then you already have lossy quality tracks.

Technically, I think you can convert mp3 to lossless, but you definitely won't change it to lossless quality. I'm sure you can the other way, though. (lossless -> mp3)

You'll either have to buy them as lossless quality tracks or you can rip them from your own CD's with software.

This is a dumbed down version, but without getting caught up in technicalities: 

Lossless = CD quality

2 most common lossless file types (that I know of): FLAC and ALAC

(ALAC is Apple Lossless)

All our digital music probably comes from CDs first. Even if you downloaded it, someone had to rip a CD first. When you go "lossy", this literally means you have lost some of the data in the original file...so going from "lossy" to "lossless" is useless, because you can't recover that lost data.

Lossless is only useful if you start with the CD, and rip at lossless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pagger 

Allright, I guess i'll have to eventually replace my music with lossless, when i can find most of it in flac:)

Unfortunately, everything downloadable is lossy. This has been a pet peeve of mine ever since iTunes came on the scene. MP3s were fun when the whole downloading thing came along. It was novel to be able to simply search for any song and be able to listen to it seconds later. But my ears have always been aware of the lossy artifacts, but it was a tolerable give-and-take when network bandwidth and hard drives were smaller.

Unfortunately with most peoples' ears unable to detect the artifacts, it's doubtful that they will change things any time soon.  Judging from the popularity of the use of audio butchering 'tools' like "Autotune" it's also unlikely that the general public will ever have any complaints about the imperfections of lossy music!

Until then, I'm still collecting those soon-to-be extinct discs called CDs. On the plus side, aside from the optimal quality, CDs can be cheaper than their 'download' counterparts, and you have a tangible product you can re-market in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ohaider 

If you have 320kbp mp3s, then you already have lossy quality tracks.

 

Technically, I think you can convert mp3 to lossless, but you definitely won't change it to lossless quality. I'm sure you can the other way, though. (lossless -> mp3)

 

You'll either have to buy them as lossless quality tracks or you can rip them from your own CD's with software.

 

 

It should be noted that that part on bold is a terrible idea, propagating lower quality content.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pagger 

I'm pretty new to head-fi, but I've bought a pair of Ultrazone DJ1 for both gaming and music :)
Most of you probably won't be impressed with those, but I really like them! :) (but ok, my experience has been cheap gamer headsets etc..)

Anyways, I'm wondering how I can improve my sound even more (starting with something free, might get an dac/amp later)

So i figured I need to get some lossless files, I heard flac is popular so i'ma go with that.

I already got a lot of songs, varying from various mp3 to whatever files. Can I just convert them to flac and they will be "lossless" quality?

Or do the source have to be lossless to begin with? (that's what makes the most sence to me)

If that is so, what other type of files will i be able to convert into true lossless Flac :)

Welcome to the world of audiophiledom! My condolences! Haha.

Don't worry about the headphones. We all start somewhere and that's not a bad place to start from. Yes there are better headphones but there are definitely worse headphones as well.

In terms of improving sound, are you a Mac or PC guy? You could simply switch audio players are there are a number of free ones for both platform that are better than the defaults. There are also software player plugins for each platform. If you're a Mac guy someone on the forum has created a new compliment to iTunes called "BitPerfect". It's a little buggy but it's coming along great. It'll eventually be for pay but for now it's free while in alpha and people who do bug reporting get a free copy when it hits.

As for tracks, FLAC is good but if you use iTunes you're better off with ALAC. The same is true if you have an iPod or iPhone. FLAC isn't supported on those but ALAC is. For all intents and purposes FLAC and ALAC are pretty much identical. By the way, if you have an Android phone chances are you are FLAC-friendly.

To back up what has always been said, never convert lossy music to a lossy format. All you're doing is making that lossy file into a bigger file but quality won't be improved. It's a complete waste of time. Now, you can go for lossless to lossy if you really want but you are going to lose quality.

Think about it like an image. If you get an image off Google that's 100 px by 100px, if you try to scale it up to the size of a full page it'll look horrible. The reason is you're not adding information, you're just making it bigger. The same applies when going from lossy to lossless. And, just like images, if you shrink an image you lose information. Now, that might be just fine in some instances but in others, if you go to far, it will really show.

So I'd say source out some lossless to replace your lower-quality tracks. To be honest, anything 256 Kbps or better is likely good enough with the setup you currently have. You should start with your lowest quality music and the stuff you listen to the most first and then slowly branch out as the opportunity presents itself.

As for what can be made into FLAC, well, any lossless format can be converted to any other lossless format with little to no change. Not all formats are created equal. I've seen people do tests where they've gone from FLAC to an uncompressed audio file and back to FLAC and created an identical file (ALAC as well) but when tried with a WMA-Lossless file there were differences, which shouldn't happen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarquetSkware 

Unfortunately, everything downloadable is lossy. This has been a pet peeve of mine ever since iTunes came on the scene. MP3s were fun when the whole downloading thing came along. It was novel to be able to simply search for any song and be able to listen to it seconds later. But my ears have always been aware of the lossy artifacts, but it was a tolerable give-and-take when network bandwidth and hard drives were smaller.

 

Unfortunately with most peoples' ears unable to detect the artifacts, it's doubtful that they will change things any time soon.  Judging from the popularity of the use of audio butchering 'tools' like "Autotune" it's also unlikely that the general public will ever have any complaints about the imperfections of lossy music!

Don't you mean fortunately? I'd LOVE to not notice the difference between iPod headphones and my Denons! Do you have any idea how much I would save? Also, dunno if you're aware of this but autotuning isn't uncommon on a lot of albums, even the big singers. Going all out with it is a style and has nothing to do with the audio quality. That sounds a bit like old-man-grumbling to me. ;) "In my day we didn't have none of them ePhones and auto-tunages!"

 

Also, a lot of bands are offering lossless audio now. Radiohead, for one. In fact, most of the contemporary bands I follow closely will offer lossless audio (usually WAV but sometimes you can choose) on their website. Other bands will use something like Bandcamp which lets you choose the format to download, including a variety of lossless formats.

why not make an image with nero

so the sound will be original

and run it with daemon tools

It is simple and effective!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syan25 

It is simple and effective!

No man, tom2011 is wrong. I've thought about it in the past and even did a few imgs, but those don't take in account offsets and are only meant for data, as audio is far more sensitive, the rips end up with faults.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roller 

No man, tom2011 is wrong. I've thought about it in the past and even did a few imgs, but those don't take in account offsets and are only meant for data, as audio is far more sensitive, the rips end up with faults.

Not to mention that a disc image is usually uncompressed where FLAC and ALAC are both compressed (not lossy, difference) formats. The actual sound quality is the exact same as the uncompressed CD if you rip with a good app.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roller 

No man, tom2011 is wrong. I've thought about it in the past and even did a few imgs, but those don't take in account offsets and are only meant for data, as audio is far more sensitive, the rips end up with faults.

why you say i am wrong is this an insult

Quote:

Originally Posted by DougofTheAbaci 

 

Not to mention that a disc image is usually uncompressed where FLAC and ALAC are both compressed (not lossy, difference) formats. The actual sound quality is the exact same as the uncompressed CD if you rip with a good app.

Yes, besides the size factor, most common image creating software isn't geared towards audio usage, which bypasses error correction. Still, there are apps already used by people who do a lot of ripping, which do have those features, and properly implemented.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom2011 

why you say i am wrong is this an insult

 

Read the response above. I don't know where you read an insult.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarquetSkware 

Unfortunately, everything downloadable is lossy. This has been a pet peeve of mine ever since iTunes came on the scene. MP3s were fun when the whole downloading thing came along.

Not true. I buy music in digital formats most of the time and I always get it in FLAC/wave (there were numerous threads on where to get lossless music). I guess it largely depends on what type of music you're interested in, indie artists tend to want to make their stuff available in as many formats as possible, and big labels just don't give a crap, so the mainstream stuff might be hard to get in lossless (legally, otherwise it's not a problem at all).

And I always thought getting mainstream stuff is the easiest, as the most likely to still produce CDs (which are lossless) LOL...