Depressed / confused about music management - Page 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigCabDaddy 

Ah. I was talking about a little different test. Back in the day when CDs first came out, my friends and I frequently A/B'd the same album on CD and vinyl. There was near consensus that analog was better.

The reason one sounded better than the other wasn't because of the format. It was because of the mastering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chewy4 

But on 256 and 192 while there is no hard lowpass filter, there might as well be(at least on most material, if something extends all the way up it's not going to destroy it here). There's only a tiny bit of data left there.

There really isn't much in music that high unless it's a triangle or cymbal crash. Perhaps it's dynamically filtering according to the content at that specific part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot 

 

There really isn't much in music that high unless it's a triangle or cymbal crash. Perhaps it's dynamically filtering according to the content at that specific part.

Yeah most the stuff up there in that song are cymbals. The harmonics up that high are probably completely masked anyways so it makes sense to remove that much of them.

Hi,

I just finished quickly catching up on this thread and where the discussion has gone.

So, my collection is mostly ripped to 320 MP3 vs. Apple's 320 AAC.

Is there an SQ difference between the two?

Thx

Quote:

Originally Posted by vertical 

Hi,

 

I just finished quickly catching up on this thread and where the discussion has gone.

 

So, my collection is mostly ripped to 320 MP3 vs. Apple's 320 AAC.

 

Is there an SQ difference between the two?

 

Thx

While they do compress files differently, there isn't really a difference at that high of a bitrate.

OK, thx very much for confirming. 

At some point I'll try ripping some of the songs in my CD collection to a loss-less format and comparing them to a 320 MP3 of the song...will focus on what I think are clean hi-fi CD recordings and are songs I know well. I have good ears, but not golden by any stretch. Plus, my equipment is not top of the line (practical & budget reasons). So, I suspect from what I've read in this thread & the forums that I won't have very positive stats regarding correctly identifying the loss-less.

BTW, I recall 1 of the posts saying the A/B songs s/b volume level matched. Do I need to take special steps to achieve that? or will using same pgm to rip both format versions of a song automatically get me there?

Thx for indulging my learning curve...

Quote:

Originally Posted by vertical 

OK, thx very much for confirming. 

 

At some point I'll try ripping some of the songs in my CD collection to a loss-less format and comparing them to a 320 MP3 of the song...will focus on what I think are clean hi-fi CD recordings and are songs I know well. I have good ears, but not golden by any stretch. Plus, my equipment is not top of the line (practical & budget reasons). So, I suspect from what I've read in this thread & the forums that I won't have very positive stats regarding correctly identifying the loss-less.

 

BTW, I recall 1 of the posts saying the A/B songs s/b volume level matched. Do I need to take special steps to achieve that? or will using same pgm to rip both format versions of a song automatically get me there?

 

Thx for indulging my learning curve...

Foobar's ABX comparator plugin is a good tool for this. Right click both the files and then go to Replay Gain > Scan per-file track gain and then apply the tags. The abx comparator can then use those tags to volume match the files(once you install the plugin it's under utilities when you right click two simultaneously selected tracks).

Although I don't think that 320kbps LAME mp3's generally require volume matching, still might be a good idea to check.

If you're interested, I can give you a download link to a lossless file (FLAC or ALAC) that has a complex bit of classical music encoded into Frauenhofer MP3, LAME MP3 and AAC at 192, 256 and 320 CBR, along with the original lossless sample. If you can detect any of them as lossy, you'll be doing really well. 

Can you play flac or apple lossless? I have it in both formats.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot 

If you're interested, I can give you a download link to a lossless file (FLAC or ALAC) that has a complex bit of classical music encoded into Frauenhofer MP3, LAME MP3 and AAC at 192, 256 and 320 CBR, along with the original lossless sample. If you can detect any of them as lossy, you'll be doing really well. 

Thx for the offer. It must have taken a bit of work to create these, so I want to be sure to say up front that I may not get to it. Further, classical music is not the style I'm accustomed to evaluating. Anyway, after all that backpedaling ;)... ALAC please.