[MCC]

Everyone has their own opinions on compression and that's fine. After comparing MP3 and AAC directly I decided that AAC retains more of the ambiance of the music on certain specially picked songs and decided to switch. 256k AAC was indistinguishable from FLAC for me and I bumped it to 300k for peace of mind. This is nothing to fight over- only personal preference.
 
Of course, CD audio itself is quite limited when compared to vinyl. 

 

[Confispect]

Quote:

Everyone has their own opinions on compression and that's fine. After comparing MP3 and AAC directly I decided that AAC retains more of the ambiance of the music on certain specially picked songs and decided to switch. 256k AAC was indistinguishable from FLAC for me and I bumped it to 300k for peace of mind. This is nothing to fight over- only personal preference.
 
Of course, CD audio itself is quite limited when compared to vinyl. 

Interesting I'll have to try AAC.
 

 

[MCC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Confispect /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Interesting I'll have to try AAC.
 

Just be sure to use the Nero AAC encoder- I recall reading reports that Apple's encoder doesn't do as good of a job.

 

[ramicio]

Vinyl is limited compared to CD, plus is wears out so you can't just make a backup.  Believe me, I went on a vinyl binge and recorded them.  Then I eventually had enough of the sound and went back to CD and deleted my vinyl rips.  Now I'm trying to get rid of everything vinyl that I own.

 

[Satellite_6]

Quote:

Everyone has their own opinions on compression and that's fine. After comparing MP3 and AAC directly I decided that AAC retains more of the ambiance of the music on certain specially picked songs and decided to switch. 256k AAC was indistinguishable from FLAC for me and I bumped it to 300k for peace of mind. This is nothing to fight over- only personal preference.
 
Of course, CD audio itself is quite limited when compared to vinyl. 

. . . 

 really? 
 
Well after this I'm going to stop posting. . . to refute one more thing said in this thread tho: the iTunes AAC encoder is thought to be very good, one of the best. 
 
If anything is better than mp3 it's probably Vorbis, not AAC, but that's just a guess. 
 
The conclusions of people in this thread are absolutely ridiculous and not based on any facts, so readers be warned. 
 

 

[MCC]

Quote:

. . . 

 really? 
 
Well after this I'm going to stop posting. . . to refute one more thing said in this thread tho: the iTunes AAC encoder is thought to be very good, one of the best. 
 
If anything is better than mp3 it's probably Vorbis, not AAC, but that's just a guess. 
 
The conclusions of people in this thread are absolutely ridiculous and not based on any facts, so readers be warned. 
 

A blind ABX test is a blind ABX test. That is fact. What is there to debate? And I did say that only in very select situations was I able to tell the difference. I'm not making a blanket statement that Nero AAC is always better than LAME MP3.

 

[ramicio]

Vorbic > AAC > MP3.  I like the Nero AAC encoder.

 

[blockhead]

I can't ABX (foobar) AAC 256kbps vs FLAC/WAV. I encoded my CD collection in Q7 Vorbis/.ogg which was one level over what I found transparent.( not sure why I did this just some old-fashioned idea of having a safety margin.)
Seems people who test always have different results from those who "just know" there is a "massive" difference. I'm not disrespecting anyones personal preference/opinion. I mean what could I possibly have to gain from convincing someone one way or the other. I can understand the philosophy of why not have the best quality if storage isn't an issue. I do encourage people to test it for themselves though as I was surprised how much my preconceived notions had affected my judgement.  

 

[Justin Uthadude]

Sadly though, I fear those same loudness loving engineers that make our CDs will eventually be making 24/96 media and we'll be having this same discussion. More resolution isn't ALWAYS better once you can no longer hear it.
 
By the way,
If you don't believe in A/B'ing the music to compare the difference, how do you know 24/96 trounces CD? Does 16/44.1 disgust you and 24/96 is way better? Seriously, I have friends with great ears and I can sometimes fool them between a wav file and a 320k mp3.
 
Quote:

/img/forum/go_quote.gif

 

.....I don't buy into ABX testing ......
I was even disgusted by 320 kbps MP3.  Next time I backed up everything I went to 192 kbps AAC which was better....
​

 

[Justin Uthadude]

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[Justin Uthadude]

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[ramicio]

I just said a few posts back that I took an vinyl rip of 24/96 and downed it to 16/44.1 and could tel the difference most of the time.  I did the same for a 24/192 DVD-Audio rip.  There are no rules in ABing of what you have to listen to, and I chose select parts of the songs.  Yeah, more resolution won't do any good if everything is loud, but loudness is the industry's art, not the artists' art.  Take a look at how many older artists are on labels, but then release AWESOME HD masters to buy and download off of their sites...so they release them independently.  We will be seeing more of this, but it will take a while for mainstream artists to do it because all they know how to do is sing and dance for 1 or 2 albums and then get addicted to drugs, go to jail, or fulfill their contracts through reality TV shows.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

I just said a few posts back that I took an vinyl rip of 24/96 and downed it to 16/44.1 and could tel the difference most of the time.  
 
Was that 9/10 or 8/10 - this is important, most also includes 6/10 which is not significant. Do you have the samples still, it would be interesting to look at them. I have to say I am still skeptical, why, well there was a peer reviewed published study that used 60 audiophile listeners and over 500 trials and apart from the extra noise when listening really loud none of the subjects could detect the difference between DVD-A/SACD and the same downsampled to 16/44.1 - which may mean that you have exceptional ears or there is a methodological problem such as insufficient trials or poor downsampling method. I am sorry to appear picky on this , but what you are saying is at odds with current research.
 
I did the same for a 24/192 DVD-Audio rip.  There are no rules in ABing of what you have to listen to, and I chose select parts of the songs.  Yeah, more resolution won't do any good if everything is loud, but loudness is the industry's art, not the artists' art.  Take a look at how many older artists are on labels, but then release AWESOME HD masters to buy and download off of their sites...so they release them independently.  We will be seeing more of this, but it will take a while for mainstream artists to do it because all they know how to do is sing and dance for 1 or 2 albums and then get addicted to drugs, go to jail, or fulfill their contracts through reality TV shows.

 

[Confispect]

 
 
 

 

[ramicio]

How is anything over half not significant?  The controlled tests are propaganda to keep CD around and not move technology forward.