[Scrith]

I think you should be using a lossless format if you have the room for it regardless of whether or not you can hear a difference with your current set of equipment. Who is to say that in the future you won't have some equipment with which you can tell the difference? Unless you don't have room for it, store it as lossless and you'll never have to think about it again.

 

[Svperstar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trains are bad I don't think it matters. If he can tell a difference at all, with any recording, that counts as nontransparent.

People make all sorts of claims they don't back up, this is why it matters.

 

[pheonix991]

2 examples are my Radiohead-Amnesiac, and Stadium Arcadium. I did a side by side test "myself", and there was a minor difference. Not MAJOR, just minor, but, there was one. This may not be correct b/c of the whole thing about me, myself doing the tests, and not someone else picking the tracks for me to compare.

 

[Svperstar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pheonix991 2 examples are my Radiohead-Amnesiac, and Stadium Arcadium. I did a side by side test "myself", and there was a minor difference. Not MAJOR, just minor, but, there was one. This may not be correct b/c of the whole thing about me, myself doing the tests, and not someone else picking the tracks for me to compare.

This was not an ABX test, when you clicked on the lossless file, you knew you clicked on lossless, so internally you think "This will sound better" and of course it did.

One time I was at a party, and I got a big glass of wine and chugged it pretty fast, got a nice little buzz. Then I looked at the bottle and it was non-alcoholic.

 

[trains are bad]

Quote:

2 examples are my Radiohead-Amnesiac, and Stadium Arcadium. I did a side by side test "myself", and there was a minor difference. Not MAJOR, just minor, but, there was one. This may not be correct b/c of the whole thing about me, myself doing the tests, and not someone else picking the tracks for me to compare.

I'd be surprised if you could distinguish Stadium Arcadium at 90kbps lame. What you did is not an ABX test. Trust me, ABX is a whole different ballgame. Why don't you download foobar? It's free.

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trains are bad I'd be surprised if you could distinguish Stadium Arcadium at 90kbps lame. What you did is not an ABX test. Trust me, ABX is a whole different ballgame. Why don't you download foobar? It's free.

the new album is not all bad but it is mostly suck if you liked their older stuff. When I picked up their greatest hits I thought they were done but no...

http://www.foobar2000.org/foobar2000_0.9.3.exe (my ontopic contribution btw)

 

[Chri5peed]

I don't think the majority of lossless users use it because its the lowest SQ they consider CD transparent.


I know I don't.

Its virtually like having a copy of the CD to hand and you never have to touch the CD again once it ripped, which is tempting fate to cause damage.

It can be transcoded to any new sparkly format at a moments notice without any degredation in sound.

Archival, unless you want to archive in lossy?

Its unquestionably the best SQ from its source. With people extolling the virtues of uber expensive after-market cables and other audiophilia why is it a bad thing for people to want to feed their equipment with the best source and for free.

...I've no doubt missed more.

 

[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed I don't think the majority of lossless users use it because its the lowest SQ they consider CD transparent. I know I don't. Its virtually like having a copy of the CD to hand and you never have to touch the CD again once it ripped, which is tempting fate to cause damage. It can be transcoded to any new sparkly format at a moments notice without any degredation in sound. Archival, unless you want to archive in lossy? Its unquestionably the best SQ from its source. With people extolling the virtues of uber expensive after-market cables and other audiophilia why is it a bad thing for people to want to feed their equipment with the best source and for free. ...I've no doubt missed more.

Oh, all of that is perfectly fine and makes sense. The problem arises when some folks who choose to do what you have described then go on to state or imply that people who do something different are sure to be getting inferior sound quality. That is simply not the case, but people assert it nonetheless. That's what causes many arguments about this: people asserting things that are not true. Everything you said is true.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by russdog Oh, all of that is perfectly fine and makes sense. The problem arises when some folks who choose to do what you have described then go on to state or imply that people who do something different are sure to be getting inferior sound quality. That is simply not the case, but people assert it nonetheless. That's what causes many arguments about this: people asserting things that are not true. Everything you said is true.

People who do that are foolish.

I have lossless only for the reasoins I've stated. I have old albums I've not bothered to rerip in 320Kbps mp3s.

...but its their ears and if they insist on being able to hear a difference, you'll never ever get them to change their minds. So why bother?

 

[Corrupt^]

I still notice a slightly better soundstage and better highs with flac compared to ogg/mp3.

But that's just me...

(p.s. don't flame me, I said: "slightly")

 

[smeggy]

128.. listenable
192.. a bit ropey
256.. generally ok
320.. as good as I can make out

I have to admit, I highly doubt I could consistently pick 320 over 256. My ears have been overly abused by many years in the military and in heavy industry... not to mention years of blasting rock music at excessive levels.

 

[Computerpro3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by russdog Oh, all of that is perfectly fine and makes sense. The problem arises when some folks who choose to do what you have described then go on to state or imply that people who do something different are sure to be getting inferior sound quality. That is simply not the case, but people assert it nonetheless. That's what causes many arguments about this: people asserting things that are not true. Everything you said is true.

I'm 17 and have perfect pitch and am a classically trained pianist. I can 100% of the time blind test 128k, 192k, 256k and tell them from lossless (10 tries each) and I got 8 out of 10 320k, the exceptions being a Linkin Park track and a DMB track. The Linkin Park can be chalked up to crappy recording anyway, but the DMB one I got wrong. As I said earlier, it was a true blind test with my sister choosing the tracks and I was facing away from the computer.

FWIW my sister could also tell the difference between them all but it took her multiple listens where as I could tell instantly (within 2 seconds of the song starting). She is 15 and has never listened to high end headphones for more than a few seconds. I just told her to focus on the high frequencies such as symbols and she could tell almost as well as I could.

That's why I use losless for everything. A terrabyte of hard drive space, thats a thousand gigabytes, is less than $400 nowadays. My ipod 60GB has plenty of room. I can deal with the battery tradeoff for better sound quality, which I have proven I can hear.

Another thing I notice: the people who claim it doesn't make a difference are usually running something like an Audigy 2 or sub top tier headphones. That's an entire other factor to consider. Sure, maybe you could hear it, perhaps the gear just isn't good enough to tell. With ibuds, theres no point in lossless, for example.

 

[Corrupt^]

I just convert the music I like most to flac and the others to ogg vorbis with 48khz and 320kbits/sec.

I'm not saying I have super hearing but my hearing is trained quite well. I've been playing first person shooters for about over 10 years now and if I could hear a human breath ingame, I'd find his location...

Therefore I'm pretty sure that flac still is better. But besides better highs and soundstage I don't notice much difference.

Also mp3 has this strange static you can hear in high frequencies, it's been proven, look it up on google (probably the main reason I prefer ogg vorbis over mp3).

 

[ilovesocks]

I like how the quote in the original post says that if you can tell a difference between 256 kbit/s mp3's and lossless, then either you're wrong or your equipment is.

 

[maarek99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Computerpro3 I'm 17 and have perfect pitch and am a classically trained pianist. I can 100% of the time blind test 128k, 192k, 256k and tell them from lossless (10 tries each) and I got 8 out of 10 320k, the exceptions being a Linkin Park track and a DMB track.

There was something probably wrong with your encoding methods (like the old joint-stereo method that destroyed phase information no matter what bitrate you set).