[Snag1e]

 
+1 ^^^
 
 
Although I have to say, I prefer "pirating" flacs, and then supporting the bands that I like by buying their merch / going to shows instead. Screw giving the riaa / record label any money by buying CDs until they stop brickwalling the life out of music. They could at least release alternate mastered versions of many loudness war casualtys for the few people that actually care what their music sounds like...I would support that.
 
I also don't feel bad not paying Apple or even amazon (although it is the lesser of the two evils imo)..... and the added quality of flac vs lossey is just an extra bonus. =D

 

[pedxing]

if you are concern about audio quality, the whole idea of buying compressed music is silly. Also, you don't know how they compress the music and I bet many distributors can care less which software and settings were used. Different software use different algorithms and psycho acoustic models.

 

[TMRaven]

Sounds like you're experiencing two different masterings of the song.

 

[jrkong]

i go 320kbs mp3 FLAC and apple lossless, the end

 

 

[jrkong]

i pirate through the library

 

 

[Satellite_6]

Quote:

Personally, the reason I don't buy from Amazon is because even though they say 320 kbps I've gotten tracks that were only 192 kbps. MP3 is an older format than M4A (AAC) so the quality does tend to be a bit less. Add to that a lower bitrate? Thanks but no thanks.

They say 256, and all of them are 256, although some are only CBR. The bit rates are the same. AAC does not perform any better than mp3 with a modern encoder. :-/

 

[ffdpmaggot]

Regarding downloading lossy files if i care about quality, I try to buy cds, but sometimes i just want the music without waiting for a cd to ship in the mail, and without needing to make sure nobody else opens my package and finds a copy of a Dying Fetus cd. As for pirating, id rather not get hit with a 20 million dollar fine from the riaa.

 

[thuantran]

Quote:

They say 256, and all of them are 256, although some are only CBR. The bit rates are the same. AAC does not perform any better than mp3 with a modern encoder. :-/

 

If you put both 256kbps MP3 stream and AAC stream through a FIR spectrum analyzer and compare them with the original track you will see that AAC retains more of the original shape of the audio. Whether that difference between AAC and MP3 can be prove through a DBT is another matter. AAC is a better codec theoretically. The reason is quite simple: it's an evolution from MP3, if it's not better there's no benefit for its existence, cognito ergo sum . Joking on your avatar aside, the technical reason is MP3 as a standard has certain restriction to its bitstream format that limits your ability to tweak the psycho acoustic model of the encoder (so MP3 decoder can still decode it) results in file that will not reach the level of AAC.

 

[jrkong]

well you can technically "pirate" flac through your local library and m4a is the format for my apple lossless so its a nice format to go with

 

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

My modus operandi at this point is to go to the band directly and see if they sell a lossless version of the audio. A number of bands, and some retailers, already do lossless as FLAC, WAV or ALAC. If that isn't an option, I either look to "acquire" it somewhere else or buy it from iTunes.
 
One of the reasons I'd day go iTunes over Amazon is iTunes is talking of going 24-bit with their audio. Last time they did the update from 128 Kbps to 256 Kbps they let you pay to get the better tracks. If they do that again, it might mean I pay a few hundred but suddenly all those albums I have from iTunes turn into 24-bit beauties.
 
In a lot of ways, there's not much different between Amazon and iTunes so that little possibility is more than enough to push me over the edge in iTune's favor. That and while iTunes is kind of meh on the PC, it's by far the best app on the Mac.

 

[jrkong]

.Wait where the heck did you get ALAC's itunes doesnt offer much just cuz its 256kbps
 

 

[ffdpmaggot]

Who are you talking to?

 

[jrkong]

Doug ^^

 

[Twitchy_one]

Quote:

Personally, the reason I don't buy from Amazon is because even though they say 320 kbps I've gotten tracks that were only 192 kbps. MP3 is an older format than M4A (AAC) so the quality does tend to be a bit less. Add to that a lower bitrate? Thanks but no thanks.

About the only reason I buy from Amazon on occasion is because they have some
good discounts that are hard to pass up, if I don't own the album. For instance I bought
Satriani's Black Swans & Wormhole Wizards & Return to Forever's Romantic Warrior
for $5 each & for listening to music in a car & on an iPod, it seems to be good enough.
Though I do feel compelled to go buy the CDs at some point so I can have precious
ALAC.

 

[Snag1e]

 
Quote:

If you put both 256kbps MP3 stream and AAC stream through a FIR spectrum analyzer and compare them with the original track you will see that AAC retains more of the original shape of the audio. Whether that difference between AAC and MP3 can be prove through a DBT is another matter. AAC is a better codec theoretically. The reason is quite simple: it's an evolution from MP3, if it's not better there's no benefit for its existence, cognito ergo sum . Joking on your avatar aside, the technical reason is MP3 as a standard has certain restriction to its bitstream format that limits your ability to tweak the psycho acoustic model of the encoder (so MP3 decoder can still decode it) results in file that will not reach the level of AAC.

If you look at the spectrals, AAC at 256 kbps goes higher than mp3 at the same bitrate, that does not necessarily mean it is better, or more faithful to the original. Every codec has to make compromises to get the audio to the desired size, if those aren't cutting frequencies above 18k, then they are somewhere else. I agree that AAC is theoretically a better codec, however, just because something replaces something else does not necessarily make it better. It could be a evolution from MP3 in simple the fact that it encodes faster, or files are smaller at a given bit rate ect... none of which have to do with the audio quality. At low bit rates AAC is more efficiant than MP3 (128 kbps aac is often compared to 160kpbs mp3), However, a good mp3 encoder (such as lame) makes up for most of this at higher bitrates. AAC would theoretically still be Superior, (Although I personally doubt anyone could hear a difference). I use flac myself, but if I had to use a lossey codec, I would choose mp3 for the simple reason that it plays on everything, not just iTunes.