[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pds6 One (1) Lossless song well sound better than One (1) Lossy song.

I wouldn't state that as fact, myself. AFAIK, all available objective evidence says that high-quality compression is indistinguishable from lossless. I know that's true for me personally, to the point where my plan for what to do with my 700 CD's changed. Some people claim they can hear a difference. Maybe they can, I don't know. I'm 100% sure that most people who make those claims are making false claims (usually because they simply don't know if they can) but a few could well be telling the truth. But I can't tell the difference, which sorta deflated my ego for a while, but it's true anyway. All the tests show that people can't tell, but then the lossless-believers make long posts in which they dispute the validity of objective tests in controlled environments. I don't wanna start that whole mess again, I just wanna give you a heads-up that maybe you really can't tell the difference, nomatter how much money you spend on cables

 

[K2Grey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnnylexus Geez. I just ripped a hard rock album in the two formats mentioned above and loaded them on my 5g iPod. I'm using Shure E5c's. I can't hear any difference!

Lossy compression schemes are careful to only remove such information that psychoacoustics say a person with normal, or even above average hearing cannot detect. They have been refined over a lengthy period of time. Thus it's not surprising if you can't hear any differences.

You might think that you should be able to hear a little more sizzle in the cymbals, but I'm sure that in previous versions of LAME people have listened to their MP3s and said "Hmm, the cymbals don't have that sizzle", ABXed it vs FLAC on that, and then they went and tweaked the compession so that the sizzle doesn't get taken out.

Of course there have also been many people listening to their MP3s and saying "Hmm, this sucks", but who have failed to ABX it and thus no one developing LAME really cares about what they think.

 

[pds6]

russdog says:
Quote:

All the tests show that people can't tell, but then the lossless-believers make long posts in which they dispute the validity of objective tests in controlled environments

I don't disagree with you. My real point, the storage issue (this would include head access rates, buffer issues, battery life and conversion issues [which I do not claim to know a lot about]) never seems to be addressed in the Lossy v. Lossless debate.

Lossless sounds better, I win. This may be true in the case of one song. My question, is it true when you have a Lossless raid of four hard drives all interconnected and going at 7200 rpm?

 

[rock\]

Quote:

Originally Posted by applebook Most people don't even know why FWD cars are rubbish compared to RWD assuming all other components are at least equal, so carmakers will also continue to roll out FWD slushboxes.

You've obviously never driven a RWD in 5-6 inches of snow!

 

[bigshot]

The differences between a good lossy file and a lossless file are MUCH smaller than the difference in filesize. Find a compromise that works for your use of the music, your equipment and your ears.

If you have money and hard drive space to burn, go ahead and go all lossless. But it really isn't necessary. In fact, in portable DAPs it's a drawback because lossless files use up battery life much faster.

Personally, I find that 192-256 AAC is more than enough for any of my uses.

See ya
Steve

 

[Mr Do]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot The differences between a good lossy file and a lossless file are MUCH smaller than the difference in filesize. Find a compromise that works for your use of the music, your equipment and your ears. If you have money and hard drive space to burn, go ahead and go all lossless. But it really isn't necessary. In fact, in portable DAPs it's a drawback because lossless files use up battery life much faster. Personally, I find that 192-256 AAC is more than enough for any of my uses. See ya Steve

I agree 100%. Lossless files for home and 256 AAC for portable. Does anyone know how 256 AAC compares to lame Mp3's?

 

[bigshot]

256 AAC is comparable to 320 LAME. There are only a few things that need that high a bitrate. For some reason the massed strings on Sammy Davis Jr Decca records artifact terribly below 256 AAC. Most music is fine on 192 AAC.

See ya
Steve

 

[mkozlows]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pds6 A one or two thousand album collection is not unusual. To store a 2,000 album collection ripped in Wav Lossless would require something in the area of a 2 terabyte raid. Now, I think we have a problem.

Using your FLAC figures (ripping to WAV has no benefit vs. FLAC), you're talking about less than 700GB for a 2,000 CD collection. That's about $300 worth of hard drive space for a CD collection that cost somewhere between $20K-$40K.

Quote:

I have no formal training in this area, but I believe a raid of 4 x 500 gb hard drives might exhibit some noise - Maybe?

If you want to be hardcore and use RAID, you put the server in a server room (basement, office, whatever), and access it via network shares or with streaming devices like a Squeezebox or Sonos.

 

[mkozlows]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot If you have money and hard drive space to burn, go ahead and go all lossless. But it really isn't necessary.

Again, what money? Each CD you rip losslessly will take up about 5 cents worth of disk space more than a lossy rip. If you're going to fuss at a nickel a CD, it's a miracle you were able to buy the CD in the first place.

At that kind of monetary premium, it's silly to even worry about whether or not lossless sounds better than lossy. Just rip it lossless and move on, knowing that for a very small amount of money, you have perfect sound. If you're spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on DACs, amps, and headphones, it's silly to throw away any quality upfront to save a nickel.

Besides, there are other benefits to lossless, primarily future-proofing. Are you 100% sure that the format you rip to today is going to be the format you want your music in 10 years from now? If not, and you've ripped lossy, you're going to have to do a lossy conversion later, and things just get uglier and uglier from there. If you rip lossless, you can do whatever you want to your music at any time without worrying about generational effects or further degradations.

This isn't just airy theory, either. I ripped my music in WMA Lossless for what seemed like good reasons at the time (I was hoping to use Media Center, and thought that Microsoft's PlaysForSure ecosystem would be the big winner in the portable front, so wanted a lossless format that worked well with all that). But I've ended up using a Squeezebox and Microsoft is unofficially killing PFS, so it appears to make more sense for me to have my music in FLAC. I can do this conversion, secure in the knowledge that nothing's getting hurt. If I'd ripped to lossy WMA, the conversion would be much dodgier.

Quote:

In fact, in portable DAPs it's a drawback because lossless files use up battery life much faster.

So don't use the lossless on a portable. Windows Media Player can transcode WMA Lossless to 192kbps WMA on the fly for portable use, and I'd be surprised if iTunes couldn't do something similar with Apple Lossless. With my FLAC archive, I plan on making a lossy MP3 copy for portable use (which brings my extra disk costs up to a whopping dime a CD).

 

[wanderman]

download foobar2000 and abx.

Simply create a lossy file from a lossless rip and compare those two files. Place both files within foobar; select them with drag and highlight or ctrl+left-click, and select the abx option. Compromises are made in lossy compression to allow for the small size but modern codecs are extremely difficult to abx at high bitrates. If more lossless codecs implemented a hybrid lossy mode then there would be no need for compromise (wavpack ftw!).

abx(double blind) definition just incase you didn't know
Quote:

Originally Posted by wikipedia.org Double-blind describes an especially stringent way of conducting an experiment, usually on human subjects, in an attempt to eliminate subjective bias on the part of both experimental subjects and the experimenters. In most cases, double-blind experiments are held to achieve a higher standard of scientific rigour. [.... methodology] Double-blind methods can be applied to any experimental situation where there is the possibility that the results will be affected by conscious or unconscious bias on the part of the experimenter. Computer-controlled experiments are sometimes also referred to as double-blind experiments, since software should not cause any bias. In analogy to the above, the part of the software that provides interaction with the human is the blinded researcher, while the part of the software that defines the key is the third party. An example is the ABX test, where the human subject has to identify an unknown stimulus X as being either A or B.

link to various lossy codec faqs
link to rjamorim lossy listening tests
link to lossless comparison guide

 

[desmoface]

Hey, I like talking anything with motors...as far as fwd vs rwd..I think that experienced drivers who spend time on the track will generally do better with rwd...where as the average joe (me and most everyone else on the road) will do better with awd (subaru, audi, etc) or fwd...after all, it's all about traction.

I believe you will find that those attributes that make a car/bike go around a race track faster are of less value on city streets where we drive. I mean, who get's into countersteering (in cars) on city streets at street legal speeds?

Steve
05 ducati st3
00 sv 650
05 acura rsx type "s"
05 subaru impreza

 

[pds6]

mkozlows says:
Quote:

Using your FLAC figures (ripping to WAV has no benefit vs. FLAC), you're talking about less than 700GB for a 2,000 CD collection. That's about $300 worth of hard drive space for a CD collection that cost somewhere between $20K-$40K

Money has nothing to do with my post!

The bigger the file the more spinning and reading - Mechanical Noises. Do you think that it is "possible" that any advantage acquired by ripping in Lossless is offset by the added mechanics of acquiring, storing, accessing and processing larger formats.

Mechanics, not money.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by desmoface I believe you will find that those attributes that make a car/bike go around a race track faster are of less value on city streets where we drive. I mean, who get's into countersteering (in cars) on city streets at street legal speeds?

Not many people drive all the time at 'legal speeds' if they're not being watched...
Aside from that, I am generally a safe driver, but that doesn't make you immune to things developing out of your control...which may require a bit of nifty driving.


Lossy V High bitrate Lossy is bit of a stale arguement IMO. I, if ever hear Lossless users saying their music is better in SQ, they use it for countless other reasons.

 

[nfusion770]

I cant believe this debate continues every week or so. It should be common knowledge that the best way to rip your files is losslessly with error correction- ITUNES- ALAC or EAC- FLAC. The differences are more than likely only apparent if you have a hacked up cd, if at all.

The best lossy format is up to your ears, but it is probably somewhere between 192k LAME MP3/AAC and 320 LAME MP3/ AAC- you need to test to see what works for you. The smaller the file that sounds good to you the better. All the rest is splitting hairs.

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nfusion770 The best lossy format is up to your ears, but it is probably somewhere between 192k LAME MP3/AAC and 320 LAME MP3/ AAC- you need to test to see what works for you. The smaller the file that sounds good to you the better. All the rest is splitting hairs.

or you can use vbr and have the codec decide on the proper bitrate.