thank you
i'll seperate my questions with the ---------
Now on to
itunes vs Exact Audio Copy vs dbpoweramp
So is there really a big difference between all of them from what i hear. EAC will not have any errors. and so if you hear any crackles or artifacts in your lossless music. it means there was some error and you should go back and do it through EAC? so should i be using EAC from now on instead of itunes-->ALAC?
Ripping errors, are either very audible: they take the form of a loud 'pop', a sudden interruption of the music, or they are nearly inaudible. In both case, they are localized and punctual, they are spread over whole tracks. Itunes does a very good job of ripping tracks for undamaged CDs, you may want to switch to EAC for CDs in poor shape. The main advantage to using EAC is the integration of AccurateRip, a database which can confirm the accuracy of your rips, with iTunes, you need a 3rd party software.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clipping/over excursions
This is when you either hear a crackle, pop or metallic sound right due to not enough amp power in and the loudness war right?
Crackles and pops often indicate a problem directly with the rip process (not the compression one) or they could have been directly in the master of the music, in which case the mastering engineer was probably drunk when he mastered the track. Clipping on the other hand sounds like there's a fuzziness added to the peaks, they sound distorted.
One of my songs "Iridescent" by linkin park has this problem. it sounds like it might just be a bad error. When the majority of background music cuts out and it's just the soloist signing. you can hear little fuzzy artificat cracks tricle across the high vocals. This is probably due to the bad ripping right? I downloaded from two different downloads, both had same problem. they could just be using teh same main download source though.
It could also be a recording issue, where the recordiing engineer used too much gain on the microphone preamp, leading to clipping directly in the mix.
Ok just tested Shadow of the Day by Linkin Park. on my 2010 macbook pro. it had no problems playing with no cracks and anything. i used the macbook pro for the top song too. however, when i plug my headphones into my ipod and play the same FLAC song back. i hear many driver made cracks and pops. is this due to clipping and or overexcursing from not enough power? This happens with a couple songs
I heard pops in some of my songs. some say it's do to clipping or overexersion from
If you hear clipping with the same file with 2 different amps, it's probably one of the amps no having enough power and not digital clipping in the track itself.
24bit? all the songs i hear the cracks and pops from are from my linkin park minutes to midnights album. all in FLAC but in 24bit. could 24bit and 48KHz be doing this on my ipod? I remember reading that 24bit is just an increased dynamic range. and i know what sampling rate is. on the ipod. can it automatically switch to 24bit and 48KHz or does it just stay 16bit @ 44.1KHz the whole time? if it does. could this be causing the problem..unlikely right. i didn't change my MAcbook's setting to outpu in 24bit and 48KHz. i do that on my PC. but my PC's DAC is not nearly as good as the Cirrus Logic and whatever amp in my macbook pro.
could it be a combo of 24bit, 48KHz that isnt' supported on the ipod, added in with the pretty big 1666kbps ALAC and not enough power on the ipod?
I wouldn't know, never looked at the iPod hardware in detail.
------------------------------------------------------------
ALAC/FLAC decoding?
ok so what i think happens is this. you endode a song into ALAC or FLAC. and when you play it back on your music player. it decodes it. and uncompresses the compressed FLAC or ALAC file. which would then result in larger bit rate ...is this correct.? so..like. you take the current bit rate you see. find the compression rate in the properties menu. and do some math. and you can calculate bit rate that way right?
I don't understand what you mean, a conversion from ALAC/FLAC to WAV will restore the file to it's original raw PCM form, in fact it does it on the fly when you play FLAC or ALAC, the player convert tenths of seconds of to raw PCM and feeds it to a 'first in first out' memory buffer. Anyway, most lossless codec compress at around 60%.
Wait just had an epithamy....the maximum bit rate no matter what for 16 bit songs (majority ) is 1141kbps while for 24bit is 2304kbps... right?
Actually, the only bitrates possible for a 16 bit / 44 kHz file is 1141 kbps and the only bitrate possible for a 24 bit / 96 kHz file is 4608 kbps, 2304 kbps is the bitrate for 24 bit / 48 kHz.
Thank you very much for you and anyone that can answer these questions...i don't know if these are advanced questions, i've been on head fi for a while. but sound science has really been my low knowledge base
