[Dzjudz]

What's the best? Whatever sounds best to you of course. If 128cbr MP3 sounds the same as a FLAC to you, good for you (less capacity per song for you

). OGG Vorbis has as an advantage to MP3 that it's smaller at the same SQ, but it does chew batteries down faster. FLAC (and other lossless files, but I prefer FLAC for its tagability and size and compatibility with Rockbox) have the advantage that they're lossless of course, but do take up a lot more space than lossy files. I wouldn't go with wma, aac or atrac3 myself, since I don't have a Sony or Apple player and LAME 192vbr MP3 does the job for me if I'm not using FLAC. DRM is the ultimate nightmare for me, I boycot all DRM methods and files.

 

[xantus]

FLAC on my PC

MPC (musepack) on my iriver

 

[erlik]

For most people transparency on a portable system happens between 192 vbr (or LAME V2) and 256 vbr (or lame V0). Try to encode a few songs around these bitrates and see if you can hear the difference between these and a lossless wav (most daps support wav), but be warned that you probably won't. I personaly use lame V2 and can't really tell the difference between that and wav on my DAP.

At high bitrate there is little gain from moving from mp3 to a newer format such as aac as the improvement are mainly apparent at lower bitrates (128 and under).

If you have a small memory based DAP you may consider lame V5 or aac/ogg at around 128 vbr but you'll probably notice some loss of quality (unless you have crappy phones or listen in a noisy environment). That's what I use for my "ultraportable" rig (an SD card with mp3s that I put in my treo) because on that equipment the gain in space is more important that the small loss in quality.

I keep a Flac copy on my computer in any case.

 

[Just Josh]

Apple Lossless for my Mac and a mix of 128/160/192 vbr AAC for my iPod.

 

[zotjen]

I've been using Ogg Q6 for the past several months. Although I can distinguish some perceptible differences between it and lossless, the differences are minor acceptable for portable use.

 

[terriblepaulz]

Quote:

Apple Lossless for my Mac and a mix of 128/160/192 vbr AAC for my iPod.

Oddly enough, I do the opposite. I put lossless files on my iPod because I do most of my headphone listening using the iPod as my source.

I just recently converted all the lossless files on my laptop (at work) to 320 kbps AAC because I play those with decent, but not particularly revealing Klipsch 2.1 speakers, and I want to have as many tracks on that machine as possible, for the sake of variety. I probably could have gone to a higher compression rate without noticing any difference in SQ, but with about 60-65GB of space, I will have plenty of music at the office.

 

[Verne M.]

I encode using Apple Lossless into ITunes. I have a mixture of AL and mp3 on my Ipod. I like AL because a lot of times I'm listening to my Ipod at night when the family's asleep. In the car there's really no difference between AL and mp3.

I've started experimenting with FLAC encoding, but I'm reluctant to switch to RockBox on my Ipod since I have so much music on my Mac in AL. I did a crude A/B between FLAC and AL, and thru my system and to my ears FLAC sounded a little smoother, AL a little crisper. I couldn't get an exact level match between the two, so my results are a big FWIW.

Has anyone noticed any difference in the 2 formats?

 

[rhester]

FLAC or Apple Losless are the only ways to go, IMHO. I have got so used to them that a iTunes store song sounds horrible now.

 

[didwlgh]

I'd say bare minimum 256k....I can't stand the obvious imperfections in 192ks or lower.
That said, a comparable VBR method should do just as well, if not better.

 

[gloco]

I encode everything to 224 vbr with eac+lame. Works well and it sounds great, to my ears at least.

 

[RasmusseN]

I use ALAC and FLAC now I'd recommend both

 

[Chri5peed]

I don't know why so many people battle against Lossless. If you spend $500 on a pair of headphones and another undisclosed amount on an Amp/DAC, why is it unreasonable to spend another $200 on storage for it?

No matter how you sweeten it, mp3 and all other Lossy codecs are at their base level just a compromise between SQ/Size.
Lossless format don't make any concessions or apologies. If you don't like them, don't use them. Simple.

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't know why so many people battle against Lossless. If you spend $500 on a pair of headphones and another undisclosed amount on an Amp/DAC, why is it unreasonable to spend another $200 on storage for it? No matter how you sweeten it, mp3 and all other Lossy codecs are at their base level just a compromise between SQ/Size. Lossless format don't make any concessions or apologies. If you don't like them, don't use them. Simple.

I wouldn't use lossless in my portable devices, where hard drive space is inherently limited, because I've confirmed through extensive ABX testing that I can't tell the difference between lossless and LAME -V5 mp3. Thus, it would be pointless for me to use lossless for portable purposes; I'm not willing to sacrifice battery life and 80% of my hard-drive capacity for a difference that I have never been able to confirm is even perceptible to me.

However, I don't think that I "battle against lossless." I do use lossless on my home PC. There, I have a total of 320GB of storage, and I can always add more when it becomes necessary, so it makes perfect sense for me to archive using FLAC or WavPack.

 

[Chri5peed]

^ We agree.

I wouldn't ever consider using Lossless portably. It develops many crucial disadvantages; its the main grievance but size is much more prevelant on DAPs, it sucks battery-life and you don't usually find a DAP being listened to critically, so any sonic advantages are lost.

Its not so much a battle here, amongst audiophiles, but it often is on general Music boards. I find it odd, if you don't like a TV program, you don't sit through it to be able to critise it on message boards.

 

[JES]

FLAC Level 8 for my favorites and OGG Q7 for the rest. Seems to work OK for my meager collection. I still have at least 20 GB free on my X5 60 GB.