[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by J Tran See something odd? Isn't FLAC "mathematically" equal to a CD? If so why is it smaller than the CD size? And the .WAV is equal to the CD size.

It's lossless but it is not identical in file size. This is because the file is compressed for the purpose of reducing its size. It is "lossless compression" because no data is removed. A CD contains nothing but 1's and 0's. So, to get lossless compression, you need some way to save all the 1's and 0's without using as much space.

Think of it like this. Imagine that the CD contains a little stretch of data that includes 12 zero's in a row, or "000000000000". If you think of it in terms of characters, that's "12 character's worth of space" that is being used. However, we might convey the same information by saying "12-0" (meaning "12 zero's"), and the way I've encoded that here takes up only 4 character's worth of space. So, I just compressed that little bit of data to 33.3% of it's original size.

To uncompress it back to its original form, all I need is something to read the "12-0' code and turn it back into "000000000000", and I recover the original without losing anything. When I turned the "000000000000" into "12-0" I encoded it. When I turn the "12-0" back into "000000000000", I decode it. FLAC (and any other implementation of a compression scheme) is called a "codec", which is short for "coder-decoder". This specific example is of a very simple compression scheme, but the basic idea is the same. Make sense?

Everybody who understands what happens agrees that "lossless compression" and "uncompressed" are identical in the end. The disagreement focuses on whether stronger compression schemes that do throw out some data can be just as good as the original. The high quality versions of "lossy compression" are more than just compression schemes. They are also based on psychoacoustic models of what people can and cannot perceive. They throw out the data that the models say people cannot perceive. Depending on how much you try to compress, people either can or cannot tell, and people vary on what their threshhold is. So, at what point can you start telling that they threw some bits away? That's what the main fuss is about.

 

[Svperstar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ralphp@optonline And until the music industry does something about the sad state of DRM, a computer as a basis for a serious music playback system will remain a joke and thus somewhat of a "toy". The DRM issue is another topic altogether, so let's not get into here.

LOL you sound like a 60 year old man that still hates these new fangled machines called computers. Let me guess, the internet is a collection of tubes, not a big truck?

DRM is completely irrelevant to the conversation. I don't purchase any DRM enabled music at all, and I have over 13,000 songs on my computer. Invasive DRM on new CDs can be countered by holding down shift in many cases.

You seem to represent the kind of person that gives audiophiles a bad name, anything that isn't ridiculously overpriced is a toy. To figure out what the best component is, just look at which one is most expensive, or has the highest model number

Only someone complete ignorant of technology would use your line of reasoning that DRM makes computers a toy.

 

[J Tran]

Thank you very very much russdog. Now, what program can I use to play .flac files? Foobar was it? Or am I just not reading correctly?

 

[ralphp@optonline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by russdog It's lossless but it is not identical in file size. This is because the file is compressed for the purpose of reducing its size. It is "lossless compression" because no data is removed. A CD contains nothing but 1's and 0's. So, to get lossless compression, you need some way to save all the 1's and 0's without using as much space. Think of it like this. Imagine that the CD contains a little stretch of data that includes 12 zero's in a row, or "000000000000". If you think of it in terms of characters, that's "12 character's worth of space" that is being used. However, we might convey the same information by saying "12-0" (meaning "12 zero's"), and the way I've encoded that here takes up only 4 character's worth of space. So, I just compressed that little bit of data to 33.3% of it's original size. To uncompress it back to its original form, all I need is something to read the "12-0' code and turn it back into "000000000000", and I recover the original without losing anything. When I turned the "000000000000" into "12-0" I encoded it. When I turn the "12-0" back into "000000000000", I decode it. FLAC (and any other implementation of a compression scheme) is called a "codec", which is short for "coder-decoder". This specific example is of a very simple compression scheme, but the basic idea is the same. Make sense? Everybody who understands what happens agrees that "lossless compression" and "uncompressed" are identical in the end. The disagreement focuses on whether stronger compression schemes that do throw out some data can be just as good as the original. The high quality versions of "lossy compression" are more than just compression schemes. They are also based on psychoacoustic models of what people can and cannot perceive. They throw out the data that the models say people cannot perceive. Depending on how much you try to compress, people either can or cannot tell, and people vary on what their threshhold is. So, at what point can you start telling that they threw some bits away? That's what the main fuss is about.

Thank you Russ,

That was an excellent summary, both lossless and lossy compression and the main agruement of this thread.

However, there are now several sub-arguements going on and the whole has turned into one big giant mess but I'm having a blast so who cares.

 

[ralphp@optonline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Svperstar LOL you sound like a 60 year old man that still hates these new fangled machines called computers. Let me guess, the internet is a collection of tubes, not a big truck? DRM is completely irrelevant to the conversation. I don't purchase any DRM enabled music at all, and I have over 13,000 songs on my computer. Invasive DRM on new CDs can be countered by holding down shift in many cases. You seem to represent the kind of person that gives audiophiles a bad name, anything that isn't ridiculously overpriced is a toy. To figure out what the best component is, just look at which one is most expensive, or has the highest model number Only someone complete ignorant of technology would use your line of reasoning that DRM makes computers a toy.

The first attack against me I didn't respond to because I felt the attacker was just being rather childish but now I'm beginning to get really pissed off at these unprovoked and unfounded assertions about me.

There's this little feature available to all uses here on head-fi called a "user profile", try looking at mine, I keep it fairly up to date. I looked at the user profile for "Svperstary" and there is no information there, so if I went on a rant like you just did I would be much more correct about you than were about me since I truly would have nothing to go on.

I venture to guess I was sending punch cards through an IBM 360 at college long before you were even born but then you wouldn't know what an IBM 360 or a punch card is, would you? As for the internet, I was active on CompuServe and local Bulletin Boards long before html was ever invented, so I think I know my way around.

And as for DRM, if you would just get your head out of that body cavity it's stuck in and back out into the daylight, you'd be better able to see that DRM is completely killing the "grand convergence" schemes of all these computer and electronics manufacturers. You know those "one box" solutions where the multimedia computer controls all the home entertain functions like music, movies, television, etc. The whole idea falls apart because of DRM issues and incompatabilities. And that's leaving out the DRM issues with portable digital music players.

So next time you decide to trash talk someone here on head-fi, do yourself a favor and at least take a quick glance at their user profile, you just might learn something useful and save yourself a little trouble.

 

[Sparky191]

This thread is making me a little sad. Theres no need for petty insults.

Perhaps we could change topic slightly and introduce ATRAC Lossless.

Another flawed format.

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by J Tran Thank you very very much russdog. Now, what program can I use to play .flac files? Foobar was it? Or am I just not reading correctly?

you can use foobar available at www.foobar2000.org or winamp with apropriate plugins. Foobar is nice because it provides a nice way to transcode your files on the fly with appropriate setup.

 

[Sparky191]

MediaMonkey is another alternative that does the same. I know people around here prefer Foobar but I can't warm to that program at all.

 

[ILikeMusic]

Quote:

So, at what point can you start telling that they threw some bits away? That's what the main fuss is about.

That's what the fuss should be about, but unfortunately in any such discussion someone will inevitably claim that ABX testing (or any attempt at any kind of rational testing to discover truth) is somehow invalid or flawed by its very nature and purely subjective impressions are somehow more valid, causing things to quickly degrade into more of a discussion of religious belief systems than anything else. This is effective debate technique for anyone who lacks data to support their position but it can never result in any kind of meaningful conclusion. If you are looking for accurate, reproducible comparisons of audio compression schemes one should probably try Hydrogenaudio. On the other hand if you like to endlessly debate subjectivism then this is the place to be.

 

[nspindel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by macky Wavpack encodes very fast for me, even compared to flac. If I had access to my computer right now I'd pull up some encode times from wav for you. The decoding time doesn't matter at all to me. The compression difference is big too, 0.7% may seem small, until you get into huge conversions. I saved over 7 gigs of hard drive space converting all of my flac to wavpack.

Hmmm, 300 gig drive I just bought for $89. So at 30 cents/gig, you just saved yourself $2.10. I'm signing off so I can go start converting my 1000 cd flac collection right now....

 

[nspindel]

The whole issue of whether one can tell the difference between lossless and 128kb mp3 is not really the issue.

If I am listening on my 650 rig, I can tell the difference between 128 and lossless flac. Every time. Period.

That doesn't mean that I don't use 128kb, though. I've got an iPod stuffed with them. I use it in my car. My car is a convertible. There is so much external noise in my car, that sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between lossless and AM radio. So being a purist in my car accomplishes zilch other than allowing me to carry around considerably less music on the road. And if I'm not using it in my car, I'm using it when walkding around on the streets with a cheapie pair of earphones, as I'm just too cool to be seen walking down the street with 650's on my head

If I go on a trip where I want to take my 650/Grado rig with me, I bought the iRiver on eBay for $150 for just that reason. I can jam about 60 cd's on there in flac format, more than enough for when I go on a biz trip and don't really have that much time to listen to music anyway.

It's not just about whether or not you can hear the difference. It's also about what the application is that you're using the different formats for. I'm more than happy with the quality I get on my iPod at 128kb when I'm driving down the highway with the top down in the car and practically have the stereo cranked to the point of distortion just so I can hear it over all the wind noise. At 128kb, I can just about fit 1000 cd's on my 60gig iPod. The right format for the right application.....

 

[ILikeMusic]

Quote:

The right format for the right application.....

I think that's a good point and a good way of looking at it.

But also... it isn't necessarily a choice of 128kb or lossless. You can encode in something like LAME -V0 and get files that are significantly smaller while maintaining complete transparency (for 99% of the people 99% of the time, have to include that disclaimer so as not to be flamed for being too absolute!) The result would mean having to maintain only one library of files for all of your portable devices which seems like an easier way to go.

 

[nspindel]

Ok, this is me disagreeing with you without flaming....

It's not really about saving storage, per se, is it? It's really about saving money, because it just takes a little money to get a lot more storage. I just saw outpost.com has 500 gig sata ii's for $179. 2 per customer. So $360 and you've got a terabyte of storage. Anyone have a terabyte of flacs? If yes, "I'M NOT WORTHY!!!!!"

So the amount of money that we're talking about here between any lossy format, regardless of the bitrate, and something lossless like flac for example, is in the order of $50-$100 max for a large-sized cd collection.

My point about the right format for the right application is this: take the extreme case where someone goes out and completely indulges themselves with the finest of audiophile equipment. Chances are such a person is spending more for one pair of stereo interconnects than they would have to spend on a terabyte of storage. My position is that if a person would spend that much money on audio equipment in order to listen to a lossy music collection really ought to be in a straight jacket and rubber room. That same person riding around in a convertible on a fast-moving highway would also be crazy to insist on listening to lossless music at the expense of not being able to carry around all their music with them in one convenient little gizmo.

Note that I wish I had the cash for the audiophile system

But I do love my convertible....

 

[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by J Tran Thank you very very much russdog. Now, what program can I use to play .flac files? Foobar was it? Or am I just not reading correctly?

There are many programs that can do it. Foobar is one of them. I prefer MediaMonkey myself, even though I don't use FLAC. There are many programs for use on your PC that can do it, and different people prefer different programs. The other concern is use on portables, like the iPod and others. These devices have codec's built into them (usually via software that lives in a computer chip). So, if you care about playing FLAC on portables, then you need to be sure that your portable mp3 player can handle it.

Personally, I don't care about FLAC, I think it's overkill for a theoretical benefit that makes exactly zero difference in the sound. Some people feel differently about it. From my point of view, the trick is to use a lossy scheme that produces sound indistinguishable from the original. Based on this, you might think there are 2 camps among people who are serious about sound quality:

1. Those who insist on lossless.
2. Those who find that a high-quality lossy is just as good.

But there are really another 2 camps:

1. Those who somehow believe that even lossless compression is different than the original. These people are simply wrong and are speaking from ignorance.
2. Those who prefer to keep lossless copies around for archiving use and/or use on their home systems, but who also use lossy versions on their portables so they can fit more stuff on their portables devices.

I started out thinking I would do it that way, but after doing my homework and working with it some, I decided that the hassle of maintaining different libraries was just not worth it to me. So, I have everything in LAME "alt-preset-Extreme". This is because I believe that I will never be able to tell the difference between that and the original. I mostly can't tell the different between the original and "alt-preset-Standard", so using "Extreme" gives me a safety margin. If I wanted even more of a safety margin, I could have used "alt-preset-Insane" but I decided that that would be, well, insane

 

[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspindel It's not really about saving storage, per se, is it? It's really about saving money, because it just takes a little money to get a lot more storage... My position is that if a person would spend that much money on audio equipment in order to listen to a lossy music collection really ought to be in a straight jacket and rubber room.

Sorry, but that's a very biased and unfair point of view view on 2 counts:

1. You are assuming that it's about being cheap, about saving money on hard drives. For me that has absolultely nothing to do with it. For me, it's about saving hassle. I want one library. I do not want 2 or 3 different libraries for different purposes. I want one library that I can use for home and for portable use. The limitation for portable use is the space available on the portable device. Therefore, I want the most space-efficient format that sounds perfect to me ears.
   
2. You are assuming that even a high quality "lossy" means some "loss" of sound quality. This is where a lot of people make a mistake. They see "lossy", and they read that bits are getting thrown away, and from that they jump to the conclusion that it's a bad thing that compromises sound quality. Whether it does or not depends primarily on the particular lossy scheme that's used. For some of them, AFAIK there are exactly zero known cases of anyone with non-deficient hearing being able to reliably tell the difference.

To say that people who use lossy for high-quality sound are somehow crazy is more of a reflection of ignorance than anything else. Sound is a lot like light. We can't see the light that our remote controls send to our TV's, but it's still there, it's just outside of what we can perceive. Good lossy compression takes very sophisticated approaches to filtering out things that cannot be heard viz. the other sounds that coexist on the recording. If you know of any methodolically sound evidence of people being able to distinguish, I would love to see it. AFAIK, such evidence does not exist. I am willing to believe that some people can tell the difference, but I haven't met any of them. I also believe that it's possible for human beings to pitch like Sandy Koufax did. But I can't do it, and I seriously doubt if you can either. But maybe you can.