[nspindel]

In my case, I would have to maintain two libraries regardless. My 60 gig ipod is absolutely stuffed with my 128kb library. I think it has room for 3 more songs or something like that.

Clearly you can't argue that a 128kb library would suffice for a high-end audiophile system, which is where I need to push the bitrate down to in order to fit everything.

So I would still need to maintain a higher quality lossy library along-side my 128kb library, otherwise I would have to remove some of the music from the ipod in order to clear space for the higher quality lossy files. If I were willing to carry less music on the ipod, I could just rockbox the ipod and play my flacs on it, and have the one library.

So for a large collection like mine, I couldn't have one library even if I wanted to. And chances are that people with very high end audio equipment also have a large library - generally people who spend $10,000 or much, much more on a stereo are not frugal when it comes to buying cd's.

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ILikeMusic On the other hand if you like to endlessly debate subjectivism then this is the place to be.

QFT

 

[macky]

I doubt you really care anymore, but I just did a little informal test with wav, wavpack, flac, vorbis and mp3.

Done on an athlon x2 3800+ at stock speed, 1 gig of pc3200 DDR RAM. Foobar2000 used.

http://www.mackycorp.org/etc/encode_decode.html

I didn't bother doing any real formatting of the page, and I don't intend to.

 

[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspindel In my case, I would have to maintain two libraries regardless. My 60 gig ipod is absolutely stuffed with my 128kb library. I think it has room for 3 more songs or something like that. Clearly you can't argue that a 128kb library would suffice for a high-end audiophile system, which is where I need to push the bitrate down to in order to fit everything. So I would still need to maintain a higher quality lossy library along-side my 128kb library, otherwise I would have to remove some of the music from the ipod in order to clear space for the higher quality lossy files. If I were willing to carry less music on the ipod, I could just rockbox the ipod and play my flacs on it, and have the one library. So for a large collection like mine, I couldn't have one library even if I wanted to. And chances are that people with very high end audio equipment also have a large library - generally people who spend $10,000 or much, much more on a stereo are not frugal when it comes to buying cd's.

I understand what you are saying. You and I have made different choices. For myself, as a general rule I don't want to listen to 128's. Instead, I have opted to fit fewer items on my 60gb iPod in return to get both higher quality sound and the simplicity that comes from having a single library at "alt-preset-Extreme". I'm not trying to suggest that you "should" do the same thing I've done. I am not trying to say that you made an incorrect choice. If what you have done works for you, that's great and is just as it should be.

However, I most definitely am saying that people should not make arrogant and idiotic statements to the effect that what I've chosen to do is somehow wrong or inferior or misguided. What I have done is neither wrong nor inferior nor misguided. For me, it is correct, is of superlative quality, and was very carefully chosen.

 

[nspindel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by russdog However, I most definitely am saying that people should not make arrogant and idiotic statements...

You want to clarify that statement a bit? Are you talking about me?

 

[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspindel You want to clarify that statement a bit? Are you talking about me?

I have no idea. Were you one of the people saying that folks who didn't do lossless are somehow wrong or inferior? If you were, then yes. If you weren't, and you were instead just talking about what works best for you, then no, not at all.

 

[J Tran]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspindel 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....

89$?!?!

Where did you get that? At Futureshop here there was a 250gb portable hardrive for 149.99 CND... but if your harddrive is internal, then I that makes sense.

EDIT: I think I'll try finding the pluggins for Winamp. Since I already know how to use it. But thanks again russdog.

 

[ILikeMusic]

Quote:

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.

In the extreme case where someone goes out and completely indulges themselves with the finest of audiophile equipment then I guess it doesn't matter what they do because they will probably have access to essentially unlimited storage space... and since they indulge themselves with the finest of audiophile equipment no doubt they believe that they can tell the difference between high-bitrate compressed or lossless, or between various interconnects, or even between silver and copper conductors

and they might as well engage their fancy (or fantasy, as the case may be.)

But that example isn't very useful for most of us who do have practical limitations to the amount of storage available. FLAC is great for archival storage at home on your RAID5 terabyte cube but whenever storage space is limited in any way (as it typically is for portable devices) then lossless just doesn't make much sense. There are always exceptions of course but in the real world high-bitrate compressed is usually the right format for portable use for the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time.

 

[Sparky191]

Encoding to the lossy format on the fly when transferring to the portable negates that argument a little. Though its a lot more time consuming to do, than if you had your library already in a lossy format.

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by macky http://www.mackycorp.org/etc/encode_decode.html I didn't bother doing any real formatting of the page, and I don't intend to.

nice test yours shows pretty reflect all the other ones I have seen. Wavpack offering better compression and faster encode. Flac offers faster decode. Lancer is super fast my vorbis codec of choice if I don't transcode to lame.

 

[nspindel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by russdog I have no idea. Were you one of the people saying that folks who didn't do lossless are somehow wrong or inferior? If you were, then yes. If you weren't, and you were instead just talking about what works best for you, then no, not at all.

Only points I'm making are 1) that it works for me, and 2) if you're pumping through to a really high end audio system, then why wouldn't you store a lossless version. Someone in that bracket could pay me to maintain the two libraries for them

Nobody's saying anyone else is wrong for doing what they want, or are inferior. No need to take debate so personally....

 

[nspindel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by J Tran 89$?!?! Where did you get that? At Futureshop here there was a 250gb portable hardrive for 149.99 CND... but if your harddrive is internal, then I that makes sense. EDIT: I think I'll try finding the pluggins for Winamp. Since I already know how to use it. But thanks again russdog.

Well, I got that deal a while back. Sweet deal they have now is $179.90 for 500gig Maxtor Sata II. If you click this link and the price is higher, you missed this special, but these guys always have something going on if you click on weekly specials...

http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4551377

 

[Altoids]

Wow, this is still on. I don't understand what's so difficult to understand about all this. Regarding lossless archiving, why bother being lazy? If you could magically duplicate your car, or your house, and store it some place for safe-keeping, you would, so why not create a few cheap backups of your music? A spare hard drive and a few dvds provide a perfect home and mobile solution. Also, it's smart to archive in lossless instead of lossy. Who knows when a better codec or new audio format will come out, or you'll buy an mp3 player that doesn't support your codec of choice? You'd be happy to have the bit-perfect originals on hand if you didn't have any hard copies.

And whoever swears they can tell the difference between high quality lossy and lossless, abx a maxed out ogg file (500kb/s cbr) and a wav. If you can make them out, I owe you a hooker.

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Altoids And whoever swears they can tell the difference between high quality lossy and lossless, abx a maxed out ogg file (500kb/s cbr) and a wav.

I think they should talk to the lossy codec's development team so they can fix whatever they are hearing.

 

[jisc]

i remember when the first time i heard and used mp3, 1998 i think, im ripping my cd to 32kbps or 64kbps and im saying to my friends that its like a CD quality

thats because i've never really had a good earphones or a good audio setup.

now im looking for a mp3 search software that can hunt down and delete all my mp3 with less than 192kbps

because when played, they make my speaker sounds smaller.