[papakoks]

LOSSLESS

 

[Blitzzz]

lossless at home on the computer, might as well keep the best source since its not that difficult to do.

used to do lossless on ipod but have recently shifted to lame alt preset extreme to conserve battery life.

I find that as long as your rip it properly with a good encoder, 192 and up is not that terrible...

 

[donunus]

If you were using a DAP, I recommend using lame 3.97 preset fast standard. It is the best ratio for the number of songs you can put in your DAP vs sound quality. I used foobar to abx a lot of different songs and couldn't tell the difference between CD and Lame PFS for about 50% of my songs using my senn 555s. And the differences in sound when they were detectable to me and passed the blind tests were there but not as big as some would expect. Some songs with veeery quick transients for example just sound more startling from the original cd vs the mp3. When I go back to that particular point in the track to pin down why the CD is more startling than the mp3, it is because the mp3 adds a sort of "blending in" I guess some kind of dithering to the sound a split second before the actual attack. take note this is not like the pirated internet mp3s encoded in blade enc that sound like dung and are blurred all over the place in all frequencies.

If you visit the hydrogen audio website, they cover this topic a lot. But for me and my sound testing with foobar, I also compared preset fast standard with preset fast extreme(best quality VBR), and preset insane(320kbps) to the original cds and found that the differences between the three mp3 settings were less compared to comparing any of them to the original CD. All of them still have an mp3 signature but to a lower degree than old encoders from back in the 90s for example.
Bottom line is... If you have the space, use lossless or original cds, preferably european or US made. My CDs bought here in the philippines even if they are original don't sound as good for some reason than US bought CDs which is very weird( most people I know can't tell the difference though). If you're using a dap under 5 gigs, I would use lame preset fast standard. If you are making mp3s for mp3CDs, I would encode at lame preset fast extreme... It is only slightly larger than fast standard but has basically the same sound quality as 320 preset insane. Use 320 only if you are testing or using hard to encode problem samples which in that case screw it and go for lossless or listen to the CD.
Hope I helped....

Extra Stuff: If you use an Ipod, use AAC instead of Mp3. You will have less of a problem with some vbr mp3s skipping on the ipods plus 192VBR mp3s sound very close to the CD and is slightly smaller than lame preset standard MP3s. AAC has a different sound signature with its artifacts and is more pleasing to the ears compared to mp3 artifacts IMO.... The higher the bitrate the less possibility of artifacts still applies

 

[stan11003]

340 AAC VBR and sometimes Apple Lossless

 

[Oliver :)]

Apple Lossless. Home and portable.

 

[Kiwiclx]

VBR MP3 via Hydrogen's Audio recommended LAME version using "--vbr-new" algorithm.

I don't mind lossless like FLAC (especially now that RockBox is up on my iPod) and actually have some CDs ripped using Apple Lossless.

 

[Comfy]

I use vbr mp3s at >192Kb. I think the point is to use a quality compression software (like LAME) and quality presets. Ripping with a quality software (like EAC) helps, too. I cannot hear enough difference between my mp3s and lossless to justify buying a bigger hard disk or a bigger capacity DAP. I also do listen mostly to 60s and 70s rock, so the quality isn't that great to begin with. I'd be able to hear a perfectly reproduced hiss, at best...

 

[labrat]

Deleted.

 

[cheechoz]

After years of testing, I found that there is nothing better than the Lame MP3 encoder, bar none!! I encode either in APX (alt preset extreme), or API (alt preset insane). APX is the highest quality variable bit rate switch. With these switches, the music is transparent, so you can't tell the difference from the original!

 

[donunus]

Cheechoz,
Is it just me or did the old standard at hydrogen which was lame 3.90.3 sound hollow compared to the new version of lame? I was encoding BTs Emotional Technology at the time I had the old lame version and was comparing it with WMA 192 and vbr and felt the wma was more moving(better PRAT). I didn't do a cd abx at the time though comparing the wma to the cd so the wma might have just made the music more exciting than the original

Do you know anything about this? I wasn't paranoid enough at that time to do exstensive abx testing yet so I just got rid of the older lame and moved on

 

[Comfy]

Damn, I guess my LAME is outdated too then.

Well, it's a pretty cheap source upgrade to download the new LAME and to re-rip my two or three reference cds...

 

[donunus]

Comfy,Theres a newer EAC too

 

[Chri5peed]

I use 320K Lame mp3s on my DAP.

When I begin to use my ESI soundcard everything will be in Flac, due to having 200GBs of free HDD space.

 

[rudyhf]

In a direct comparison between .wav and Lossless via an iPod Photo 4G 60gb on a high resolution home sound system, the differences were small, with a nodding preference toward the uncompressed .wav playback. The high frequency extension, bass impact, instrumental placement and sense of dimensionality were better with .wav, however the Lossless rendition was well enough presented to be a meaningful approach. For portability I now use Lossless as my main encoding method. I only copy my own favorite CDs to the iPod and do not use downloaded individual songs, if that is useful information.

Using this iPod set up through HD600s/Equinox/Zu Pivot m-to-m and the RSA SR-71, I find much to enjoy.

AAC encoding was clearly inferior in tonality, soundspace rendering and transparency, if you will pardon the audiophilic jargon.

 

[sonic_rage]

192kb atrac3