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If I mostly listen to mp3's, does it make sense to spend more than $100 on headphones?
Apr 9, 2011 at 2:08 PM Post #62 of 151
Quote:Originally Posted by tribestros 

"Not portable space. :)"


I'm just repeating myself over and over again. I dealt with that issue just a few posts ago.


On better main systems, with full sized amps, computer space is cheap. Cheap enough to have a 1TB or 2TB drive. Enough space to have all your files in .wav for home listening and 320kps mp3 for DAP usage.
 
Apr 9, 2011 at 2:27 PM Post #63 of 151
[size=small]I guess here is the take home for me from all of this:[/size]
[size=small] [/size]
[size=small](1)[/size]   [size=small]lossless is better than lossy in every way except for file size[/size]
[size=small][/size]
[size=small](2)[/size]   [size=small]file size is no longer the problem it once was (and will likely even be less so in the future) as storage space is cheap[/size]
[size=small][/size]
[size=small](3)[/size]   [size=small]if you find portable storage space expensive now (and need to have 1000s of songs on your portable device at any one given time) convert lossless to lossy for that device (see #2 above)[/size]
[size=small][/size]
[size=small](4)[/size]   [size=small]rip new stuff  lossless, re-rip “good” old stuff  lossless and leave other stuff high bit rate lossy (if you can live with it)[/size]
[size=small][/size]
[size=small](5)[/size]   [size=small]different genres and different recordings may show greater audible differences between lossless and lossy[/size]
[size=small][/size]
[size=small](6)[/size]   [size=small]humans differ and some may be able to tell the difference between lossless and lossy more than others… and some may psychologically feel better with lossless even if they can’t always tell the difference[/size]
[size=small] [/size]
[size=small]I could not image seriously listening to my favourite music in a lossy format right now… However, on the go or at work with background noise and other distractions I can probably live with lossy. [/size]
 
Apr 9, 2011 at 2:42 PM Post #64 of 151
not really. maybe for a computer but most of us store more then just music files on our computers. if all of the music i had was lossless it would exceed my hardrives storage capacity, it would even exceed a 1tb drives capacity, not to mention there is no way in hell i could fit it on my ipod.
 
Apr 9, 2011 at 2:49 PM Post #65 of 151
I'm sorry, I seriously doubt many of you could tell the difference between 320 MP3 and FLAC on good headphones.
 
Apr 9, 2011 at 3:05 PM Post #66 of 151
Just out of curiousty I tried this out:
 

 
I'm not familiar with the songs, I found the jazz song the easiest to tell the difference. I'm confident that with a greater familiarity with the songs I can 100% this test. This was just a quick note.
 
This is between 128kbps and 320kbps, so I can hear that much, most of my collection is flac, and I am not at a shortage of space.
 
Apr 9, 2011 at 3:33 PM Post #68 of 151
Lets do some math here.  I have an unremarkable (IMO) collection of music files that has grown organically over the years.  Almost all are mp3's and they run the full gamut of bitrates.
 
Media Monkey says I have 13,049 files in my library which total to about 916 hours.  This takes up 77.1GB.  How much would it take up if it was all in FLAC?
 
916 hours times 60 minutes per hour times 60 seconds per minute is 3,297,600 seconds.
 
The uncompressed data in CD quality comes to 1,411,200 bits per second.
 
Divide by 8 to get 176,400 bytes per second.
 
3,297,600 seconds times 176,400 bytes per second is 581,696,640,000 bytes or 581.6964GB in uncompressed WAV
 
Average compression from FLAC is about 57% according to the developers.  That would bring the space requirements down to about 332GB, but if you want maximum compatibility along with minimum transcoding you'll have to leave them in WAV or keep an mp3 copy at 320 or V0 as well which will negate the space savings from FLAC.
 
If you don't want to mess with RAIDs, NAS, SANs, or other options which are complicated for many people to do themselves or expensive to get done for you, you'll need a pair of 1TB drives.  Remember that data you don't back up is data you don't want to keep and that you'll likely want room to grow as well.
 
This has been possible to do for a reasonable price for several years now, but most people started amassing music on their computers far before this was feasible.  Ripping CDs to FLAC as you acquire them is pretty easy but re-ripping all of them now in light of plentiful cheap storage is a major undertaking.  How many of those CDs do you still even own?  Once you've got the data on your hard drive its very easy for the physical media to get lost, forgotten, or lent, never to be seen again.
 
The moral of this story is that while it now makes sense to acquire new music in lossless formats for reasons of future proofing (if nothing else), you shouldn't worry to much about your "legacy" library of mp3's.  Files produced from any halfway modern encoder still sound plenty good and the format isn't going to die off anytime soon so you've got plenty of time to re-rip or re-acquire music in lossless as schedule and budget permits.
 
Apr 9, 2011 at 3:35 PM Post #69 of 151
Apr 9, 2011 at 8:48 PM Post #70 of 151


 
Quote:
takashimiike said:
Just out of curiousty I tried this out:
 

 
I'm not familiar with the songs, I found the jazz song the easiest to tell the difference. I'm confident that with a greater familiarity with the songs I can 100% this test. This was just a quick note.
 
This is between 128kbps and 320kbps, so I can hear that much, most of my collection is flac, and I am not at a shortage of space.
Click to expand...



Is that what the test is about? I thought the debate was centered on MP3 320 v. FLAC.
 
 
Apr 9, 2011 at 8:49 PM Post #71 of 151
 
Quote:
tribestros said:
I'm sorry, I seriously doubt many of you could tell the difference between 320 MP3 and FLAC on good headphones.
Click to expand...


As do I.
 
 
 
(Hey, I think I might have watched too many episodes of Stargate SG1
biggrin.gif
)
 
 
Apr 9, 2011 at 8:51 PM Post #72 of 151


 
Quote:
baka1969 said:
Quote:Originally Posted by pp312 



"I should have made it clear that my problems encompassed all uncompressed formats. I was just using FLAC as a general synonym for lossless. The only formats I can get to play continuously are MP3 and WMA. Whatever we here in audiophile-land may think, most manfacturers of regular, as opposed to audiophile equipment, simply do not expect people to want to move beyond MP3. It's perhaps indicative that Noontec didn't even offer me an apology for the fact that their equipment can't play lossless. They appeared to consider it a very minor inconvenience, and to be honest, so do I. I only castigated them for the principle of the thing."


I have no problems with .wav.
Click to expand...



Sorry, I don't think I understand.
 
 
Apr 10, 2011 at 2:06 AM Post #74 of 151
It's a debate between 'lossless is better, so why not' and 'high mp3 is where diminishing return starts, so why bother'. I'm on the later camp as I'm not terribly interested in maximizing my music sq.
 
Apr 10, 2011 at 2:58 AM Post #75 of 151
well, the point of the thread was not to debate whether lossless or mp3 is "better". clearly, lossless is better in terms of sound, mp3s are better in terms of size. i just wanted to know if mp3's warranted really good headphones, or if those headphones would be wasted on mp3s. And it seems most people think high bitrate mp3s sound good enough to justify expensive headphones. so....y'all can debate away, but I got the input i was looking for.  so "thank you" to everyone who contributed to this thread. i really appreciate it.  :)
 
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