[dallan]

Spike99, 
Apple Lossless-same lossless like flac but for ipod/iphones.  You can start by ripping one of your cd's to apple lossless.  You need to go into itunes and change your importing preferences.  You can download some music apple lossless but easier to find flac and then convert it with a conversion program like xACT or XLD.  One advantage of an amp is it uses the better line out of the iphone from the dock at the bottom, but for that you also would need a line out dock cable from the doc to the amp.  
 
Anyway, use them for a week or two and then go back to your old iems and see what you think.
 
FYI i use a Highfiman HM-801 with the game amp installed which is for iems.  When i use an ipod i use the Fostex HP-P1 with it's built in amp.  Been a while since i was even using the doc out but it made a noticeable difference to me.  
Good Luck with it.

 

[Spike99]

Thanks for the info Dallan.

I don't have any CD's to rip Not a fan of buying CD's, probably would prefer to buy single songs.

I will download a FLAC song and then convert to apple lossless with one of your suggested software...

On the road to musical nirvana

 

[3X0]

I use the Klipsch Image X10 for the gym as beater headphones, and they sound great. Although I own the JH13s I don't find myself missing them while at the gym; I'm too drawn into the music.
 
Source isn't as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Recording quality does make a substantial difference but the source hardware isn't a big deal past a certain threshold, especially when you're talking about desktop (e.g. AC-powered) equipment.

 

[Spike99]

BTW, I did have some old CD's (Classic soul ballads)... I did rip them... I initially ripped them with Apple lossless Encoder... but for some reason... my pre-pro Integra 80.3 was unable to read from DLNA... So decided to try WAV (lossless) and my pre-pro was able to read it fine... Files are pretty huge over 30MB each song... I suppose its better than my mp3's that are usually less than 4MB I'll be checking how they sound via IPad/IPhone this week.

 

[SoupRKnowva]

Quote:

BTW, I did have some old CD's (Classic soul ballads)... I did rip them... I initially ripped them with Apple lossless Encoder... but for some reason... my pre-pro Integra 80.3 was unable to read from DLNA... So decided to try WAV (lossless) and my pre-pro was able to read it fine... Files are pretty huge over 30MB each song... I suppose its better than my mp3's that are usually less than 4MB I'll be checking how they sound via IPad/IPhone this week.

 
The reason is that until recently the ALAC decoder/encoder was closed source, so most hardware didnt support it at all. WAV files are just raw PCM data inside of a container. Though if you're going that route, i would at least reccomend AIFF files, since they are also raw PCM data but they also support tagging

 though your pre/pro might be able to do FLAC audio, which is the Free Lossless Audio Codec.

 

[dallan]

Quote:

Source isn't as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Recording quality does make a substantial difference but the source hardware isn't a big deal past a certain threshold, especially when you're talking about desktop (e.g. AC-powered) equipment.

Got to disagree with you on source with the JH13 or other highend headphones.  With mid range and low end source doesn't matter that much but I find with the detail I get from the 13's and HD800 for instance, source is noticeable.  The place i hear the difference the least is out in the world where there is some competing noise(although not too much with iem's) as opposed to home where it is noise floor around doesn't get in the way.  

 

[Spike99]

Quote:

 
The reason is that until recently the ALAC decoder/encoder was closed source, so most hardware didnt support it at all. WAV files are just raw PCM data inside of a container. Though if you're going that route, i would at least reccomend AIFF files, since they are also raw PCM data but they also support tagging

 though your pre/pro might be able to do FLAC audio, which is the Free Lossless Audio Codec.

 
I have heard tagging before... but don't know what that means ?
 
Looks like I have a issue ... Doesn't appear that Spotify supports WAV files... I'm really using Spotify more and more... and since wav is not supported went back to Apple Lossless (m4a). Since I'm using Spotify... I'm able to add a play list and copy music from my PC to a library list in Spotify... Below is what Spotify supports... Doesn't look like AIFF is supported ?
 
Which file types are supported by Spotify?

• .mp3, .mp4, .m4a and .m4r files are supported.
• .m4p is supported, but these files are usually protected by iTunes. Spotify can’t play them, but will try to match them against the corresponding Spotify track.
• .m4v, .3gp, .3g2 and .mov files will be imported, but will only be playable if they were originally exported as audio files.

 

[nc8000]

Tagging is when you add metadata to you music files. Metadata (means data about data) is all the descriptions about the music like artist name, album name and so on

 

[Spike99]

Quote:

Tagging is when you add metadata to you music files. Metadata (means data about data) is all the descriptions about the music like artist name, album name and so on

OK.. Got it

 

[Spike99]

Hi again...
 
OK, I do see the light now...  I've been going to HDtracks website and I have listened to samples of various artists... and I'm sold on FLAC files
 
I probably should be asking in another forum but 
1.  FLAC's are very detailed music.... very impressed... and I can see why I've read some ppl comment "garbage in garbage out"...  But confused a bit on something.  As mentioned previously, I had some old CD's that I ripped in Apple Lossless and for some reason... my ripped songs don't seem as detailed as FLAC music.... why is this ?
 
2.   I was able to find the same songs in Spotify.. and FLAC puts Spotify to shame... For example, I play a FLAC song and then play same song on Spotify... I have to put my headphone volume half way on my headset due to loudness on FLAC, but when I put same song on Spotify... volume is like halved... I set vol all the way and its not as loud and obviously not as detailed...
 
I definitely enjoyed the FLAC songs... and would like to join the FLAC club... but found that HD tracks website seems to have limited artists.... ?  Is there another website that have a bigger selection of artists ?
 
How do I copy FLAC files to IPhone ?

 

[nc8000]

HDTracks probably have the largest available selection on the net today but there are many other places that also sell flac.

To play flac on iPhone you need an app like flacplayer.

Technically the same cd encoded to flac and alac should produce the same sound when played back since both formats are lossless but it does seem that both file format and playback software can make a difference to the sound

 

[Spike99]

Quote:

HDTracks probably have the largest available selection on the net today but there are many other places that also sell flac.
To play flac on iPhone you need an app like flacplayer.
Technically the same cd encoded to flac and alac should produce the same sound when played back since both formats are lossless but it does seem that both file format and playback software can make a difference to the sound

 
Yes, currently checking FLAC Player & Golden Ear.  
 
Looks like FLAC Player supports 24bit/96KHz but down converts to 16bit/48KHz.
Golden Ear supports 24bit/96KHz but I don't know if it down converts... sent a mail to developer to check on this....
 
Yes, that makes sense.... maybe the playback software was different... hence the difference.

 

[dallan]

If you like live music, archive.org has free flac files but quality varies, some are soundboard copies and others are audience mics.  You  can set it to see the source when looking thru band shows.

 

[Spike99]

Quote:

If you like live music, archive.org has free flac files but quality varies, some are soundboard copies and others are audience mics.  You  can set it to see the source when looking thru band shows.

 
OK... I'll check it out.
 
Since I'm getting more interested in FLAC music....  Thinking of the possibility of playing them on my HT.  My pre pro (Integra 80.3) does support FLAC but not remote play back (which I suspect over the network)... So I suppose I need to plug a music server or a hard drive directly to pre pro.
 
I suppose a music server would be best ?  Are there recommendations for music servers ? And come to think... it would be a plus if I can download blu ray movies as well... ?
 
Thanks in advance.

 

[dallan]

Here is a link right to the band list.
 
http://archive.org/browse.php?collection=etree&field=%2Fmetadata%2Fcreator