Quote:
Originally posted by Agent0040oz
Lossless works the same way that DVDs work (which is very clever) where they save disk space by not using as much bit rate in softer or less complex passages. So basically yeah, they sound about perfect. I've had trouble using such codecs though with 24/96. There's probably something I did wrong granted. 24/96 seems pretty hairy with a lot of computer software though, I've found recording software to be the best at handling it. I use Home Studio 2004 which was pretty cheap also. |
No actually you're wrong. That's
LOSSY compression. ie: information is lost in the compression process (even if it's unecessary information like you describe). You're right about DVDs, they use lossy compression. But lossless compression (as suggested here) reduces the size of music files by 40-60% without losing a single bit of information. It uses the same type of compression as a zip file does; A file, zipped up, will be smaller than the original, but, after some processing the original can be extracted out from this smaller file. It requires some processing by the player to decode the file, but the load is really miniscule. A Flac or Monkey audio file will decode and play
exactly as the source uncompressed wav file does. Period. The bits playing from memory (they will be decoded at that point) are the same as the uncompressed wav. Anyone who claims to 'hear a difference' between a wav and a lossless compression format is either using a flawed encoder/player or hearing things.
The basis of lossless compression (in zip files, music, or anything else) is patterns found in the material. If a source material contains patterns (even very low level) - it can be compressed without losing any information. If you had totally random data (completely random string of zeros and ones), you could not compress this data. Fortunately for us, music is a highly pattern-based source, allowing a large amount of lossless data compression.
I'm not trying to force you to use a lossless compression format (although in your position, there is no reason not to, unless your player of choice will simply not decode any of them under any circumstances) -- I'm simply trying to educate.
By the way -- what player are you using? It seems your serious about sound from your computer, and in my experience, playback via Foobar2000 using kernel streaming will beat the pants off any other player out there right now. Why? It bypasses the windows sound APIs that mess with the sound before it's even passed to your sound card. It's also about the only player out there built around sound quality features, instead of having options tacked on later.
-dd3mon
