mp3 vs. ALAC - You Gotta Be Kiddin' ! Long Live Lossless!!

[ptaaty]

what bit-rate, encoding?

I am not going to say that people can't tell differnces, because I laugh at those who think 128k is "cd quality" as any high freq info burns my ears!

However somewhere around 320k, I don't know if I would ever tell as far as portable audio goes...throw me in a high fidelity home system perfectly tuned and my chances would definately go up.

Everything I have and 95%+ of my listening is done at 320k LAME mp3. However, when I get serious, it's certain CDs or DVD-A.

 

[K2Grey]

And there are no times when you are listening to OK Computer and you are lost in the music and deriving great enjoyment from it, and you find out that you are listening to the LAME API version?

 

[vranswer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K2Grey And there are no times when you are listening to OK Computer and you are lost in the music and deriving great enjoyment from it, and you find out that you are listening to the LAME API version?

Yes, there are such times. I am quite regularly perfectly happy with my 320 Kbps API music. In fact, ALAC's voracious battery appetite will often sway me in the direction of API. There are just times when I want it all....

.

 

[Xanatos]

I like the idiots who encode their mp3/aac files at 320kbps simply because it's the highest quality setting. What if the upper limit was higher, say 500? (Vorbis comes to mind.)

I believe there's a thing called "transparency"...

 

[Skylab]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xanatos I believe there's a thing called "transparency"...

There are plenty of people who feel strongly that full 16/44.1 is not transparent.

 

[vranswer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xanatos I like the people who encode their mp3/aac files at 320kbps simply because it's the highest quality setting. What if the upper limit was higher, say 500? (Vorbis comes to mind.) I believe there's a thing called "transparency"...

I was considering some math as well. WAV is what, 1440 kbps? Lossless (essentially zip) files bottom in around 800 - and API is....320? Is there that much 'nothingness' that can be tossed out resulting in a file sampling at less than HALF (using the 800 number) of lossless? Perhaps there is. I'm not one of those trained experts at HA (which I read and enjoy often), but I BELIEVE I've heard the difference.

IMO, this thing called 'transparency' is reached when no audio data is 'lossed'.

 

[Xanatos]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skylab There are plenty of people who feel strongly that full 16/44.1 is not transparent.

compared to what?

 

[Xanatos]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vranswer IMO, this thing called 'transparency' is reached when no audio data is 'lossed'.

That doesn't make any sense. Look up this thing called transparency you should...

 

[vranswer]

Understand this thing called sense, you might...

 

[titaniumx3]

What really needs to be done is for someone to sneak in some mp3>alac transcodes into your ipod; hmmm, that would be very interesting indeed.

Personally I've given up on trying to convince myself I can hear the difference (even if I can) and just stick with mp3/ogg at a decent bitrate. Fact is, its amazing to hear something sound so good, even though you've just chucked away a good 1200kbps of bitrate.

 

[Xanatos]

 

[donunus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vranswer 'Out Of Myself' by Riverside

Is this the riverside that did waterfall? Similar to bands like the railway children and the ocean blue?

 

[donunus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by richard The question here is whether one dinner does taste better than another.

Or are we all in the matrix

 

[vranswer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donunus Is this the riverside that did waterfall? Similar to bands like the railway children and the ocean blue?

Don't believe so. Riverside is a relatively new prog/metal band from Poland. English lyric-singing, very powerful and original.

 

[K2Grey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vranswer IMO, this thing called 'transparency' is reached when no audio data is 'lossed'.

From what I've heard, the cochlea or whatever receives audio data at a low bitrate, so if we theoretically had perfect psychoacoustic models, then we could encode everything at 50kbps and it'd be transparent.