[Leslie Dorner]

This may not make a lot of sense to some people here, but I recently decided to delete my entire flac music library and I decided to switch to 320 Kbps MP3s in order to save disk space. I have about 14,500 songs and it took up about 386 gigabytes in flac format. I thought that was too much disk space so I converted all of it to 320 Kbps MP3s using the Fraunhofer and a few of them use LAME 3.9.8 --preset-insane.
 
I don't notice any differences in sound quality.
 
My audio system is well over $10,000.00 USD.
 
Seriously.
 
Now, my MP3 collection is 148.2 gigabytes. It's a lot smaller. I could fit everything on a 160 gigabyte portable DAP if I had one.
 
I get the idea of loss less audio formats, but I think that people should give 320 Kbps AAC or MP3 a try. You'll save a ton of disk space.
 
I have over 10 terabytes of storage capacity.
 
I understand why some people shake their heads and ask why?!
 
But, I still enjoy my music library and the sound quality is not reduced to my ears.
 
I can't tell you how many times I failed ABX tests. I tried 30 ABX tests using well recorded and mastered songs and I got less than 0.10 percent correct while comparing flac to 320 Kbps MP3s.
 
I don't understand why I should eat up disk space for flac files when I can't reliably tell the differences between flac and 320 Kbps MP3s. It doesn't make logical sense to me.
 
I don't plan to transcode my music again. It took a very long period of time to convert them from flac to mp3 formats.
 
I highly recommend the AAC format over MP3, but I use Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit and Banshee and Rhythmbox have a hard time reading AACs. MP3 is a near universal audio codec and format so I was concerned about compatibility with different devices and players.
 
I did notice a difference between 256 Kbps -v0 MP3s and 320 Kbps --preset-insane MP3s in my initial tests when converting one album from flac. I decided that I wanted the higher bitrate MP3s.
 
Does anyone else share similar opinions or experiences?

 

[e6600]

hd space nowadays should be a non issue, its about $100 usd for a 2tb hard drive
are you using a laptop?

 

[Leslie Dorner]

Yeah. I have a System76 lemur ultra thin (lemu4). I run Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit. I have a Crucial M4 128 GB ssd.
 
I agree that hdd prices are coming back down to their pre-Thailand flood levels. I have a Western Digital My Passport 2 TB USB 3.0 Portable hdd where I store my media libraries.
 
It's just that I'd rather conserve disk space by going with MP3s. It's a lot faster to download MP3s than flac files. I have access to a VPN and a fiber optic ISP [verizon fios].
 
I can store 29,000 songs at 320 Kbps MP3s for less than 300 GB. To me, that makes a lot more sense. If I still had my flac files, then that would consume about 775 GB. It's a big difference!
 
I still can't tell a difference between flac and 320 Kbps mp3. I'm talking about 16 bit 44.1 kHz music.
 
I can tell a difference between 24 bit 88.2, 96, 172.4, and 192 kHz flac files and mp3s, but my source can only handle 24 bit 96 kHz over USB 2.
 
I just don't think it's worth it to store flac files anymore. I can store roughly 97,333 songs with 1 tb at 320 Kbps mp3s. That's almost 100,000 songs. I would still fail ABX tests miserably comparing flac to mp3s at 16 bits 44.1 kHz resolution.
 
Think about it.

 

[HeadFiend]

There is no doubt that MP3 320 sounds good, and like you said, you can't tell the difference. But with 10TB of storage, I don't understand the point of saving half a terabyte?
 
The problem is that you are now stuck with that format: you won't be able to convert it to some newer format (AAC or whatever comes along) without some loss of quality.

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I understand.
 
I don't care about 16 bit 44.1 kHz music as nearly as much as 24 bit 192 kHz flac files from my HD Tracks account. I can download my purchases and put them into a separate folder but it'll cost me over 30 GB.
 
The thing to keep in mind is that the mp3 codec and format has been around for more than a decade. I find that newer audio codecs and formats like OPUS start with PCs first and then it's up to the music and electronics industries to support it with new devices. They become so specialized that some audio codecs and formats never wind up outside of your PC so that you can put it in your pocket and just listen to your music library on the go. I also found out that these new audio formats rarely wind up being supported in your digital source components at home in your high end stereo.
 
Hi-Fi is pretty conservative by nature. It takes years before the high end audio industry to finally get around to supporting popular audio formats and the reverse sometimes is never true. SACD and DVD-Audio never made inroads with the mainstream public.
 
MP3 is an old standard bearer that is going to continue to be supported on virtually every device regardless of function, features, or form factor.
 
FLAC is specialized. It's gotten pretty broad support now with portable and home digital source components, but the problem always comes down to capacity. I don't see any 1 tb portable digital audio players on the market yet. 500 GB is the maximum and those are only found in lower end no name brand tablets other than the iPad. Portable digital audio players are now using nand flash storage instead of hdds. The capacities are much smaller: 64 GB.
 
Home audio digital sources like Olive Media and homemade media servers support a wide variety of music formats and codecs like MP3 and flac among others.
 
Transcoding is very time consuming and it's processor and disk intensive. I spent weeks converting flac to mp3 format. I had to do it on a dedicated System76 Leopard Extreme to get it done because it's much more powerful and it has liquid cooling. I have a top of the line System76 Leopard Extreme desktop PC as well.
 
I can't tell the differences between flac and mp3 at 16 bits 44.1 kHz. I tried many ABX tests and I keep failing miserably. It's just not worth it for me to keep flac files for standard CD resolution music. Flac is designed for high resolution audio formats up to 32 bits and 384 kHz. I'd rather keep hi-rez music files in flac format because I can clearly tell the differences between them and mp3s.
 
I guess this is a round about way of saying that I am being smart about managing my huge media library.
 
I have 552 DVD-Videos and tons of Blu-Rays. It's over 503 GB. I use Hand Brake to rip, encode, and compress them. 480i resolution is nothing to write home about. I can barely tell the differences between a MPEG-4 M4V file and a DVD-Video disc. I do keep my Blu-Ray rips in uncompressed loss less audio and video formats and that costs me about 70 GB per disc.
 
MP3 is good, but AAC is even better. I wish that Linux music players would support AAC more universally, but it's not the case. AAC is more modern and efficient than MP3. It's got a better psychoacoustic and noise filters and it's got a more efficient multi-channel and bitrate algorithm. But, I can't read AAC files in Ubuntu reliably. I keep getting errors regardless of which music player I use. The other problem is that AACs M4A files tend to be well supported with Apple products like MacBooks, iMacs, Mac Pros, iPhones, and iPads, but they don't get much attention in GNU/Linux.
 
I think I made a wise decision. I have no regrets since I still have hi-rez flac audio files.

 

[joshwalnut]

What headphones are you using to test this outrageous of a theory? lol
 
Also, that's a lot of songs you have.. i have like..... like.... 50!
 
I think i may have to broaden my horizons... lmao

 

[dcfis]

I thought about it, no thanks. 750 gig laptops 128Gb phone, small 1TB USB drives, source is everything. HD is cheap. I will say there is ONE track that I love most in 168 mp3, it sounds better than in the higher res formats. Bowies waiting for the man. Dont know why. With what you have tied up in equipment what you essentially propose is swapping the motor out in a GT3 for a honda 4 banger because you cant tell the difference on your daily commute.

 

[Leslie Dorner]

Right now, I have the Ultimate Ears Ue-18 Pro and Etymotic ER-4PT with the 4S adapter.
 
I should be able to afford the Sennheiser HD-800 in late April. I should be able to get the Cardas Clear or CablePro 10' cables for the HD-800 in June. I don't know if I will buy them because these are extremely expensive headphones and cables, but I know that I can afford them and I have an audio system that would work well with them.
 
16 bits 44.1 kHz is ancient. It's not hi-rez. It's not something to write home about. It's barely enough bits and resolution and sampling frequency to cover stereo. Most movies and hi-rez music are increasingly multi-channel at 24 bits 96 kHz. Audiophiles tend to want stereo 24 bit 192 kHz flac loss less files and I agree that is worth the disk space which is why I have a HD tracks account.
 
Try it for yourself. Take well recorded and mastered 16 bit 44.1 kHz albums and rip and encode them into flac and LAME 3.9.9 --preset-insane. Then, do multiple ABX tests. You'll need to do at least 50 ABX tests with at least 5 albums or more to make it more statistically significant for your own purposes. When you find out that you can't pick apart the differences with greater than 60 percent results, you'll know what I'm talking about. You don't need to agree with my decision and repeat it with your music library.
 
All I'm saying is that standard CD resolution music files don't need to become flac files all of the time. I think that audiophiles are a bit snobbish in this regard. MP3 has much wider and deeper support than flac will ever have.
 
You don't need to visit Hydrogen Audio to see what I'm saying. Just try the ABX tests yourself and you'll see the results.

 

[dcfis]

That argument is a non sequitur. It makes no difference if I can or I cant. Its about having a direct copy of a medium library. You arent begrudgingly buying CDs upset you are getting your full bits. I have a HD tracks acct too and when they offer most of my library in high rez then that will be something to switch over to, but right now I wont be downsampling my ripped CDs to save pennies on the dollar in HD space. 
 
I do find it shockingly amazing that you would find a cable upgrade a possibly great investment but not a direct copy of source material. I mean, I glad your happy and everything, I cant follow.

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I outlined that this may not make sense to many people here on Head-Fi.
 
This is not going to turn into another I'm right and you're wrong discussion either.
 
I still have every single Red Book CD in my entire music library. I can go to my room full of CDs and pick out individual CDs and listen to them on my CD player at home.
 
I actually did compare the original CD to 320 Kbps MP3s and I still could not tell the differences in sound quality.
 
I have a direct copy of my music library. It's my factory pressed CD library.
 
I think that it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me to store compressed loss less audio files for the ancient Red Book Compact Disc format.
 
When I do have loss less audio or video files, it's for high resolution Blu-Ray and 24 bit 192 kHz music. That makes sense to me and it's why I bought a LaCie 4Big Quadra 10 TB USB 3.0 external hard drive. I store my Blu-Ray and HD Tracks media library on it.
 
I store my HandBrake DVD-Video and MP3s on my WD My Passport 2 TB USB 3.0 Portable hard drive.
 
Finally, I would be remiss not to mention that I have a CrashPlan+ account for the next 3 years. I backup all of my data on all of my PCs to my CrashPlan+ account. Backing up data is boring, but it's critical.
 
I have 1908 albums totaling 14,605 tracks at 16 bits 44.1 kHz in 320 Kbps MP3 format.
 
I have about 10 albums totaling 32 GB at 24 bits up to 192 kHz from HD Tracks.
 
I have about 12 Blu-Ray rips totaling 720 GB.
 
I knew that I would get stiff counterpoints and I expected it from here.
 
It's all good. We can be friends.

 

[dcfis]

We can absolutely be friends. I was responding to your "Think about it" challenge/comment/thought/salutation. I was just trying to understand why someone with so much invested who has a ton of space completely wiped an entire library to go compressed. I guess I should have stopped at it was what is best for you and ignored all the try it then stuff.

 

[cvision123]

You can try to download the app from Focal that teaches "how to listen to music" or try the similar software from Harman Kardon. Basically these softwares teach you how to identify small differences between "high quality" and other sources of music. You have to trained yourself in order to be able to distinguish the differences. For instance, focus on the part of the song that you know well that has cymbals then by focus more on that part you can hear a little difference between the lossy compressed and uncompressed version. IMO, the differences is quite small and it is hard to tell when you just seat back, relax and listen to music.

Classical music usually has complex segments with the "bloom" of many instruments. In lossy compressed version, you can hear that all instruments seem to be "sticked" together (feel like loosing spatial separation)

 

[Leslie Dorner]

We are friends!
 
Yay!
 
I will say that you have to figure out what's best for your needs and your ears. I still have a small flac music library of hi-rez files. That's totally worth it for me to keep them. Ditto for the Blu-Ray rips. I can see and hear the hi-rez goodness.
 
Here's my home audio rig:
 
Meridian 808v5 CD player
HeadRoom Ultra desktop amp with DAC and desktop power supply
Ultimate Ears Ue-18 pro
Etymotic ER-4PT with 4S adapter
Monster Signature Series Pro Power 5100 Power Center UHC
Cardas Clear power, RCA interconnects, USB cabling
LaCie 4Big Quadra 10 TB USB 3.0 external HDD
Western Digital My Passport 2 TB USB 3.0 Portable external HDD
System76 Leopard Extreme desktop PC
System76 Lemur Ultra Thin notebook PC
Verizon FiOS Quantum
ASUS Blu-Ray USB 3.0 12X external CD/DVD/Blu-Ray burner
CrashPlan+ family plan for 3 years
 
yes, it's true.
 
I think that the reason why I can't tell the difference between flac and mp3 for CD format music is due to my gear. I know the Meridian 808v5 upsamples to 24 bits 176.4 kHz and so does the HeadRoom Ultra desktop amp with DAC and DPS.
 
I got some more audio gear, but I'll leave it a mystery.

 

[cvision123]

You have a nice setup. I used to try my best to hear the differences but then it's just less joyful to listen to music. Since then I just seat back, relax and listen . IMHO, an one hour well spent with music is better than 15" listening, 45" trying to identify the "weakness"

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I have a lot of friends. One thing I noticed is that they started to get rid of their libraries of CDs so they gave them to me over the past few years. I live in a small mansion that's located about one mile away from neighbors. More of my friends have been giving me their CDs over the past two years because they either don't listen to them anymore or they want to clear out space to make room for more children or they want to renovate a room. CDs are a dying format. I'm the only one whom I know that still buys CDs either from record stores or on the Internet. My friends ask me why I still buy CDs and I tell them that I have a nice CD player and I want a physical copy of my music in case one of my big hard drives fails. I've had a Crucial M4 ssd suddenly fail on me last year and I had System76 replace it under warranty. This is why I have CrashPlan+ family plan for 3 years and Verizon FiOS Quantum.
 
Getting back on topic, I thought about my decision long and hard beforehand. My CrashPlan+ account still has a backup of my flac library so I can quickly download it onto any PC. However, I doubt that I will reverse my decision regarding CD format music.
 
I know that this will sound like heresy, but I actually prefer the LAME MP3 psychoacoustic filters to the pure FLAC format version of the same music. I find that certain flac format albums have a lot of poorly mastered music and it preserves all of the imperfections intact. Flac has a crisp and clear sound once you have 24 bit 44.1 kHz source material. Anything over 24 bit 88.2 kHz in flac format sounds pristine on my audio system.
 
The problem is that hi-rez music never caught on like hi-rez video formats. I found that there is much more music in native CD format than hi-rez formats. The public has spoken. Video killed audio years ago. Blu-Ray is a successful format while DVD-Audio and SACD failed miserably years ago. People want the full multimedia experience instead of just listening to music alone.
 
I noticed that I get less listener fatigue listening to CD format music using LAME --preset-insane 320 Kbps MP3s using the HeadRoom cross feed feature. It creates a nice sonic image in my head without overwhelming me.
 
I think that hi-rez music is destined to fail just like SACD and DVD-Audio because most people that I know won't spend over $10,000 on an audio system even if they had the money. You don't need to spend so much money on an audio system to enjoy your music, but I realize that I'm not your typical music love or even audiophile.
 
I find it easier to purchase and download 320 Kbps MP3s than FLAC files. It's also considerably less expensive to build up a massive library of CD format music rather than hi-rez only music library.