[cel4145]

I have 1.2 terabytes of SATA-III 6 GB/s MLC NAND flash storage capacity and that's huge and the price tag is very very expensive.

That's why the rest of us stick in a big mechanical hard drive to use for our media to go along with our primary SSDs. Amazing how cheap it is to have all that extra media storage

 

[Blotto80]

Quote:

Then one would use a file converter. Sorry, but as a rhetorical question that one was about was tricky as "What would you if you're standing in Starbucks with pockets stuffed with $100 bills and wanted a coffee?"

Doesn't change the fact that converting from a compressed file to another format can end up sounding worse than converting from a lossless format. Closer would be standing in starbucks with a pocket full of pesos and they're giving a really crappy exchange rate.

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I was thinking about buying a 2.5" 9.5 mm 1 terabyte 7,200 RPM hard drive for my System76 Lemur Ultra Thin notebook PC to replace the Crucial M4 128 GB SATA-III ssd. I can get one from Amazon for $100. Most of my files that I care about are long term archives. I installed a lot of PPAs and apps, but I only use Google Chrome, Mozilla Thunderbird, Calculator, CrashPlan+, Spotify, Shotwell, Adobe Reader 9, Zinio Reader 4, and LastPass Pocket most frequently. The thing that prevents me from doing this is that I would have to re-install everything from scratch and I hate re-installing everything from scratch all over again. It's a royal pain in the butt. Of course, I can afford to purchase a 512 GB SATA-III SSD for the Lemur, but I'd have to re-install everything again too.
 
The problem with disk imaging software is that it's usually an imperfect result when copying two different drives with different capacities. I tried this with a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500 GB 7,200 RPM hdd and Ubuntu refused to boot up properly. I got kernel panics. So, I learned my lesson and the best practice is to re-install everything to guarantee compatibility and performance. I think it came down to sector alignment issues when cloning a drive image.
 
MP3s are very good. Now, I have a lot more money and I'm thinking about getting a Cowon X7 160 GB DAP. I don't have one and I was thinking about getting one used from another member here. It's compatible with Linux kernel 2.4+. It supports file transfers in Linux. The reviews are glowing especially regarding long battery life and sound quality for the X7. I could easily copy my entire MP3 music library to the X7 and I could play my music on the go using my ER-4PT. That would be cool.
 
This is the primary reason why I switched from FLAC to MP3. Convenience. Not having to worry if a particular audio codec or format is supported is a good thing.
 
FLAC is very nice for archival purposes. It's good to have a loss less bit-perfect copy for archival purposes. However, the huge file sizes are a bummer and the sound quality compared to 320 Kbps MP3s or AACs is nearly indistinguishable. MP3s make a lot of sense to me. I won't have to buy another huge portable or desktop HDD for many years in the future now that I switched to lossy M4v and MP3 formats.

 

[cel4145]

I was thinking about buying a 2.5" 9.5 mm 1 terabyte 7,200 RPM hard drive for my System76 Lemur Ultra Thin notebook PC to replace the Crucial M4 128 GB SATA-III ssd.

You don't really want to replace an SSD with a mechanical hard drive, do you? It would be noticeably slower with the different apps.

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I haven't done it yet.
 
In truth, I don't want to downgrade from SSD to HDD. The Crucial M4 is a particularly reliable and fast SSD brand and model. I can boot into Ubuntu in 9 seconds flat. I can shut down in 4 seconds flat. It's addictive.
 
I may wind up getting a big Crucial M4 512 GB SATA-III SSD just so that I can store my MP3s on my System76 Lemur. I can afford it right now, but I'm waiting until Black Friday this year to see if the price can go below $350 or $325.

 

[scuttle]

Quote:

I haven't done it yet.
 
In truth, I don't want to downgrade from SSD to HDD. The Crucial M4 is a particularly reliable and fast SSD brand and model. I can boot into Ubuntu in 9 seconds flat. I can shut down in 4 seconds flat. It's addictive.
 
I may wind up getting a big Crucial M4 512 GB SATA-III SSD just so that I can store my MP3s on my System76 Lemur. I can afford it right now, but I'm waiting until Black Friday this year to see if the price can go below $350 or $325.

 
I don't get it. Why not keep the SSD for the OS and use a HD for everything else? If there's no room in the case you could still use an external.

 

[scuttle]

Quote:

Doesn't change the fact that converting from a compressed file to another format can end up sounding worse than converting from a lossless format. Closer would be standing in starbucks with a pocket full of pesos and they're giving a really crappy exchange rate.

 
This is silliness.
 
If you're 320 aac/mp3-lame is indistinguishable from FLAC - which it is for virtually everybody in tests - then it will be effectively good as FLAC as a source for coversions.
 
Yes, you might claim that you can tell the difference between 320 and FLAC, but that's a separate point - and the answer is that your opinion means nothing to any sensible person, because people like you are riddled with the placebo effect and blind testing is all the counts.

 

[chewy4]

Quote:

 
This is silliness.
 
If you're 320 aac/mp3-lame is indistinguishable from FLAC - which it is for virtually everybody in tests - then it will be effectively good as FLAC as a source for coversions.
 
Yes, you might claim that you can tell the difference between 320 and FLAC, but that's a separate point - and the answer is that your opinion means nothing to any sensible person, because people like you are riddled with the placebo effect and blind testing is all the counts.

While this is perhaps true for 320kbps since it doesn't really have any audible artifacts in the human range of hearing, that's not true for lossy files in general. Even if you can't tell the difference between say a 128kbps file and lossless(and a lot less people can than most here would think), that doesn't mean you won't be able to hear a difference when that file is converted to another lossy format. You're stacking artifacts on top of each other and things that were once not audible will become extremely audible after a few conversions and the file can turn into a distorted mess.

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I have an unlocked and rooted Motorola Droid Bionic and I finally figured out how to sync it with Ubuntu using USB mass storage device mode. I transferred my 320 Kbps MP3s to the external 16 GB microSDHC card and I'm listening to my music on my Bionic now. It sounds pretty good. I'm using PowerAMP professional with my Etymotic ER-4PT. There is a slight digital hiss when the volume is turned up, but it goes away when the music starts to flow. I now have a MP3 player.
 
This is exactly why I decided to switch from FLAC to MP3. Convenience. Quality. Smaller file sizes. I can make copies of my music to any device and it will play. No need to transcode or convert anymore. Those days are done for me. I can now play my music anywhere that I like on any device that I like.
 
MP3s are cool again.
 
Except for audiophile snobs.
 
It's too bad, but it's their loss. My MP3s are not giving up the ghost anytime soon.

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I took one of my HD Tracks 24 bit 192 kHz FLAC albums and I converted it to LAME -v0 which resulted in a 305 kbps variable bit rate series of files and it's pretty close to the original FLAC album. I can hear greater dynamic range and clarity with the high resolution FLAC album, but the VBR MP3 version is not far behind. The FLAC album is 5.7 GB while the MP3 version is less than 200 MB. It's a pretty staggering difference in file sizes and this is one of my biggest MP3 albums on my HDD. In this case, I prefer the FLAC version because the hi-rez music sounds clearly better than the MP3 version, but it's costing me a significant amount of disk space. I deleted the VBR mp3 version after doing some ABX tests. I was about 47 percent correct in guessing.

 

[jpongin]

I was able to tell the difference here - http://www.eclassical.com/pages/24-bit-faq.html
 
I was listening with my Xonar Xense / PC-350 bundle (EQ'd with slight V curve).  The difference was definitely noticeable, but nothing that would annoy my listening experience.  But I totally get what you mean... Spotify is the only music service I listen to.  So it's nice to hear that the difference between high quality 320Kbps and FLAC is barely noticeable if at all.

 

[jalva]

I havent deleted my FLACs but I am now only playing MP3s and just focusing on them. I enjoy music on the go and my clip zip has space constraints. I could have gone around that by carrying multiple micro-sd cards but the key decision influencer was battery life. With MP3s, my player lasts much longer than with FLACs.
 
Here is how I look at this-
 
MP3 advantages over FLAC:
- Space efficient
- Easier tagging support
- Universal playback
- Better battery life for portables (killer advantage for me)
 
FLAC advantages over MP3:
- Future proof. If my audio gear and ears improve, MP3 may not cut it (key advantage)
- Better quality now. I dont know about this actually. 320kbps MP3 sounds pretty good to me

 

[jalva]

Quote:

I took one of my HD Tracks 24 bit 192 kHz FLAC albums and I converted it to LAME -v0 which resulted in a 305 kbps variable bit rate series of files and it's pretty close to the original FLAC album. I can hear greater dynamic range and clarity with the high resolution FLAC album, but the VBR MP3 version is not far behind. The FLAC album is 5.7 GB while the MP3 version is less than 200 MB. It's a pretty staggering difference in file sizes and this is one of my biggest MP3 albums on my HDD. In this case, I prefer the FLAC version because the hi-rez music sounds clearly better than the MP3 version, but it's costing me a significant amount of disk space. I deleted the VBR mp3 version after doing some ABX tests. I was about 47 percent correct in guessing.

Sorry, but were you 47% correct and and 53% wrong?

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I sold my LaCie 4Big 10 TB USB 3 HDD and I just got my LaCie 4Big 16 TB USB 3 HDD. I now have 18 TB of combined USB 3 storage capacity at home.
 
I think that I am done with buying audio equipment. I'm going to be buying a lot more music next month. I plan to buy Spotify Premium for 1 year for $120. I'll buy more HD Tracks and Chesky 24 bit 192 kHz FLAC albums in April.

 

[Leslie Dorner]

Quote:

Sorry, but were you 47% correct and and 53% wrong?

For one album, yes.