[midget]

i dont see lossy going anywhere. as more and more people swear by mp3s and become accustomed to such, there will be no reason for most to go lossless.

 

[Uncle Erik]

I think lossy will lose its grip as storage increases and prices fall. Heck, this afternoon I bought a 16GB CF card for my camera. It was $32.

Without revealing too much about my age (

), I remember when a 1MB stick of RAM fluctuated around $100-$120 each. Sitting here with 16GB in my hand for the cost of a tank of gas is stunning. Should give me well over 3,000 shots on the Nikon D70s, too. Just in time for a trip next week.

Anyhow, in a couple of years when 500GB or more is common on an iPod, then there won't be any point to lossy. The serious music geeks will rip lossless and it'll get distributed to their friends that way. Their friends won't care either way.

 

[daglesj]

The goal will always be to deliver more with less.

Unfortunately the future is lossy.

 

[mattcalf]

This thread would be so much cooler if it were called the lossy dethklok.

/off topic.

OT, I'm growning my lossless collection and plan for it to mirror my lossy collection. I don't need to listen to lossless on my phone or out of crappy speakers.

Lossy has it's advantages and it won't die because people don't care about the music anymore.

 

[Agentred]

As others have mentioned, lossy is king and lossless is dying. It's the Betamax VHS battle all over. Major points:

1. People buy music on-line or (let's be honest) download a lot from torrents . Most of that is 192 or 320kbps mp3. As people buy fewer hard CD's and own a larger portion of their music library in lossy, they'll be less concerned about lossless and unwilling to redownload/reconvert everything.

2. Saying that portable MP3s will soon be 500gb is a weak argument. Right now there are only two (Zune and iPod classic) players over 100gb and that's not due to technological limitations it's due to market demand. Unfortunately, by the time 500gb of Flash arrives, everyone will have too many mp3's to bother redownloading to lossy. Also, people increasingly like to fill up their players with movies and videos, they take up space too.

3. MP3 is a universal format embraced by all, the petty fiefdom of Apple lossless vs. FLAC vs. ogg is doomed to fail. No one wants to embrace a universal lossless standard, and even if they do agree to do so in a few years, it'll be too late.

4. It's great to talk about lossless on these forums, but audio geeks make up a very, very, VERY small percentage of the entire market. Most people don't even know the difference between lossy and lossless! And since the market majority doesn't care, manufacturers don't care.

I thought the title of this thread was Lossless deathwatch, which would've been much more apt!

 

[swanlee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daglesj /img/forum/go_quote.gif The goal will always be to deliver more with less. Unfortunately the future is lossy.

More is in the eye of the beholder, to me more would be exactly like the original and not smaller files sizes.

 

[Real Man of Genius]

Most major ISP's are adopting a limit/charge on bandwidth policy as more consumers are downloading their music and movies and other media.
Lossy will become even more ubiquitous as this is implemented.
Most people can't hear a difference anyway, especially on a portable.

 

[Punnisher]

I predict that apple won't even offer ipods that have close to 500gb. The market just isn't big enough. I am more than happy with 80gb. With mp3s, I have plenty of room for more music. I am happy with the sound.

 

[swanlee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Punnisher /img/forum/go_quote.gif I predict that apple won't even offer ipods that have close to 500gb. The market just isn't big enough. I am more than happy with 80gb. With mp3s, I have plenty of room for more music. I am happy with the sound.

Yea that's you but you are not everyone.

There seems to be a trend going on lately, the whole well if it's good enough for me it must be good enough for everyone trend.

Not everyone likes lossy compression, not everyone is happy with paying more for portable audio devices that come with LESS and LESS storage not everyone uses music as background noise.

I notice this alot on forums people these days are actually FIGHTING for LESS options LESS choices and seem happy about it. It is bizarro world to me

People want less storage, less features on the idea that well the basics are good ENOUGH FOR THEM. Think out of the box people not everyone has the same opinion or treats music the same way.

I have 1TB of lossless audio, I'm not going to compromise the SQ of my collection.

 

[gadgetman]

Cheaper storage and higher\better lossless compression isn't enough to make it 'the norm'.

You need to increase the demand for it as well. I don't see that happening.

 

[matt_wants]

Quote:

Originally Posted by swanlee /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yea that's you but you are not everyone. Snip I have 1TB of lossless audio, I'm not going to compromise the SQ of my collection.

QFT. It's almost gadget communism these days with companies seemingly derided when they try something different, or people who can detect differences in lossy and lossless being belittled because someone can't detect it so therefore the others must be making it up.

Besides, even if you can't 'hear' the differences, why spend lots of money and join a dedicated headphone forum to feed your headphones with low-end files? Makes no sense, imo.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by matt_wants /img/forum/go_quote.gif Besides, even if you can't 'hear' the differences, why spend lots of money and join a dedicated headphone forum to feed your headphones with low-end files? Makes no sense, imo.

Then I suppose I should close my account and never visit here again. Everything on my iPod is lossy (mp3 at V0, V1, or V2). Almost everything I listen to on the PC is lossy (same files as the iPod). I guess I'm not worthy of the company here. The fact is I don't hear a difference and it is much more convenient to deal with one set of files per album rather than trying to juggle a lossless and lossy version of the same album. The quality of the headphone and an adequate headphone amp is much much more important to me. Going fully lossless ranks right before upgrading all of my cables in terms of audio improvements.

The inconvenience problem is a software issue. Media managers can improve in the area of better managing lossless and lossy versions of the same album. Keep tags in sync. Better manage whether the lossy or lossless files get synced to a portable. J. River Media Center does this to a certain extent, but there is much room for improvement. JRMC can be configured to transcode files during a sync to a portable. With JRMC if you have your PC library in FLAC you can transcode to MP3 or ALAC when you sync to an iPod. The transcoded files are kept in a cache so they don't have to be transcoded again next time you sync. That system works, a bit of a kludge, could be better.

If I was to start ripping today I'd rip to lossless and transcode for the portable. But that's water under the bridge. When I ripped my CDs way back I did it to MP3. CDs I get now get ripped to FLAC and MP3. The FLAC files get put in archive and the MP3 files get put in my listening library. Yeah I could put the FLACs in the listening library but it's obviously not a huge issue for me.

I get most of my music on CD. I still have the CDs if I want the lossless. I've purchased a few MP3s from Amazon. If purchasing downloaded files my preference would be to get them in a lossless format so I could transcode to whatever I want. MP3 files are stuck as MP3 even if 20 years from now that format becomes impractical.

 

[swanlee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ham Sandwich /img/forum/go_quote.gif Then I suppose I should close my account and never visit here again. Everything on my iPod is lossy (mp3 at V0, V1, or V2). Almost everything I listen to on the PC is lossy (same files as the iPod). I guess I'm not worthy of the company here. The fact is I don't hear a difference and it is much more convenient to deal with one set of files per album rather than trying to juggle a lossless and lossy version of the same album. The quality of the headphone and an adequate headphone amp is much much more important to me. Going fully lossless ranks right before upgrading all of my cables in terms of audio improvements. The inconvenience problem is a software issue. Media managers can improve in the area of better managing lossless and lossy versions of the same album. Keep tags in sync. Better manage whether the lossy or lossless files get synced to a portable. J. River Media Center does this to a certain extent, but there is much room for improvement. JRMC can be configured to transcode files during a sync to a portable. With JRMC if you have your PC library in FLAC you can transcode to MP3 or ALAC when you sync to an iPod. The transcoded files are kept in a cache so they don't have to be transcoded again next time you sync. That system works, a bit of a kludge, could be better. If I was to start ripping today I'd rip to lossless and transcode for the portable. But that's water under the bridge. When I ripped my CDs way back I did it to MP3. CDs I get now get ripped to FLAC and MP3. The FLAC files get put in archive and the MP3 files get put in my listening library. Yeah I could put the FLACs in the listening library but it's obviously not a huge issue for me. I get most of my music on CD. I still have the CDs if I want the lossless. I've purchased a few MP3s from Amazon. If purchasing downloaded files my preference would be to get them in a lossless format so I could transcode to whatever I want. MP3 files are stuck as MP3 even if 20 years from now that format becomes impractical.

I just spent 3 weeks straight ripping my Cd collection of 23 years to lossless. It was a major effort but 1TB and 3000 CD rips later it was well worth it. I am now boxing up my cd collection and putting it in storage while the whole thing now sits on my desk in perfect CD quality.

If I had ever done major rips into lossy compressed audio I would have scrapped it all and started over just to get it in lossless. Being stuck in lossy limits your options for the future.

 

[matt_wants]

I've done the same, although I've only got about 80gb in AIFF and now my iPod Classic is full, so some stuff gets left off unless I really want it.

I thought I was going to be OK at 320kbps AAC, but still detected clipping and decided AIFF was the way to go as I'd dealt with it through Garageband. I find AIFF files are much brighter and inviting than low-bitrate AAC (I find low-bit MP3 too shrill).

It just seems strange that you wouldn't compromise with a CD player, but would put cut-down versions of CDs on a DAP. Granted, I was in the latter camp once, but it seems better to have straight-rips where you know everything is in the file.

 

[swanlee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by matt_wants /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've done the same, although I've only got about 80gb in AIFF and now my iPod Classic is full, so some stuff gets left off unless I really want it. I thought I was going to be OK at 320kbps AAC, but still detected clipping and decided AIFF was the way to go as I'd dealt with it through Garageband. I find AIFF files are much brighter and inviting than low-bitrate AAC (I find low-bit MP3 too shrill). It just seems strange that you wouldn't compromise with a CD player, but would put cut-down versions of CDs on a DAP. Granted, I was in the latter camp once, but it seems better to have straight-rips where you know everything is in the file.

My collection isn't necessarily only for my DAP. Because I had so many CD's I could never find what I wanted to listen to. So now with my Audio collection on my PC on an external USB Raid1 NAS in lossless format if I want to listen to something I can find it very quickly and just burn it onto a CD-RW to play on my main stereo. I can just re use the same 10 or so cd-rw's to listen to music instead of 3000 cd's

The time it takes to burn it is alot less then the time I spent looking through my CD's