[Quaddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by E Street Shuffle /img/forum/go_quote.gif so its a style thing? maybe a bad analogy.

not at all, maybe for some, i was meaning more of its a persons perogative to choose what he or she wants even if by some its considered overkill.

i hardly think an intangible thing like an audio codec is classed as a 'style thing', its not visible to anyone that you are on the tube next to, or on plane or in the street, unless you are more of a geek than you are letting on

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brown274 /img/forum/go_quote.gif TFor those wanting to compress everything, newegg has 500gb hard drives for $99. That means you can put @ 800-900 CD quality rips on there. Let me say that again, $99 for 800-900 CD quality rips on there. That is cheap when a new CD runs $14.99

Yeah, I have one of those at home, and many CDs ripped to FLAC or WavPack stored on it. How exactly does that help me on a plane, in a hotel, in the car, on a train, or at the gym?

Given how frequently I travel, those are the places that I do most of my listening, and given the fact that well-encoded lossy files are indistinguishable to my ears from the lossless files, there is no logical reason that I should substantially reduce my choices, waste space on my portable players, and take the battery life hit by using lossless files on my portable players.

Lossless is perfect for home use and for archiving, where hard drive space is for all practical purposes unlimited, but I have no need for it for portable use.

 

[Orcin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubermang /img/forum/go_quote.gif Do you REALLY hear better sound with lossless files in your portables?

In the typical environment in which a portable player is used, the answer is clearly NO. In a quiet room using an amp via line out and good headphones, perhaps you would hear artifacts in the lossy file if you were trained to recognize them. The lower the bit rate, the more likely the artifacts are noticeable. At 256VBR or higher, the difference is so minor that it becomes irrelevant.

 

[oicdn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Febs /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, I have one of those at home, and many CDs ripped to FLAC or WavPack stored on it. How exactly does that help me on a plane, in a hotel, in the car, on a train, or at the gym? Given how frequently I travel, those are the places that I do most of my listening, and given the fact that well-encoded lossy files are indistinguishable to my ears from the lossless files, there is no logical reason that I should substantially reduce my choices, waste space on my portable players, and take the battery life hit by using lossless files on my portable players. Lossless is perfect for home use and for archiving, where hard drive space is for all practical purposes unlimited, but I have no need for it for portable use.

That's probably the case for most people here. Good post way of explaining it.

But like sylab says, some people do it just so they don't have any compromise on the SQ and peace of mind....

 

[wsilvio]

I think it depends on the equipment used. For instance, one of my portables is an imod with portable vcap doc and pico amp with sennsaphonics 2sx iems. I can definitely hear a difference between lossless and mp3 on that setup. Even in a noisy environment.

 

[Aaron5604]

I can definitely hear difference between the two, though simulaneously would have to say no as well. When I D/L music from the internet and play it there's almost always some tiny detail regardless to what quality rate shows up on ALL my players. Whether it's a tiny glitch, a muddy solo, a decrease in volume, a blurred note, a hiss in the back ground, etc... I can almost always conclusively detect something obvious w/out anything but my ears.

Now, when I personally encode the song straight from LPCM using a cd-a that doesn't have so much as a surface scratch or the tiniest of finger print in which I purchased, I can't hear a difference at all, should it be 128 or higher, VBR or not. The song honestly sounds identical to its original source.

However, I would like to test lossless w/ 320kbps Mp3's at peak volume. For some reason, I think you would then be able to consistently detect a noticeable difference in the sound breaking up, should you have the ears to handle such an extreme volume to begin with. Car/home audio being how much more power and equipment is involved. I guess an example I am thinking would be an 8v pre-amp HU vs. a 4v one so to speak. I tend to maybe think that there are possibly very obvious artifacts existing deep within the song at lower bit rates but only being apparent through human hearing at exceptionally loud volumes.

 

[ubermang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wsilvio /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think it depends on the equipment used. For instance, one of my portables is an imod with portable vcap doc and pico amp with sennsaphonics 2sx iems. I can definitely hear a difference between lossless and mp3 on that setup. Even in a noisy environment.

you can actually hear a difference between properly encoded 320kbps and lossess on your portable setup in a NOISY environment? i find that extremely hard to believe.

 

[Milk and Coffee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubermang /img/forum/go_quote.gif you can actually hear a difference between properly encoded 320kbps and lossess on your portable setup in a NOISY environment? i find that extremely hard to believe.

Well, when they have a good isolation?

 

[zookeeper]

The overall difference in sound quality between lossless and mp3 320 pales in comparison to the increased space required for a lossless file. As long as storage is a concern with portables (and bearing in mind that most portables aren't robust enough to show a massive difference in fidelity between lossless and mp3 320), it seems that 320 is the clear way to go. Unless your ears are just that good, in which case more power to you!

 

[wanderman]

wave is most certainly the best. I don't even need to listen to the music to tell the difference I can just look at the extension and tell that what I am listening to is of inferior quality to wav.

 

[ILikeMusic]

Quote:

I can just look at the extension and tell that what I am listening to is of inferior quality to wav.

You and many others apparently...

 

[Insanity]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wanderman /img/forum/go_quote.gif wave is most certainly the best. I don't even need to listen to the music to tell the difference I can just look at the extension and tell that what I am listening to is of inferior quality to wav.

Yep, that's the way to do it.

 

[mark_h]

.wav man here, or at the very least for my nano 320 mp3 with no filtering.

 

[bigshot]

Judging sound quality by file size is like judging audio equipment by its price.

See ya
Steve

 

[monolith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mark_h /img/forum/go_quote.gif .wav man here, or at the very least for my nano 320 mp3 with no filtering.

You should use LAME's V0 setting instead of 320. Same quality, three quarters the size (at most).