[NiceCans]

^ QFT

 

[monolith]

Two reasons:

1. I'm too lazy to keep two formats of everything.

2. There are some things that definitively don't work well unless they're lossless. For example, I can't get a good rip of Brian Eno's "Thursday Afternoon", or anything by Sunn O))) in mp3. I always hear obvious crackling. Obvious enough that it makes it unlistenable. I've tried tweaking EAC as much as possible, and nothing. Only lossless works for some things, and I can't explain it.

 

[Sabrage]

The thing that I don't understand is the fact that these same people in this thread are willing to spend thousands of dollars on equipment for the best sound possible... But the fact that somebody wants lossless quality on a portable dumbfounds them.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by joay /img/forum/go_quote.gif All I can say is "why lossy"? Currently we have 160GB HD players and 32GB flash players. We're seeing "lossy" become irrelevant right before our eyes.

I'm in the process of moving a big chunk of my music collection onto a media server Mac and seven iPods, each with a library consisting of a particular type of music. I'm up to seven iPods and libraries so far, with 30 to 70 days of music on each one. I'm not sure how many more iPods I'll require, but once these libraries are all built out, I'll never need to go to the shelf for a cd or lp again. I'll just do a quick search in iTunes and find what I want. 160gb is a drop in the bucket. I've got over 2tb so far.

See ya
Steve

 

[joay]

But why lose peace of mind over "transparency"? I can clearly tell the difference between a 128Kbs Mp3 and a FLAC with decent phones. Why should I concern myself if 192Kbs or 256Kbs is "good enough"? Someone posted this earlier:

Stereophile: MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD

Quotes:
-"if these algorithms have been properly implemented with the right psycho-acoustic assumptions, the musical information represented by the lost data will not be missed by most listeners."
"That's a mighty big 'if.'"

-"Both MP3 and AAC introduce fairly large changes in the measured spectra, even at the highest rate of 320kbps. There seems little point in spending large sums of money on superbly specified audio equipment if you are going to play sonically compromised, lossy-compressed music on it."

Lossy files remove musical data out of and within the audible range. Lossy's are a waste in my opinion.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by monolith /img/forum/go_quote.gif There are some things that definitively don't work well unless they're lossless. For example, I can't get a good rip of Brian Eno's "Thursday Afternoon", or anything by Sunn O))) in mp3. I always hear obvious crackling. Obvious enough that it makes it unlistenable. I've tried tweaking EAC as much as possible, and nothing. Only lossless works for some things, and I can't explain it.

I ran into a Sammy Davis Jr album with complex string textures that did that. I solved the problem by normalizing the whole CD down to 85% and encoding at AAC 256 VBR. Worked like a charm.

See ya
Steve

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabrage /img/forum/go_quote.gif The thing that I don't understand is the fact that these same people in this thread are willing to spend thousands of dollars on equipment for the best sound possible... But the fact that somebody wants lossless quality on a portable dumbfounds them.

Obtaining great sound isn't about spending a lot of money or ripping to the biggest file size possible. It's about knowing what makes a difference and what doesn't and focusing on the things that really do matter. A well encoded AAC or MP3 file sounds for all intents and purposes identical. There used to be a difference back in the early days of MP3, but there isn't any more. Efficiency in file size means you can have more music. If there's no degradation in quality and it isn't really more work, why not be efficient?

Efficiency can also lead to better sound quality... I've found that a lot of CDs of 1950s and early 60s material have been jerry-rigged to create artificial stereo by throwing treble to one channel and low mids to the other. The auto detect mode in iTunes won't flag these as mono files. So I've been going through and flattening them all to mono. Not only is the file half the size, true mono sounds a hundred times better than jerry rigged fake stereo.

See ya
Steve

 

[Luminette]

Quote:

Originally Posted by joay /img/forum/go_quote.gif All I can say is "why lossy"?

x98238293

 

[Arainach]

I don't. My Portable rig is for portability. That means use in noisy and sub-optimal environments. Even when I'm somewhere quiet, my KSC-75 and er6i won't be noticing the difference between lossless and LAME -V0 (which is what I rip all the albums that I don't rip into FLAC into). Heck, I'm not entirely convinced I could reliably DBT V0 and FLAC on my speakers or RS-1, much less my portable rig.

That and it leaves more space for video.

 

[justthinking]

I would rather listen to a well ripped, will compressed mp3 than a lossless that's ripped less than optimal...

 

[chesterqw]

because we can

 

[E Street Shuffle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quaddy /img/forum/go_quote.gif why do some people wear an expensive watch on their wrist, when the same basic time information can be emparted from a $20 casio? \

so its a style thing? maybe a bad analogy.

 

[brown274]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabrage /img/forum/go_quote.gif The thing that I don't understand is the fact that these same people in this thread are willing to spend thousands of dollars on equipment for the best sound possible... But the fact that somebody wants lossless quality on a portable dumbfounds them.

True, they use an LOD. Then turn around and compress the music. Why would you want to alter or compress your source?

But I guess it will all catch up. I had a 512 muvo 4 years ago and could fit about 8 Cd's on it in 128kbps. I thought it sounded soooo gooood. Then I got an 8gb nano and could fit a bunch more but decided to use 256kbps on all my music and thought it sounded fantastic. I just bought an 80gb ipod and now I only use wav and apple lossless. I convert then only to apple since I can't add CD covers to the wavs. And yes, since then, I have deleted my 256kbps from my hard drive and started to eac my collection to wav only.

For 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

 

[daphox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by justthinking /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would rather listen to a well ripped, will compressed mp3 than a lossless that's ripped less than optimal...

???

 

[shigzeo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by faichiu /img/forum/go_quote.gif From my experience, Iaudio product does not have huge different between mp3 and lossless. I try U3, X5, and D2. The teclast T39 I had has huge different between mp3 and flac. M6SL also has a huge different between mp3 and Wav.

faichuu, if it has great difference between lossless and lossy, then it is having decoding trouble. a good player should have very little difference at all if any. it should be able to decode both or all formats equally well and reveal differences only when the disparity in file quality are so huge that it is very evident. the telclast has a long way to go if that is the case.