flac or 320 kpbs mp3?

i have a question -- when we talk about "telling the difference" what exactly do we mean?

is it not possible that we perceive the difference of different formats in ways we can't immediately recognize? like, maybe i can't tell you exactly what frequencies I can hear but they nevertheless effect the listening experience.

or are we just saying, unless you can clearly identify the differences, like on a graph, there is no difference?

i think you guys are a bunch of smug faggot asses

  On 3/22/2010 at 1:38 AM, Alcofribas said:

i have a question -- when we talk about "telling the difference" what exactly do we mean?

 

is it not possible that we perceive the difference of different formats in ways we can't immediately recognize? like, maybe i can't tell you exactly what frequencies I can hear but they nevertheless effect the listening experience.

 

or are we just saying, unless you can clearly identify the differences, like on a graph, there is no difference?

 

i think you guys are a bunch of smug faggot asses

qft

go get thrown in a trashcan you fuck

also, i'm not saying i have any real idea about the issue but it seems whenever it comes up all i see are a bunch of n00bs pulling up data from teh web and acting like they've got the final fucking word on psychoacoustics.

i only listen to cassettes

  On 3/21/2010 at 10:48 PM, THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

well, neither our ears are lossless, how can a digital or analog format be?

this is correct. true lossless storage is an exact replica of a time and place which is not practical for anyone

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:19 PM, oscillik said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:17 PM, Enter a new display name said:

What about the influence of earwax on sound quality?

while we're on the subject, what about the density of moisture in the air...how does this factor into sound quality?

 

also, if you're in a hard water area, does the high end appear brighter and fuller than if listened to in a soft water area?

All of this does affect sound quality and there are some pretty cool stories about weather phenomena affecting sound waves, for example in the civil war

http://asa.aip.org/Echoes/Vol9No1/EchoesWinter1999.html#top

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:22 PM, THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

how about the influence of our brain on sound quality, there's a need for a brain to exist sound, if no brain exists we're just talking about vibrations...

yes, nothing exists without something to perceive it, I'll see you in the Buddhism thread

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:36 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

 

Since when is a 320K MP3 low-pass filtered at 16Khz? Infact, since when is a 320K MP3 low-pass filtered at all?

Try a proper ABX test between 320K and Flac, across some of your favourite pieces of music. I've never been consistently able to tell any difference whatsoever, and I've never heard of anyone else who can, either.

FWIW, I always use flac whenever possible. Not because I can tell any difference in sound, but because it's more flexible in terms of re-encoding to lossy formats, and for other things like editing, extreme fx, DJing..

  On 3/21/2010 at 1:43 AM, Obel said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 1:36 AM, Boxing Day said:

If you use MP3, you hate music.

 

If only there weren't a screen seperating my grasp from your throat.

fucking lol.

Hearing the difference now isn't the reason to encode to FLAC. FLAC uses lossless compression, while MP3 is 'lossy'. What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps, assuming you have SATA - it's about 15kbps on IDE, but only 7kbps on SCSI, due to rotational velocidensity. You don't want to know how much worse it is on CD-ROM or other optical media.

I started collecting MP3s in about 2001, and if I try to play any of the tracks I downloaded back then, even the stuff I grabbed at 320kbps, they just sound like crap. The bass is terrible, the midrange...well don't get me started. Some of those albums have degraded down to 32 or even 16kbps. FLAC rips from the same period still sound great, even if they weren't stored correctly, in a cool, dry place. Seriously, stick to FLAC, you may not be able to hear the difference now, but in a year or two, you'll be glad you did.

Why on earth would mp3s lose quality over time?

  On 3/22/2010 at 2:56 AM, Capsaicin said:

Why on earth would mp3s lose quality over time?

congratulations, you've just been trolled

I think encoders were less accurate in 2001, simple as that.

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:47 PM, Philip Glass said:

Yeah I think we're not there yet for FLAC size, especially anybody who has a good solid size record collection (500+ CD). You need the double space for the backup. FLAC and Mp3 are both open source, so in the future it'll be good. But the popularity of Mp3 make it sure that in the future they will be listenable on any platform (future = say 15 years from now). I decided now for VBR 0, because I am forced to have iTunes where I work and my collection is more than 2000+ albums. To each his own method. I have to say, if I had under 500 albums I would really think about double rips, that is having a FLAC and having a Mp3 version of the same album. At least that would keep me from having to re-rip all my albums in the future.

 

 

Always keep a backup in a different physical place, and always keep your original CD's.

MP3 is not open source.

he may be talking about the LAME codec?

Indeed, OGG is the open alternative to MP3. But no one uses that and hardware support is limited.

Most of my library is FLAC. Mostly for archiving purposes. I don't think I can hear the difference and I don't really care. I ordered myself a Cowon last week to save me the effort to transcode. I would hate having my entire collection in MP3 files. I'd be stuck with it forever and my children will laugh at my prehistoric format.

200€ for a mirrored TB isn't that much considering how much albums you can store on a TB (even in FLAC). And the price per GB will only go down. For some people FLAC may seem way too large now. But in 5-10 years it'll be peanuts.

I'm a bit ambivalent towards the whole 24-bit thing though. There is no way I'll hear the difference. I recently bought these 24-bit 96khz wav's from Raster-Noton. +1GB for an album, seems a bit excessive.

terabyte HDDs are about 100 bucks now

that + FLAC

i've been meaning to rip all my CDs to flac for archiving purposes, but it's a lot of work. and with my current computer not the fastest thing either. might give it a go when i upgrade it.

  On 3/22/2010 at 3:42 AM, Ego said:

I'm a bit ambivalent towards the whole 24-bit thing though. There is no way I'll hear the difference. I recently bought these 24-bit 96khz wav's from Raster-Noton. +1GB for an album, seems a bit excessive.

You might be being hard on yourself, bitrate is what I hear more than anything else. 24 bit sounds like the sex.

  Quote

if anybody cares to try, i made a package for you (windows): http://www.dontlisten.com/test/abx.zip

have any of you ABXed what i did? it'd be interesting to see your results.

FLAC Attack!

I just use Flac and decode it into 44.1 16bit AIFF for my iPod

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:44 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:41 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:36 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

 

 

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

 

Knowing you are listening to a lower-quality version of your favourite track should affect you

yeah, if your a cunt.

  On 3/22/2010 at 9:36 AM, kokoon said:

  Quote

if anybody cares to try, i made a package for you (windows): http://www.dontlisten.com/test/abx.zip

 

have any of you ABXed what i did? it'd be interesting to see your results.

how do I do this?

At first I have to choose between two wav files, then I can play those...one of them is x and one is y. Isnt it possible to start an automated quiz or somewhat?

You're

your'e

  On 3/22/2010 at 9:42 PM, plstik said:

  On 3/22/2010 at 9:36 AM, kokoon said:

  Quote

if anybody cares to try, i made a package for you (windows): http://www.dontlisten.com/test/abx.zip

 

have any of you ABXed what i did? it'd be interesting to see your results.

how do I do this?

At first I have to choose between two wav files, then I can play those...one of them is x and one is y. Isnt it possible to start an automated quiz or somewhat?

it is automated. choose ABX (instead of ABXY) and then manually switch between X, A and B and decide whether A or B is X.

I got less than a coin flip in the lossless vs v2 test on a pair of Sennheiser HD650.

  On 3/23/2010 at 10:21 AM, Ego said:

I got less than a coin flip in the lossless vs v2 test on a pair of Sennheiser HD650.

As will most people (including myself...) here, I wouldn't worry !