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1/22/2013 6:33:39 PM

ibtvinylbandit

1/22/2013 6:35:37 PM

All digital music is crappy, keep it analog

1/22/2013 6:36:39 PM

vinyl is obsolete, isn't that right El Nacho

1/22/2013 6:40:16 PM

lol my record collection begs to differ.

(i had to insure the bitch :-/)

1/22/2013 6:50:15 PM

1/22/2013 6:56:47 PM

>by definition, mp3s lose audio quality
>audio is still just as good as lossless

1/22/2013 6:57:56 PM

i use 32-bit color on my computer monitor/graphics card

by definition, its better than 24-bit, but human eyes can't tell the difference

1/22/2013 7:04:33 PM

but you actually can tell the difference

it probably hasn't come up much in your music, but in classical it makes a good bit of difference for some instruments


OH AND ALSO IN MARIO BROTHERS UNDERWATER LEVEL

YOU CAN'T HEAR THE FUCKING FISH BUBBLES WITHOUT IT BEING IN FLAC

1/22/2013 7:12:24 PM

Windows is really only 24 bit, as are most computer monitors.

The 32 bit comes in from 24 bit colors and 8 bit alpha transparency, which has no bearing on the number of colors actually displayed.

1/22/2013 7:15:34 PM

320kbps mp3 is just as good as a flac if you're using onboard sound (computer or phone or ipod) and shitty speakers/headphones. which is 90+% of people listening to either.

1/22/2013 7:17:59 PM

^^yeah 32-bit is a misnomer, but your eyes cant differentiate all 16.7 million colors in 24-bit anyway

^isnt the only true FLAC vinyl with vacuum tubes, since if you dont listen to FLAC on a computer, you have to burn it to CD which compresses it? let alone digital amplification which further cuts out the highest highs and lowest lows

[Edited on January 22, 2013 at 7:19 PM. Reason : .]

1/22/2013 7:18:04 PM

depends on your gear, brah

1/22/2013 7:26:11 PM

unless I'm mistaken, FLAC creates a polynomial representation of the sound wave for X-frames and just stores a bunch of polynomials. I'm not really certain of how you could record FLAC in an analog manner, since you still have to do a regression to align the graph of your polynomial with that of the sound wave.

1/22/2013 7:29:35 PM

English Holmes...

1/22/2013 7:30:46 PM

^^i'm not gonna pretend to know what that means

but when i said FLAC in the last post, i just meant "lossless audio"

[Edited on January 22, 2013 at 7:31 PM. Reason : .]

1/22/2013 7:31:31 PM

Quote :

"^^yeah 32-bit is a misnomer, but your eyes cant differentiate all 16.7 million colors in 24-bit anyway"

Mine can.

1/22/2013 7:36:57 PM

so a sound wave represented graphically looks like an EKG or some other sinusoidal graph

with math, we can generate an equation that makes the same graph, or imperceptibly close.

that equation is represented as a polynomial (ex: f(sound) = Ax^3 + Bx^2 + Cx + N )

obviously that equation is only good for a few moments, we'll call those moments a frame.

each frame, per channel (2 channels for stereo music), is represented a polynomial.

those polynomials are strung together in a series to form a stream of sound.

http://flac.sourceforge.net/documentation_format_overview.html

================================================

A more interesting, yet simpler way of compressing music or any media to me is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasure_code and just start with an uncompressed, lossless format like wav

[Edited on January 22, 2013 at 7:42 PM. Reason : .]

1/22/2013 7:38:34 PM

"X sounds better than Y" is such a subjective statement that its impossible to really evaluate

under what playback conditions?
to whose ears?

1/22/2013 7:41:44 PM

I made mix CDs as early as the mid 90s, and when I'd rip a CD back then, it was to WAV format...when I relistened to those WAVs compared to decent compression quality MP3s (listened on a computer), they sounded the same to me

granted, anything on a CD already chops out the highs and lows since its a digital format, and I haven't ever ripped a 12" to a digital format

but my argument that sparked this thread is if you pick a song, and listen to it in either FLAC format, or a high quality MP3 format like 320kbps, you won't be able to tell a difference

1/22/2013 7:47:20 PM

there was no fucking argument

all I said was I was happy to find stuff in FLAC, and you started bitching out of nowhere about how 320 mp3 is just as good even though I did nothing to provoke it

I didn't make any assertions initially about FLAC being any better

1/22/2013 8:38:41 PM

says the guy who made this thread

1/22/2013 8:39:22 PM

how does a "says the guy" even make any sense here

1/22/2013 8:39:49 PM

k

1/22/2013 8:41:36 PM

why do people care so much about a marginal increase in audio quality

1/22/2013 8:45:31 PM

Part of me loathes the rise of compressed, compromised audio and how it has displaced superior formats.

Part of me is glad that I can buy brand-new CDs on eBay now for $4-5 in many cases.

1/22/2013 8:46:05 PM

you buy CDs?

that actually makes sense given your other dumb hobbies

1/22/2013 8:48:12 PM

that's mean, lots of cool people buy cds

1/22/2013 8:48:41 PM

hell yeah, I have tons of CDs and some records. I have purchased a total of 17 songs in iTunes format, and just did that a few days ago due to getting a gift certificate for Christmas.


To your average listener with your average stereo, iTunes (et al) is perfectly acceptable, and preferable for its convenience.

For someone who really loves music and listening to it, and has a really killer stereo to play it on, buying CDs is a no-brainer. They're a superior format, and there's nothing to stop you from ripping them to an electronic format if you want. You can't go in reverse if starting with a compressed download.

1/22/2013 9:13:31 PM

CDs are compressed and compromised compared to natural sound too. Why not SACDs?

1/22/2013 9:18:26 PM

audio compression took such high precedence due to hard disk and bandwidth limitations. Now that most music buffs have TB+ HDDs and faster connections, a collection of .flac music makes more sense. And on my PC rig I can tell a difference...I still d/l or rip to V0(vbr) mostly to save disk space but some albums/artists I will only go flac because it actually makes a difference. Especially if I intend to do any audio editing and care about avoiding transcode

1/22/2013 9:20:46 PM

Eh, I generally do either v0 or vinyl and don't really fuck with the area in between.

1/22/2013 9:23:27 PM

^^if you intend to do audio editing, i agree, you want the best quality, because however you save your edits (unless its massive file size format) its gonna degrade it slightly

i'm talking about listening to songs you download, even if you have some $300 headphones, you're not gonna tell a difference

1/22/2013 9:32:23 PM

I have no idea what is going on in here...


and I'm Ok with that

1/22/2013 9:38:15 PM

Quote :

"i'm talking about listening to songs you download, even if you have some $300 headphones, you're not gonna tell a difference "

You've either never tried or you have bad ears.

I bet most people would notice if they sat down and did a comparison.

The real question is, does it matter? If you are mostly listening while jogging or in your car, the answer is "no."

If you are listening in a quiet room with headphones or nice speakers, then the answer might be "yes".

1/22/2013 9:47:17 PM

I bet most people wouldn't notice if they sat down and did a comparison

but some people take sugar placebo pills and think they feel better when they have a cold cause they think they are taking cold medicine

and merbig thinks he has 20/1 vision and Superman eyes

[Edited on January 22, 2013 at 10:02 PM. Reason : .]

1/22/2013 10:01:44 PM

192kbps is my "high quality" setting

and then I "normalize" all my Windows audio

TAKE THAT

1/22/2013 10:17:16 PM

8bit >

1/22/2013 10:24:09 PM

^^^http://soundexpert.org

They have a largeish crowd sourced database where anyone (including you, right now) can download samples and compare them.

The vast majority of people who have logged onto that site have been able to decipher a difference between compressed audio and lossless audio, at 320kbps.

http://soundexpert.org/encoders-320-kbps

Obviously the site self-selects for people interested in audio, but all of our ears work more or less the same. Tell someone what to look for, or to even just look for something, and they'll be able to find it.

[Edited on January 22, 2013 at 10:28 PM. Reason : ]

1/22/2013 10:28:12 PM

Quote :

" CDs are compressed and compromised compared to natural sound too. Why not SACDs?"

I view that as way too much trouble/expense for way too little benefit--a vanishingly small benefit that I suspect I couldn't hear, anyway. That's a debate within the audiophile community--it's arguable if it's even discernible. If it is, I am dubious that I'd appreciate the difference, especially on my merely totally-badass stereo. I suspect that if it's possible to hear at all, you'd need a $50k or $80k stereo or something, and a dedicated, purpose-built room (not my living room).

1/22/2013 10:33:37 PM

^ ha you wouldn't need exotic equipment to get the benefit of an SACD o.O

Best Buy used to sell a Sony HTIB system designed for SACD that was like $500. You could hear a difference.

Just speakers with a frequency response that's good in the high end (ie. a decent tweeter), and a good subwoofer, and you'd be good.

1/22/2013 11:32:40 PM

DVD AUDIO

DO YOU HEAR IT

1/23/2013 3:39:46 PM

I generally rip all of my CDs to FLAC as well as 320 kbps mp3 for use on portable devices. Sure I dont notice it much on my iphone but if I use my bose headphones or play it on my nice stereo I can most definitely tell the difference. If there is a ton of background noise maybe not but sitting in a quiet room just listening to the music to listen you hear a lot of small differences.

1/23/2013 3:58:32 PM

haha, if you can hear it on Bose, then you could certainly hear it on something good.

1/23/2013 7:49:51 PM

I got them for free but they are still the nicest headphones I have because I rarely use headphones. Much better than iphone earbuds that everyone seems to be using.

1/24/2013 8:27:52 AM

I for one prefer FLAC for archival purposes, from which I make roughly 160kbps VBR AAC files for my iTouch

or if MP3s are required (like for custom ringtones), I use V2 (~192kbps) VBR because MP3 is just that much less efficient

[Edited on January 24, 2013 at 8:31 AM. Reason : 320k MP3 is a waste of space compared even to V0

1/24/2013 8:31:11 AM

^^ Yeah, if you got them for free, then rock on. I have no doubt that they're better than the stock-issue earbuds (or $20-30 stuff) by a mile.

Bose typically draws a sneer from the audiophile (and really, even more casual audio enthusiast) community, because most of their stuff is extremely overrated. You pay a lot for the name and can get a whole lot more for the money elsewhere. I would never, ever buy any of their stuff.

...but if someone gave me a pair of their headphones, then that would be sweet. They'd be better than my $30 earbuds!

1/24/2013 6:56:19 PM

argument already made

[Edited on January 24, 2013 at 7:00 PM. Reason : . ]

on that note my se-535s were stolen

now i just use $50 sony's or the new apple ones.

[Edited on January 24, 2013 at 7:02 PM. Reason : .]

1/24/2013 6:59:29 PM

7/21/2013 7:24:34 PM

set em up ---------->

7/21/2013 7:39:17 PM