People will pick the format they THINK should sound good. We are biased...
How about you do your compression thing, crop it to 1 minute or so.. then convert them to wave again with the same file name. Im guessing this will still preserve what ever changes the encoder did to the song. (correct me if im wrong)
This way, NO ONE can tell which song used what format except you, and we get a real *OFFICIAL* test.
I don't think I'm snobby about it, though I've certainly been called that and worse 
Personally, 192bit ogg is a good balance between quality & drivespace for me, though I do like having a lossless backup (ie. CD). I also encode my favorites to flac rather than ogg. Lossless does make sense as a backup since over the course of time codecs, our equipment, interest, genres of choice and interest in fidelity may change. It allows you to reencode from the original copy, which always results in a better sounding rip.
What I get called snobby for is taking offense when some know-it-all punk teenager defends wasting money 128bit DRM'd music at ITMS by asserting that there is no difference, or his Boomitech speakers and Leet Bass Exploder headphones would make it apparent. Keeping in mind what I said about things changing over the course of time, I find the shortsightedness and arrogance of this argument to be as grating as fingernails on a chalkboard.
Personally, 192bit ogg is a good balance between quality & drivespace for me, though I do like having a lossless backup (ie. CD). I also encode my favorites to flac rather than ogg. Lossless does make sense as a backup since over the course of time codecs, our equipment, interest, genres of choice and interest in fidelity may change. It allows you to reencode from the original copy, which always results in a better sounding rip.What I get called snobby for is taking offense when some know-it-all punk teenager defends wasting money 128bit DRM'd music at ITMS by asserting that there is no difference, or his Boomitech speakers and Leet Bass Exploder headphones would make it apparent. Keeping in mind what I said about things changing over the course of time, I find the shortsightedness and arrogance of this argument to be as grating as fingernails on a chalkboard.
It may well be true, personally I've never heard vinyl on a quality setup so can't comment on it - I'd like to at some point.
They'll open the files in something like Gspot, and then think they're cool because they can tell the difference by using a tool, rather than listening to the files.
i started caring about my audio quality after i got a good headphone setup (hd650 & ppx3). most of my stuff is in 192-320 vbr or flac.
I'd be fascinated to compare the difference between the three, as would many people here I'm sure.
when i staretd colecting mppp3z 5+ years ago i only downloaded and ripped 128kbps, anything less you could really hear the drop in quality but anythign above you really couldn't tell the difference and back then i had dialup and only an 8gb HDD so when i did get 160 or 192kbps i would convert to wav then back to mp3 at 128 thus a large part of my collection is 128 however now i rip or dl at 192, 160 if i have to but i sitll can't tellt he diff between a 128 and 192 very rarely will there be a base quality difference where i keep the 192 over 128, anything higher is just silly
wouldn't this test depend on the setup, or does it not matter? I'll be listening on a pair of dollar store headphones.
QFT. It is called thinking ahead. Realizing that the setup you have now may not be the best you will ever have. Realizing that you can take lossless audio and recompress it down to whatever you want but you cannot recompress lossed quality back to its original state.
Nope doesn't bother me that some people only listen to lossless compressed audio. It's all about your source material and how it's encoded. Give me good source material and let me encode it (LAME -b 128 -m s -h -V 0 -B 320) and you would be hard-pressed to hear a difference with most music.
You would also need a very good pair of headphones to hear any difference. I've found that high-end speakers won't do because there's too much outside noise to compete with. Headphones tend to be better at cutting out outside noise.
I use a pair of HD650 and the only time I can really tell is with classical music. With mp3s, certain instruments have a "halo" sound around them. I notice this "halo" when the instrument starts and ends. You really have to listen for it though and won't be evident to the vast majority of people out there. It's a lot harder to tell with pop, rap, etc. Technically, there is/should be a drop in sound quality (by definition encoding will strip out some data) but I don't really notice it...not with pop, rap, etc. anyways.
With that said, I only listen to CDs in the car for the music I like. The stuff I don't really care for I'll use mp3s. I spent enough money on my car sound system to feed a small third-world country so you bet I'm gonna use CDs (as opposed to mp3s) as my main source.
You would also need a very good pair of headphones to hear any difference. I've found that high-end speakers won't do because there's too much outside noise to compete with. Headphones tend to be better at cutting out outside noise.
I use a pair of HD650 and the only time I can really tell is with classical music. With mp3s, certain instruments have a "halo" sound around them. I notice this "halo" when the instrument starts and ends. You really have to listen for it though and won't be evident to the vast majority of people out there. It's a lot harder to tell with pop, rap, etc. Technically, there is/should be a drop in sound quality (by definition encoding will strip out some data) but I don't really notice it...not with pop, rap, etc. anyways.
With that said, I only listen to CDs in the car for the music I like. The stuff I don't really care for I'll use mp3s. I spent enough money on my car sound system to feed a small third-world country so you bet I'm gonna use CDs (as opposed to mp3s) as my main source.
HardcoreRobot
Lifer
- Nov 7, 2000
- 16,403
- 3
- 81
Most of mine is lossless. But you need high end audio stuff to tell the diff between like 320 kbs mp3 and the originals.
But to each his/her own.
But to each his/her own.
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