I am beginning to hate MP3's

[UNCjigga]

Well I'm glad God gave me bad ears so I can appreciate my MP3s!!

I just rip using the recommended LAME vbr settings and I'm happy (most songs avg. out to 210-220kbps.)

 

[keldysh]

Do not hate player! Hate game! Digital sound inprecise not enough levels all chop up ok with bop musik horrible with lyric. Hurt ears with ribbon high frequencie driver and conrad-johnson valve amps on one ohm tap!

 

[dowxp]

In the end, most lossy codecs fail at capturing very sharp highs (cymbals) and bass impacts. with a very good setup, it can be dissapointing.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Reck

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: Reck
Didn't read the thread but I can tell you that you're a victim of placebo. I have excellent hearing and I've done comparisions beween mp3s and lossless with pretty nice equipment. There really isn't a huge difference. The difference between 320 and lossless is so very small it's not really worth it to rip into lossless, it's a waste of space.

basically any alt-preset or 256cbr+ mp3 are perfectly satisfactory.

I have personally correctly identified 320 MP3, "Audiophile" AAC, and original WAV.

There is a difference.

Whether or not you can hear it is the only question.

Viper GTS

Yup there is a difference but it's very small, surely not enough to increase the file size by that much. As I recall the difference for me was that the lossless had ever so slightly more realistic and sharper highs. It has a more "glassy" sound. Hm I wrote down the differences between the different bitrates on another forum a long time ago.

128-160 big difference
160-192 moderate difference, the midrange really starts to clean up
192-224 slightly cleaner highs and more bass
224-256- no real difference that I could tell
256-320 another moderate jump easily noticble by the bass increase
320-lossless sharper highs

That's off the top of my head from a long time ago.

Even the CD suffers loss over the original recording . . . the highs lack the 'zing' of vinyl . . . MP3 are worse. . . . if it is just for your ipod - who cares? if you are serious about music, then you want losssless (period)

Also listen to the low-Bass . . . the mp3 rip drumbeats are 'muddy' compared to the CD

 

[computeerrgghh]

You are deprived.
flac > ogg > mp3
Which is why I love my Karma.

 

[mzkhadir]

mp3's are not as bad as the different versions of wma.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: apoppin
Also listen to the low-Bass . . . the mp3 rip drumbeats are 'muddy' compared to the CD

I hear a particular difference in bass/cello parts in classical music.

Viper GTS

 

[imported_Reck]

yea the drums in lossless are also slightly more textured. 😉

really though with the equipment most people use here (ipods sennhesier hd497s) i really wouldn't worry much about bitrates.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Reck
yea the drums in lossless are also slightly more textured. 😉

really though with the equipment most people use here (ipods sennhesier hd497s) i really wouldn't worry much about bitrates.

absolutely correct! . . . however, IF you upgrade, you will be very sorry your entire collection is mp3.

i can tell the difference with Grado SR60s

i had the 'killer' home audio system: Stacked Dahlquist 10s, Harmon-Kardon Citation Tube pre-amp modified by Mark Levinson, Great American Sound Amps (and MacIntosh and Denon) a Thorens Turntable and Grado's signature cartridge . . . . i HATED cds when they first came out . . . lacking the depth and transients of 'vinyl' . . . now that my home system is modest, CDs are fine - NOT mp3s.

 

[MikeMike]

how would i automate the encoding of the ripped cd's into FLAC?

its a pain doing it how im doing it.

MIKE

 

[dderidex]

EAC lets you do it - there is a section on the HydrogenAudio forums on how to configure it properly.

 

[Goosemaster]

.ts > divx😛

 

[Babbles]

I started to rip a lot of stuff into OGG format which I think is much better than MP3, however my Creative MuVo doesn't support OGG so now I rip MP3s and 256 and it isn't too bad. I can easily notice stuff ripped under 256 but at 256 things sounds pretty good.

I have some stuff ripped to FLAC (which is the most awesome) so I can listen to them on my PC, but my MuVo doesn't support FLAC.

In my ideal world I would have everything ripped into both FLAC and OGG formats: FLAC for listening on the PC and OGG to put on a portable MP3 player.

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: lkeldysh
Do not hate player! Hate game! Digital sound inprecise not enough levels all chop up ok with bop musik horrible with lyric. Hurt ears with ribbon high frequencie driver and conrad-johnson valve amps on one ohm tap!

😕

 

[Kaido]

How do you guys feel about iTunes quality? I believe they're 128kbps AAC files.

I honestly can't tell a difference with my equipment (using Logitech z-2200s). I just bought an Eagles CD, digitally remastered or whatever, and I can't tell the difference between it and the iTunes version. I wished I'd gone with the iTunes album because it would have saved me five bucks. I ask because I'm building my first hi-fi system (http://projectdave.blogspot.com) and I'm wondering how my iTunes music is going to sound. I bought the Eagles CD to be my reference album for the system.

 

[MikeMike]

intriguing. why the hell is my FLAC now only encoding like nothing? it is only encoding 42K of every song is there a reason it could be erroring like this?

i figured it out, for some reason EAC was letting my dvd-rw drive rip to fast and it was getting diddly squat in terms of a copy

MIKE