Music! Better quality!

[Siddhartha]

I did a comparison of music from a CD and mp3s and found the biggest difference was with Classical and other types of music that had a relative large dynamic range.

What application do you use for play FLAC files? Winamp does not play them.

 

[Locut0s]

Stupid question maybe. But with magnetic storage as cheap as it is now, why not just save everything in uncompressed WAV?

 

[biostud]

Stupid question maybe. But with magnetic storage as cheap as it is now, why not just save everything in uncompressed WAV?

With FLAC there's no difference in sound quality and it reduced the file size with ~50%, also better for mobile devices.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

I just want to add that another major problem I frequently see are people with 4+.1 surround doing everything they can to get the best music sound quality possible... The thing is... music sounds best in 2 or 3.1. Unless price is absolutely no option most of the mid-range 2.1 stuff sounds WAY better than top end 4+.1 setups.


After cycling through a bunch of different multiple speaker setups I ended up with audioengine A5 + audioengine S8 sub and have been very happy.

 

[Locut0s]

With FLAC there's no difference in sound quality and it reduced the file size with ~50%, also better for mobile devices.

Yes I suppose for carrying your music with you FLAC makes more sense than WAV, though default player support on mobile devises is still spotty (you can download players for most anything I think). But for music in your home I don't really see the smaller file size as being really worth it. Like I said modern HDs are more than large enough to store tons and tons of uncompressed music. For example let's say you are setting up a home music server. Well a 1TB drive costs about roughly $39. Assuming every album in your collection is somehow 80mins long, which is not at all likely that means every CD is 700MB. That's still 1400+ albums worth of music. And just double that for a 2TB drive. Uncompressed WAV is also the most versatile format around, easy to edit, easy to convert, transcode etc.

 

[Locut0s]

I just want to add that another major problem I frequently see are people with 4+.1 surround doing everything they can to get the best music sound quality possible... The thing is... music sounds best in 2 or 3.1. Unless price is absolutely no option most of the mid-range 2.1 stuff sounds WAY better than top end 4+.1 setups.


After cycling through a bunch of different multiple speaker setups I ended up with audioengine A5 + audioengine S8 sub and have been very happy.

Yeah LOL people looking for the best audio quality don't know what they are doing if they are playing their music on their 8.1 setup. Unless you are talking about movie tracks just about all master audio is recorded for a regular stereo setup. 2/2.1. The algorithms that are used to generate the extra channels to play a 2 channel recording on a 2+ channel setup will likely distort the soundscape and at the VERY best do nothing. FAR better to get a quality 2.1 setup. This is just for music of course.

 

[Taejin]

Yeah LOL people looking for the best audio quality don't know what they are doing if they are playing their music on their 8.1 setup. Unless you are talking about movie tracks just about all master audio is recorded for a regular stereo setup. 2/2.1. The algorithms that are used to generate the extra channels to play a 2 channel recording on a 2+ channel setup will likely distort the soundscape and at the VERY best do nothing. FAR better to get a quality 2.1 setup. This is just for music of course.

also lol@ people with shitty computer speakers trying to make their music sound better.

If you want to be able to hear a real difference between lossy and lossless audio, you're going to need a better setup other than your standard logitech getup.

edit: and its pretty amazing when you can pick out 2, 3 or more different 'threads' in the music you're listening too. and pretty eye opening when you realize that song you thought was good is actually crappy.

 

[Old Hippie]

Came home, checked it out on my much less expensive hardware, and sure enough, a big difference.

Anyone else notice this?

Yes, I know I'm probably many years behind the cue ball on this one.

From an old audiophile's point of view that's just plain sad.

However, I'm always glad when someone actually learns how to listen! 🙂

 

[0roo0roo]

So the lossy was sourced from an ipod vs flac from what?

I have serious doubts you could tell the difference in a real double blind test where both source equipment were equal...

 

[Locut0s]

So the lossy was sourced from an ipod vs flac from what?

I have serious doubts you could tell the difference in a real double blind test where both source equipment were equal...

This very much depends on the quality of the original recordings, the bit rate of the MP3 and the type of music being played. Some things like classical music are easily murdered by compression /MP3. Other things like pop music much much less so. With the right music though you certainly can tell the difference.