Ripping CDs the right way! Read this!

[NuclearFusi0n]

I dont feel like making a different version of this for every different forum's tags, so here it is over at genmay.
http://www.genmay.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14251

 

[hoihtah]

so... how good is this monkey's audio thing?

 

[mk]

Originally posted by: hoihtah
so... how good is this monkey's audio thing?

Lossless compressors usually manage to fit the music to ~60% of the original size (with absolutely no loss in audio quality ).

Performance comparison of lossless audio compressors: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]

 

[smp]

I use EAC .. EAC is the best, never heard of this monkey thing though, I just encode everything with lame at 256 .. works for me.

 

[tweakmm]

why would you want this when you can get cd quality mp3s that are smaller?

 

[hoihtah]

Originally posted by: tweakmm
why would you want this when you can get cd quality mp3s that are smaller?

mp3 by nature is lossy compression.

say i burn mp3 onto a cd... and you take that cd and rip into mp3...
you've lost quality in process.

the idea behind mp3 is to lose sounds that cannot be heard with human ears.
so... normally, we can't tell the difference... when coded right.
but after few generations... you can most definately tell... one of down fall of kazaa.

 

[mk]

Originally posted by: tweakmm
why would you want this when you can get cd quality mp3s that are smaller?

MP3 != CD-quality at any bitrate (that is, unless you are encoding digital silence in which case most if not all lossy compressors produce CD-quality sound).
There are plenty of hard to encode samples that trip MP3 no matter how high the bitrate.

 

[BD2003]

Even though Monkey has been around for a while, it got no exposure, and you have to download a plugin. Microsoft's lossless WMA pro comes built in to WM9, and since theyre both lossless...

Well, I think the winner is clear.

 

[Electric Amish]

128-192 bit I usually can't tell any difference from a CD.

amish

 

[Lucky]

MP3 != CD-quality at any bitrate (that is, unless you are encoding digital silence in which case most if not all lossy compressors produce CD-quality sound).

For 95% of the population a well encoded MP3 DOES equal CD quality.
2% of the population can actually tell the difference and the other 3% claim they can but in actuality can't.

 

[BD2003]

Personally, I cant tell a sh*t of a difference between a CD and a decently encoded MP3. Looking at a spectrograph, sure, but not listening. Then again, with hard drives as big as they are, why not go lossless? The WMA pro codec seemed to encode at about 45-50% size ratio.

 

[Lithium381]

Originally posted by: smp
I use EAC .. EAC is the best, never heard of this monkey thing though, I just encode everything with lame at 256 .. works for me.

hey, works for me too.....!

 

[mk]

Originally posted by: BD2003
Personally, I cant tell a sh*t of a difference between a CD and a decently encoded MP3. Looking at a spectrograph, sure, but not listening. Then again, with hard drives as big as they are, why not go lossless? The WMA pro codec seemed to encode at about 45-50% size ratio.

Looking at a spectrograph is not the right way to judge the sound of any lossy audio compression format, it can only be done by listening tests. Most of the compression is achieved by taking advantage of several psychoacoustic phenomena (such as temporal and frequency masking and the absolute threshold of hearing). Except in some extreme cases (primarily pre-echo and lowpassing) you can't tell from a graph which parts of the sound you are actually able to hear.

The lossless WMA codec has roughly similar compression ratio than other more or less known formats - roughly 60% of the original size over a wide variety of music.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Mk4

Originally posted by: BD2003 Personally, I cant tell a sh*t of a difference between a CD and a decently encoded MP3. Looking at a spectrograph, sure, but not listening. Then again, with hard drives as big as they are, why not go lossless? The WMA pro codec seemed to encode at about 45-50% size ratio.

Looking at a spectrograph is not the right way to judge the sound of any lossy audio compression format, it can only be done by listening tests. Most of the compression is achieved by taking advantage of several psychoacoustic phenomena (such as temporal and frequency masking and the absolute threshold of hearing). Except in some extreme cases (primarily pre-echo and lowpassing) you can't tell from a graph which parts of the sound you are actually able to hear. The lossless WMA codec has roughly similar compression ratio than other more or less known formats - roughly 60% of the original size over a wide variety of music.

Which is exactly what I was trying to say....

I dunno, even though its microsoft, WMA9 really does it for me. They have variable bitrate, and the lossless option just tops it all off. The player is excellent, and the ripping is painless. One click, and I've got a folder in my music for the band name, a subfolder for the album, and hell, it even copies the album cover art.

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: Mk4

Originally posted by: tweakmm
why would you want this when you can get cd quality mp3s that are smaller?

MP3 != CD-quality at any bitrate (that is, unless you are encoding digital silence in which case most if not all lossy compressors produce CD-quality sound).
There are plenty of hard to encode samples that trip MP3 no matter how high the bitrate.

http://www.r3mix.net/

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

Originally posted by: BD2003
Even though Monkey has been around for a while, it got no exposure, and you have to download a plugin. Microsoft's lossless WMA pro comes built in to WM9, and since theyre both lossless...

Well, I think the winner is clear.

A. Monkey's Audio is just a tad bit better, but not enough to really matter.
B. Monkey's Audio is open source....good luck playing WMA9 on anything without a MS logo on it
C. There is NO ripper better than EAC, so dont plan on getting bit for bit perfect copies from that MS ripper.

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

Originally posted by: tweakmm

Originally posted by: Mk4

Originally posted by: tweakmm
why would you want this when you can get cd quality mp3s that are smaller?

MP3 != CD-quality at any bitrate (that is, unless you are encoding digital silence in which case most if not all lossy compressors produce CD-quality sound).
There are plenty of hard to encode samples that trip MP3 no matter how high the bitrate.

http://www.r3mix.net/

take everything you read there with a grain of salt. That guy has a huge bias.

 

[mk]

Originally posted by: tweakmm
http://www.r3mix.net/

www.hydrogenaudio.org.

If you have easy test samples (for the encoder) of course pretty much all formats can be indistinguishable from the original even at very low bitrates. Different formats are usually judged by how they manage to encode difficult pieces of music.
Tests for Pre-Echo using Castanets, there are also several pieces of difficult electronic music where MP3's pre-echo problems can be heard quite clearly.

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

Hydrogen Audio =

 

[DigDug]

Why isn't losless compression an oxymoron? How are things shrunk?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: BlipBlop
Why isn't losless compression an oxymoron? How are things shrunk?

Redundancy Reduction.

For example, imagine 1000 consecutive zeroes in a file. If you compress it as "1000 zeros", which takes up far less data that 1000 consecutive zeroes itself, you've just saved a lot of space, but youre not losing any data.

 

[mpitts]

Originally posted by: BlipBlop
Why isn't losless compression an oxymoron? How are things shrunk?

I was just about to post the same thing.

Compression removes parts to reduce size.

How is that lossless?

 

[Jmmsbnd007]

Originally posted by: mpitts

Originally posted by: BlipBlop
Why isn't losless compression an oxymoron? How are things shrunk?

I was just about to post the same thing.

Compression removes parts to reduce size.

How is that lossless?

So was I...
It is lossless and it reduces size, as said above, "000000000000000000000000000000..." can be replaced by "A bajillion 0's"

 

[OrganizedChaos]

think of it like this, winzip for audio.

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: mpitts

Originally posted by: BlipBlop
Why isn't losless compression an oxymoron? How are things shrunk?

I was just about to post the same thing.

Compression removes parts to reduce size.

How is that lossless?

How do you think Winzip works? Do you lose data with it? No.

Compression does NOT imply loss of data. There is lossy and lossless compression. Zip files and monkeyaudio are lossless and mp3 and ogg are lossy