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Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

Actually, I've had a couple of small Bose 'Room Mate' portable systems that have traveled with me around the Earth a couple of times for 20+ years (still working). And WAY back when I had a top line Bose 901 speaker system that blew anything else away in it's price range 30+ years ago.

But, again, as I jiggled the numbers here, the idea that 1000 FLAC albums would be 'insanely large' as some have intimated, is a bit of a stretch. Even at 700MB per (as pure wave files, 700MB being the max storage of a single CD, maybe 30% less as FLAC), that figures to 700MBx1000, or 700GB. That's 'worst case', most albums are less than 500MB per, and the 'average' is probably around

Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

A BOSE system is not something you want to boast about .

Generally speaking, MP3 is not even the best lossy format. It's been supersede by other formats but everyone uses it because it's the most popular and most common.

In terms of the FLAC versus MP3@320kbps argument, there's a lot of variables including the type of music you are listening to. Or in some cases, the way the original music was mastered (example see recent release from Metallica, the original CD was so horrible it didn't matter). For me I would normally used AAC for portable music and FLAC for achiving.

Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

A bit of an update (maybe I'll start a new thread when I have a week or two under my belt, but...) on AAC vr. MP3.

I knew from the testing I did several (don't ask HOW long ago...!) years ago, in that I found that 192kb/s CBR MP3 was about where the sound quality (in a portable/noisy environment like a car) was about as good as it got. Lower rates (like 160kb/s) or VBR (varible bit rates) were very easily noticed, and high bit rates (say, 220Kb and more) really were not noticeable enough to pick out in a double-blind test.

Well, in just the two days worth of hacking at it, I basically found out two things: First, that even going all the way to 320kb/s in MP3, even though it was noticeable and could be identified against lower rates very consistently, against the same bit rate AAC there was absolutely no comparison: One can instantly tell the AAC as way superior to the MP3.

Now, the testing methodology utilized iTunes 8.1.1.10 to generate the files, and it might be that the MP3 encoder utilized in the product may/might be skewed one way or the other. I plan on doing further testing using the latest WinAmp (which is what I used years ago to do MP3 testing), so I'll see if they're is much difference in the s/w encoder.

As far as the decode, the whole reason for the exercise was the swap-out of my older Kenwood car head unit for the 'latest and greatest' (the older unit was just short of 7yrs old, ancient by any measure) that can do both MP3 and AAC (as well as WMA). All the files were burned to 700MB CDRW's, and I selected some 6+ cd's I know very well having played them a bazillion times in my home system.

The differential between the AAC and MP3 versions took less than a second to know which was which. No comparison. Eventually I run some A/B tests on CD vr. AAC, but off the cuff I'd say it's extremely close.

As an aside, I'd say that the iTunes program from Apple would not have passed muster if I had been the senior/head s/w engineer on the project. Basically, although it is a PC (XP/Vista) program, it almost completely ignores the Microsoft programming style manuals. And those manuals are about 1/10th the size (in pages) as the style manuals for the Apple Mac. So I know they can do it, maybe they just refuse to.

'Back in the Day' I always used the example of walking across a street in a crosswalk; the PC guy waits for the signal, looks both ways after getting a green, and crosses the street while keeping attentive to any traffic.

The Mac guy waits for the green light, then after getting it, still waits until the crossing guard assures them that the traffic has indeed stopped, and then they still wait until a squad or platoon is formed to march in formation across the street.

Meanwhile, the PC has completed at least a couple more tasks while the Mac is still 'safetly' grinding their way on task 1.

Oh well, that's why the last Mac I had was just about 25 years ago. But, it made me re-think (the sound quality) about getting an iPod to hook into the new car head-unit.

Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

Originally Posted by saulin

I can't hear the difference between Flac and 320kbps Mp3s. I have kick ass computer speakers though. If you get low bit rate mp3s of course you will find that flac is so loud and sounds much better.

That is part of the 'clue' as to what (generally) people are trying to a/b sound (or video or whatever) all the time. 'kick ass computer speakers' would be VERY low-end audio speakers in any decent audio system.

There's simply too many variables in the mix. There are other lossless encoders other than flac out there, all of them are the audio equivalent of zip or rar, in that the bitstream in is identical to the bitstream out, it simply uses the power of the computer to squeeze the redundancy a bit, in (near) real-time.

As far as compressed (lossy) formats like mp3 or acc, tons of real-world testing has been done over the years, with double-blind methodology, utilizing high-quality reproduction equipment. The same, interestingly, was done at the dawn of digital music with the CD standard (44.1khz sampling, 16 bit resolution), in the early 80's, when lots of folks found the 'supposedly' pristine CD wave format sonically sub-par next to their analog (either disc or wideband tape).

A lot of the early encoders in use by even the top studios were found to be at fault, and over the years both that equipment (analog to digital or a/d) has improved, and even more important, direct to digital studio have proliferated.

Back on the home front, newer encoders (for older formats such as mp3) as well as new (although now approaching 20 years in use!) acc, have made strides.

But don't think for a minute that, again, the quality will be 'indistinguishable' from the original CD (if, of course, that CD is engineered well). How MUCH of a difference is up to you.

What's nice about the lossless formats such as FLAC is that you know from the start that you have the exact original CD bitstream to work with, and how you may want to manipulate that is up to you. You can keep it in FLAC (to save on disc space, say), or transcode it to the lossy format of your choosing.

Several years ago, when HD prices were first getting 'good to go', I took the time and effort to do some testing with my own ears and with available equipment, to see where, at what point, audio quality was good for a portable environment (my car), which had a fairly decent system, and a new head unit able to play mp3 cd's (one of the first available at the time).

I found that 192kb/s CBR (constant bit rate) was the minimum I was able to not hear really objectionable audio artifacts. Not that I would ever use that in my home system, but given the limitations of the auto system, plus road noise and such adding into the mix, and it has served me well. So I encoded my CD collection, and went from there.

Now, I'm about to install a new head unit that not only does mp3, but acc and wma as well, and I'm thinking that redoing things to high bitrate acc (say, 320kb/s or higher) will result in a noticeable upgrade. I'll see.

But meanwhile, if you have a home system where you can easily (with today's super-capacity HD's), simply store either the WAV files or a lossless equivilent like FLAC, and especially if your pc has an optical output so you can route the bits to a decent d/a (digital to analog) converter, then that's really the way to go. Having either the original WAV or lossless FLAC (or other lossless format) means that as you upgrade other components in the chain (like I am with my car head unit), you can 'go back' to the 'pure' original and go from there.

BTW, my mp3 project years ago took a bit less than the capacity of a 160GB HD to put all my CD's (at, as I said, 192kb/s CBR mp3 encoding), with a bit of room to spare. I could easily do the same today with a lossless format (even the original WAV files) on a terabyte drive.

What's kinda unfortunate, is that I've yet to find a car unit that will do any lossless formats other than the original CD WAV files (from optical discs). Many now have USB inputs, but again, not the internal decoding chips to do anything above mp3/acc/wma, although there are some folks 'kit-bashing' together hard-drive systems that do all the decoding internally within a box, then output analog audio to the head units.

Sounds interesting, but I'm used to carrying some 500+ cd's with me (in case logic folders) as it is, so...

Again, it's what you can tolerate, either mechanically, or sonically.

I might add that, although I usually don't 'scan' the lossless (FLAC or otherwise) newsgroups that much, having spent many years collecting and adding to my collection (even back into analog/56k and lower days), the wealth of lossless audio on the newsgroups is huge. I'd say if you spent the next 6 months keeping an eye on them, that you'd probably get everything you ever wanted and more, using either manually scanning headers or one (or more) of the indexing sites.

Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

I can't even hear teh difference, am I suppossed to? My it's because I've had big booming bass system's in ever car I've ever owned...coudl that be it?

Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

Lol...

Originally Posted by lazor

I recently decided to check out FLAC, and I really notice a sizable difference.

If you download the original extracted WAV's there are even bigger. 'FLAC' compresses the 'WAV's' with no loss of quality.

I'm not to sure about the compression and how that works though

Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

[QUOTE=wholelotaphun;3164361]

Can anybody point me to sites that have done the extraction you're talking about to simulate the MP3 data loss? Or to the "controlled experiments" where people responded positively to higher quality sound?

Thanks!

Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

Originally Posted by wholelotaphun

It does not work that way. It's not about such quality you system can't play it. Your missing information across the whole frequency spectrum. It's like looking at a low resolution picture. If you did the same thing to a picture you would see it right away. There are a few sites on the web that have extracted the information that was removed from a FLAC to make an MP3 and played just that to make the point. The missing information is HUGE, and while many can't "hear" it, under controlled experiments almost everyone finds the FLAC files more emotionally charged, moving. In other words, you don't know what you are missing.

Playing MP3's on a 2,500 BOSE system is like hooking up your HDTV to
component-video.

i think u mean composite...about to google flac cuz i have no idea what it is

Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

Sizeable as in file size, twice the size, as in sound like I say I am half deaf anyway :lol:

Top 1000 Albums FLAC?

[quote=link2009;3163803]

I'm sure you don't want to get into a giant argument about FLAC vs. MP3 because there are just too many on the 'net.

I believe it's