Music - which format is best?

solo

MP3? I dunno, I still have vinyl's of the stuff I love.

mitcorb

Hi:
I found this one opinion while googling keywords "lossless music" http://lifehacker.com/5903625/mp3-or-lossless-see-if-you-can-hear-the-difference-with-this-test.
Clearly, there are other views.
Or, do you mean the physical storage medium?

pilou

For the Net : Opus

beginner

Hi Utiler
Which of the songs are quieter?
Are their quieter than others because of conversion?

I keep all my CDs in *.wav format (uncompressed...big files approx. 10x bigger than *.mp3), but if I need to convert to other formats or change the 'volume' level during conversion, I can always do that.

utiler

Thanks guys, I can't say which particular songs are quieter than others, maybe what I should do is identify what songs are quieter, what file type that are and whether they were burnt or downloaded...

I was given a Sonos system a few months ago from a client as a gift for doing a job for them; its the best thing I have for the last 20 years!!!
http://www.sonos.com/

so simple and just brilliant!

Box

Ignoring the Format question and just addressing the volume, if you are using itunes I seem to remember it has a setting to equalise the volume of tracks.
I don't remember where it is offhand, and I don't have itunes on this pc, but it is there somewhere.

solo

Those Sonos sytems are awesome, I have a Bose 7.1 system that I was really pleased with until I saw a Sonos demo at a store.

utiler

Thanks Box, I think you're onto something although I would never have altered the volume so I don't know why certain tracks would have been downloaded / burnt at different levels..

@Pete - I got the Play:3, bridge and the amp hooked up to a set of B&W 600 series bookshelf speaker... even just by itself the Play:3 is so pure. So nice to sit on the deck with iPhone in hand and a glass of pinot in the other setting up a playlist....

Hieru

More recent releases tend to be louder, especially when engineers overuse compression to make the recordings sound better on mobile devices.

If you play a CD produced 10 or 15 years ago you should notice that it will be significantly quiter than more recent products.

Levels even vary a lot on vinyl and when recording to CD I almost always have to adjust the levels. So it wouldn't surprise me to find similar variance when converting CDs.

Jean Lemire

Hi folks.

A couple years ago I compared a music piece from Yello that I have on CD and in iTune, as a mp3 file.

The mp3 file's dynamic cannot compare at all with the CD. I get deeper bass and better sound overall while using the CD.

Of course, all this depends on your sound system. If you have a sub average sound system with ordinary speakers, you cannot probably hear much difference. Also, hearing changes with age. This must be factored in.

Just ideas.

numerobis

flac!

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless_comparison

and for mp3... only with 320kb/s

If you want to level your mp3's you can use mp3gain: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/
http://lifehacker.com/230105/alpha-geek-whip-your-mp3-library-into-shape-part-i-+-level-the-volume

utiler

Thanks to you all; some great advice! I too prefer my CD's; always rather buy a CD than download.

numerobis

@utiler said:

I too prefer my CD's; always rather buy a CD than download.

Yes, it's still the best quality i think (excluding SACD and DVD-Audio...)

And i really never understood, how someone can buy a 196kbps or 256kbps crap download on itunes or something else for almost the same money as a CD...

Hieru

@jean lemire said:

The mp3 file's dynamic cannot compare at all with the CD. I get deeper bass and better sound overall while using the CD.

When first looking at digital formats I did he same thing, but I could still hear the difference between mp3, WAV and lossless formats on an iPod and low quality hi-fi equipment. For that reason (and the fact that I mostly use high-end hi-fi) I download or convert to WAV where possible and then convert again to a lossless format for use on my iPod*.

If WAV isn't available or you are concerned about storage (which is really cheap these days) then I agree with Numerobis - Flac is the way to go.

*I still prefer my vinyl and CDs though

Hieru

@numerobis said:

And i really never understood, how someone can buy a 196kbps or 256kbps crap download on itunes or something else for almost the same money as a CD...

That.......and kids who only listen to music playing out loud via their phone . It's like choosing a broken down degraded VHS over Blue-ray!

Then again, from the day I first got into good hi-fi I found that most people just cannot tell the difference between cheap stereos and audiophile quality equipment.

utiler

Hieru, I think you said it best; I listened to a few albums that I have ripped to itunes that I have had for 15 years or so and yes they are considerably softer. I wonder how to get volumes similar to say a new CD? Maybe trial and error..

@numberobis - you mention 196 and 256kbps for itunes downloads; Can you explain what that means? I assume level of quality...

Hieru

I'm not sure that there is a way to control the levels. Besides which, when ripping from a CD I suspect that raising the output would screw with the sound quality and engineering.

Whilst the recordings are softer they also tend to cover a broader dynamic range. The simple solution is to adjust the volume during playback. The only time this becomes a problem is when listening on an MP3 player (they don't usually go loud enough for older/quality recordings). You can compensate with a portable headphone amp - which you should probably look at getting anyway.

numerobis

@utiler said:

I listened to a few albums that I have ripped to itunes that I have had for 15 years or so and yes they are considerably softer. I wonder how to get volumes similar to say a new CD? Maybe trial and error..

"numerobis wrote:
If you want to level your mp3's you can use mp3gain: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/
http://lifehacker.com/230105/alpha-geek-whip-your-mp3-library-into-shape-part-i-+-level-the-volume"

But store a copy of the original! It is meant not to affect the quality, but who knows...

@utiler said:

@numberobis - you mention 196 and 256kbps for itunes downloads; Can you explain what that means? I assume level of quality...

yes sure, kbps, kb/s or kbit/s is the bitrate of the tracks, the level of compression. Uncompressed CD-audio material has 1411 kbit/s - so even the best mp3 quality is with 320kbit/s much worse. (You can get 640kbit/s with LAME encoder but this is not standart)
As far as i remember itunes (and others) only sold 160/192 kbit/s "low quality" files, even only 128kb/s earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio

FLAC is also compressing the data stream, but in a lossless way.