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 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 4:32 PM   
 By:   Solium   (Member)

I didn't bother about FLACs; high quality mp3s were more than enough. My tinnitus-affected ears can't discern the difference anymore

This may well be so, and I won't argue. However, since I know that even today, at over 50, I can easily differentiate between (even the best-)MP3 or lossless ALAC files (provided I am familiar with the music and the playback system is up to it; yes, I have done blind tests to confirm this... it's not even difficult to hear the difference), and the evidence clearly indicates that listeners can even differentiate between CD and high-res sound (haven't done comprehensive listening comparisons myself, so I won't lean myself out of the window here, but the studies suggest humans are able to differentiate), I would never be satisfied listening to MP3, even if I ever loose my ability to differentiate. If you have to go for lossy (which I cannot really understand, given that 4TB of high-end hardware disc space cost less than $100.-... I know I just bought some), I just cannot see how one would not at least switch to AAC, which sounds noticeably better.

Then again, I don't see how one would ever sacrifice (potential) sound quality for disc space. If I ever had to sacrifice one for the other, it would be the other way around.

In any case, the comparatively poor MP3 sound back in its day (which, while many people said the difference cannot be heard, stood out like a sour thumb to me even 20 years ago, and even at 320kbps delivers sub-par sound) stopped me to switch to the format when it was in vogue, and I stuck to CDs (I do most of my listening on my home stereo anyway, so portability was a nice add-on, but never the main consideration). But these days, finally, with lossless or high-res files and stereo systems with high-end DACs, there is no need for any type of physical media anymore.


My Mac has a 2TB drive and I have a 2TB external drive for backups. That extra $100 dollars can go towards more soundtracks or bills. As far as sound quality it also comes down to how I listen to music. I rarely have the time to sit down and just listen to music. Every other week I work six out of seven days. So I listen to music while driving, or at the computer while multitasking.

 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 4:47 PM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)



My Mac has a 2TB drive and I have a 2TB external drive for backups. That extra $100 dollars can go towards more soundtracks or bills. As far as sound quality it also comes down to how I listen to music. I rarely have the time to sit down and just listen to music. Every other week I work six out of seven days. So I listen to music while driving, or at the computer while multitasking.
#

I listen to music while driving in the car (I use AACs there), but never while "multitasking"; if I am working or doing anything else, I don't listen to music. So when I am really listening to music, it is at home, doing nothing else (except perhaps drinking a glass of fine wine). So yeah, I by far prefer to spend that $100.- on extra sound quality and not on extra music, but to each its own. I just thought about it and indeed, if pushed hard, I'd rather listen to the same recording twice in better sound than to listen to two different recordings in lesser sound, so the 100$ that make room for another few thousand CDs (I mean, 1TB holds way over 1000 CDs worth of FLAC) is cash well spent.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 4:54 PM   
 By:   Thor   (Member)

This may well be so, and I won't argue. However, since I know that even today, at over 50, I can easily differentiate between (even the best-)MP3 or lossless ALAC files (provided I am familiar with the music and the playback system is up to it; yes, I have done blind tests to confirm this...

Well, that's good for you. Alas, it doesn't apply to me. There was a discussion recently, at JWFAN, where people complained about a clicking noise in THE POST. I listened and listened, but could hear nothing of the sort. Unfortunately, having chronic tinnitus doesn't only mean you have a constant buzzing noise in your ear(s), it also means a severe loss, especially in certain frequencies, that transcends just 'normal' hearing loss as you get older.

So I'm completely unable to hear the difference between FLACs and high quality mp3s, and believe me I've tried.

I also have an opposite situation as you. I don't have a car, but I always listen to music only while multitasking (as in being on the computer), as you'll have to occupy the brain (which produces the tinnitus sound) with mulitple signals. If I were to listen to music like I did in the old days, i.e. exclusively and with concentration, the brain focusses on the tinnitus instead, hence ruining the experience.

 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 5:04 PM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)


I also have an opposite situation as you. I don't have a car, but I always listen to music only while multitasking (as in being on the computer), as you'll have to occupy the brain (which produces the tinnitus sound) with mulitple signals. If I were to listen to music like I did in the old days, i.e. exclusively and with concentration, the brain focusses on the tinnitus instead, hence ruining the experience.


I, on the other hand, cannot listen to music while doing anything else (of significance... of course, I can wash my windows, clean the living room, or even draw something, but I cannot actually accomplish any work). Listening to Penderecki, Mahler, or any other music that demands this concentration while having to do something else drives me up the wall. I need to sit down and concentrate and do nothing else but listen to the music to actually enjoy music (unless it is something more atmospheric like Vangelis or Glass or Zimmer or pop music etc., which I like and can enjoy "in the background" too).

 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 5:11 PM   
 By:   Solium   (Member)

I make playlists while paying bills online. big grin

 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 5:34 PM   
 By:   ZapBrannigan   (Member)

With my hearing (very good for my age) and my playback equipment (quite modest), I find that mp3's made at 160 kps sound "just like the CD." But I rip my CDs at 192 kps for the safety margin, to feel sure I captured all the quality I'll ever be able to appreciate.

For the audiophile with high-end equipment and superb acoustics at home, the lossless route serves exactly the same purpose: you're satisfied that you got all you wanted from the digital conversion, and you'll never need to go back and rip your CDs all over again.

Regarding all that scanning and finishing in Photoshop, I'm a guy who really likes to visit and re-visit his film music booklets. It helps me to read them at larger than actual size, and I can call up the scans a thousand times and not wear them out. I love it.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 5:36 PM   
 By:   TerraEpon   (Member)


The above remark begs the question: Why even bother listening to film music? Is it because many of its fans cannot handle orchestral music of the pre-Star Wars era?


I....don't understand the how those two sentences relate.

I have film scores from the absolute earliest that exist to ones released this year. I also have recording of the some of the earliest what could be called orchestral music out there too (I suppose...the opera L'Orfeo has a couple non-vocal tracks, and of course the opera in general has orchestral accompaniment....though it's a far cry of what would be considered an orchestra today.

But anyway...I listen because i enjoy it. I would /think/ that's why any of us are here.

 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 5:52 PM   
 By:   ZapBrannigan   (Member)

I....don't understand the how those two sentences relate.


I wouldn't worry too much about engaging with Jim when he gets like this. He just wants to stir it up. He calls me a hand-wringer because I keep my music collection on seven redundant hard drives. But things go wrong in this world. You've got to have contingency plans.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 6:01 PM   
 By:   jkannry   (Member)

Now maybe someone can tell me what to do with all the CD booklets and a CD inserts. I’ve seen binders that store the booklets and original cd but not want to deal with all the package inserts. Nor am I sure what happened to autograph book about whether the marker ends up sticking to the plastic in the binder

 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 9:15 PM   
 By:   Solium   (Member)

I....don't understand the how those two sentences relate.


I wouldn't worry too much about engaging with Jim when he gets like this. He just wants to stir it up. He calls me a hand-wringer because I keep my music collection on seven redundant hard drives. But things go wrong in this world. You've got to have contingency plans.


Yeah, just Phelps taking every opportunity to force in some anti Star Wars agenda. I excuse him however, we all have our faults.

 
 Posted:   Dec 28, 2019 - 10:42 PM   
 By:   Josh   (Member)

I'm attracted to the idea of having all the music I own on CD available to me anywhere on any device at the touch of a button, but the task of ripping and converting and controverting and taggering over a thousand CDs seems too daunting to be worth my while when I can just pop a CD into the player whenever I want to listen to an album (or just listen to albums on youtube or bandcamp or whatever on the rare occasion that I don't have access to a CD player).

P.S. Once I outgrew them, I used my Star Wars action figures for bb gun target practice, but the Darth Maul figure my wife gave me 20 years ago is still in its original packaging.

 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 2:18 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

I'm attracted to the idea of having all the music I own on CD available to me anywhere on any device at the touch of a button, but the task of ripping and converting and controverting and taggering over a thousand CDs seems too daunting to be worth my while when I can just pop a CD into the player whenever I want to listen to an album (or just listen to albums on youtube or bandcamp or whatever on the rare occasion that I don't have access to a CD player).

Yeah, it takes some time. But I never did this as a "daunting task". In 2013, I started to rip some of my CDs to AAC files for my smart phone and my car... and after about ten CDs or so where I had to change the tags (simply because they were not unified) I thought: wow, I don't ever want to do this again. So I re-started and switched from AAC to ALAC (like FLAC, a lossless format). Even back in 2013, storage space was not really an issue.

And I did it step by step, in certain "sections". Say, all John Barry CDs... and you don't have to be there, just pop in a new CD ever ten minutes or so... when it's all done, I took the time to tag them. Cover art etc. I usually just downloaded, did not see much point in scanning the booklets myself. Now that I've actually done this, I'm quite happy that I did (and indeed keep several backups, I don't ever want to do this again. :-D ), because listening to music has become way, way more convenient. Sure, I could still insert CDs, but that is not nearly as flexible as a purely file-based digital music library, where I can access all my CDs and send via remote control or smartphone whatever tracks I want from my NAS to my stereo system. Much, much better than inserting CDs.


I don't consider myself to be particularly audiophile, and I don't have the ears of a bat or whatever, but already some time ago it became clear to me that I can easily differentiate between MP3s and Lossless files, so my presumption would be that everybody could actually hear these differences, it is just that most people don't care.

Which of course is fine. But I think most people who are happy with MP3 are people for whom sound quality is of lesser importance, they listen on the go in their car or with iPhone ear buds on the go or whatever, so yeah, I agree, MP3 is fine for all that. That's where I use lossy formats as well. (I use 320kpbs AAC -- like MP3 a lossy format, but better -- files in my car, for example. MP3s I actually do not use at all).

But when I actually listen to music at home (and most of the music I listen to is classical music), where I could easily switch between MP3 and lossless, the difference is not just audible, but glaring, and I think just about anyone would be able to hear the difference, the fact that MP3 just filters out the stuff "you can't hear" is simply not true. And it can be easily demonstrated even on run-of-the-mill equipment: just take a 320kbps MP3, and convert to another lossy format, say 320kbps AAC, then back to 320kbps MP3 and back again. Do this five or six times and you have a file that sounds like utter crap. So all this "stuff you can't hear" adds up all of a sudden and becomes painfully obvious even on $20.- ear buds. So at least for me, MP3 was never an option I seriously considered.

In fact, research indicates that people can even hear the difference between high-res sound files and CD-sound quality (there is an interesting meta-study, compiling the results from numerous other studies: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160627214255.htm ). I have not done such comparative listening myself to any significant extent (though I got a few high-res files), but the mere fact that human hearing can even distinguish between CD sound and high-res sound indicates that hearing the difference between MP3 and lossless files should provide no difficulty for concerning ears.

When it comes right down to it, I rather have music files that go beyond what I or any human being can hear (no harm in that) than compromise even one iota in sound quality when I don't have to. And I don't have to. :-)

It's like a lot of things in life: there are now 4K and even 8K TV sets. Can you see the difference? Sure, anyone can, just depends on how close you are looking. Anyone can see the difference between a DVD picture and a Blu-ray picture, too. And hearing is even more sensitive to nuances and details than eyes are.

Of course, for those who mainly listen to music on cheap computer speakers or ear buds or in the car, I would say indeed, MP3 sounds well enough there, and high-res and perhaps even lossless files there would be like hooking up a Bluray player to an old tube TV set: just does not make much of a difference.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 2:49 AM   
 By:   Rameau   (Member)

I do all my listening on iPod these days, it's out of convenience & sheer laziness. The CDs are ripped at a high number, but not lossless (I can't check how high as I'm not at home). I recently bought a really tiny Sandisk MP3 player (16g) for when I'm out & about, it's brilliant, the battery lasts forever & tons of volume. Anyway I decided to only have around 30 CDs on it & rip them all using FLAC, which was a bit of a faff (some discs are fine, but others stop & sometimes freeze the whole laptop) but I did it in the end, & even with earbuds it sounds great. The only trouble is the definite gap between tracks, so tracks that should flow one to another now come to a stop & then the next track starts.

 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 2:59 AM   
 By:   Swaj   (Member)

Yeah, it takes some time. But I never did this as a "daunting task". In 2013, I started to rip some of my CDs to AAC files for my smart phone and my car... and after about ten CDs or so where I had to change the tags (simply because they were not unified) I thought: wow, I don't ever want to do this again. So I re-started and switched from AAC to ALAC (like FLAC, a lossless format). Even back in 2013, storage space was not really an issue.

And I did it step by step, in certain "sections". Say, all John Barry CDs... and you don't have to be there, just pop in a new CD ever ten minutes or so... when it's all done, I took the time to tag them. Cover art etc. I usually just downloaded, did not see much point in scanning the booklets myself. Now that I've actually done this, I'm quite happy that I did (and indeed keep several backups, I don't ever want to do this again. :-D ), because listening to music has become way, way more convenient. Sure, I could still insert CDs, but that is not nearly as flexible as a purely digital music library, where I can access all my CDs and send via remote control or smartphone whatever tracks I want from my NAS to my stereo system. Much, much better than inserting CDs.

I don't consider myself to be particularly audiophile, and I don't have the ears of a bat or whatever, but already some time ago it became clear to me that I can easily differentiate between MP3s and Lossless files, so my presumption would be that everybody could actually hear these differences, it is just that most people don't care.


I agree with all this. I did mine in chunks around 2013-2014 as well. Did them in ALAC, storage isn’t that expensive anymore or even back then. Took time but was not daunting. You start up a disc, do something else, start another one. Takes an afternoon, then whenever you get more time later do another chunk. You can tag later but I found with Gracenote, 80-90% came close enough to what I wanted that minor changes were all that needed to be done. Artist name and album title/artwork mostly.

Same about MP3’s too. I’m no expert and I have some loss in my right ear, but they just sound quiet and muddy to me. Can’t stand them so they aren’t even an option. Put an mp3 of the same file next to an ALAC on good headphones, it’s clear to me which ones better.

 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 3:06 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

The only trouble is the definite gap between tracks, so tracks that should flow one to another now come to a stop & then the next track starts.

What? That should not be an issue with most players and definitely not with lossless playback? I have a lot of CDs where one piece (say, a movement of a Mahler symphony or an opera) is supposed to flow gapless from one track to the next, and it should not be an issue. Most players today can handle gapless playback, and for lossless files it should not even be an issue. Could there possibly be a setting that is responsible for this? (Either while ripping or during playback?) I agree that would be a serious issue for me if there were gaps between tracks during playback.

 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 4:53 AM   
 By:   Peter Atterberg   (Member)

I....don't understand the how those two sentences relate.


I wouldn't worry too much about engaging with Jim when he gets like this. He just wants to stir it up. He calls me a hand-wringer because I keep my music collection on seven redundant hard drives. But things go wrong in this world. You've got to have contingency plans.



Yes, this is so hugely important. I keep multiple back ups of my music collection. There’s also some stuff I have purchased on itunes that I have no CD back up for. So if I lose those I would have to double dip to get them again.

I also find digitalizing everything is far more convenient for my listening preferences. For example, with the Back to the Future trilogy, I created my own best of playlist. I’m usually pretty content with mp3’s as long as they’re genuinely at 320. It’s just better to have so much of your music in one place.

I listen to music when I write, while working, while driving, and while exercising.

 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 5:22 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

I also have an opposite situation as you. I don't have a car, but I always listen to music only while multitasking (as in being on the computer), as you'll have to occupy the brain (which produces the tinnitus sound) with mulitple signals. If I were to listen to music like I did in the old days, i.e. exclusively and with concentration, the brain focusses on the tinnitus instead, hence ruining the experience.

This is of course a special condition; in the end, whatever works for you and lets music bring joy into your life is what matters.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 5:34 AM   
 By:   Rameau   (Member)

The only trouble is the definite gap between tracks, so tracks that should flow one to another now come to a stop & then the next track starts.

What? That should not be an issue with most players and definitely not with lossless playback? I have a lot of CDs where one piece (say, a movement of a Mahler symphony or an opera) is supposed to flow gapless from one track to the next, and it should not be an issue. Most players today can handle gapless playback, and for lossless files it should not even be an issue. Could there possibly be a setting that is responsible for this? (Either while ripping or during playback?) I agree that would be a serious issue for me if there were gaps between tracks during playback.


Ta, I'll look into it. I was thinking that it was inevitable with FLAC, so I'll look into it, but it's really not much of a problem, as it's only around 30 CDs full of good walking music.

 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 5:54 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)



Ta, I'll look into it. I was thinking that it was inevitable with FLAC, so I'll look into it, but it's really not much of a problem, as it's only around 30 CDs full of good walking music.


Good for you if it is not much of a problem, but it would be a huge problem for me and so at least I can assure you that it should be an issue easily solved.

Lossy formats such as MP3 rely on the player to be able to play "gapless" (not all do, and you may get these gaps in these formats), but FLAC/ALAC by their very nature should be gapless (as there is not data introduced or taken away).

I listen to a lot of recordings with tracks that flow into each other (live recordings, classical recordings, opera recordings, etc...) and if I could detect even the slightest audible hint of one track segueing into another it would ruin the experience.

However, certain players allow you to add gaps between tracks (if you want), so this may be the reason you hear them.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 11:51 AM   
 By:   1977   (Member)

To my knowledge the MP3 format does not allow gapless playback, regardless of playback device / software, whereas AAC does support gapless playback.

For this reason, when purchasing albums in lossy formats, I always check whether the album has gapless tracks before purchasing (MP3 albums are usually a bit more affordable than AAC, at least where I am from).

A workaround for encoding to lossy MP3 is to use the iTunes "combine tracks" function when ripping (not an ideal solution, but preferable to unwanted gaps).

 
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