Hi to all,
I think that here there is some audiophile...
Do you use AAC file on your HIFI or only lossless (FLAC/ALAC) or CD Audio?
Actually i'm trying to make a good ABX and I admit... I can't find difference with the MP3/AAC file and CD... I don't find differences.
What is your experience?
Do you use AAC file on a 1.000 dollars HiFi system or you will prefer FLAC?
Thanks
If you can't hear the difference on an average system, you are probably not going to hear a difference on an expensive system. (Although, many "audiophiles" who have never bothered to do any blind listening tests will tell you otherwise....)
However, if you have a high-end expensive sound system there is little reason to use lossy compression (unless you only have lossy originals).
Dolby AC3 is lossy, and the some of the best sound I get from my home theater system is from Dolby 5.1 concert DVDs. (And, I have a laptop full of MP3s connected to the system.)
I think that here there is some audiophile...
well... Most people here
are "audio lovers", which is what "audiophile" means... But, there is so much nonsense in the audiophile community that "audiophile" is somwhat of a dirty word around here.
I have talked with a "aduiofanatic"
I think that some of them... lost the contact with the music reality... and try to hear cable... and try to hear if the position of them increase the quality of the system...
However, if you have a high-end expensive sound system there is little reason to use lossy compression (unless you only have lossy originals).
I fail to see how the choice to use lossless compression relates to the price of the system, especially after reading the beginning of your response.
I thought the same but then realized he probably meant: if you own an expensive sound system, why not directly listen to what you bought (CD, SACD, ...) instead of a low-bit-rate lossy encoding of what you bought? At least that's what I do. Btw, I'm perfectly happy listening to AAC at >128 kbps or so if it was encoded with a good encoder.
Chris
If you own an inexpensive sound system, why not directly listen to what you bought (CD, SACD, ...) instead of a low-bit-rate lossy encoding of what you bought?
I have talked with a "aduiofanatic"
I think that some of them... lost the contact with the music reality... and try to hear cable... and try to hear if the position of them increase the quality of the system...
I think you’re right! Glad you’re not going to fall for it.
Don't know if I'd consider myself an audiophile (most audiophiles probably wouldn't consider me one!) but if I can't hear a difference between mp3/acc/vorbis/whatever and lossless then I'll use any of the above to listen to music. Normally as soon as someone starts talking to me about the need for lossless if you're buying more expensive gear my eyes glaze over.
But, to be fair, before I did blind tests I too believed I could tell the difference between a 128kbs AAC and a flac or alac. My brain assumed there would be differences so it found them. Put those same tracks through ABX and I can't tell a difference. Remember if someone plays the same quality track to you 5 times blind and tells you they are different bitrates and asks you to pick a favourite you'll be in the vast majority if you have a favourite by the end of it and a strong preference towards one of the tracks despite them being identical*. The brain is a funny thing and placebos are fascinating.
Edit:
*I should reference this study but for the life of me I can't find it. Sorry.
However, if you have a high-end expensive sound system there is little reason to use lossy compression (unless you only have lossy originals).
I fail to see how the choice to use lossless compression relates to the price of the system, especially after reading the beginning of your response.
I guess if you own an expensive audio system, storage is just chump change in comparison.
I usually play FLAC when I'm listening to music on my computer, so I can avoid maintaining a separate lossy library. It's easier for me to edit a cue sheet if I find an incorrect spelling and be done with it. I also save hard disk space by not keeping extra lossy files.
I also encoded most of my collection in ALAC for my newer iPod, because I had the space on it, and there was a certain novelty in having my lossless collection on a portable player. I encoded to AAC for my older iPod, so I could fit everything. Of course the iPods sound the same, but that's not the point in my decision making. For me, there's just something fun about playing back the lossless files when I can.
I think that actually:
- for portable use (iPod/Car... the AAC/MP3 is good)
- for home/hifi use: I think that actually FLAC is the best solution
Why?
Because I think that if we can't hear the differences between an AAC and a FLAC is not very important, but at home we can use the best "source" for our audio.
And today the cost of an hard disk is very low, and the advantage of lossless is high, we can have the same quality of the CD forever.
The portable way... is a different situation and I think that for an iPod we can use 256 kbps AAC without problem.
But, to be fair, before I did blind tests I too believed I could tell the difference between a 128kbs AAC and a flac or alac. My brain assumed there would be differences so it found them. Put those same tracks through ABX and I can't tell a difference.
Same here. I used to have pretty good hearing, and I can't tell q4.0 AAC apart from the original. Now, at this quality setting, all frequencies above about 17 kHz are cut off, but I'm 37 years old. My ears can't hear anything above 17kHz anymore anyway.
I use my phone as a portable audio player when I travel or when driving. I convert everything to q4.0 AAC (about 128 kbps) before putting it on the phone.
Hearing test tones above 17kHz does not necessarily mean you will hear these frequencies in music.
I think that actually:
- for portable use (iPod/Car... the AAC/MP3 is good)
- for home/hifi use: I think that actually FLAC is the best solution
Why?
Because I think that if we can't hear the differences between an AAC and a FLAC is not very important, but at home we can use the best "source" for our audio.
And today the cost of an hard disk is very low, and the advantage of lossless is high, we can have the same quality of the CD forever.
The portable way... is a different situation and I think that for an iPod we can use 256 kbps AAC without problem.
I have a high-end system and I use my iPod, with AAC compressed at 224 kbps, as the main source. I don't see any reason to use FLAC - or more likely, Apple Lossless - as I can't hear a difference between my compressed tracks and the originals. I also use the ipod as the source in my car and occasionally with headphones in portable mode.
I don't see what the advantages of lossless are that you refer to. They take up more space, don't sound any better and take more time to copy from on place to another.
Because I think that if we can't hear the differences between an AAC and a FLAC is not very important, but at home we can use the best "source" for our audio.
And? That contradicts what you are saying. In other words, you are expressing the thought of "who cares if you can't hear a difference, just go with lossless because it is the best quality!" That doesn't make much sense especially if you are going to bring in the listening test argument. If one cannot hear a difference between a lossy and lossless file, then there is no need for them to playback the lossless content anywhere. It doesn't matter if they have access to a higher quality source since they won't need it for listening purposes. Having lossless files and playing them "just because" is not a good enough reason.
I am well aware of the benefits that lossless encoding offers. I rip all of my CDs to ALAC for archive purposes so that I will never have to rip them again. I can easily convert my ALAC files to AAC, mp3, FLAC, WavPack, or any number of different lossy and lossless files. That way, when Apple updates their AAC encoder in iTunes/QuickTime, I can delete my current lossy files and re-encode my lossless sources. That a huge benefit and cuts down on the wear that my optical drive would otherwise go through re-ripping thousands of CDs over and over again. I can also understand that some people are capable of properly ABXing source lossy material to lossy variants. So, for them, it would make sense to playback their lossless content over lossy versions. However, if someone continually fails blind ABX tests between lossy and lossless content, there is no reason for them to playback the lossless content.
I think that FLAC is a good solution only because preserve all the quality, AAC destroy some part of the sound message... you can't hear difference from an AAC?
At 256 an AAC is not possible, in blind test, to detect it... but I think that the sound is not only what we can hear.
Sound is what we can hear but it include some part of "physical sensation" and the AAC is capable to give us the same sensation?
Some people that call them audiophile, tell that lossy music loose "openness" and seem more flat and loss some "life"... less dynamic.
What you think about this?
I have an idea... placebo effect.
Definitely placebo effect. If you can't double blind ABX the differences ("more open", "less flat", etc.) then they don't exist. Even if sound is more than just what you can hear, you'd still detect the other sensations in an ABX test.
And? That contradicts what you are saying. In other words, you are expressing the thought of "who cares if you can't hear a difference, just go with lossless because it is the best quality!" That doesn't make much sense especially if you are going to bring in the listening test argument. If one cannot hear a difference between a lossy and lossless file, then there is no need for them to playback the lossless content anywhere. It doesn't matter if they have access to a higher quality source since they won't need it for listening purposes. Having lossless files and playing them "just because" is not a good enough reason.
And why would I play lossy files when I have lossless source?
You are too narrow minded about this. I have vast collection of audio CDs, which I've ripped and put away; I have FLAC files on my HDD which is connected to media center, and mp3's and m4a's of them on internal HDD in computer, so I don't have to transcode every time when I put music on iPod.
Giving that I can't ABX 160 kbit mp3 from FLAC, do you really think I should stop listening to FLACs and listen to lossy encodes? Why should I do that? I already have lossless files, so why should I listen to lossy at home?
I have difficulty with AAC at 96kbps.
Having said that, I keep flac files on a hard drive because I have re-encoded my music several times with improvements in Lame and now the AAC encoders.
The recent 96kbps test package might interest you as it contains many codec killer samples. See what actually sounds transparant to you.
But hey, even if it's a placebo, it works right? So just use the placebo in your favor...
I only keep lossless files from Lamb Of God in my iPod, and when I play it in a big sound system very loudly, it really sounds better than a lossy file.
One more thing: why would companies use lossless in CD's if there was no difference? They could just burn lossy files in it right?
(I'm sorry if I said something wrong, this is my first time here)
why would companies use lossless in CD's if there was no difference?
Because the CD format, when it was introduced, did not allow for lossless compression – and that again, was simply because it was impossible with consumer electronics. The CD format is more than 30 years old (the first Red Book standard was released in 1980), and the computing power required to decode a compressed signal in realtime (remember, 2x CD spinners were way, way ahead then!) would have been at at cost orders of magnitude off the consumer market. The original IBM PC released in 1981, had a 4.77 MHz CPU, a RAM of 16
kilobytes and cost $1,565 ...
Remember, they even reduced the sampling rate from the then-prevalent standard of 48 kHz to 44.1 just in order to be able to fit certain concertos on one disc.
(I'm sorry if I said something wrong, this is my first time here)
You are usually not supposed to say '
sounds better than' herein without having tested so – terms of service, item #8.
Do you use AAC file on your HIFI or only lossless (FLAC/ALAC) or CD Audio?
...
Do you use AAC file on a 1.000 dollars HiFi system or you will prefer FLAC?
A High quality systems can help to hide artifacts. The good response in low frequency can lead to good masking of artifacts in higher range. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_masking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_masking)
Cheap stock apple phones has very poor bass response. http://www.headphone.com/buildAGraph.php?graphID (http://www.headphone.com/buildAGraph.php?graphID)[0]=853&graphID[1]=3121&graphID[2]=&graphID[3]=&graphType=0&buttonSelection=Compare+Headphones
(http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4355/responseh.png)
In other hand high quality systems (DAC, headphones) have less distortion (THD, Noise etc.) that actually can help to hear some quantization and other noises:
(http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/1580/graphcompare.png)
Today I have tried to do an ABX test with good headphones.
The result?
I can't detect the AAC@256 from the FLAC version that I have encoded from the original CD.
My girlfriend find some differences in the "space" of some instrument in some song.
It's possible that the compression will alter the "ambience and dynamic" of a song?
What your girlfriend heard or didn't hear ("space", "ambience and dynamics", "more open", "less flat", etc.) is of secondary importance. What is important is that you post her ABX log, so we can see that statistically she could detect the difference in a proper double blind test.
While you're doing that, post your ABX log as well.
Until you do that you are potentially in breach of TOS #8.
Let's not be legalistic about ABX logs. He can't detect the difference. ABX proves nothing in that case.
The matter of his girlfriend though... if her perceptions are not placebo, they should withstand ABX analysis. Even a simple single-blind test might be enough to show that her ability to identify what is what disappears when she has no information about which track is playing.
The log of the ABX test is very simple:
- 0 track detected from me or from my girlfriend :roll eyes:
The only difference from me is that my girlfriend find some more realistic dynamic in the FLAC file, and she detect 3 time on 5 when she hear the position of an instrument... but if she hear the music without "concentration" she don't detect nothing.
I think that is a "brain exercise" to do.
But the question is another:
Given the rapidly reducing prices of hard drives, is there any reason to use either lossless or lossy compression? Why not just use the full files on your hard drive?
The only difference from me is that my girlfriend find some more realistic dynamic in the FLAC file
This is exactly the kind of statement that requires the ABX results to be posted.
Regardless of the cost of hard drives, using losslessly-compressed formats (rather than raw audio files) is recommended if only for the fact that the file containers alone provide metadata benefits.
No. No no no no no!
If your girlfriend couldn't tell the difference then she couldn't tell the difference. If she finds one more dynamic then she can tell the difference. Both statements can't be simultaneously true.
Do a proper ABX test, and post the logs.
Sorry, I had created some confusion.
The conclusion of the ABX is simple, no difference from AAC and CD. (0 track identified)
But... when my girlfriend know what are the FLAC, she tried to hear again and she tell they have more dynamic.
My conclusion?
Most of the audiophile are rich of placebo effect... only if one know the original track is capable to recognize it.
And why would I play lossy files when I have lossless source?
You are too narrow minded about this. I have vast collection of audio CDs, which I've ripped and put away; I have FLAC files on my HDD which is connected to media center, and mp3's and m4a's of them on internal HDD in computer, so I don't have to transcode every time when I put music on iPod.
Giving that I can't ABX 160 kbit mp3 from FLAC, do you really think I should stop listening to FLACs and listen to lossy encodes? Why should I do that? I already have lossless files, so why should I listen to lossy at home?
Why wouldn't you play the lossy files? Why would you go through the "trouble" of accessing your lossless library when you are fine with your current lossy one for listening purposes? I think you are the one being too narrow minded about this. I guess I just don't see why someone would do that. For example, I have my lossy and lossless songs together in the same library. I then use a series of smart playlists that use information such as play counts. Play counts do not transfer over from lossless to lossy files. In other words, if I play a lossless file, only that lossless file will get credit. I am not going to muck things up by doing that. Other people might not care about those aspects and that is fine. However, I still don't see why they would need to play their lossless files if they can't distinguish between them and the lossy variants.
And why would I play lossy files when I have lossless source?
Why wouldn't you play the lossy files?
Because then you would need to actually
have two sets of files, and maintain two sets of files, including correcting wrong metadata?
Sure I understand your point about playcounts – I would never let such tags into my archives
Hi guys !! I am usually a lurker here, but this time I want to let you know my experience.
First of all, I'm not that kind of audiophile person.. let's say just enthusiatic: I enjoy music when it sounds good. That's all.
I've got a pretty expensive equipment, I mean.. not "very" expensive, but more than usual: amplifier + cd reader + acoustic speakers = about 850 euros.
For those interested the system it's a Denon, while the speakers came from Chario: of course, both of them generally speaking receive very goods rate.
I can't do properly an ABX test, since I'm missing a DAC, then the capability to use foobar along with the Hi-Fi..
Despite of this I tried to look for differences between lossy and lossless.
When you know what you are hearing you are encouraged to see differences.. well, I have to say I'm not able to hear any minimal difference between mp3 / aac over 160 kbs and waves.
In many cases even 128 kbs aac are not detectable.
I observed the same with a pretty decent headphone (Sennheiser HD 448, about 100 euros).
My equipment is maybe not the best, or I'm almost deaf..
Just to complete: it's quite easy to point out a difference when the same file sounds through an ipod connected via dock the line out, or directly by the CD player for example.. that's a good indication of the fact the the DACs are quite different, and in this case the one of my CD player is out-performing the one of ipod nano.
I'm quite confused as well reading some of yours ABX here: I found them unuseful without knowing which equipment was used.
I really do not understand why people are so strict when speaking about audio.
Of course spectras are different.. but as far as I know no one is complaing when watching JPGs instead of TIFF.
And I can bet for all of you the eye is better then the ear. Perhaps I'm wrong ?
Anyway.. I buy CDs.. why ? Because they are now actually cheaper.. and I can convert them in the format I prefer.
Otherwise, I'm convincing myself I've nothing against compressed music: probably sounds better than what I will ever able to catch.
Audiophiles as well claimg "yes I am able to ABX .." state differences are minimal, use strange adjectives to justify their claims.. and admit there's nothing wrong with compressed files.. they only sound marginally different (but not "bad" or "wrong"), and they want to stick to the original signal as much as possible since the word "hi-fi" is what it means: high-fidelity.
Bye
she detect 3 time on 5 when she hear the position of an instrument...
I hope this isn't meant to support the idea that she is actually able to tell the difference as I can flip a coin five times and guess correctly three times.
but as far as I know no one is complaing when watching JPGs instead of TIFF.
That would be PNG (around 200 euros) and its certainly used more and more.
I'd say that the state with lossy video is: full-transparency is requested right now (Huge LCD/plasma panels (at least 2000 euros) do make a difference and my old x264 encodes do not really look uber sharp today).
p.s. all true except the 200 and 2000 euro part and the entire irrelevance when comparing with audio.
but as far as I know no one is complaing when watching JPGs instead of TIFF.
That would be PNG (around 200 euros) and its certainly used more and more.
I'd say that the state with lossy video is: full-transparency is requested right now (Huge LCD/plasma panels (at least 2000 euros) do make a difference and my old x264 encodes do not really look uber sharp today).
p.s. all true except the 200 and 2000 euro part and the entire irrelevance when comparing with audio.
JPG and TIFF are static images.
About videos I guess the situation is much more complicated: the definition at the source and the settings on the codec makes the difference.
Saying every x264 video is the same is like saying any MP3 sounds the same, disregarding the encoder, the bitrate and so on.
I really do not understand why people are so strict when speaking about audio.
Audio is a science. Why not be strict when speaking about it?
I really do not understand why people are so strict when speaking about audio.
Audio is a science. Why not be strict when speaking about it?
Misunderstood ?
With strict I mean too strict. Expecially in comparison with other habits.
But if you consider accetable use AAC versus CD...
Do you think that buy iTunes music is a good choice?
The most of the major say that this will be the future
Hi, everybody!
I'm totally aware that in 99.9% of cases I can't tell a FLAC (WavPack in my case, actually) from a good MP3, AAC or whatever, but knowing that IF in the future a new lossy format willl become mainstream I will be in the position of ENcoding to that format instead of TRANScoding from my former lossy format, well that just gives me peace of mind.
smz
I think that the CD and the Vinyl are on the dead way... the future is iTunes and online store... and this is a better way to purchase music on some side, but a negative way on other