HydrogenAudio

Lossless Audio Compression => Lossless / Other Codecs => Topic started by: kirbydoo on 2013-01-13 20:30:14

Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: kirbydoo on 2013-01-13 20:30:14
Note: I had posted this thread on another audio site and copied the title. For whatever reason, it got cut off. The correct title of this thread is "Is there a difference between an .aiff/.wav downloaded from the Internet and one ripped from a CD?"

I have read threads in the past about how ripped copies of tracks from CDs in lossless formats are slightly lesser in quality than the original copies on the CD, but now I am wondering if there is a difference between copies downloaded from the Internet and ones on a CD. I am assuming that a lossless track downloaded from the web is a perfect copy, considering there is no grey area to consider (the quality of the CD, how efficient your DVD ROM drive is, what program you are using to rip and how well that works). I buy music from sites such as Beatport, Discogs, and Bandcamp, all of which seem to give pleasing results. I guess I am trying to ask, what is the difference between how you obtain lossless music from the web and how you obtain it from a CD? I know, there is a bunch of technical stuff that goes into ripping music from a CD, but how do online music stores sell lossless music?
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: saratoga on 2013-01-13 20:45:45
I guess I am trying to ask, what is the difference between how you obtain lossless music from the web and how you obtain it from a CD? I know, there is a bunch of technical stuff that goes into ripping music from a CD, but how do online music stores sell lossless music?


You'd have to ask the people who are producing the lossless content and selling it over the internet.  My guess is that some is simply ripped from CDs and thus identical, while other content is sourced from elsewhere and thus not necessarily identical.  But again, it depends on the content source in question...
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: db1989 on 2013-01-13 21:10:38
I had posted this thread on another audio site and copied the title. For whatever reason, it got cut off.
This software limits titles to 70 characters. Your original title is far too long in this context. I’ll see whether I can edit-in a shorter one that makes the same point. Edit: great success

Quote
I am assuming that a lossless track downloaded from the web is a perfect copy, considering there is no grey area to consider (the quality of the CD, how efficient your DVD ROM drive is, what program you are using to rip and how well that works).
Not at all. As saratoga said, the lossless seller may well be ripping from a CD themselves.

My guess is that some is simply ripped from CDs and thus identical
saratoga knows what I’m about to say, but just to state it in print for other readers: Even if the store rips their files from exactly the same pressing of the release in question, which is a reasonably big if in itself, identical results can only be guaranteed expected with confidence if they are ripping by a secure method. One would hope that would be the norm – but, as saratoga said, to be certain, you would have to ask them, or consult their documentation about the origin of their files if they are conscientious enough to provide such a thing.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: spoon on 2013-01-13 21:38:14
I am quite certain that the companies which did the mass ripping of the older stuff, they would not have used secure rippers, it was a job done for $, they would have wanted to complete as quickly as possible (so would you if you had 100K discs to rip, as much of the effort went on getting ISRC + UPC codes correct).

This is a hunch I have, I hope to be able to test it later this year.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: greynol on 2013-01-13 21:40:31
Expected?  I really wouldn't approach it that way.  Many people rip in burst mode with error free results quite regularly. That there is some form of verification or method to demontrate consistency does not change the outcome of the initial extraction.

I would base my expectations on the condition of the discs being ripped.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Wombat on 2013-01-13 22:58:50
I bet not even the vendor himself can exactly tell you about the real origin sometimes.

I can tell you about one experience i had with one artist.
I bought an album that had very audible clicks in a silent part that after looking over it showed some samples broken like it was read wrong and badly interpolated like in the good old days before EAC and alike rippers arised.
After i complained at the store they told me they only sell the lossless files as they were given to them by the artist.
After 1 week there still wasn´t a solution so i contacted the artist directly after being told by the store.
Some days later i got the corrected version for download. What i recognized is that in the signatures of the artist himself always had an -send by an "i" device-
A second album i purchased by the same artist i can verify against the AR database with CUEtools and one of the songs is NOT accurately ripped but has no audible defect either.

What i say now is only a guess. It may be as simple as these lossless files sold are some iTunes rips the artist did himself because it was the easiest way to do so. You see in this case self-rips may be more secure.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: spoon on 2013-01-13 23:03:28
You would hope that these label provided discs were in top condition (they should not have had a 3 year old scraping the disc on the floor as a UFO chasing batman), so that would leave manufacturing defects as the likely cause of errors.

A drive which burst rips, can often produce very small errors (be it a frame, or multiple frames), on these poor manufactured discs, where as if the drive revisits that area the correct result can often be achieved.

What is very much dependent on how many errors there are, the drive used to rip, such projects would almost certainly have used autoloaders, so would not have chosen a drive to base ripping on, some drives can be very poor at ripping audio (when compared to good drives)

I would expect that in the online stores which sell audio (mp3, aac, lossless), there are around 1% of tracks with errors (on the cat which was supplied by ripping), these errors might be quite small (a single frame with interpolation), so go unnoticed.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: mixminus1 on 2013-01-13 23:09:53
...and then there's Universal Music Group, which applies very audible watermarking to many of the files it distributes to third-party online vendors, including supposedly lossless files (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=89818).

In such cases, files ripped directly from the CD would most definitely be audibly superior.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Nessuno on 2013-01-13 23:29:16
My experience is that I bought many albums from eClassical web store, verified them against AccurateRip db, when found an entry, using XLD "open folder as CD" function and some of them matched completely. The ones that didn't match, often had a mismatch only in the last track (so I guess there could be a reason for that, which I couldn't figure out). Occasionally there are also mismatch in another track than the last, so maybe the hypothesis of Spoon and Greynol (not securely ripped but still nearly perfect results) applies.

I wrote a mail to their customer service asking for explanations, receiving no answer.

BTW: they give also the pdf booklets of the original CD edition, which especially for older releases are actual scanning from printed paper, sometimes rather misaligned: burst scanning mode!
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: spoon on 2013-01-13 23:33:25
>so I guess there could be a reason for that, which I couldn't figure out

The last track is often more difficult to rip than the other tracks, especially if the disc is near its audio capacity. You can look at the confidences when ripping CDs, you might have around 200 for most tracks, with a drop off on the last track (perhaps only 5, but still noticeable).
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Rescator on 2013-01-14 00:06:12
My advise to those buying lossless tracks for digital download, and are concerned abut quality or simply a audiophile to ask the seller if these are encoded from the original master or from the CD master.

Assuming that they will not lie, then "original master" is what you want as that has most likely not the CD mastering processing that CD masters usually have gone through (compressing limiting).
Also, if they say it's the "vinyl master" that one also has processing (vinyl is usually bandpass limited to between 40HZ-16KHz to ensure the vinyl behaves as expected, you don't want the needle behaving incorrectly after all).
Likewise there may be masters that are processed and intended for lossy encoding (mp3, aac, etc.) later.

What is most desired is the master as it is in the "final mix". Resampling from 384KHz to 192KHz, 96Khz or 48KHz and encoded to FLAC is probably acceptable to most as no other manipulation of the audio is done.
However I can't recall ever seeing anyone stating what/which/how the master for FLAC (or other lossless) releases is originating from.
As capitalism goes it might benefit a seller the most to keep quiet if it's simply a copy of the CD they are selling.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: db1989 on 2013-01-14 00:11:55
Assuming that they will not lie, then "original master" is what you want as that has most likely not the CD mastering processing that CD masters usually have gone through (compressing limiting).

I beg to differ. Stating that the loudness war only affects CDs is giving false hope. Do you have supporting evidence or even reasoning for this claim? Despite there being no trend that I am aware of for non–CD-sourced material being miraculously free of the problem?

The kind of squashing that afflicts so many modern releases will, in all but exceptional cases, be done before any down-conversion to the 16 bits and 44100 Hz of CDs. Do not expect to find wonderfully dynamic releases simply by bypassing one format. This is an industry-wide problem.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Rescator on 2013-01-14 00:27:31
Assuming that they will not lie, then "original master" is what you want as that has most likely not the CD mastering processing that CD masters usually have gone through (compressing limiting).

I beg to differ. Stating that the loudness war only affects CDs is giving false hope. Do you have supporting evidence or even reasoning for this claim? Despite there being no trend that I am aware of for non–CD-sourced material being miraculously free of the problem?


I was implying that if a retailer is selling lossless tracks and state they are from the original master (rather than the cd master) then it is more likely that there is no "cd processing". Pretty much all cd's I've encountered in later years has had peaks at 0dB or very close to it. An flac (for example) from the original master is most likely to also have the headroom of the master.

But as I said, sellers will most likely not want to state too much of the actual specs.
Which is shame as in other industries rather extensive specs are shown for a product. (like soundcards for example).

It would be nice if the origin/type of master was specified, and what headroom and what additional processing (if any) like for radio play has been applied. Maybe RMS or EBU R128 info and so on.
High Quality lossless audio retailers are the ones that need to take that step though. A few special interest ones outline even the gear and process used (like certain classical live recordings) which is very nice.

But to bring things back to the original poster's question:

No/Yes/Maybe/probably/no idea/ask the seller (take your pick of answer  )


EDIT Some links of interest:
http://productionadvice.co.uk/vinyl-mastering/ (http://productionadvice.co.uk/vinyl-mastering/)
http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-what-is-a-studio-master.aspx (http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-what-is-a-studio-master.aspx)
http://9to5mac.com/2012/02/28/mastering-en...oser-to-the-cd/ (http://9to5mac.com/2012/02/28/mastering-engineer-proves-mastered-for-itunes-doesnt-sound-closer-to-the-cd/)
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: kirbydoo on 2013-01-14 00:53:47
Wow. Silly me. I never considered all of these factors until recently experimenting with EAC and re-ripping all my CDs I had originally ripped with iTunes. I will say that I definitely noticed some differences in certain CDs - there were little bits and pieces that EAC picked up that iTunes basically ignored altogether. It is so easy to fall prey to the belief that something mainstream or seemingly "corporate" is trustworthy and is selling you something you can rest assured is of quality. I would hope that Beatport or any of these other digital music sites aren't just buying random CDs and ripping them without care for any potential flaws in the discs etc... I think Beatport in particular gets copies from record labels, because they sell a lot of stuff that is extremely underground. I think it's unlikely that certain artists' material would come from a physical CD considering the nature of underground music... The album art is extremely makeshift regardless of the musical content etc... You can kind of get an idea of the $ put into specific stuff just by looking at the album art and the name of the label it comes from. As for Discogs, I am thinking they do the same thing, but they're weird. They'll show a certain album under one label and then they'll show the same album under another label, and one of them will be "unavailable" due to territory restrictions or something like that. Bandcamp is simply a platform for independent artists to share their music over the Internet in a more convenient way for listeners (they sell stuff in all different file types). I think some artists on that site upload their music from their own computer while others are under certain labels so I'm not sure how they distribute their music on there.

My next question is this - if I have a CD that has little "nicks" or what looks like pieces of glitter embedded in the CD, and I rip it using EAC and I get a 100% track quality, no errors reported and AccurateRip says it is accurate, then can I trust it?
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Wombat on 2013-01-14 00:54:37
I was implying that if a retailer is selling lossless tracks and state they are from the original master (rather than the cd master) then it is more likely that there is no "cd processing". Pretty much all cd's I've encountered in later years has had peaks at 0dB or very close to it. An flac (for example) from the original master is most likely to also have the headroom of the master.
...
EDIT Some links of interest:
http://productionadvice.co.uk/vinyl-mastering/ (http://productionadvice.co.uk/vinyl-mastering/)
http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-what-is-a-studio-master.aspx (http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-what-is-a-studio-master.aspx)
http://9to5mac.com/2012/02/28/mastering-en...oser-to-the-cd/ (http://9to5mac.com/2012/02/28/mastering-engineer-proves-mastered-for-itunes-doesnt-sound-closer-to-the-cd/)



You seem to got pretty excited about music reaching near 0dB while i din´t find music that sounds better when lowered in volume after finding out it should produce oversamples.
Also as you quoted Linns marketing writings i doubt they leave much headroom on any of their releases be it "Master" or not. We had a Claire Martin sample here that was freely available if i remember right and this was pretty loud stuff.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Wombat on 2013-01-14 01:03:03
Wow. Silly me. I never considered all of these factors until recently experimenting with EAC and re-ripping all my CDs I had originally ripped with iTunes. I will say that I definitely noticed some differences in certain CDs - there were little bits and pieces that EAC picked up that iTunes basically ignored altogether. It is so easy to fall prey to the belief that something mainstream or seemingly "corporate" is trustworthy and is selling you something you can rest assured is of quality. I would hope that Beatport or any of these other digital music sites aren't just buying random CDs and ripping them without care for any potential flaws in the discs etc... I think Beatport in particular gets copies from record labels, because they sell a lot of stuff that is extremely underground. I think it's unlikely that certain artists' material would come from a physical CD considering the nature of underground music... The album art is extremely makeshift regardless of the musical content etc... You can kind of get an idea of the $ put into specific stuff just by looking at the album art and the name of the label it comes from. As for Discogs, I am thinking they do the same thing, but they're weird. They'll show a certain album under one label and then they'll show the same album under another label, and one of them will be "unavailable" due to territory restrictions or something like that. Bandcamp is simply a platform for independent artists to share their music over the Internet in a more convenient way for listeners (they sell stuff in all different file types). I think some artists on that site upload their music from their own computer while others are under certain labels so I'm not sure how they distribute their music on there.

My next question is this - if I have a CD that has little "nicks" or what looks like pieces of glitter embedded in the CD, and I rip it using EAC and I get a 100% track quality, no errors reported and AccurateRip says it is accurate, then can I trust it?

It is pretty unlikely you hear tiny differences between an EAC and iTunes rip. The few milliseconds per track that may be different between these rips may result in a clearly audible click or may already been interpolated very well. But we talk about some milliseconds distributed over some minutes of a song.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: db1989 on 2013-01-14 01:04:58
I was implying that if a retailer is selling lossless tracks and state they are from the original master (rather than the cd master) then it is more likely that there is no "cd processing".
And what exactly is this “cd processing”? What special processes are mastering engineers feeling obliged to use before pressing onto a CD that they otherwise would omit, other than the obvious down-conversion if necessary?

Quote
Pretty much all cd's I've encountered in later years has had peaks at 0dB or very close to it. An flac (for example) from the original master is most likely to also have the headroom of the master.
Why is this facet of the loudness war any more relevant to CDs than it is to “the original master”?

Quote
It would be nice if the origin/type of master was specified, and what headroom and what additional processing (if any) like for radio play has been applied. Maybe RMS or EBU R128 info and so on.
High Quality lossless audio retailers are the ones that need to take that step though. A few special interest ones outline even the gear and process used (like certain classical live recordings) which is very nice.
Too bad that many “High Quality” stores are focussed instead upon gimmicks and snake-oil such as 96 kHz and 24 bit, then.



My next question is this - if I have a CD that has little "nicks" or what looks like pieces of glitter embedded in the CD, and I rip it using EAC and I get a 100% track quality, no errors reported and AccurateRip says it is accurate, then can I trust it?
I don’t see any reason why not. If you have any further questions about different subjects, please create one or more new thread(s) for them rather than diverging quite widely from the topic here.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: kirbydoo on 2013-01-14 01:06:53
Quote
It is pretty unlikely you hear tiny differences between an EAC and iTunes rip. The few milliseconds per track that may be different between these rips may result in a clearly audible click or may already been interpolated very well. But we talk about some milliseconds distributed over some minutes of a song.


Hmm... I'm not sure. You're probably right... I'm not too tech savvy with this stuff. I just, could swear I heard more detail in the harmonizing of this particular hook of a song. The vocals were more "dynamic", I guess is the right word to use. I thought that because EAC has the whole secure mode feature and the fact that it rereads the disc to prevent errors that the results would be different.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: kirbydoo on 2013-01-14 01:11:59
Quote
My next question is this - if I have a CD that has little "nicks" or what looks like pieces of glitter embedded in the CD, and I rip it using EAC and I get a 100% track quality, no errors reported and AccurateRip says it is accurate, then can I trust it?


db1989
Quote
I don’t see any reason why not. If you have any further questions about different subjects, please create one or more new thread(s) for them rather than diverging quite widely from the topic here.


Okay, sorry about that. I thought someone might say that but I figured that while I had a lot of people coming and going in this thread that I would ask that question. 
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Wombat on 2013-01-14 01:12:34
Hmm... I'm not sure. You're probably right... I'm not too tech savvy with this stuff. I just, could swear I heard more detail in the harmonizing of this particular hook of a song. The vocals were more "dynamic", I guess is the right word to use. I thought that because EAC has the whole secure mode feature and the fact that it rereads the disc to prevent errors that the results would be different.

Very unlikely, but since you feel much more confident with the technical aspects of your EAC rip your brain will tell you it sounds better. No doubt about this. It would be interesting to have a sample of this particular song of course.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: kirbydoo on 2013-01-14 01:35:51
Hmm... I'm not sure. You're probably right... I'm not too tech savvy with this stuff. I just, could swear I heard more detail in the harmonizing of this particular hook of a song. The vocals were more "dynamic", I guess is the right word to use. I thought that because EAC has the whole secure mode feature and the fact that it rereads the disc to prevent errors that the results would be different.

Very unlikely, but since you feel much more confident with the technical aspects of your EAC rip your brain will tell you it sounds better. No doubt about this. It would be interesting to have a sample of this particular song of course.


I guess it is an unfortunate case of mind over matter. 
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: db1989 on 2013-01-14 01:38:56
Quote
It is pretty unlikely you hear tiny differences between an EAC and iTunes rip. The few milliseconds per track that may be different between these rips may result in a clearly audible click or may already been interpolated very well. But we talk about some milliseconds distributed over some minutes of a song.
Hmm... I'm not sure. You're probably right... I'm not too tech savvy with this stuff. I just, could swear I heard more detail in the harmonizing of this particular hook of a song. The vocals were more "dynamic", I guess is the right word to use. I thought that because EAC has the whole secure mode feature and the fact that it rereads the disc to prevent errors that the results would be different.
That’s not how read errors work. Please have a look over #8 of the terms of service (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3974) and bear it in mind during future posts. It seems the placebo effect is making you hear distinctly musical differences where they cannot possibly exist. Even if one of the rips were highly erroneous, the chance that these differences would be characterisable in terms of music-theoretical concepts is so small as to be effectively impossible.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: greynol on 2013-01-14 01:42:10
"Very unlikely" is overly-generous.  Furthermore claims of audible differences must be backed by double-blind test results per the rules of the forum.  You agreed to these rules when you registered, kirbydoo.  We expect that you follow them.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Wombat on 2013-01-14 01:42:42
I guess it is an unfortunate case of mind over matter. 

Maybe  You may try to do you a favour and perform some proper abx test of these samples. It is pretty fascinating how many of these felt differernces go away then. In this case a simple bit-compare of both samples already may lighten up the case. Thats why i asked for a sample. Something like a small part of the songs snipped out with a wav editor for example.

Edit:
"Very unlikely" is overly-generous.  Furthermore claims of audible differences must be backed by double-blind test results per the rules of the forum.  You agreed to these rules when you registered, kirbydoo.  We expect that you follow them.


Hehe! now that i wanted to be a nice guy the first time in ages to better my unkind image...
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: greynol on 2013-01-14 02:02:01
We all kinda descended at once; and you can pretty well count on me playing bad cop.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Engelsstaub on 2013-01-14 02:21:13
...I buy music from sites such as Beatport, Discogs, and Bandcamp, all of which seem to give pleasing results. I guess I am trying to ask, what is the difference between how you obtain lossless music from the web and how you obtain it from a CD? I know, there is a bunch of technical stuff that goes into ripping music from a CD, but how do online music stores sell lossless music?

In the case of a few albums I downloaded from Bandcamp, it seems the creators are savvy enough to use a secure ripper. One such example is an Australian metal band called Be'lakor.

I purchased their latest "CD" "Of Breath and Bone" through their Bandcamp page and was surprised that, when opening the folder as a disc in XLD, AccurateRip returned this result...

Code: [Select]
X Lossless Decoder version 20121222 (142.2)

XLD AccurateRip checking logfile

TOC of the selected file
    Track |  Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector
    ---------------------------------------------------------
        1  | 00:00:00 | 08:04:58 |        0    |    36357 
        2  | 08:04:58 | 06:14:19 |    36358    |    64426 
        3  | 14:19:02 | 06:46:29 |    64427    |    94905 
        4  | 21:05:31 | 06:06:23 |    94906    |  122378 
        5  | 27:11:54 | 01:28:74 |    122379    |  129052 
        6  | 28:40:53 | 09:21:31 |    129053    |  171158 
        7  | 38:02:09 | 09:17:32 |    171159    |  212965 
        8  | 47:19:41 | 08:58:43 |    212966    |  253358 

AccurateRip Summary (DiscID: 00108cbf-006e1353-6b0d3208)
    Track 01 : OK (v1, confidence 3/3)
    Track 02 : OK (v1, confidence 3/3)
    Track 03 : OK (v1, confidence 3/3)
    Track 04 : OK (v1, confidence 3/3)
    Track 05 : OK (v1, confidence 3/3)
    Track 06 : OK (v1, confidence 3/3)
    Track 07 : OK (v1, confidence 3/3)
    Track 08 : OK (v1, confidence 3/3)
        ->All tracks accurately ripped.

All Tracks
    Album gain              : -8.34 dB
    Peak                    : 1.000000
    CRC32 hash              : F3D42B68
    CRC32 hash (skip zero)  : F6DFC633

Track 01
    Track gain              : -8.55 dB
    Peak                    : 1.000000
    CRC32 hash              : 1E1BE589
    CRC32 hash (skip zero)  : 6C7227DF
    AccurateRip v1 signature : 9F52C20E
    AccurateRip v2 signature : 779BC338
        ->Accurately ripped (v1, confidence 3/3)

Track 02
    Track gain              : -8.01 dB
    Peak                    : 1.000000
    CRC32 hash              : 9A3E0CC6
    CRC32 hash (skip zero)  : A01A2EC4
    AccurateRip v1 signature : 68D4A4C3
    AccurateRip v2 signature : 784556F3
        ->Accurately ripped (v1, confidence 3/3)

Track 03
    Track gain              : -8.55 dB
    Peak                    : 1.000000
    CRC32 hash              : 94E00791
    CRC32 hash (skip zero)  : E31FFE11
    AccurateRip v1 signature : 475247DC
    AccurateRip v2 signature : C457C637
        ->Accurately ripped (v1, confidence 3/3)

Track 04
    Track gain              : -8.60 dB
    Peak                    : 1.000000
    CRC32 hash              : 721AABF3
    CRC32 hash (skip zero)  : C960EE53
    AccurateRip v1 signature : F89E4624
    AccurateRip v2 signature : F9E83715
        ->Accurately ripped (v1, confidence 3/3)

Track 05
    Track gain              : -2.43 dB
    Peak                    : 0.910950
    CRC32 hash              : F2779B1D
    CRC32 hash (skip zero)  : 58791892
    AccurateRip v1 signature : 25A2F725
    AccurateRip v2 signature : 6AA3ED21
        ->Accurately ripped (v1, confidence 3/3)

Track 06
    Track gain              : -8.11 dB
    Peak                    : 1.000000
    CRC32 hash              : 8356DEA9
    CRC32 hash (skip zero)  : BDB857A7
    AccurateRip v1 signature : 3563C6FF
    AccurateRip v2 signature : 2985A9B4
        ->Accurately ripped (v1, confidence 3/3)

Track 07
    Track gain              : -8.20 dB
    Peak                    : 1.000000
    CRC32 hash              : CE93BD87
    CRC32 hash (skip zero)  : 22C3ED50
    AccurateRip v1 signature : CCCFAA2E
    AccurateRip v2 signature : 14FB9D81
        ->Accurately ripped (v1, confidence 3/3)

Track 08
    Track gain              : -8.25 dB
    Peak                    : 1.000000
    CRC32 hash              : A4F5C9AE
    CRC32 hash (skip zero)  : 5971218B
    AccurateRip v1 signature : BC61A59C
    AccurateRip v2 signature : 47B5BBC5
        ->Accurately ripped (v1, confidence 3/3)

End of status report

Even more pleasingly, they also included a PDF containing the entire layout for the CD Booklet, Jewel-case insert, and the art that is applied to the disc itself sans the whole in the middle! If online music was always distributed in such a way, with this level of attention to detail, I'd see no further reason to buy physical media...at least CDs anyway. ...but now I digress a bit.

This, unfortunately, is more or less a crapshoot. It's nearly impossible to tell which distributed version will be "better" until you've gotten your hands on more than one and started doing some comparisons. I love to hit Bandcamp for more obscure artists that I like and just trust that they're doing the right thing. Sometimes Bandcamp is the only way to get certain releases that were limited to a small run of 7" singles and stuff like that. I try not to worry too much about it but I think the bottom line is this: as long as there is still physical media available one may be better served by obtaining that copy.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: yourlord on 2013-01-14 03:46:06
Be'lakor



Thanks for mentioning that band and album. I headed over to bandcamp, listened a bit, and just bought the album (in FLAC of course)..
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Engelsstaub on 2013-01-14 04:26:32
I just re-read my post...hopefully my point wasn't lost within that seeming advertisement 


Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Mach-X on 2013-01-14 05:06:14
No your point is clear. For myself, the price of a professionally pressed cd is in many cases not much more than a purchased download and I get a nice master copy to rip and encode as i wish - for me its part of the music ritual unwrapping a fresh disc popping it in the cdrom and checking out the booklet while its ripping. The source of online purchases is dubious....that 24 bit flac could be a resampled master, and the dubious improvements of 24 vs 16 has been covered elsewhere. Remember a master has already been downmixed from multi track to two channel 16/44 for cd release....its unlikely the record label has gone to he added expense of remastering differently for online purchases.....no matter what apple would have you believe.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: frozenspeed on 2013-01-14 15:00:13
You know where the lossless file you MADE came from. You have no idea if the one you bought was SOURCED from a quality source or some cheap TDK tape from 1985. If you buy from Apple you have to accept that the source was good enough for Steve Job's turtleneck at one point. If you buy from Microsoft you have to accept that the store may not exist in 6 months.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: yourlord on 2013-01-14 16:28:40
When buying from indie bands it's always a gamble.. Given the layman understanding of codecs it wouldn't surprise me to see an Indie band stumble their way into transcoding an mp3 to FLAC and call it a lossless original.. It's probably not even them being deceptive, but rather they simply don't understand the tech at all..

I was the bassist for a metal band up until late 2009 and obviously the technical end of things fell on my shoulders. I built, hosted, and ran the website. I wrote the merchandising web-commerce system from scratch. I also did all the artwork, mixed 2 of 4 of our demo songs, and handled mastering the CD image sent to the CD manufacturer. We did all our mixing under Linux using Ardour. The output from that was mastered through JAMin and then output to PCM in wav format, then I converted that to FLAC. The audio tracks on the CD image were created from those FLAC files. There is no higher quality version of the songs so when we provided the FLAC files for download it really was the best version there is..

But, in my dealings with my bandmates and other bands when playing shows, I'm pretty certain the mention of audio codecs would illicit a "deer in headlights" reaction from most. To a great majority of people all digital music is "mp3" with no further understanding or care about what that really means.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: ExUser on 2013-01-14 17:10:39
You know where the lossless file you MADE came from. You have no idea if the one you bought was SOURCED from a quality source or some cheap TDK tape from 1985. If you buy from Apple you have to accept that the source was good enough for Steve Job's turtleneck at one point. If you buy from Microsoft you have to accept that the store may not exist in 6 months.
This argument is facile. All you know is that your lossless came from CD. You don't know where that CD came from any more than you know where a lossless download came from. I have a pressed CD that is sourced from 192kbps CBR MP3. I know because I found the scene release that it came from.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: skamp on 2013-01-14 17:11:03
And what exactly is this “cd processing”? What special processes are mastering engineers feeling obliged to use before pressing onto a CD that they otherwise would omit, other than the obvious down-conversion if necessary?


Off the top of my head, aligning track boundaries to mod 588 values, not that it makes an audible difference whatsoever. I only mention it because many iTunes and Amazon songs that I've purchased didn't end on such boundaries, indicating that they are not straight-up CD rips (and the nature / characteristics of their sources remains a mystery).

Edit: …and as such couldn't be matched to the AccurateRip database even if they were lossless.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: greynol on 2013-01-14 17:21:29
Yes.  It would be fool-hardy (if not libel) to jump to conclusions about the source of these tracks without definitive proof.

As for AR verification, you can attempt to realign the tracks and add padding in order to mimic an original pressing.  I've done it before on a few occasions with discs that I own for which there was no entry in the database.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Porcus on 2013-02-01 16:40:09
AFAIK, Bandcamp gets the files from the artists, rather than ripping the CD. AFAIK, they only accept lossless formats. And my impression is that yourlord is right, many will just go “well then let us make a file in $FORMAT” and convert their mp3's.

It isn't rational to pull a track from a CD when you have the master in a file, and in the era of hard drive capacity one should. (Thirty years ago, an audio CD was an enormous load of data!)
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: skamp on 2013-02-01 16:42:14
Thirty years ago, an audio CD was an enormous load of data!


Larger than my first hard drive!
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: Porcus on 2013-02-01 19:08:51
Thirty years ago, an audio CD was an enormous load of data!


Larger than my first hard drive!


Which likely cost you more than your most recent one, even in nominal amounts.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: yourlord on 2013-02-01 23:25:55
My first hard drive was an 80MB Connor bought in 1992. For the 11 years before that I lived entirely in floppy land..
I bought my first hard drive larger than 1GB in 1995 (How's that for tech advancement?! 3 years from 80MB drives to over 1200MB!) and it set me back a good $400 then.. I never dreamed of storing my music in a lossless format until drive capacities got north of 200GB.

Now I store my lossless collection on 2 1TB drives in a ZFS mirror.
Title: Do lossless files differ if downloaded from store vs. ripped from CD?
Post by: greynol on 2013-02-01 23:44:31
Let's get back on topic, please.