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Topic: An Audiophile Use AAC file? (Read 25156 times) previous topic - next topic
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An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #25
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?

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #26
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.

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #27
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.

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #28
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.

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #29
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.

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #30
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

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #31
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

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #32
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.

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #33
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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.
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An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #34
Code: [Select]
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.

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #35
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?


An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #37

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

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #38
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
Sergio
M-Audio Delta AP + Revox B150 + (JBL 4301B | Sennheiser Amperior | Sennheiser HD598)

 

An Audiophile Use AAC file?

Reply #39
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