Poll
Question:
What are your *main lossy* formats of choice?
Option 1: MP3
votes: 320
Option 2: AAC (M4A, MP4, AAC)
votes: 181
Option 3: Ogg Vorbis
votes: 108
Option 4: MPC
votes: 21
Option 5: LossyWAV + lossless
votes: 6
Option 6: WavPack lossy
votes: 4
Option 7: Opus (CELT)
votes: 21
Option 8: USAC
votes: 0
Option 9: WMA Standard or PRO (lossy)
votes: 3
Option 10: I don't use lossy AT ALL!
votes: 42
A traditional poll.
You can choose a few codecs. Like Codec A for mobile audio player and Codec B for PC or any other device.
Previous polls:
2011 ripping/encoding general poll (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=86830)
2009 ripping/encoding general poll (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=68338)
Happy New Year to All!
It would be interesting to learn what the split between lossless and lossy is, if you have 90% in lossless and 10% in lossy then there is no way to ascertain as both would be checked on the poll.
What are your main lossy formats of choice?
I don't care, as long as it plays in foobar2000 it's fine. It only exists because I don't have the lossless equivalent or it is special archival audio. If I was to rip myself, I would prefer using the open-source solutions (OGG. etc).
What are your main lossless formats of choice?
See above. Apart from file-size differences and universal playback considerations, I have no idea on the comparative advantages or disadvantages.
I asked somebody once, why he packaged a Vinyl Rip at 24bit/192kHz using .WV tracks instead of FLAC tracks, he answered "smaller file size". Personally I can't see a big enough deal between the file sizes to care about the existence of anything else apart from FLAC ...or am I missing something?
My preferred compression level for Ripping to FLAC is 6 .
What's your favorite ripping mode?
One file per disc: For 16/44, I use FLACfile+CUE . For any higher resolutions I use MKA(FLACfile)+Chapter.
If I need to store as one file per disc, I use NO FILENAMES...
My naming standard--> (01.cue + 01.cue.flac) (02.cue +02.cue.flac) (03.cue + 03.cue.flac)
I will use separate subfolders if I have a set of works and some are multi-volume (folder 03 in this example)--> 01/(01.cue + 01.cue.flac) 02/(01.cue + 01.cue.flac) 03/(01.cue + 01.cue.flac + 02.cue + 02.cue.flac)
If I need to store as separate tracks, I use NO FILENAMES...
My naming standard, IF SINGLE VOLUME--> 01.flac + 02.flac + 03.flac
My naming standard, IF MULTI VOLUME--> 01.01.flac + 01.02.flac + 01.03.flac + 02.01.flac + 02.02.flac + 02.03.flac
Yeah... filenames don't exist in my music library (I use verbose folder naming and a "folder.txt" in every music folder) ....boy it would be great if foobar2000 could read the contents of the text file as an adjunct to the reading of tags!
1- Voted "I don't use lossy at all", which is true for CD on PC, but if I would rip video I would use (AAC+x264) in MKV.
It's a longtime I haven't done any ABXing but I suspect that nowadays Apple AAC is likely better than Nero AAC, as Nero AAC development seems stalled.
For CD on DAP, I would maybe use aac if the gapless info wasn't so easy to delete (Last time I tested Nero AAC gapless info was deleted by MP3Tag when erasing classic tags).
So, even if I like AAC for video (where gaps & tags doesn't matter), for CD on DAP my favorite lossy codec is lossyflac, even if sadly I don't use it. It's likely that one day I will buy a DAP that can play Flac/lossyFlac.
Anyway I doubt I will ever use lossy again for backup on PC, for me lossy is now restricted to DAP (edit: +video & streaming), & I don't actually have a DAP.
2- Voted "Flac", the only thing that could make me switch would be an open sourced TAK, which is far to happen IMHO.
I use -4 over -5 because of the noticable encoding speed gain for the almost unoticable compression loss. This speed gain is particulary interesting when you fix offset with CT as it needs re-encoding.
3: Voted "one file per disc with cuesheet", not because I would blindly care so much about cue sheet (I do care a lot about some info within cuesheets), but because I don't care about tags: to me CDImage means no tags which means no headache to keep tags while re-encoding. So according to me a collection of CDImage without tags is easier to manage than a collection of tracks with tags. People who care about perfect tags will disagree, personnaly I think I can always edit metadata later.
If I would use separate tracks I would keep non-compliant cue because I use CT & I need the pre-gap & REM DISCID for data track info. Also I care about FLAG PRE even if very rare.
same as last year:
lossless: tak -pMax. i'm a recent convert having previously used flac. but then i looked at my usage: i only use foobar2000 for playing music at home so it just made sense. i don't need open source/cross platform/hardware support that other codecs offer.
lossy: ogg vorbis @ q5 for my sansa clip
FLAC for lossless archiving. I'm still stuck on MPC for lossy and portable use. I use MPC on my Android and Rockboxed Sansa e200. Transcode to mp3 for my car (Alpine 9815). I was considering just going to FLAC for most use with mp3 conversion for portable use but with the recent spike in hard drive prices. I'll probably do that as soon as prices come down to the pre-flood pricing.
Main Lossy:
I have some purchased 256 VBR AAC files.
Currently I wiped my LAME files to save space, and since 3.99.x I don't know if I should use this...
I have a SAMSUNG C5500 Blu-Ray player which plays MP3 nicely with album art, etc. However it inserts up to 10 second gaps between tracks.
Main Lossless:
FLAC, computer archival. I usually use the CD to listen to them.
File mode:
One file per track.
I think this is going to be the default mode for general use, and images for bit-perfect archiving.
main lossy: mp3 @V2
- best compatibility with any hardware and therefore with any human being IMHO
- I don't use adequate hardware-setups and am rarely in really silent surroundings (portable) to get into the fields of taking care about THE real transparency
- space is not a matter
main lossless: TAK
- only use lossless for archiving purposes and only with windows-OS
- impressed of TAK's performance and Thomas' efforts and investigations
file mode: one file per track
- listen trackwise
I listen to my music-collection folderwise with my rockboxed Sansa e200, by this way I can take every single track of any album
@spoon - my collection is 50%/50% lossless/lossy. Lossy is just a "portable" verion of my lossless archive. Always rip to FLAC for archive and create an MP3 library for in-house streaming, cars, iPods, smartphones, etc.
I don't think much has changed from my encoding habits last year. I still rip all of my CDs to ALAC one file for every song (as I have always done). The only thing that has changed are songs encoded by me (from the ALAC sources) are at 160kbps VBR iTunes AAC whereas before I think I was using 192kbps VBR. My library also has a large amount of 256kbps AAC files in it from iTunes Match going through and replacing songs that I either no longer have the source CDs for, the source CDs could not be properly ripped, or the files were obtained back when first few incarnations of Napster were still legal.
MP3/FLAC/Per Track.
Same as last year. And the year before that. And the year before that year.
Although it would be nice, I doubt anyone will be using USAC for ripping this year
Interesting that opening the ALAC source code doesn't seem to have influenced its popularity.
Chris
I broke my iPod touch yesterday and decided I am going back to Vorbis. It was my preferred format, but I switched for obvious reasons when I got the iPod. Going forward I will not purchase a portable that doesn't support Vorbis or require me to use specific software to load music. Something I can use with Linux. I'm getting off topic though.
For lossless I have been a FLAC user since I first found out about the format. I have used others, but I see no real reason to switch. I have started using WavPack hybrid mode for things I may need to transcode in the future, but don't want full lossless. I'm still on the fence about this though. I have plenty of storage so I might just stick with FLAC across the board.
I like the one file per CD option, but playback isn't really supported well outside of Windows. VLC does a nice job, but I just installed Fedora 16 and I'm trying to only use software provided in their main repositories. I'm not an open source nut. I just want to see how feasible it is. Again, I'm getting off topic. One file per song.
Interesting that opening the ALAC source code doesn't seem to have influenced its popularity.
Unless you live in the Apple ecosystem there isn't really a compelling reason to use ALAC (that I can see. Correct me if I'm worng). I can't see anything that it does better than all of the other lossless options. I don't have anything against the format or the sponsor. I just don't see the appeal.
If you ARE an Apple product user then things are different. On the portable side lossless doesn't make much sense, but if you have a nice desktop set-up and/or AirPlay (?) connected to a decent system it might be a different story.
This is just my opinion. I am willing to discuss it with reasonable people, but will not be responding to fan boys.
Wow, I originally voted for Monkey's Audio as my preferred lossless encoder, but the actual plot results made me conduct a little bit of research on TAK, and I can only say that I will start using it right away. I'm amazed, at least by the looks of it (and at the same time "ashamed" for not giving it a try earlier).
Thank you, Hydrogenaudio! And Happy New Year, by the way!
MP3/FLAC/Per Track.
Same as last year. And the year before that. And the year before that year.
This for me too Hope listening is FLAC just because that's how it's stored, work and portable it's MP3.
- Opus (although I'm currently using Vorbis, I'm really looking forward for Opus's first release)
- TAK
- TAK (image+cue+cover+lyrics), Vorbis (tracks)
Lossy: Ogg Vorbis
Lossless: FLAC
I like to use free software that is distributable without patent issues. I also like that flac and vorbis have really easy to use command line encoders and the most capable metadata tools, and that this is available and works identically on every OS and architecture encountered, and is well supported by perl and python modules. All of this makes it really easy to script and alias or just use from a shell. Everything is mature, available and predictable.
Occasionally I find I have a CD with audio which clips or is on the edge of clipping, from which lossy encoding does cause or aggravate clipping; in those cases I make a hybrid wavpack encode as lossy wavpack seems to be the only lossy format which doesn't affect the level. If wavpack didn't have such clumsy metadata support (apetag or id3 v1.1...what a terrible choice!) I'd probably use hybrid wavpack for everything.
I use TAK -pmax as my main archive format using an embedded cuesheet and a single file. I also use the format for listening to music on my desktop machine.
If I had to choose one lossy format for daily listening it would be LAME V6. I use it in the car and in my CD player, and it is the format the rest of my family uses for listening. I have also been using, and quite happy with, Opus/CELT at 80kbps on my laptop. I'm very interested in seeing how the format turns out and hoping it gets some industry support. I had used Vorbis (q3) for a large part of the last few years (2009-2011) with my Rockboxed Sandisk Fuze until the screen broke last November .
edit 1: fixed some grammatical errors
edit 2: made my format choices bold for easy skimming
mp3 @ V2, FLAC -8, per track rip
I mostly have ALAC in my iTunes library. They're auto-converted to ~128kbps AAC when syncing to the phone, so I selected that I use AAC as my primary lossy format. There are probably a handful of MP3s in there as well, but I can't say I'm really bothered to care too much about the formats I listen to anymore — they've all good enough.
On the portable side lossless doesn't make much sense, but if you have a nice desktop set-up and/or AirPlay (?) connected to a decent system it might be a different story.
Well, it's turning out that, (for me at least) these stories nowadays are going to be not so much different: the quality portable players and headphones have reached, coupled with their ubiquity make them more and more conveniently suitable for accurate and thoughtful listening, out of the common usage pattern commute-stroll-gym: it happens to have time to kill in quiet environment, far from home...
That's why during this last year I turned to use the same encoding (256kbps VBR AAC, transparent against lossless to my ears) for both home and portable systems.
And FLAC for offline archive and backup.
It would be interesting to learn what the split between lossless and lossy is, if you have 90% in lossless and 10% in lossy then there is no way to ascertain as both would be checked on the poll.
I second that, also wouldn't it be of interest to add a 4th section addressing the main platform/purpose of the encodes (DAP, archival, home/desktop, etc.)?
Lossy: Apple AAC CVBR 192-256 kbps
Lossless: FLAC -8
One file per track.
Lossless: FLAC -8 1.2.x only. Anything purchased in other formats will be reencoded. (Althogh I am considering to use a different format for DTS CD rips, to make them less portable-by-accident -- I don't really want to take them with me to a player without DTS support, I want to be warned.)
Lossy: hardly ever, but for those purposes (in-car ...): mp3 around 128.
Of course WavPack's 1/6 popularity in this poll is by no way representative to the general public, but still, nice to see that its cool features gets it more than honorable mention.
(Same to a certain extent goes to TAK, but I am less surprised that its cutting-edge compression ratio attracts 1 of 13 in a community like this.)
Lossy: LAME -V 0 or iTunes VBR 256kbps AAC
That is about all I use anymore, everything is uploaded to Google Music or another similar service.
If I were to stumble across a new laptop and a large usb drive I believe I would probably be using WavPack to archive my collection.
As usual my poll answers reflect the past year or so. For lossless I totally moved away from WavPack and TAK, in favour of Flac. There is no quality difference between lossless codecs so it's only practical usability that lead me to that.
For lossy it's LAME -V 1 or lossyWav with Flac.
I moved away from monkey's audio ape, to FLAC, tried a little bit wavpack, decided for FLAC forever, all years, hmmm, decades ago
FLAC is the only thing, because it's the real thing
In the meantime over the years I met lots of people, audiofools, audiophiles.
the fools can have crap "HiFi", or can have High-End systems,
but the audiophiles can also have crap-systems or High-End-systems.
It is interesting.
There are simply different ways of "listening" music. And there are things, not everybody has knowledge of. And not everybody will hear or understand or enjoy or want to enjoy.
People are different.
And music is different, and even the same song can be experienced in various ways, simply said: by brain or by stomach.
oki, bit OT, but at change of year, let's have had a bit of rethinking.
btw., for car or outdoor sports, still mp3 Lame V5 user.
And as small sized compromised backup for the FLAC: mpc quality 8 --ms 15 --xlevel
and yeah, 1 thing changes at the moment, quicker, if Thailand/Bangkok would not have had the flood incident.
changing from DVD+R to HD as storage medium for FLAC.
Just now HD is still more expensive than DVD+R, but only a bit...
Archiving: Wavpack -hx - Better compression than FLAC, better platform support than APE.
Hi-Fi: Vorbis at Q5 - Smaller file-sizes than MP3 at V2.
Portable: Undecided as yet. Currently I stick the Vorbis files on my Sansa Clip but they are too large for the long run. Lame -V6 looks a likely candidate.
2012 is the year I'm completely deleting my lossy library. From now on I will go lossless all the way, the future is now .
FLAC is the codec of choice at the moment... I like WavPack better, but no app to play it on iOS-devices.
Flac and Vorbis, some mpc and speex.
mp3 for things that only come that way, podcasts and tracks from emusic.
Disclaimer: Here comes a boring story that offers no definable answers to the poll! Hey, it was a lot longer before I pruned it. Posting in case someone might be vaguely entertained by it.
Way back when, I ripped to WavPack images with embedded cue sheets, transcoded (after tinkering with a few other formats) to LAME -V2 (what else? ), and eventually abandoned lossless. Then I got an iPod and ended up using AAC at 256 kbps (iTunes Plus) for new/other CDs. Concluding that CDs are mostly pointless in being ripped once then shelved forevermore (tenuous legality notwithstanding!), I moved to digital downloads: mostly on iTunes and thus AAC (256 or 128 kbps) again, eventually migrating towards Amazon MP3 once it finally reached the UK, and mixing in a few other MP3-based services (Play.com, some good small one whose name I can’t recall, etc.).
In retrospect, I don’t know why I moved to AAC there. Once I actually thought about it, I became concerned about compatibility with future DAPs. I’m not worried much nowadays, as it seems to be supported as standard by any decent device, but it would have made more sense to stick with MP3. If nothing else, I kinda liked the more DIY experience of ripping and encoding with LAME, y’know?
I very rarely buy music now. I’d like change that, but I don’t know in which form. Part of me might like to start picking up CDs again—albeit more discerningly!—but I have the same concerns. Standard inclusion of digital booklets with downloads would largely remove the question, but only a shrinking minority provide this. Still, a move back to physical media is unlikely. I’ll probably stick to buying MP3, at least until the advent of a store offering a large catalogue in lossless. As for lossless formats, I’m unconcerned about every last bit of compression, so I’d probably chooe FLAC due to its relative dominance in terms of hardware support (not that I’d rule out trying Rockbox). I might one day sort my library out and go back to a proper player like foobar2000 (after going back to Windows, for the software library / convenience).
Lossy:
My favourites formats are OGG and MP4, but for necessity I'm using also the mp3.
Lossless:
flac!
and if I find an ape I'll immediately convert it to flac.
One file per track! That's more comfortable.
Split: USAC vs. HE- and LC-AAC (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=92751)
Why woudn't you use cuesheets when ripping one file per disc?
edit: damn voted wrong on the last question. one file per track it should be.
Why woudn't you use cuesheets when ripping one file per disc?
edit: damn voted wrong on the last question. one file per track it should be.
CUE are not completely recognized by all audio players, and, if we navigate in the directory we immediately see and select the desired track.
And for the audio editing is more practical to manipulate one track per time.
Maybe the cue sheet is a good idea but for me is very uncomfortable.
A little change to the subject. I found out that my Boxee Box plays Apple Lossless out of the box... so using FLAC in my Apple-minded environment is a bit dull. So the one and only codec I'm using at the moment is ALAC.
2009 poll: Total votes: 923
2011 poll: Total votes: 458
2012 poll: Total votes so far: 247
Come on, people! Spread the word
Chris
Chris,
Thank You for bump.
As for me >200 votes are enough to draw decent conclusion.
The first day there were 100 votes. It took like 3 days to arrive to 200 results. And it will take like 9 days to get 300.
probably ripping & encoding questions are a kind of dull these days, as the trend shows also,
storage isn't a problem anymore, even portable.
Quality ?
For portable in cars, sports, outdoors, even mp3 by lame in V5 is sufficient since years and universal usable.
For home HiFi/High-End:
No question, Lossless.
And here it is dull to discuss format, because of the abilities of Loslsess, transcoding there and back no problems, no quality question.
Quantity question ?
No, few percent, don't matter, storage space is big and priceworthy.
So it comes down to universal compatibility, and obviously people decided since long time, FLAC.
Even other formats no problem, Lossless is Lossless is Lossless.
Probably not much interest anymore, who cares, which codec outperformes by few kbit/s in <100 kbit/s lossy area, if many people are satisfied by mp3 lame 128 k, so maybe this forum is mostly interesting for developers, not so much anymore for normal music listeners, consumers.
Maybe reason for decreasing voters in these polls ?
Maybe most music people have more interest, which master/remaster, CD/Vinyl/SACD/DVD-A/medium of a specific album sounds better.
Here people get the technical answer, CD well mastered should be great enough, problem is real world behaviour, lots of CDs have "varying" mastering...
if many people are satisfied by mp3 lame 128 k
Actually the average preferable setting is ~192 kbps (-V2). Poll results http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=86819 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=86819)
It would be interesting to learn what the split between lossless and lossy is, if you have 90% in lossless and 10% in lossy then there is no way to ascertain as both would be checked on the poll.
That might be interesting to know, but only in respect to one's 'main' library for home listening, where disk space considerations are much less of a factor. I think a good many people these days keep lossy files only for portable players. If I had portable players that offered, say, 1TB of storage I'd do away with lossless encoding entirely.
As for lossless formats, I’m unconcerned about every last bit of compression, so I’d probably chooe FLAC due to its relative dominance in terms of hardware support (not that I’d rule out trying Rockbox).
Maybe I misunderstood the last part, but Rockbox supports FLAC on all of the platforms that I've run it on. Of course Rockbox is primarily intended for use on portable devices, so you're back to the storage space challenge, which tends to favor the use of lossy formats.
I meant the opposite: FLAC is much more widely supported than others amongst factory-set DAPs, although RockBox could enable other formats on a certain subset thereof.
Split: Why the apparent low popularity/usage of WMA Lossless? (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=92847)
The title of this poll made it seem like the ripper of choice would be voted too. I just had a great success story using Cuetools with a particular optical drive where I successful read-through a CD that took damage over 16 years ago and never played correct since. Over the years I attempted to rip this CD without errors. Of course, this CD is rather unknown and out of print (despite the producer was Jack Endino) and there was no known Accur-rip data was submitted until recently (by myself) but it's fair to say I think I finally got it right. Not sure why EAC gave-up easily but usually my CD's are not subjected to accidental falls onto rough surfaces.
Gotta love TAK -p4m for CD archival and Wavpack for studio tracks (for the float aspect) and I'm pretty happy about not sticking to one-format-for-all. Makes me a better nerd to have a bunch of formats kicking around my listening areas
I started out using WAV+cue but I ended up using FLAC+single file per track as my scheme (it just worked out better for me that way). I listen using Foobar2000 on Windows or MPD on Arch Linux. I use shell scripts to convert tracks to MP3 when needed (a PowerShell script when using Windows 7 or a Bash script when using Arch Linux).
The first day there were 100 votes. It took like 3 days to arrive to 200 results. And it will take like 9 days to get 300.
Well, it seems to take longer than that... which is no wonder if one cannot see the poll on HA's home page... so I'm bumping again
By the way, are we allowed to discuss trends while the poll is still running?
Chris
The first day there were 100 votes. It took like 3 days to arrive to 200 results. And it will take like 9 days to get 300.
Well, it seems to take longer than that...
What I mean was:
from 1 Jan to 2 Jan ( during first 24 Hs) - there are totally 100 results
from 2 Jan to 4 Jan (3 days) - total 200 results
5-13 Jan (9 days) - total 300 results.
So now it will take one month or so to get total 400 results.
By the way, are we allowed to discuss trends while the poll is still running?
I don't think people will change their mind after reading this topic. So if You have some statistics go ahead
Lossy: mainly OGG Vorbis -5 because both my Samsung Galaxy S II and Sansa Clip+ supports this format and it's a nice format since it's opensource and have very high quality. My second choice is LAME -V2 or -V0, but I recently bought an iPad 2 16GB and for him I use qaac -80, that sounds great anyway.
Lossless: FLAC. My library use very different combinations, but mostly FLAC -8 or FLAKE -8. I want to reconvert everything to FLAKE ou FLACCL -8, but need some HDD space for that.
What I mean was:
from 1 Jan to 2 Jan ( during first 24 Hs) - there are totally 100 results
from 2 Jan to 4 Jan (3 days) - total 200 results
5-13 Jan (9 days) - total 300 results.
I understand. So, after 301 votes, some preliminary data for a nice plot I interpolated the 2010 data using the current 2012 numbers (piecewise cubic Hermite, in case you're interested). I'm not showing the 2012 data, only a trend. Vote, and you can see it. Only one codec gains more than 1 percent popularity: AAC. That's great in my opinion and makes me hope that, after a bit more catching up with MP3 during the next few years, AAC playback will be as widely supported as MP3 playback.
Codec | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | Trend
--------------------------------------------------------
MPEG-1 MP3 | 54.2 | 56.2 | 59.1 | 53.4 | 46.4 | \
MPEG-4 AAC | 12.8 | 16.3 | 16.3 | 19.1 | 23.8 | /
Ogg Vorbis | 22.8 | 17.7 | 14.3 | 15.1 | 16.0 | -
Musepack | 4.4 | 3.8 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.3 | -
--------------------------------------------------------
#Listeners | 920 | 1309 | 923 | 0 | 458 |
P.S.: No surprises with the lossless formats.
Chris
I've gone back and forth..
I figured transcoding gives the most flexibility and mp3 is the most supported lossy. This is the one to transcode to and 192 k worked way back then and stands the test of time and compatibility even now. So yes quick and filthy GOGO CBR 192
I have gone back to using wavpack lossy for the source @ 352kbit (-b4hhx) . This is a good solution for PC use. I have tested it over many years and its rock solid 99.9 % of the time inc transcoding to other lossy format. For ultra rare CD I may use 520k (-b6hhx).
Only one codec gains more than 1 percent popularity: AAC. That's great in my opinion and makes me hope that, after a bit more catching up with MP3 during the next few years, AAC playback will be as widely supported as MP3 playback.
AAC support grows very fast. Windows 7 has an out-of-the-box support of AAC and it's to expect that Windows7/8 will have the biggest userbase already in this year.
http://netmarketshare.com/operating-system...133&qpnp=25 (http://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=11&qpcustomb=0&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=133&qpnp=25)
Im progressively getting rid of all the mp3 I got.... for lossless formats, I started with FLAC, then moved to ALAC when I decided I didnt want to have any more mp3, and so I would have to sync the iPod with an accepted format, hence the FLAC/ALAC switch....of course, then I learnt about how you can make FLAC files work in iTunes and I felt like a moron LOL!!! still, Im not going back to FLAC, it took me a lot of time to put the ALAC files properly in order. besides, FLAC and ALAC are Very much alike, isnt that right? what do you think?
Flac, Alac and all the other lossless formats are all lossless meaning 100% reproduction of your cd. If you're living in the Apple ecosystem then ALAC is a wise choice.
Lossy: LAME 3.97 -V 4 or 5
MP3 for compatibility for my MP3 player and everything else. I prefer 3.97 at lower bitrates (< 160kbps).
Lossless: FLAC
To me, all lossy encoders are more or less the same (~50% compression), but FLAC seems to be the future safe choice.
My PC has been the same for a few years, so have the hardware/storage restrictions. I still need to use lossy when I rip CDs. But in the last year or two, I have been listening to Pandora more often, so I don't rip CDs as much as I used to.
Lossy: Ogg Vorbis
-q 0 --advanced-encode-option lowpass_frequency=99
Been using it for years, I see no reason to change. I sometimes use q2 for multi-channel though.
Lossless: FLAC
FLAC seems to have pretty good support, that's why I use it.
1 file per track
/artist/year - album/artist - year - album - num - title.ext
I find it easy to keep stuff organized this way.
Lossy:
256 kbps iTunes AAC music bought from iTunes Music Store, I using it on my MacBook Pro, sounds great to me! I already have bought more than 2000 tracks
Lossless:
I not using Lossless any longer!
File mode:
One file per track!
Here's a nice graph (including current results of 2012)
(http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/7900/codecs.png)
MP3 AAC Vorbis MPC
2007 54.2 12.8 22.8 4.4
2008 56.2 16.3 17.7 3.8
2009 59.1 16.3 14.3 4.5
2010 53.4 19.1 15.1 4.4
2011 46.4 23.8 16 4.3
2012 44.5 27.3 15.6 3.6
I was strictly an MP3 and FLAC guy until November when iTunes Match started. I've been so impressed by the service that I've been slowly upgrading my matched MP3s to AAC and converting my FLACs to ALAC. I now rip to ALAC (one file per track) for albums and purchase MP3s wherever it's cheapest for single songs. I then match them in iTunes.
Lossless: ALAC
I’m moving away from FLAC to ALAC, on account for native tag support in windows explorer (for m4a container) and because foobar2000 shows me the variable bitrates with ALAC while playing.
Lossy: AAC
AAC -q 0.90
I wrote a long explanation about this but happened to refresh my browser
1 file per track.
my prefer
lossy: AAC (qaac cbr 256)
lossless: TAK (default), i love TAK, fast encoding and decoding,
I use exclusively AIFF. I rip to iTunes using XLD for transcoding (converting FLAC downloads) and extracts (importing CDs).
I rip to flac, one file per trac.
After tagging I then transcode from flac to ogg with q3 for normal listening on my desktop or lame --preset standard for listening from my mp3 player.
To me anyway, with my speakers, it seems that ogg q3 and lame --preset standard are equivalent and going higher quality compression only gets me larger file size.
But if I ever spend more than $30 on a set of speakers, I can always go back through my flac collection and transcode to a higher quality ogg.
Lossless - FLAC
Lossy - AAC (apple's encoder at about 140kbps)
And I do one track per file. Never liked cue sheets much.
lossy: 320 mp3
lossless: flac
one track per file, but I still have a cue sheet to use to burn with burrrn
Not that anyone cares, but I love talking about it, I rip discs with EAC to flac -8, then I convert to mp3 320 (while keeping the flac files for archiving) for the files I actually listen to. I just load all my mp3 320 albums into foobar and and play the songs at random. It's like having my own radio station that plays the stuff I like and I don't have to hear the same song twice for weeks if I don't want to. I use replay gain tags (89) to keep the volume equal so there are no nasty surprises. Sounds great!
Lossy: V3 using recommended LAME, but currently switching to V2
Lossless: FLAC
Ripping mode: One file per track
AAC (Nero Encoder @ 220kbps)/FLAC/Per Track
For years now.
Lossless: TAK -p5m
Lossy: Depends on the situation. When I'm out of disk space I use LossyTAK. For COWON products - Musepack. Sometimes when I composite / editing Video with WAV stream, I actually convert the audio stream to LossyFLAC, to be muxed later inside an MKV, (and that's of course, for Win PC playing).
But 95% of the time, I use Lossless TAK. If I happen to download an MP3 / OGG / WMA I leave them as they are. With the exception of AAC which I prefer to convert to Musepack despite of the almost non-audible degredation of audio quality.
It would be interesting to learn what the split between lossless and lossy is, if you have 90% in lossless and 10% in lossy then there is no way to ascertain as both would be checked on the poll.
Hm, yes.
It should be more useful than "favorite ripping mode" question (one file per track, one file per disc with cuesheet or chapters)
Speaking of polls, it's time to say "I had my time" from my part.
So if somebody has a new ideas ...
It would be interesting to learn what the split between lossless and lossy is, if you have 90% in lossless and 10% in lossy then there is no way to ascertain as both would be checked on the poll.
Hm, yes.
It should be more useful than "favorite ripping mode" question (one file per track, one file per disc with cuesheet or chapters)
On that issue, I am now ripping fully to lossless, then converting to lossy for players and cloud. A couple of years ago I answered lossless mostly just for vinyl rips because they are a lot more work to redo. I'm still trying to figure out how much role lossywav should have in the mix.
Library: flac plus embedded cue. TAK is great, but sometimes I had to copy lossless files to where it was unsupported- I'm happy my library is now >98% lossless
Listening room: vorbis@q8
Car: lame@v2+Vlevel because often Classical music
After much wandering and awful lot of time invested in the samples, since I use Windows, portable ipod player, my car player plays WMA, MP3, AAC and my home system is very good and I want to do the least possible compromise with quality sound, my last choice of formats is:
1. FLAC Level 5, one file per song for CD RIP via dbPoweramp listening at home Via Foobar with UPnP
2. FhG AAC quality level 5 on my iPod for the car.
Just found out about OPUS so using that for now as the quality is very good at 96kbps for music and 40kbps for audio books and Podcasts.
Btw, Moderators: shouldn't this poll be closed?
Chris
Of course; thanks.
As an aside, I don’t know whether IPB ever added an option to close a poll without closing its parent thread, but we don’t need either of these any more.
Whoever wants to craft the next one, feel free, especially if you want to get as close to a year’s worth of votes as possible.