mp3 vs wav

[Tom]

Many people are touting paid-for mp3 downloads (or their secure equivalent) as the saviour of the music industry. I personally would love to be able to do away with bulky CDs, but one thing is bugging me.

The downloads offered right now are compressed to hell and back.

That might not bother most people, but for someone who has spent thousands on a hifi system that can reveal poorly produced music for what it is, its not very useful.

I'm beginning to think that downloading mp3s will not save consumers any money at all. What they will end up doing is paying a similar price to that which they pay now (if you avoid the supermarkets), for a product that is currently inferior to what you can buy from the shelves right now.

If someone could prove me wrong by pointing me to a legit site that offers .wav downloads, I'll eat my umbrella.

 

[Munkey]

yeah. i've heard complaints about this about the compression system Apple use. Dunno a site that would offer .wav downloads considering their size.

 

[old.user4556]

Tom,

I'm so glad someone else shares this sentiment.

I find that MP3s suck ass (128-192), and those with a bitrate of 256 kbits/sec just acceptable. It makes my quality system sound shite in honesty and i'd give a lot for a download service that supplied uncompressed music.

G

 

[SheepCow]

http://www.allofmp3.com -- will encode to almost any bitrate mp3, wma, ogg, mpc, aac

 

[bob269]

nobodies gonna d/l a 50meg wav file, i've got a top notch hifi and really cant tell any difference from a 192 mp3 file. Unless u got bat-like ears

It depends on the hifi, maybe it cost 5grand but if its a few years old then yeah it wont sound as good, todays "modern" technology has better error correction which sorts out any playback issues and improves the output even on a cheapo £30 dvd player.

Technology moves at a stupid rate and its wrong to stick by a system thats over 6 months old, i remember paying not so long ago £200 for a dogs soundcard which is now around £5 with surround sound etc as standard.

You gotta admit your getting old, accept it and moan about back in the day

 

[old.user4556]

nobodies gonna d/l a 50meg wav file

Oh there is.

What's your definition of top notch out of interest?

 

[Danya]

They should offer flac orwma9 lossless or some similar lossless compression. It's much smaller than raw wavs, with none of th quality loss of mp3 or similar formats. That said, DVDs have compressed sound and people don't moan about them much.

 

[bob269]

They should offer flac orwma9 lossless or some similar lossless compression. It's much smaller than raw wavs, with none of th quality loss of mp3 or similar formats. That said, DVDs have compressed sound and people don't moan about them much.

dvds play at 48khz, cds dont

I've got an arcam cd player btw

 

[old.user4556]

dvds play at 48khz, cds dont

I've got an arcam cd player btw

Well that depends on what he means by DVD sound - if it's a Dolby Digital soundtrack then yes, it's compressed, but a movie soundtrack isn't the same as hifi music so we need clarification there.

What about the rest of your setup, if you're playing through a set of top notch ATC, Kef or B&W speakers and don't notice the difference between mp3s and CD audio, it begs the question "why spend a lot of money on high end kit if you find mp3s sound the same as CD audio?!"

 

[bob269]

If you read my previous post you will see that i spent a lot of money on something that todays technology betters at a much cheaper price.

Any new technology costs a fortune when first released, after around 6months or so and once development costs are compensated for circuity manufacture is shipped of to a cheaper country to manufacture hence the immense price drop (fact btw, bro's in the industry).

Point i'm making is you may spend a small fortune on a setup doesnt mean its any better than "todays" £20 cd players, todays equipment is designed to improve output quality, and it is fact that wav files contain a hell of a lot of empty space so a 5meg mp3 file is not all that compressed, ie you aint missing anything important.

 

[bob269]

it begs the question "why spend a lot of money on high end kit if you find mp3s sound the same as CD audio?!"

I bought it before mp3s existed

 

[old.user4556]

I think you can argue forever on compressed/uncompressed, if you find mp3s are fine - then woohoo for you.

Unfortunately for myself (and probably indeed Tom), we find MP3s poor, compressed, 'bitty' sounding and lacking in low end bass (since mp3 converts bass into mono iirc). This is exacerbated on high end kit with cymbal crashes sounding "fizzy" and lacking in clarity and again 'bitty'. There is also a real lack of depth to the audio.

Indeed, not even 44 KHz / 16 bit is enough for some audiophiles. I'm looking forward to demo'ing a SACD system soon and i'm reliably informed that it's fantastic. MP3 is for the mass populous, but it'll never find a place with hifi enthusiasts.

 

[Tom]

nobodies gonna d/l a 50meg wav file, i've got a top notch hifi and really cant tell any difference from a 192 mp3 file. Unless u got bat-like ears

It depends on the hifi, maybe it cost 5grand but if its a few years old then yeah it wont sound as good, todays "modern" technology has better error correction which sorts out any playback issues and improves the output even on a cheapo £30 dvd player.

Technology moves at a stupid rate and its wrong to stick by a system thats over 6 months old, i remember paying not so long ago £200 for a dogs soundcard which is now around £5 with surround sound etc as standard.

You gotta admit your getting old, accept it and moan about back in the day

Bob, I'd suggest if you cannot tell the difference between a 192k mp3 file and uncompressed audio, you must have a pretty poor quality hifi system. My turntable is about 10 years old, my amps are almost 20 years old, and my speakers are around 12 years old. My CD player is about 10 years old. The total (brand new) cost for all of these is around the £3000 mark, and guess what? You won't find a bass/treble control or flashing lights anywhere, because they're not needed. If I was to sell this lot today, I bet I'd easily grab nearly £1000 for it all, and this is for 'old fashioned' 2-channel stereo! Not even a sub!

So long as certain degradable components are kept in check (eg large capacitors and cone suspension materials), there is nothing to suggest that modern technology will be much better. I'd fall over sideways if you managed to find my anything sub £1000 brand new that could come even close to my system.

Yes I might be getting old, but wine matures with age

Anyway, there are plenty of people such as myself who won't be downloading mp3s. The point is, why are mp3 downloads being sold as a viable alternative, when they are much poorer in quality to what is currently offered, and at the same price too?

 

[sibanac]

I personaly dont want to pay for anything that is lossy compressed or has DRM on it.

Show me a plqce where to buy flac cd's and i'll burn some cash

 

[leggy]

I have to agree with Tom but for a different reason. I don't care about the quality of 192Kbit mp3s as I only listen to them on my iPod. If I want to listen to good quality I will buy the CD (I don't have a turntable).

What pisses me off is that the likes of napster are trying to sell us these compressed audio files, without any packaging, for the same price as buying the CD from amazon or a high street Fopp store.

I am getting half the quality and no packaging, I want to pay half the price thx.

 

[SheepCow]

/me once again points to www.allofmp3.com, who do some albums in:

Monkey's Audio Lossless
OptimFROG Lossless
FLAC Lossless
PCM Wave
WMA 9 Lossless

 

[old.user4556]

Agreed leggy, although napster might argue that they're charging the same to increase artist royalties and that the wholesaler is taking a smaller cut. Unlikely though .

MP3 is a godsend for music on the move where accurate sound reproduction isn't an issue.

 

[Mazling]

Nobody's mentioned ogg vorbis yet, so I will.

 

[sibanac]

Nobody's mentioned ogg vorbis yet, so I will.

i like ogg alot and use it almost exclusively

problem i have with buying songs in lossy compresion is that x years down the road i cant convert it to a new and better compression without more loss.
So i will only buy lossless compressed music.

 

[Catsby]

Catsby is curious as to what qualifies as "lossless". Catsby thought that only a .wav is genuinely without loss of quality when compared to a cd...

Catsby is confused.

 

[Wij]

Lossless compression can be turned back into the original format using an algorhythm or two and look EXACTLY the same as the original. Lossy compression cannot.

For instance in text strings I could choose to represent "444444" as "6x4" which contains all the info the original did if I have the formula to convert it and convert it back again but it is half the size. That's lossless compression.

Anyway, poo to all you who actually have HiFis

 

[Tom]

The ironic thing about lossy compression vs lossless is that in digitising the analogue signal in the first place, a massive amount of musical information is lost (replaced by interpolation and dithering).

 

[ArrrImmaPir8!]

Nobody's mentioned ogg vorbis yet, so I will.

Ogg is shit for high bitrates. It is tuned almost exclusively for low quality, compare a Q1 Ogg and a 64KBps MP3 and the Ogg will dump on the mp3. However compare an --APE MP3 encoded with 3.0.9.3 Lame against a Q7 Ogg and the MP3 will be much closer to the original.

Incidentally anyone who claims to be an audiophile is a lonely man who lives on their own.

 

[old.user4556]

Interesting, i'll give this ogg a whirl.

 

[~Yuckfou~]

geeks, that is all.

 

[Ch3tan]

. However compare an --APE MP3 encoded with 3.0.9.3 Lame

As I am only just starting to rip all my cd's into mp3. Please explain why the above is better quality and why its better than me just selecting the highest bitrate encoding in musicmatch?

 

[Tom]

I would imagine a more advanced encoder will do a better job of minimising distortion, noise, and retaining detail.

 

[ArrrImmaPir8!]

As I am only just starting to rip all my cd's into mp3. Please explain why the above is better quality and why its better than me just selecting the highest bitrate encoding in musicmatch?

APS/APE via Lame is setup to give the best quality to space ratio. It's pretty much 'clear' in that most people can't tell the difference between the original and the mp3. You should also be ripping with EAC's secure mode, it's slower but gives you a result that is exactly the same as the original. This isn't as much an issue if your cds are in pristine condition but slightly scratched cds will give you pops in scabby ripping software.

If you've got a lot to rip you can set EAC to automatically start, connect to CDDB, rip, and pass to Lame for encoding when you insert a new music cd.

If however you don't care rip with whatever.

 

[Trem]

^^^^ay up chum, missed you^^^^

 

[Ch3tan]

Thank you mr pirate.

yaarrgrgrh