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Author Topic: In an iTunes age, do we need the record store? Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-22-2011 07:34 AM                     quote: Tom Petrov Changing, burning, inserting, taking out CDs sucks even more. I rip the CD audio to a hard disc in uncompressed quality. That takes care of the problem of switching discs while preserving their biggest strength: superior audio quality.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 12-22-2011 08:43 AM                     Why not store them in FLAC, instead? That way it'll take up less space and be identical to the WAV in terms of quality.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-22-2011 10:07 AM                     WAV files are compatible with more devices. For instance, I don't think a Playstation 3 will play audio files stored in FLAC lossless format.  |  IP: Logged Tom Petrov Five Guys Lover Posts: 1121 From: El Paso, TX Registered: Jan 2003 posted 12-22-2011 04:49 PM                    quote: Bobby Henderson I rip the CD audio to a hard disc in uncompressed quality. That takes care of the problem of switching discs while preserving their biggest strength: superior audio quality. Bobby, do you take your hard drive into the car with you?  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-22-2011 05:26 PM                     No. However, my truck's stereo system has a CD player. It doesn't have inputs for MP3 players or Apple-branded toys. Nevertheless, it's pretty easy to batch convert a bunch of WAV files into whatever lossy format I like for portable music players if such a thing is even necessary. I copy WAV files to the Sansa Clip+ I use during workouts, bike rides, etc.  |  IP: Logged Tom Petrov Five Guys Lover Posts: 1121 From: El Paso, TX Registered: Jan 2003 posted 12-22-2011 05:36 PM                    You really hear the difference while working out or bike riding?  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 12-22-2011 05:43 PM                        You're trying really hard to justify compression there, Tom.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 12-22-2011 06:02 PM                     All my vehicles have a cassette player on them. Remember those? I record stuff from the collection for use in the cars. I have about 3000 LP's, around 1000 45's for an eventual juke box, and around 700 78's. My best turntable is a Miracord 50H built in 1968. It's been rebuilt by me about 5 years ago, and sounds great. I've got plenty of extra stylus' for the turntable, and have plenty for the 78's too. I've never been happy with what I hear downloaded on a computer. I'm another one that has no real use for paying for music schemes.  |  IP: Logged Tom Petrov Five Guys Lover Posts: 1121 From: El Paso, TX Registered: Jan 2003 posted 12-22-2011 06:21 PM                    quote: Bruce McGee All my vehicles have a cassette player on them. Remember those? My 2003 truck has one of those  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-22-2011 09:03 PM                     quote: Tom Petrov You really hear the difference while working out or bike riding? Yes. It's not all that difficult to tell the difference if you have some decent head phones and listen objectively. The LPCM-based .WAV music files typically have a more full bodied sound. I can compress copies of the music file into various constant bit rate or variable bit rate settings. The end result doesn't have the same punch to it and there's a noticeable level of detail missing. In Adobe Audition I can visibly see differences when comparing LPCM music file to a copy of it in MP3 at various settings. The wave form will have show some differences. When you bring up the Spectral Frequency Display the differences are even more obvious. A great deal of subtle details are erased particularly at the top end. Here's a couple partial screen shots from Adobe Audition: The screen shot examples I posted use the song Money by Pink Floyd. One image is from the original .WAV. The other is from a MP3 copy compressed at 256kbps, a common quality level for lossy compressed music sold online. Even with the window shrunk to fit this forum's 800 pixel limit (and significantly JPEG compressed) the visual differences between the two are obvious. You can see a lot more of what's missing in the compressed version when zooming in closely using a 1920 X 1080 pixel monitor. The original WAV file has more audio "meat" in it.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-22-2011 09:33 PM                        In the days when audiophiles would fret over ever last decimal place of every last spec in the audio chain, there was an expression used when a product had all the right specs but lacked a certain quality which was hard to quantify -- but you knew it when you heard it (or better put, when you didn't hear it). We would say that a speaker system or an amp or cartridge, etc. caused "listening fatigue." Such a system would sound good initially, but if you were listening SERIOUSLY to the music -- like sitting down with the lights soft or off and NO DISTRACTIONS and you were listening to a Beethoven symphony or any other real piece of music that actually had dynamic range -- it would sound great at first, but listen for awhile and you would experience what could best be called listening fatigue. The ear strains to hear things it knows should be there but that the system just can't deliver -- all those subtle nuances which you want to hear but don't. All the crap that comes over the internet and the MP3 format and out of what Bobby so rightly calls them -- Apple TOYS -- they all cause NOTHING BUT listening fatigue. And you don't have to listen for half an hour or an hour like we did sometime with those wanting system; with this stuff, you get it within minutes. This is why I get disgusted with the classical OTA FM stations that think it makes them oh so cool to stream serious music over the internet....and they have the audacity to brag about it. The phase distortion can get so bad with WQRX (NY's only classical station) that it sounds like the music is going thru a phasing WaWa effects peddle. Audiophiles back then would save up every penny to buy the best phase-lock loop (PLL) FM tuner -- today we listen to this stuff on the internet and laugh. It's a joke.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-22-2011 09:51 PM                     "HD Digital Radio" was a big insult to the intelligence of the listening public -as if 64kbps or 96kbps compression was "HD" or befitting the broadcast of material like classical music or jazz. Here in Lawton Cameron University's radio station is doing just that. One more thing I wanted to say about the Adobe Audition screen shots I posted, the MP3 version not only has a considerable amount of top end clipped, but a good amount of dither/noise was added. It's artificial looking. The fall-off at the top in the WAV file is more even and natural.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 12-23-2011 12:29 AM                     Yes, even in the lower resolution in those screen samples that Bobby placed above, I can see the lesser signal strength in the Mp3 file against the original WAV, esp in the mid-range sections. Then, what bites is when you take those downloaded MP3 files and 'explode' them back into a WAV file for audio CD burn and playback.. ..like hearing a playback from a cassette dupe that came from a cassette source. There was once a method of duping audio for archival purposes and that was: to dupe analog audio to VHS tape in VCR's that were "HiFi" units since this was an FM based audio process. Also, since some of the early "HiFi" VCR's (Panasonic units and units made by Panasonic for other manufacturers) actually had separate audio record/playback capabilities. The process would turn off the video section of the spinning head and just used the audio heads on the head drum. Playback was close to CD quality in dB being that CD was over 100dB and VHS "HiFi" audio was in the 90dB range. It didn't matter what speed the tape was in-from SP to SLP mode....and it was still pure analog sound being FM based. Also, in this units, was the "add-on" in the circuit called "dBX sound expander", where the analog signal was compressed, then expanded during playback - an early form of signal compression. Thus, duping a cassette to VHS greatly enhanced the quality playback with the tape playing back through the VHS VCR, against the source tape due to the high dB range. Sadly, not too many knew about this process, were the main market for "HiFi' was mainly for VHS playback, thus this above option faded away quickly in manufacturing VCR units.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 12-23-2011 01:32 AM                     quote: Bobby Henderson WAV files are compatible with more devices. For instance, I don't think a Playstation 3 will play audio files stored in FLAC lossless format. That's why you store on the PC in FLAC then convert to something more commonly used for your portable devices or something like a Playstation 3.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-23-2011 08:23 AM                     The Playstation 3 is not a portable device. It's hooked up to my home theater system (often used for playing Blu-ray movies). All the more reason to feed it uncompressed LPCM .WAV files instead of lossy formats.  |  IP: Logged

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