Audiophile, or Audio-Fooled?

[lovinthehd]

None that I am really aware of. But there are some places in the TOOL album that have compression, or waveform issues. I’m not sure the cause, but there are places where you can hear the “crinkle”. I believe that, and other compression issues I’ve picked up on from any digital format is in the masters, not the playback format. I will say though, my free pandora does sound “flat” compared to Spotify and my digital library. Can’t remember what they stream at though.
I DF’d myself because historically if it’s an album I care about I by the disk. That’s likely in part due to my old skool nature. I waited a long time for fear inoculum so I already decided the disk would be better. I can honestly say that aside from a few “crinkles”(which I try to ignore) it sounds really good. I enjoy it sonically, and love the content.

Ah, I thought you were referring to ALAC particularly.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Ah, I thought you were referring to ALAC particularly.

Nope. I’ve actually been pretty satisfied with ALAC. I did download “renegades of funk” by Rage against the machine. It sounds like $hit. Not sure what happened exactly but it wasn’t worth investigating.
I inspired myself! Current listening to TOOL via AirPlay.

 

[lovinthehd]

Nope. I’ve actually been pretty satisfied with ALAC. I did download “renegades of funk” by Rage against the machine. It sounds like $hit. Not sure what happened exactly but it wasn’t worth investigating.
I inspired myself! Current listening to TOOL via AirPlay.

Some recordings suck and are not worth much further thought....

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Some recordings suck and are not worth much further thought....

Fo sho.

 

[JerryLove]

I will say though, my free pandora does sound “flat” compared to Spotify and my digital library.

I've noticed something similar with streaming movies in the theater setup.

It *could* be psychosomatic; but I'm not so sure.

 

[Bucknekked]

What compression noise does ALAC suffer from?

None that I am aware of either. I find myself in a dual world now. For my dedicated music room where the Salks live, I have been ripping to AIFF format. I chose it because it uses no compression and is lossless. I chose that over ALAC because ALAC does use compression and I don't need to save any space. Both formats lose nothing from the original recording and can be endlessly converted to other formats without loss. My music room runs on a Mac Mini and the rest of my music factory is all Apple equipment as well.

In the rest of my audio world I now rip to FLAC. I do that because Plex and the rest of the non-Apple world seem to like it best. My NAS device stores both libraries : the AIFF version for the Apple equipment and the FLAC versions for Plex and walking around music.

I can't tell the difference between them at all. I am with most of the brethren here in that above a certain bit rate I can tell no difference between formats. I'm 65 however, worked around jet engines in the Air Force, and for the love of Pete I know my high frequency hearing was gone decades ago. I do it the way that I do because I thoroughly enjoy the end product: the music . It sounds freakin' fantastic to me.

 

[Bucknekked]

Some recordings suck and are not worth much further thought....

Amen to that. For a number of years I struggled with why my equipment sounded "thin and crappy" with certain recordings. Then I had the epiphany about poor recordings. I can reproduce that problem anytime I want. Lots of recordings from the 70's from bands I like fall in to this category. Nothing we talk about on these forums, not amps not formats and not personal effort will make a crappy recording sound like a great one. Those abound.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

I've noticed something similar with streaming movies in the theater setup.

It *could* be psychosomatic; but I'm not so sure.

I agree it sure “could” be. I haven’t spent the time to dig in. I don’t stream a lot of movies, but have found that Netflix has a similar “flatness” and Dish network does too, maybe even more so. Vudu has been pretty good but won’t allow Atmos streams unless the display is HDR, and my trusty ol plasma is too Jurassic for that. I prefer my reference movies on BD or UHD.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Amen to that. For a number of years I struggled with why my equipment sounded "thin and crappy" with certain recordings. Then I had the epiphany about poor recordings. I can reproduce that problem anytime I want. Lots of recordings from the 70's from bands I like fall in to this category. Nothing we talk about on these forums, not amps not formats and not personal effort will make a crappy recording sound like a great one. Those abound.

Just get out your lighter and turn it up! You won’t care!!!
I hear you about crappy old 70’s recordings, but they happen to be some of my favorites too. In fact, I prefer the “warts and all” of that stuff. I don’t like the quantized “feel”(yes that’s an oxymoron) of modern recording. Imagine Led Zeppelin, or deep purple quantized. Ian Pace and John Bonham had such feel. I miss that.

 

[2channel lover]

In a lossless file you can hear compression noise?

When I play Mp3s, I hear more noise than I do if it's a CD or SACD.

With the Salks.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

I can't say I can hear the difference at each level, but the difference I can hear starts with comp noise....it's the 1st give away.

Yep. And it’s one of those things you can’t unhear. I can turn a blind ear for music I enjoy.

 

[lovinthehd]

When I play Mp3s, I hear more noise than I do if it's a CD or SACD.

With the Salks.

Any mp3 bitrate? Then again mp3 isn't lossless....

 

[cornemuse]

I definitly cannot tell the diff between wav, 320 mp3 or 128 mp3. Forty years around heavy equipmemt, no mufflers, &LOUD!
Plus 4 years working with USAF fighter/trainer/etc jets first started destroying my hi-freq.
I allus rip cd's, some music from dvd's, and from (vinyl) lp's, at 320 mp3. As I said, I cant tell the diff, but I figure, go with the best/highest even if I cant tell, why not?

-c-

 

[Kvn_Walker]

Amen to that. For a number of years I struggled with why my equipment sounded "thin and crappy" with certain recordings. Then I had the epiphany about poor recordings. I can reproduce that problem anytime I want. Lots of recordings from the 70's from bands I like fall in to this category. Nothing we talk about on these forums, not amps not formats and not personal effort will make a crappy recording sound like a great one. Those abound.

They gotta get the band back together!

 

[2channel lover]

Any mp3 bitrate? Then again mp3 isn't lossless....

I don't think I did, if I said lossless I was wrong...MP3, and most of them...most of the earlier stuff I had was lower quality 128, but its was fair amount of songs...iTunes files before I changed the settings...the file is just nosier...where I have them to compare, the SACD in contrast is like the music has no back drop...just leaps off the speaker if that makes any sense.

 

[lovinthehd]

I don't think I did, if I said lossless I was wrong...MP3, and most of them...most of the earlier stuff I had was lower quality 128, but its was fair amount of songs...iTunes files before I changed the settings...the file is just nosier...where I have them to compare, the SACD in contrast is like the music has no back drop...just leaps off the speaker if that makes any sense.

Well you quoted my post about lossless.....but am curious if the better mp3 types like AAC or OggVorbis at a high bitrate were as obvious to you as a low one like 128....

 

[2channel lover]

Well you quoted my post about lossless.....but am curious if the better mp3 types like AAC or OggVorbis at a high bitrate were as obvious to you as a low one like 128....

My bad...no, none of the other formats I have are as obvious. I know I have some AAC files, but haven't spent much time comparing them to larger files of the same music...I still do more spinning than streaming on the main system...Generally speaking the Accuton mid is noted to be a transparent driver...some would say too revealing.

 

[Bucknekked]

My bad...no, none of the other formats I have are as obvious. I know I have some AAC files, but haven't spent much time comparing them to larger files of the same music...I still do more spinning than streaming on the main system...Generally speaking the Accuton mid is noted to be a transparent driver...some would say too revealing.

I fall in to this general category as well. Most of the upgraded bitrates cover the deficiency over the old school 64K MP3 files. But, that doesn't let me off the hook because my OCD will kick in if I know the song is a crappy old MP3 or a variant that's just about anything short of a lossless uncompressed file. For my own music collection that means I have to rip/record/store in lossless and uncompressed or the OCD will nag the crap out of me.

For me, that means I need to buy and rip the CD if I want the music in my collection. If I can't get the CD and must get a download, the only thing that saves me from the creepy crawlies is the big numbers like 256kbps VBR. If it isn't in one of those upgraded formats, I will usually just skip it and listen to it on Spotify.

 

[Ponzio]

 

[2channel lover]

I fall in to this general category as well. Most of the upgraded bitrates cover the deficiency over the old school 64K MP3 files. But, that doesn't let me off the hook because my OCD will kick in if I know the song is a crappy old MP3 or a variant that's just about anything short of a lossless uncompressed file. For my own music collection that means I have to rip/record/store in lossless and uncompressed or the OCD will nag the crap out of me.

For me, that means I need to buy and rip the CD if I want the music in my collection. If I can't get the CD and must get a download, the only thing that saves me from the creepy crawlies is the big numbers like 256kbps VBR. If it isn't in one of those upgraded formats, I will usually just skip it and listen to it on Spotify.

Yeah, I went two years with parts of my system in storage as we were downsizing and building the home we're in now....it just wasn't practical so I got into computer/upscale headphones/headphone amp etc....with my CDs in storage, the majority of my music was itune mp3 files.

When I got this system set up, got my "real" music out of storage...I started back doing what I always did with the Oppo 205, spinning.

The good with the Mp3 files...they easily stream via wifi in my house. For the whole house music, I have no problem with any of them really. But on the main system I feel like I'm cheating myself if I play my itune version of Kind Of Blue, when I have the SACD, so I rarely ever play the computer files on the main system....even the bit for bit CD rip...I still spin.

Once my new streaming setup (should be able to stream my hi res, multi-ch library) is up and running maybe that will change, but whether I can tell all of them or not, I admit feeling Mp3s are beneath my main system...