Digital Music - Plain and Simple, What's the best way to do it for purity of sound?

[WifesPissed]

What format (wav, mp3, FLAC, etc)?
What transport/interconnection means (S/PDIF-PCM, AC-3, etc) ?
What DAC (usually a pre-amp, such as a B&K, with S/PDIF)?
What player (laptop windows- what program, iPod, etc)?

I have sought but have come up empty- are there no clear answers?

 

[Sheep]

I can't answer your question, but I'm giving you rep for that screen name. Awesome.

SheepStar

 

[Polygon]

1. Well, FLAC and WAV are lossless and will give you the purest sound. However, most people on most systems can't hear what you lose with a well encoded Mp3. If you have the space then I'd use FLAC.

2. S/PDIF is also referred to as fiber optic. Some people call it tosslink after the main connector end used. It is a digital cable that transfers the signal via light. This is the best quality interconnect you can use. AC-3 is an encoding standard that allows for multi-channel audio encoding and you don't need to worry about it unless you're encoding the audio track from a DVD or ripping an SACD/DVDA disc. So I would encode in stereo and use S/PDIF.

3. Sorry, I don't have an answer for you here. Perhaps someone with more knowledge on that can answer it.

4. Well, for software I use Winamp to play the audio, EAC to rip, and LAME to encode. As for audio devices screw the iPod. Get a Zen, they sound better and cost less.

 

[Sheep]

1. Well, FLAC and WAV are lossless and will give you the purest sound. However, most people on most systems can't hear what you lose with a well encoded Mp3. If you have the space then I'd use FLAC.

2. S/PDIF is also referred to as fiber optic. Some people call it tosslink after the main connector end used. It is a digital cable that transfers the signal via light. This is the best quality interconnect you can use. AC-3 is an encoding standard that allows for multi-channel audio encoding and you don't need to worry about it unless you're encoding the audio track from a DVD or ripping an SACD/DVDA disc. So I would encode in stereo and use S/PDIF.

3. Sorry, I don't have an answer for you here. Perhaps someone with more knowledge on that can answer it.

4. Well, for software I use Winamp to play the audio, EAC to rip, and LAME to encode. As for audio devices screw the iPod. Get a Zen, they sound better and cost less.

1.) You will not hear the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and a lossless FLAC or WAV file. You will see a difference in free space on your HDD though.

2.) Optical and Coaxial are equal when it comes to sound quality. The difference is Optical's resistance to interference.

SheepStar

 

[Polygon]

1.) You will not hear the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and a lossless FLAC or WAV file. You will see a difference in free space on your HDD though.

2.) Optical and Coaxial are equal when it comes to sound quality. The difference is Optical's resistance to interference.

SheepStar

1. I've heard people say they can here the difference. Me, I can't, thus I encode using LAME @ 320kbps. He wants the purest sound then FLAC is the best route in case he thinks he can here the difference. That leaves a good idea. Encode a song using both FLAC and LAME @ 320kpbs and see if you can tell the difference. If not, use Mp3.

2. True, which is why I said it was better.

 

[Sheep]

1. I've heard people say they can here the difference. Me, I can't, thus I encode using LAME @ 320kbps. He wants the purest sound then FLAC is the best route in case he thinks he can here the difference. That leaves a good idea. Encode a song using both FLAC and LAME @ 320kpbs and see if you can tell the difference. If not, use Mp3.

2. True, which is why I said it was better.

It's not as simple as getting both and just listening to them. Your mind will make a difference. Do it blind and I bet you won't hear any difference.

SheepStar

 

[Polygon]

It's not as simple as getting both and just listening to them. Your mind will make a difference. Do it blind and I bet you won't hear any difference.

SheepStar

Yes, you're probably right. I've strained to hear a difference and can't.

 

[gus6464]

1. Well, FLAC and WAV are lossless and will give you the purest sound. However, most people on most systems can't hear what you lose with a well encoded Mp3. If you have the space then I'd use FLAC.

WAV can be compressed and uncompressed. But the most common one is in PCM format which is fully uncompressed. When you rip with EAC it does it in fully uncompressed WAV.

 

[bandphan]

2. S/PDIF is also referred to as fiber optic. Some people call it tosslink after the main connector end used. It is a digital cable that transfers the signal via light. This is the best quality interconnect you can use. AC-3 is an encoding standard that allows for multi-channel audio encoding and you don't need to worry about it unless you're encoding the audio track from a DVD or ripping an SACD/DVDA disc. So I would encode in stereo and use S/PDIF.

spdif is part of a transfer standard, not a cable.

S/PDIF specifies a Data Link Layer protocol and choice of Physical Layer specifications for carrying digital audio signals between devices and stereo components. The name stands for Sony/Philips Digital Interconnect Format (more commonly know as Sony Philips Digital Interface), the two companies being the primary designers of the S/PDIF format. It is more recently part of a larger collection of standards IEC 60958 (often referred to as AES/EBU), where it is known as IEC 958 type II. S/PDIF is essentially a minor modification of the original AES/EBU standard for consumer use, providing small differences in the protocol and requiring less expensive hardware.

 

[Polygon]

WAV can be compressed and uncompressed. But the most common one is in PCM format which is fully uncompressed. When you rip with EAC it does it in fully uncompressed WAV.

Yes, what's your point? WAV can be compressed into FLAC, MP3, whatever. WAV is a raw format.

spdif is part of a transfer standard, not a cable.

S/PDIF specifies a Data Link Layer protocol and choice of Physical Layer specifications for carrying digital audio signals between devices and stereo components. The name stands for Sony/Philips Digital Interconnect Format (more commonly know as Sony Philips Digital Interface), the two companies being the primary designers of the S/PDIF format. It is more recently part of a larger collection of standards IEC 60958 (often referred to as AES/EBU), where it is known as IEC 958 type II. S/PDIF is essentially a minor modification of the original AES/EBU standard for consumer use, providing small differences in the protocol and requiring less expensive hardware.

Ah, yes. I just read through that Wiki article. Thanks for the info. Glad to learn something new.

 

[gus6464]

Yes, what's your point? WAV can be compressed into FLAC, MP3, whatever. WAV is a raw format.

That WAV is not a lossless format and therefore not the same type as FLAC. Windows uses WAV, while Macs use AIFF for uncompressed audio.

 

[Polygon]

That WAV is not a lossless format and therefore not the same type as FLAC. Windows uses WAV, while Macs use AIFF for uncompressed audio.

Alright, I see your point. I called it lossless because there is no loss since it is a raw format. FLAC and Mp3 are just compressed versions. Unless we want to quibble about the definition I agree with you.

 

[bandphan]

Having dealt with .shn(shorten) for a better part of the nineties, and flac since it inception, I havent found anything better for compression. When field recording you can hear a major difference in a uncompressed wav file that has been converted to mp3. With new equipment,when recording in mp3 it is very difficult to tell diferences.

 

[gus6464]

I have found that how well an MP3 sounds really relies on how well the album was mastered. While odds are you won't hear a difference between high bitrate MP3 and uncompressed in a well mastered track, you will definitely hear a difference with a track that has a lot of dynamic compression. There are lot of new albums today that suffer heavily from it and MP3 compression just makes it a lot worse.

 

[bandphan]

I have found that how well an MP3 sounds really relies on how well the album was mastered. While odds are you won't hear a difference between high bitrate MP3 and uncompressed in a well mastered track, you will definitely hear a difference with a track that has a lot of dynamic compression. There are lot of new albums today that suffer heavily from it and MP3 compression just makes it a lot worse.

Very correct sir

 

[Geno]

The new audio codecs on Blu-Ray and HDDVD are a different animal. Their high bandwidth won't transfer via SPDIF, so they must go between player and processor via HDMI. Or, if decoded in the player, transfer via separate analog signals for each channel. Of course, this isn't an issue with iPods.

 

[jcPanny]

I have found that how well an MP3 sounds really relies on how well the album was mastered. While odds are you won't hear a difference between high bitrate MP3 and uncompressed in a well mastered track, you will definitely hear a difference with a track that has a lot of dynamic compression. There are lot of new albums today that suffer heavily from it and MP3 compression just makes it a lot worse.

Interesting, I would suspect the opposite. That the already compressed pop music would not suffer from the 320k MP3 compression as much as a "well mastered" recording.

At any rate, compression implies a lossy format. FLAC and Apple Lossless, and a few others have the exact same data as the origional WAV file with the data rearranged for more efficient storage. I woldn't consider this "compressed" like the MP3 format.

 

[Rob Babcock]

I think FLAC is the way to go, although wav.files isn't a bad idea, either. Hard drive space is dirt cheap now, so space is rarely an issue for most people. There's really no advantage to using wav.files over FLAC except simplicity.

One big advantage of using a lossless storage method is that you can easily transcode them to any new lossy scheme that comes along. But once you go lossy you can't get the data back.

 

[OttoMatic]

At any rate, compression implies a lossy format.

Not exactly, there are both lossless and lossy compression schemes. FLAC is lossless, mp3 is lossy.

Of course, data compression (the above) is different that audio compression (that of reduction of dynamic range).

FLAC and Apple Lossless, and a few others have the exact same data as the origional WAV file with the data rearranged for more efficient storage.

Well, they use an algorithm to compress the data in a lossless fashion. It's not the "exact same data," but you can retrieve the original data using the uncompression algorithm.

I think FLAC is the way to go

That's absolutely right! Even though storage is cheap, we can still run out. Why not compress? Also, and most importabtly to me, FLAC supports the mp3-style tagging that allows you to sort your music oh-so-nicely. I think wav has some rudimentary support for tags (and maybe some provided by proprietary wav-like data formats), but nothing very portable. If you want lossless music storage, FLAC is it.

 

[rnatalli]

If I had unlimited space, probably WAV or FLAC, but like others, I can't tell a difference between those and a 320 mp3.