Downloaded FLAC, quality of sound.....

[assendor]

Hello Packgrog,

Yes the difference between MP3 and Wave is very noticeable.

If you burn the MP3's with Nero, and rebuild the top end with some special features in that program, it is hard to tell the difference.

I haven't lately compared MP3 and Wave files.
The test I did, was to burn a CD with the same song from MP3 and Wave onto a CD, and had an audiophile claimed person to listen to it in his system, and I wanted him to tell me what song number was the MP3.
Well he couldn't..

In my revealing system now, well I guess it is easy to hear the difference.
I used Lame codec VBR best quality possible in every way, and slowest compression method, and best analysis method to get the best possible MP3 files, and still much much smaller.

You can actually see it in a Audio editor program, and you can see it on the frequency response that it is really MP3.
Now many players seems to reconstruct this upper frequency part, and it depends a lot on how good they are to do this how it will sound.
 
I don't say it is getting equal or perfect this way, but it get seriously good.

Playing around with Audio editors is fun, and they have a lot of fantastic functions.
If you understand how they work, and have a super revealing system, it is amazing how many things you can do to a recording.
Very bad recordings can be repaired to the unrecognizable if you spend a lot of time and really put some effort into it.

I guess some players have some of these features built in when it comes to MP3, and therefore sounds very good when compared to others.

Still I feel that MP3 looses some room feeling, or the sense of "being there" is not so convincing.

-Jonas 

[yeo]

hi jonas

i agree with you. with the highest resolution set for mp3, say 320kbps, it's really hard to tell the difference.

yeo

[assendor]

Hello yeo,

I forgot a little detail in some information written above.
The fact that you in an audio editor can see there is missing high frequencies from the audio files are only true at low rates like 128kBit sec or so.

VBR, well then the cut-off vary with music complexity and loudness.

320Kbit/s all frequencies are present all the time from 0 - above 20KHz.
CD's may go even higher, theoretically.. I don't think if 1KHz in the top there is missing would matter.

How MP3 files are encoded or how they are made with the different rates and choices I don't have a clue.

I just know that the time of testing and experimenting with these thing, Well I just asked a Complete Computer nerd of mine what to do, and what Codec to use, and what program.
So I did.
He said LAME codec some number, Audiograbber something, a very simple program, and some other program for doing changes to the files, if to be done.
This is YEARS ago, and those files I made back then, well they still sound super good, and it is hard to tell them from original CD's in any system.

I guess whatever we do, whatever we are involved with, if you take it seriously and go all the way to squeeze everything possible out of whatever we are doing...
Then the result get much better compared to just choosing the easiest, fastest and most convenient way to "just get it done".

SO we are back to the same question, really thoroughly generated MP3 files with all efforts in getting it as good as possible, easily can sound better than any Loss less, NO loss or any other "RAW" copy format ripped carelessly with some default lousy easy to use no good program made under strict rules and corruption efforts of the record companies.. 

Paranoid, yes that is what they would call it.
If you try to claim something has been made bad on purpose, then you are paranoid.
When Intel and Microsoft could make a deal that there where detection systems in Windows setting a lot of wait states and loops in the program if it didn't detect Intel CPU's...
Well then it would SHOCK me if this was not the case anywhere else.

If someone would like to tell me that this is just rubbish, that is fine.
I know who is right, so it would just be another lie.

The people able to hack everything, everybody and every system, people who uses a quarter of a second to break the most sophisticated coding systems that has taken years to develop, I choose to believe them instead.
When you can just go in and do some small changes to windows operating files, and write some hex codes and it boosts to three times the speed, I know who to believe in.

When you ask WHY this wasn't done by the ones making it, they just smile and take another sip of water.
When the person you are talking with, at the same time is doing programming, chatting with at least four other people on the net, and doing help desk resolving on two other computers remotely while also talking to his colleague sitting above him, and all is going on simultaneously, and uses four 21" screens to be able to fit all information onto a readable size.
On top of this the person is not missing out on the conversation you are having....
Well then you know they have more than one brain cell working in they're head.

You must assume there is a slight possibility they know what they are doing.

OK, back to what this has to do with AUDIO...
Even if those people didn't have any knowledge of how really good sound should be, they know how bit's and peaces work in a computer.
They're understanding of how things are actually done in a computer and how it works, are so easy to them as it is it easy for us others to understand that we want something to drink when we are feeling thirsty.
It's easy for them to tell how a file will look when compared to original after a Compression with some Codec, when compared to another Codec.
Some may even understand exactly how a D/A Conversion is done too, and they know how the chip "thinks" and how to make it "think" right, even if something is missing.

This inspires me to take a new blind test with MP3, FLAC and WAVE.
I'll ask the masters of computer understanding, and hear what they have to say.
Maybe there are something new we don't know about right now....

-Jonas

[Adventurer]

Hi all.

This is a very interesting post. After experimenting in the field or ripping and playing back through computer, I’ve come down to the same as Packgrog. Ripping with EAC to FLAC and then playing back through FOOBAR 2000 and ASIO4ALL in windows XP. Because I never understood if ASIO was working or not, I now took all windows audio drivers out of the way by choosing «do not map this device». Now when I turn on the computer I always have the message «install audio drivers first» and I laugh with mr Gates and his crap Kmixer. What is noticeable with EAC is that when you play the tracks with Foobar directly from the audio CD in the computer’s DVD player, and then rip it and hear the FLAC, there IS a big difference. 
   One thing I didn’t yet try is UBUNTU. Is quality even better there? Bad thing about UBUNTU is that it doesn’t support EAC (or am I wrong) so what one has to do is that when he wants to rip, just restart with Windows??
   
   Another thing that concerns me about this procedure is SACD format. I mean if you rip SACD’s do you get the extra quality in the FLAC file or is it a waste of money to buy the discs if you don’t own the super expensive dedicated SACD player?
   I have some DINA KRAAL SACD’s and ripped them. They sound... better than anything with Monica – Mojo. But I don’t have a SACD player to compare…

   Jonas I’m surprised with your computer friend…is he real?
 I wish I had such help in my computer problems.

      Nick

[assendor]

Hello Nick,

I'll have to give the EAC and Foobar a try again, this is what was on this computer before now UBUNTU.
You can normally run windows applications under UBUNTU, you have to run them trough WINE.

I am not a specialist in UBUNTU, but is staggering along.

I'll bring the LAPTOP out here and RUN FOOBAR on that one, sad thing, it has a LCD screen,, ERRR::.

YOU do now say that playing your CD's directly from the CD-player in your computer is worse sounding, then when ripping them with EAC to FLAC and then play them?
That is interesting indeed.



OFF TOPIC.. 
This friend of mine, yes he is for real.
I've studied and asked how he's thinking and how it's possible. Sometimes, or most of the time I think of myself to be rather fast in some areas,,,, Who doesn't think so of themselves  HA HA HA... Anyway, when looking at him it's not so impressing to try to do something similar yourself.
Good thing he's mostly into Computers. 

What is to believe is the reason, is training, and he must be delivered with a rather good brain as well.
Imagine if you almost all the time from very young you try to communicate in several way's simultaneously.
First you learn to talk and walk, and if you just go on and try and try and try to do more and more at the same time..,.,
Well then you will develop.
Guess it's just not "regular" practice to do so to this degree.

HA HA HA  I just came to think of one thing he answered me one time, when I was bugging him on how the Heck he did it.
He said " Some people, can't chew on a chewing gum and walk on a flat surface without stumbling, falling or crash into things!!! "

I've many times though of that, and he is right. We must be glad if we are not like that.

The places you best can see humans ability to do many things at the same time is in a CAR.
How they drive, and what they do.
This is not the best place in the world to test people, but this is a place they HAVE TO DO many things at the same time, or else they looks very very clumsy. So since most people around here I live drive clumsy, it's easy to see how they also perform elsewhere.

You can try this trick, not a nice thing to do but it can still be fun. (Very old people are excused).
If you are behind a car and they drive in a insanely clumsy way, and you see they are going where you are going, just look at them,
see how they manage to drive they're shopping cart, handle the automatic doors in the store, how they pay for the stuff, how they move...
Reason it is so obvious here, is that if they on a daily basis drive a car, and still after years and years haven't found how to do it,
well then they most certainly haven't found good and efficient way's to do anything else either... 
I've many times thought of how an high an alcohol level This friend of mine would have, before he was degraded this much in performance in a car to be comparable to these people's driving. I would guess death threatening levels.

So what is the point is, Some can be trained to be extremely Multitasking, other cannot.
Even if you have the ability to be extremely multitasking, you may still not be so, cause you have never trained your brain to do so.
If you don't have the ability, well then training could improve things, but still it wouldn't be impressive compared to the master minds...
 

OK, last little thing.
Happiness is not related to the ability to multitasking or intelligence, as far as I've understood it.
Also this multitasking brains persons does not need to be smart at everything, even if it seems kinda impressive to be able to do many things at the same time and understand computers way's of thinking.,,. 

I'll ask him if he knows how UBUNTU does it compared to EAC, or how Foobar does things with ASIO4ALL compared to UBUNTU.
Hope he knows, or knows someone who knows.. HA HA ,,

-Jonas

[Adventurer]

Yes, ask him please. And ask him about SACD also.
Yes ripped files sound better. It has to do with the clock of the cd player I think.

About multitasking... I'm trying to make my 10 moths old daughter go to sleep, listening Beethoven from SACD and answering my wife's completely irrelevant questions as I write my reply. Does that count? Ha Ha.

   Nick

[Packgrog]

OK, a couple things:

First of all, Jonas, if you think an MP3 EVER sounds better than the original FLAC, then you are enjoying an ALTERED version of the original.  MP3, even LAME-encoded 320kbps at constant bitrate, loses a lot of the sparkle and life in the highs.  It could be that you simply prefer rolled-off highs if that is the case.  But you have lost data in the process.  Encoding to MP3 (or Ogg, or M4A/AAC) is like making an audio tape copy of a CD.  You lose fidelity.  If you prefer the lessened fidelity, so be it. 

BTW, I used Audiograbber many years ago.  EAC is vastly superior and far more accurate.  I highly recommend making the switch.  It takes longer to rip CDs with optimal accuracy, but then you only have to rip it ONCE to lossless files, which can be archived on a separate, larger drive, and when you want MP3 or OGG or AAC copies of these albums, you simply need to transcode them with Foobar2000, which is much quicker and less error-prone than re-ripping.

Adventurer: You cannot make exact digital copies of the 24-bit/96kHz layer of an SACD.  Nor can you play the 24/96 layer of an SACD through an external DAC (ie: Monica).  The design and licensing of the related technology requires that all SACD players only play the high-resolution data through internal DACs in the SACD players.  I've downloaded 24/96 FLACs of the 24/96 layers of a couple of SACDs, but these were done play re-encoding the analog output of an SACD player, so there is some data loss and the sound is very dependent on the quality of the SACD player's DAC and analog outputs, the interconnect cables, and the ADC (Analog-to-Digital Converter) used to encode it to 24/96 WAV.  They do sound great, but there's some definite loss and coloring in the conversion.  It's worth noting that you CAN use EAC or other CD rippers to rip the Redbook (ie: 16/44.1, or CD standard) layer from a Hybrid SACD which plays in regular CD players.  You lose the extra fidelity, but typically the master will be better than what you'll get on most CD releases of the same album, as buyers of SACDs are going to be more discerning about the quality of the mastering job.

As far as Ubuntu, cdparanoia is probably about as accurate as EAC, but it's more tedious.  I don't know how well EAC would work under Wine, though.  Both Linux and OSX have lower latency audio output, and don't suffer from the sins of Microsoft's default audio systems (like the god-awful KMixer in XP).  Work is being done to allow ASIO4ALL to work properly when being used through Wine on Linux.  Even through Wine, I still prefer the feature set and efficiency of Foobar2000 to anything I've tried under Linux (Amarok is cool, but very bloated and VERY inefficient, taking minutes or even hours to do bulk tagging and renaming processes that take seconds with Foobar2000).

Hope that helps, folks!

[assendor]

Hello Packgrog,

I've never experienced that MP3's sound better than original, even if it in some cases could be possible using the correct software to read and process them, compared to reading them directly in a wrong way.


-Jonas

[Adventurer]

Good morning.

Well Packgrog, this clears up some things.
The fact that Linux has lower latency audio is worhth to try. And I keep my SACD's untill I find a way to make exact rip of 24/96.

    Thanks,
                  Nick.

[xyrion]

... iTunes is a bloated monstrosity, as are all of the Linux alternatives.

I'm building a USB monica transport from an old PC and my plan is to network boot a 7,6 MB Puppy Linux OS (+ some MB for MPD client) directly into RAM. How's that for bloat? I'm sure there are even smaller Linux player alternatives. On the other hand, my Foobar2k is idle and using 4,1 MB + 35,2 MB virtual memory at the moment. As a package it's very convenient and well coded, but most of the time you can attain the same functionality and less bloat with obscure Lunix magick. I generally agree with your observations, it's just that I don't like this ALL, NOTHING and DEFINITIVE approach.

NOTHING touches Foobar2000 and ASIO4ALL for playback accuracy

Bypassing Win Kmixer is only scratching the surface. Bitperfect digital out is really not that hard to get and ASIO4ALL is not some holy grail. It is just a wrapper, a layer in between, why would it be better than the proper ASIO driver for your soundcard. What about kernel streaming on that same Windows and Foobar?

Some people are experimenting with the utilities, others with operating systems, some with the hardware, and all is bitperfect with different results. It's a complex problem and we still don't have the final answer.

[Packgrog]

xyron,

Clearly you have more in-depth knowledge, and you're right that what you're attempting is probably far more efficient.  I remember using a command-line app on Linux to play MP3s on my 233MHz laptop many years ago, and THAT was extremely efficient.  However, for people who are still using Audiograbber or iTunes, apps like Foobar2000 and EAC are better options for general use.