Cds trying to think of a reason.

[E-Stat]

I don`t buy downloads, or stream, as my fellow music friends advise me of any music that I don`t already own, and they think I might like, or interested in buying, say from Amazon, eBay, etc...

What you “own” is a perpetual license to play the content. As for me, I don’t buy music for the purpose of reselling it.

And most certainly enjoy the convenience of instant downloads and the superior quality of high resolution albums.

 

[E-Stat]

From my little recording experience : a lot of bands these days record digital at 16-bit 44.1kHz as source format in the DAW. At least rock and metal bands do... producer Glenn Fricker on Youtube said the same, the vast majority of his projects are recorded in Redbook standard.

I have a number of pop tracks recorded at 44/24. It really makes no sense today to record at 16 bits. Even the lowliest gear today supports 24.

 

[Bill Ferris]

Cool test Bill. I don't know about you, but for me some of the biggest differences in SQ on any given day seems to be how my mood or state of mind is. Somedays, I turn-on the main rig and think "this sounds like utter $H!T". Then I realize, my frame of mind is messed up, not my system.

I seem to be chasing something many of us are. Absolute perfection. I've concluded (sometimes the hard way $$$) it's just not possible.

Seems I had the most enjoyment with audio back in 1978, when I was 14 with my first real "HiFi" system.....
http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?media/albums/ontheblitz-hifi-system-14-years-old.358/

Now I'm "laughing on the outside, but crying on the inside" that I'll never have that new "first time audio bliss" ever again...

Happy New Years and Best Wishes to you, Bill.

Cheers,
Chris

Absolutely IMHO/E, one`s mind set/mood can and does have a decided effect on perceived SQ, especially, the onset of the depression, when one`s system sounds like crap, where, a day or two, etc. before, it sounded so wonderful !!

And yes, it was some what much easier, and better, when we knew less, and had less, or no exposure to better playback systems owned by other`s..
And even when we appreciated better, sadly our pocket books often couldn`t accommodate our sonic desire`s/fantasy`s !!
But, some of us had goals in that direction, and pursued it..
While you maybe laughing/crying, I sometimes find myself looking back and shaking my head on my expenditures, effort, and that`s why I stopped chasing the last .01%, I`m just happy all my systems function properly, sound good to my ears(the guy who pays the bills) and I don`t have to screw with it, or pull some errant gear and fix it, because I didn`t purchase reasonably HQ equipment, or in some cases re-store/rebuild it properly, so I can simply use and enjoy what it`s supposed to do : reproduce music in a pleasing/satisfying manner..

Take care Chris, and thank you for the kind words, and best holiday well wishes, and I re-submit the same return, in kind, as well..

Kind regards, Billy Ferris

 

[Bill Ferris]

What you “own” is a perpetual license to play the content. As for me, I don’t buy music for the purpose of reselling it.

And most certainly enjoy the convenience of instant downloads and the superior quality of high resolution albums.

Well then, Sir; do enjoy your method, as I have/do mine, and will continue to do so..

Unsure your meaning/statement of buying music to/for resale, if implying I do with any exchanging of ripped, or giving for free any burned copies of music my friend/s might desire.

Cheers, and happy safe holiday weekend to you and your love ones E-Stat.

I think I will consider a mid afternoon, of two fingers, of St. REMY VSOP brandy..

 

[IPADave]

I think I will consider a mid afternoon, of two fingers, of St. REMY VSOP brandy.

That's good stuff!

We all build our systems to please our own ears. If we're listening to music regularly and are happy that's a good thing.

-Dave

 

[Bill Ferris]

@Bill Ferris , sorry if I opened a can of worms for you with this flac wav business, in the end what sounds best to you trumps anything else!

I can't speak to differences in sound among the different lossless formats other than as I had always understood it, the lossless file gets 'unpacked' on the fly as the track is playing to the exact copy verbatim. Whether that is what is on the cd itself or some sort of direct machine code stream I really don't know. Maybe there is differences in that process between the various players and lossless formats?

My experience with lossless formats has been when I first broke away from mp3, I started running JRiver and used ape lossless files as there were reported by some to sound superior.

But then I got an external dac for my phone and wanted to play lossless on it whle traveling away from home but the mobile app I have didn't deal with the unfamiliar ape format so I did a rather massive file conversation to some of my music, converting the ape to flac. Since then I have not noticed a difference between the two. Not a/b comparison however but very familiar music .

Maybe I'll experiment and convert a few duplicates I have to wav and see if I can hear what it is you're hearing.

After all custom tagging is very important to the way I like to listen but doesn't beat out the most important thing, that being SQ!

No worries Sir. you didn`t rattle my cage, as you might have thought, and in the end, as you say, it`s what sounds good/great/ acceptable to the bill payer/system owner, that matters.

 

[Bill Ferris]

That's good stuff!

We all build our systems to please our own hears. If we're listening to music regularly and are happy that's a good thing.

-Dave

, ,

 

[Bill Ferris]

I would start at the beginning and verify your rip settings and take a look at the resulting file size. Do you still have any of them?

Enjoy your holidays, too!

No I do not, after a few comparison listening sessions, I deleted those test tracks( which were, IRCC, some Flim and the B, B`s, Gerry Muligan, Billy Cobham`s DDD Warning, and few other quality Red book CD tracks..

After hearing differences on three different playback platforms, I decided to stay with WAV. for my background ripped music purposes

You`re welcome to do you`re own testing/comparison, and of course your own conclusions, whether they agree with mine is academic, at least to me..
I`m tired of typing with one finger..

Take care and enjoy your digital music files as you see fit..

 

[OnTheBlitz]

Absolutely IMHO/E, one`s mind set/mood can and does have a decided effect on perceived SQ, especially, the onset of the depression, when one`s system sounds like crap, where, a day or two, etc. before, it sounded so wonderful !!

And yes, it was some what much easier, and better, when we knew less, and had less, or no exposure to better playback systems owned by other`s..
And even when we appreciated better, sadly our pocket books often couldn`t accommodate our sonic desire`s/fantasy`s !!
But, some of us had goals in that direction, and pursued it..
While you maybe laughing/crying, I sometimes find myself looking back and shaking my head on my expenditures, effort, and that`s why I stopped chasing the last .01%, I`m just happy all my systems function properly, sound good to my ears(the guy who pays the bills) and I don`t have to screw with it, or pull some errant gear and fix it, because I didn`t purchase reasonably HQ equipment, or in some cases re-store/rebuild it properly, so I can simply use and enjoy what it`s supposed to do : reproduce music in a pleasing/satisfying manner..

Take care Chris, and thank you for the kind words, and best holiday well wishes, and I re-submit the same return, in kind, as well..

Kind regards, Billy Ferris

"I sometimes find myself looking back and shaking my head on my expenditures, effort",
Ditto^


"and that`s why I stopped chasing the last .01%"
^I'm still struggling with this part...and at times consider ditching it all and simplifying everything by getting a vintage boombox.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[E-Stat]

Unsure your meaning/statement of buying music to/for resale

It’s perfectly legal to resell a purchased CD. In which case you are selling both the media and the playback rights. You cannot, however, legally transfer ownership of a downloaded file. Therefore, CDs have some inherent “value”.

I’ve yet to ever sell one of mine. I recently transferred my collection to the local public library on permanent loan.

 

[Bill Ferris]

"I sometimes find myself looking back and shaking my head on my expenditures, effort",
Ditto^


"and that`s why I stopped chasing the last .01%"
^I'm still struggling with this part...and at times consider ditching it all and simplifying everything by getting a vintage boombox.

Cheers,
Chris

LOL, YOU MOST LIKELY WON`T BE HAPPY, AS YOU HAVE ALREADY TASTED HQ !!
Chris, you`re "killing me softly" with all your likes !!

Though it`s damn nice to be liked, rather then being ignored, or worse...scorned !!

Thank you, most generous Sir, I hope my head can fit through the door of this room when I go for another 2 fingers of St REMY brandy, in a few minutes !!

BTW. How`s "Knuckle Head" doing ?
Damn fine looking man`s best friend "that you are owned by" !! HA !!
And he`s still getting bigger..
Been there, done that with a female St. Bernard !!

 

[Bill Ferris]

It’s perfectly legal to resell a purchased CD. In which case you are selling both the media and the playback rights. You cannot, however, legally transfer ownership of a downloaded file. Therefore, CDs have some inherent “value”.

I’ve yet to ever sell one of mine. I recently transferred my collection to the local public library on permanent loan.

OK, That has, and will work for me..

 

[cpt_paranoia]

I think we need to remember that both WAV and FLAC are conversions from what is actually on a CD.

It's only a 'conversion' in the sense of reading a stream of bits from an optical disc, and assembling those bits into 16-bit words.

Really no different to reading a stream of bits from a magnetic disk, or flash memory.

A CD is a digital recording medium. Samples are represented as 16-bit word sample pairs. It's just data, recorded on the disc using particular bit, word and frame encoding methods.

We don't generally refer to the reading of digital data from a digital medium as 'conversion'; we usually reserve that word for use when changing between analogue and digital representations.

 

[Final_Baton]

I have a number of pop tracks recorded at 44/24. It really makes no sense today to record at 16 bits. Even the lowliest gear today supports 24.

I'm not talking about what's better than what. Just sharing experience. A decent enough number of bands do record at 16 bit

 

[E-Stat]

A decent enough number of bands do record at 16 bit

Perhaps they’re just using twenty year old gear. You’d be hard pressed to find any 16 bit pro stuff today.

 

[Final_Baton]

Perhaps they’re just using twenty year old gear. You’d be hard pressed to find any 16 bit pro stuff today.

Nah. You can record at lower bit rate on new gear if you want. That part is dictated by the setting you choose in the DAW

 

[jcg1112]

I don't think the issue is Alice Cooper or the big named established artists, but for the newer or smaller artists, like Joan Osbourn, Janis Ians, Tom Rush,
and countless others who do not have massive sales and massive incomes, they don't have such excesses that they can spare millions to management. Its not a fair cut to them.
Read some of th complaints from even well known artists like Robert Fripp - who's been in the Biz since the late 60s and has still gotten robbed
or not paid by management for music they DID NOT AGREE TO SHARE DIGITALLY! Fripp took a number of years off to chase after "stolen" monies
since he really did not have time to focus fully on creating music while chasing down the fraud. Its well documented if you dig a bit.

Oh, I agree about the smaller artists not having the same resources as the bigger guys. Sadly, you really only hear the big guys whining because, well, they’re already big and when they whine, they get the attention first. Honestly, in this day and age, without streaming, I don’t see me discovering any of the myriad of smaller artists out there. But, that also doesn’t mean I will buy their music if I like it. I’m not changing my buying criteria. I like the Beatles, but not enough to buy every single song they’ve made. I only buy what I like and feel I’m better off owning.

Bottom line, my consumption and buying habits will remain relatively unchanged into the foreseeable future. I enjoy researching and reading up on things that interest me. But, reading about all the minutiae of who’s suing who, who’s chasing down deals gone bad or the unforeseen and unagreed upon impact that streaming has had is not me. I will therefore carry on in my own little world. I own only one system and all of it is listed in my sig, except for a pair of PSB iem’s I now own. Well, there’s also the Klipsch sound bar and sub hooked up to our big screen. But, it’s only used for the tv.

 

[OnTheBlitz]

LOL, YOU MOST LIKELY WON`T BE HAPPY, AS YOU HAVE ALREADY TASTED HQ !!
Chris, you`re "killing me softly" with all your likes !!

Though it`s damn nice to be liked, rather then being ignored, or worse...scorned !!

Thank you, most generous Sir, I hope my head can fit through the door of this room when I go for another 2 fingers of St REMY brandy, in a few minutes !!

BTW. How`s "Knuckle Head" doing ?
Damn fine looking man`s best friend "that you are owned by" !! HA !!
And he`s still getting bigger..
Been there, done that with a female St. Bernard !!

"Thank you, most generous Sir, I hope my head can fit through the door of this room when I go for another 2 fingers of St REMY brandy, in a few minutes !!"

Hi Bill,

You are one of the most courteous and polite members I've come across on our great forum. For that alone, Sir, you will always get a like from me.

BTW. How`s "Knuckle Head" doing ?
Damn fine looking man`s best friend "that you are owned by" !! HA !!
And he`s still getting bigger..
Been there, done that with a female St. Bernard !!

HaHa. Knucklehead my 9 month old Weimaraner! Holy Cow! What did our German friends do to me..! I've always had Labs. This boy is like having 10 Labs at once. I love him and can't stay upset if he "Knuckleheads" (several times a day). He has more energy then any dog I've had, including my brother's (deceased) Australian Cattle dog (also gone, both of them, a sad, long story).

Cheers and Happy New Year

-Chris

 

[Bill Ferris]

"Thank you, most generous Sir, I hope my head can fit through the door of this room when I go for another 2 fingers of St REMY brandy, in a few minutes !!"

Hi Bill,

You are one of the most courteous and polite members I've come across on our great forum. For that alone, Sir, you will always get a like from me.

BTW. How`s "Knuckle Head" doing ?
Damn fine looking man`s best friend "that you are owned by" !! HA !!
And he`s still getting bigger..
Been there, done that with a female St. Bernard !!

HaHa. Knucklehead my 9 month old Weimaraner! Holy Cow! What did our German friends do to me..! I've always had Labs. This boy is like having 10 Labs at once. I love him and can't stay upset if he "Knuckleheads" (several times a day). He has more energy then any dog I've had, including my brother's (deceased) Australian Cattle dog (also gone, both of them, a sad, long story).

Cheers and Happy New Year

-Chris

Thank you for the most kind compliment Chris.

I still grieve over having to put down Brandi(her name) because of bone cancer in her front leg on Jan. 20 1998, after doing everything possible to save her, including flying my sister, and her to the animal research hospital(in Colorado, I think) with a open checkbook, as I desperately tried to save her.
My friends thought I was crazy, spending thousands of dollars on tying to save her !!
I have the money, and would have to live with myself, for not doing everything in my power to save my "family member" !

I have to cease discussion about this, if you don`t mind Chris.
Thank you.
Best wishes Sir.

She was my "Big Girl", and my very close friend, as I live alone, and she`s still with me in a urn on my fireplace mantle, and will be interned with me, as instructed in my will.

 

[JoeESP9]

It's only a 'conversion' in the sense of reading a stream of bits from an optical disc, and assembling those bits into 16-bit words.

Really no different to reading a stream of bits from a magnetic disk, or flash memory.

A CD is a digital recording medium. Samples are represented as 16-bit word sample pairs. It's just data, recorded on the disc using particular bit, word and frame encoding methods.

We don't generally refer to the reading of digital data from a digital medium as 'conversion'; we usually reserve that word for use when changing between analogue and digital representations.

The CD format is not separate files.

Windows reports 0 byte CDA files as the content of a music CD. You have to "convert" the content of a Red Book CD to either WAV, FLAC or whatever you choose for a computer to recognize them. That's a conversion by any standard.​

In any case there is a deeper question. That is if, WAV and FLAC files don't sound the same as the CD, which one sounds closer to the CD and why. They are both supposed to yield bit perfect "conversions"