I agree with these sentiments, but choose not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Why rip to a low quality lossy format? My library is stored in FLAC which maintains the ability for tagging information unlike a CD's native WAV format.
What makes you pick a particular Music format?
- Thread starter Condorsat
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the skipper
Professional Curmudgeon
Accessibility, and I like having it in my grubby little paws, not on a hard drive or in the cloud, at least for archival purposes.. Nowadays, it's on 5 1/4" silver plastic discs but for the first 25 years in this hobby it was vinyl, which I still have.
It does get ripped to my computer and then transferred to my Zune (and other CD's) but my main source is those discs nowadays.
It does get ripped to my computer and then transferred to my Zune (and other CD's) but my main source is those discs nowadays.
superdog
AK Member
That's me also.I'm 55 and didn't grow up knowing about digital files.Nothing against those that do but I'm ok doing what I've done for thirty five years.
uofmtiger
Addicted Member
Interesting. The main reason I ripped my CDs was accessibility. The ability to listen to anything in my entire digital library, no matter where I am, has always been better than needing access to a physical disc.
I do have my original CDs for most of it, just in case, though. The HD Tracks downloads simply live on a server.
Quadman2
Lunatic Member
Was thinking the other day. We bother to rip literally thousands of tunes into our different devices, and end up listening to those few favs that we really fall back on most of the time. All the others are in the wings waiting to be played, almost like the third string on a football team, eh?
Q2
Q2
I began with vinyl in the 70's and added cassettes for portability and to be able to record my buddies' albums that I did not want to buy. Moved almost entirely to cd's in the late 80's and then digital downloads when they arrived. My current preferred format is digital. I have a dedicated computer for my system and about the only time I use another format is to rip music to the computer (Apple lossless). I listen to A LOT of music every day and the convenience and sound quality of digital is just too good to pass up.
Quadman2
Lunatic Member
asilker
Super Member
Grew up in the era of Napster/Myspace/Bit torrent/Bandcamp. I am a digital native, so FLAC&DAC is a preferred format.
However, when at 15 I came upon a turntable in a lot of guitar and sound gear my interest was caught. I had 0 exposure to analog mediums but as a teenager was a die-hard analog guitar player. There's something elegant and personal about the LP format.
I do both. I think it's important to be well rounded and appreciate different ways to achieve the same goals.
However, when at 15 I came upon a turntable in a lot of guitar and sound gear my interest was caught. I had 0 exposure to analog mediums but as a teenager was a die-hard analog guitar player. There's something elegant and personal about the LP format.
I do both. I think it's important to be well rounded and appreciate different ways to achieve the same goals.
uofmtiger
Addicted Member
I actually find ripping my CDs a better way to get out of the rut of listening to the same albums all the time. For example, with ripping, I may shuffle an entire artist catalog, listen to a specific genre, put together a playlist of songs or albums that fit a mood, or let iTunes run a "genius" mix based on genre and decade. Only music on a server can do that. I have CD multi-disc players, but they aren't as flexible.Was thinking the other day. We bother to rip literally thousands of tunes into our different devices, and end up listening to those few favs that we really fall back on most of the time. All the others are in the wings waiting to be played, almost like the third string on a football team, eh?
Q2
With music services, I go to the same albums less often than I used to. Instead, it has helped me dig deeper into artists catalogs that I like and discover new-to-me artists.
I have compared it to playing golf. You have to suffer threw the bad shots to get to that one memorable shot, but when you do get that one memorable shot all those bad shots were worthwhile. Same with musical exploration.
I may revisit my POV. Great site that makes ya turn the eyeballs inward at times.
+48V
hi-fi or die
The main reason was storage cost at the time.
Fun Fact:
Based upon the cheapest HDD prices and a 4:37 min. track, here's a format comparison cost to fill up a 80GB drive(s) circa Jan. 2001 with "low quality lossy" (mp3@128k) files.
- $316 - mp3 @128k
- $2,025 - flac -8
- $3,478 - wav
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DaveVoorhis
Addicted Member
Digital doesn't have a "sound quality" per se. It means a conversion of an analog signal to a digital equivalent -- i.e., data -- and back to an analog signal. Using lossless data formats like FLAC and WAV, the digital data can be copied an arbitrary number of times or transmitted over arbitrary distances without changing at all. The signal is only degraded at the point where it's converted from analog to digital -- which might be right at the point where it's recorded -- and where it's converted from digital to analog, which might be inside your powered speakers or your amplifier. If the conversion process is high quality, it gives you the least chance for signal degradation of any music reproduction mechanism. Compare this to purely analog music reproduction, in which the signal degrades when it's recorded, when it's edited, when it's mastered, when it's duplicated (as record or tape), and when it's played back (via turntable or tape player) before being amplified.
There are "lossy" formats like MP3 that reduce the size of the digital data -- which makes it faster to transmit or allows you to store more of it in the same space -- by throwing some of it away. This causes degradation; how much and whether it's audible or not depends on how much the data is compressed, i.e., how much data is thrown away. FLAC and WAV files can also be compressed, but this is done losslessly without throwing away any data. The benefit of MP3s and other lossy compression formats is that they can be compressed even more than lossless compression, which means you can store more data on the same storage medium or transmit more of it in the same time.
Quadman2
Lunatic Member
Thanks DaveV for the confirmation of what I had thought was so.
It's a conversion from Wave to digital, and not a characteristic to describe the end result.
The way the compressed material ends up being without the inherent pops and such which come with this sound reproduction is what CBL3 was explaining when he wrote his appreciation of digital sound. Correct?
And this is where the world of music splits into the two camps of thought as to which is superior.
Q2
It's a conversion from Wave to digital, and not a characteristic to describe the end result.
The way the compressed material ends up being without the inherent pops and such which come with this sound reproduction is what CBL3 was explaining when he wrote his appreciation of digital sound. Correct?
And this is where the world of music splits into the two camps of thought as to which is superior.
Q2
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Primarily the absence of hissing and popping. While I loved (and still do for the most part) love my vinyl the variance in the quality of pressings always annoyed me.
MJB1959
Super Member
Been collecting music since the late 60's and early 70's, so vinyl was king back then, and later when cassette decks(Nakamichi) took that medium to a higher level, I was doing a lot of recording of my LPs for the sake of saving the wear and tear on all of my albums, a very significant investment at that time. When the cd came along, I was a bit apprehensive, my tastes were a bit of the popular track, and I was concerned that "my" music was not going to make it to the cd.
To my surprise many of my favorite artists were getting formal transfers to the digital domain, so I went and found a new Magnavox cd player, with dual 16 bit D/A oversampling, it still sound great today, so as time passed the CD became the go to format, I couldn't argue with the convenience and durability of the cd compared to the LP, eventually I came around to the .flac, wav, .ape, as well as other lossy formats, having a DAC interface with a desktop pc really gives one a state of the art storage and organizing system. Also, the artwork can all be stored and viewed via monitor which sure beats all the worn out album covers and miniature cd sleeves, which my almost 57 year old eyes can't see without my cheaters.
As far as sound quality goes, no question the digital sources have come a long way, and are some of the best these ears have ever heard, If someone were to ask me to put a true high fidelity recording on to demo my system, I would offer some .flac recordings of Telarc, Chesky, Sheffield Labs, CMP, or some of the other audiophile labels, some of those recordings are so pristine and well defined that they can make most average systems sound great, and great systems better.
To my surprise many of my favorite artists were getting formal transfers to the digital domain, so I went and found a new Magnavox cd player, with dual 16 bit D/A oversampling, it still sound great today, so as time passed the CD became the go to format, I couldn't argue with the convenience and durability of the cd compared to the LP, eventually I came around to the .flac, wav, .ape, as well as other lossy formats, having a DAC interface with a desktop pc really gives one a state of the art storage and organizing system. Also, the artwork can all be stored and viewed via monitor which sure beats all the worn out album covers and miniature cd sleeves, which my almost 57 year old eyes can't see without my cheaters.
As far as sound quality goes, no question the digital sources have come a long way, and are some of the best these ears have ever heard, If someone were to ask me to put a true high fidelity recording on to demo my system, I would offer some .flac recordings of Telarc, Chesky, Sheffield Labs, CMP, or some of the other audiophile labels, some of those recordings are so pristine and well defined that they can make most average systems sound great, and great systems better.
Quadman2
Lunatic Member
Just one more question, if I may? And thanks for the clarification on the other.
Have you tried any of the new stuff on vinyl? It's pretty darn clean. Again...just curious.
Q2
DaveVoorhis
Addicted Member
Yes, preference for digital sound usually refers to preference for the ideal of the least possible degradation -- including noise like ticks and pops for vinyl, hiss for tape, etc., but also distortion, and (most importantly) re-play degradation -- in the audio reproduction chain. Digital audio offers the possibility to bring the listener closest to hearing what was actually recorded, and it never degrades due to repeated playing. A reproduced digital signal sounds exactly the same whether you're playing it the first time or the millionth time.
Analog audio can't do that, because sound degradation not only occurs at every point where the recording medium or the signal level changes, it occurs every time the recording media is played, because playback inevitably involves physical processes that alter the recording medium. The tape head scrapes the tape; the needle scrapes the vinyl. Therefore, analog audio is destructive audio. Every analog recording is slightly damaged (the damage may be very slight, but it always happens) every time it's played. No accurate and truly permanent archive of analog audio can be kept unless it's never heard!
Insistence on analog technology is insistence that degradation is inevitable, and insistence on listening to it happen.
No, I have not because I refuse to pay the high prices. I will wait until those start showing up in the bargain bins and then give them a try.
Meanwhile, 80 GB costs about $25 for a USB flash drive or $70 will buy you twenty-five times that amount for a hard drive.
It's time for a really cheap upgrade to your sound quality!