imbest Posted September 22, 2007 Posted September 22, 2007 MP3 not possible right? any higher quality compression? thinking of transferring all my CDs to flash/HDD storage.
insomia Posted September 22, 2007 Posted September 22, 2007 they are several lossless compression codec out there... for example FLAC or ape... personally i prefer ape... best of all, they are all FREE! http://www.monkeysaudio.com/ cheers
imbest Posted September 23, 2007 Author Posted September 23, 2007 wow, that's cool, any idea what's the compression rate like? I'm considering skipping the CD player hehe....but then would the IDE/SATA cables from CDRom --> HDD cause quality loss too? need special IDE/SATA cable? is there any standalone HD player that's able to play these format? a bit hassle to go through a computer just to play it.....
SiriuslyCold Posted September 23, 2007 Posted September 23, 2007 if you use EAC with error correction all the bits should be transferred properly. You have to try out for yourself which MP3 compression rate sounds best to you - some people can;t tell the difference between 256kbps and CD, some 320kbps. If you can't tell between CD and 256k, then its fine to use if you want to save space. however if your downstream components become more revealing this could be exposed. Anyhow, I'd recommend FLAC, but any lossless compression should do fine.
insomia Posted September 23, 2007 Posted September 23, 2007 wow, that's cool, any idea what's the compression rate like? I'm considering skipping the CD player hehe....but then would the IDE/SATA cables from CDRom --> HDD cause quality loss too? need special IDE/SATA cable? is there any standalone HD player that's able to play these format? a bit hassle to go through a computer just to play it..... the compression is almost 50% on most of my audiocd... the file size is about 250mb for a 50mins CD... i didnt use any special sata cable to compress... and seriously i cant really hear the difference too.... i think apple support FLAC but not ape... for ape, u can install winamp with the plugin (usually comes with it) and you can decode on the fly while playing back
weibchen Posted September 23, 2007 Posted September 23, 2007 you also need to consider that you need a good external dac. Sound cards will produce floor noise and good external dac will eliminate jitters.
karlie Posted September 23, 2007 Posted September 23, 2007 i didnt use any special sata cable to compress... and seriously i cant really hear the difference too.... i think apple support FLAC but not ape... for ape, u can install winamp with the plugin (usually comes with it) and you can decode on the fly while playing back Good that you cannot hear the difference in a lossless format :) Otherwise there are so many lossless formats it is diffidult to count: APE Apple Lossless FLAC WMA Lossless Mpeg4 Lossless Dolby Lossless MLP ... the list goes one
wolverex Posted September 24, 2007 Posted September 24, 2007 maybe your system is just not revealing enough
karlie Posted September 24, 2007 Posted September 24, 2007 http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/ FYI I compress my classical and jazz music in mp3 320kbps I compress my other music as AAC 192, 160 or 128 depending on the quality of the original (no point encoding at 192 some crappy quality).
SiriuslyCold Posted September 26, 2007 Posted September 26, 2007 Zero compression sounds best. ;D what's the thread topic? :P
imbest Posted September 26, 2007 Author Posted September 26, 2007 Zero compression sounds best. ;D record in .wav?
Quest88 Posted September 27, 2007 Posted September 27, 2007 discussion only on ripping portion and not playing. :) too many variables. IMO don't really bother with the cables, but a good PC cd/dvd-rom helps cos of error correction, etc. there are lists of recommended ripping cd-roms. also, i think there are utilities to ensure that you have a 100% rip, but to me usually 98%+ is good enough. FLAC is my recommendation also. however, in some of my cds, its same size as wav, so sometimes i don't bother with the conversion. there is a big difference even vs variable bitrate mp3. i think even my novice friends find out. Wav does sound slightly better than FLAC to me in some setups, but i think this is because it may require less processing on the PC/processor front, rather than any fidelity issue. most setups there isn't a difference.
karlie Posted September 30, 2007 Posted September 30, 2007 So you hear the difference in processing power too? AMD or Intel sounds better? Check hydrogen forums. no claim of "can hear" will be entertained without an ABXR test.
Quest88 Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 So you hear the difference in processing power too? AMD or Intel sounds better? well i don't use a PC for playback most of the time. i use a squeezebox which has limited processing power, served from a NAS with also limited processing power. just to tell u how jialat, it takes me 1hr+ to refresh my music list. for native formats, the files are passed to the squeezebox to play automatically (hardware), but for non-native format, i believe either the server needs to convert first before passing over, or some software decoding is done by the sb (dun remember which now). of cos all this is theoretical, but i feel there is a slight diff. anyway thats why i say most setups there is no diff, but there is a possibility.
imbest Posted April 2, 2008 Author Posted April 2, 2008 wow, looking back just realized I posted something which I am seriously looking at now......heheh..... out of the sudden, I happen to have a few ape files with cue sheet. I can't get these CDs anymore and it took me many weeks to kop it from the internet......they sounded so great! I am thinking of converting them to CDs, FLACs or MP3s, however, most of the files I have is single APE files with a cue sheet to indicate the tracks info, how can I separate them properly? any idea?
redryder Posted April 2, 2008 Posted April 2, 2008 The CUE sheet has information on how the tracks are separated. There are many programs that can read CUE sheets and burn audio CDs. Even Nero can do it. However my favourite program is called "burrrn", can find it at www.burrrn.net. It can convert flac, ape and other lossless codecs to audio CDs.
imbest Posted April 2, 2008 Author Posted April 2, 2008 Thanks redryder ! That's definitely a very useful tool! I saw the webby, seems like it can only convert anything to CD but not from format A to format B (eg APE to FLAC with separated files) right?
imbest Posted April 2, 2008 Author Posted April 2, 2008 i am very curious, if I were to rip the CD to ape or flac, and then use this utilities to recreate the original CD, how much quality loss are we looking at? Assuming there is no loss at the ripping process (would there be any) ....
mHiFi Posted April 2, 2008 Posted April 2, 2008 i am very curious, if I were to rip the CD to ape or flac, and then use this utilities to recreate the original CD, how much quality loss are we looking at? Assuming there is no loss at the ripping process (would there be any) .... In digital world, nothing is loss if the CRC check are within limit. In real world, ripping audio to lossless format only maintain the bits and bytes in order but not counted the jitter during ripping and I believe the audio CD allow to have certain % of error. That might contribute to the ripping/copying audio quality. This also reminded me to look for the answer about the digital/coaxial output from CD transport the different between the optical and coaxial. Anyone found the answer?
imbest Posted April 2, 2008 Author Posted April 2, 2008 This also reminded me to look for the answer about the digital/coaxial output from CD transport the different between the optical and coaxial. Anyone found the answer? yah, I posted something like that earlier.....but have you tested both yourself? a lot of time, people will say no diff coz your entry/mid-range equipments is not tok-kong enough to spot the diff.....
mHiFi Posted April 2, 2008 Posted April 2, 2008 yah, I posted something like that earlier.....but have you tested both yourself? a lot of time, people will say no diff coz your entry/mid-range equipments is not tok-kong enough to spot the diff..... Before I can do that, my TOSLINK gone missing ;D
zapp1624705742 Posted April 2, 2008 Posted April 2, 2008 i call the compression standard my own ears :p if i can really feel involved and absorbed in the music - i dun really care what level the level of compression is ;D But mostly i use 320kbps mp3 or FLAC nowadays.
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