[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
MrStan;134807 Wrote: And you must be joking! I can tell MP3 even at 320k. On a good orchestral recording it just can't reproduce the soundstage. Virtually no atmosphere. The only real answer is to use a lossless format which rules MP3 out anymore. I actually do use FLAC for my main home system, and MP3 at something in the hundreds of kbps for my car/portable library. In that environment I can't hear anything bad. But at those bitrates, for me, WMA is just terrible. Maybe I (and everyone else I know that uses WMA) are just using the wrong settings, and our mileage is varying. -- eq72521 eq72521's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1512 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
I use itunes and those mp* files at 320k. I have a Primaluna Prologue 2 integrated amp and a bel canto 2 dac. Onix rockets for speakers. you cannot tell any difference between the mp* and a flac file on my system. the dac does wonders for compressed files. -- daveius daveius's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7425 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
eq72521;134717 Wrote: You're kidding right? I can often tell a typical WMA compressed song inside of five seconds, at least if it's at ~128kbps or below. Who are these people that think it's better? Have they tried lame? I cringe when I hear WMA. And you must be joking! I can tell MP3 even at 320k. On a good orchestral recording it just can't reproduce the soundstage. Virtually no atmosphere. The only real answer is to use a lossless format which rules MP3 out anymore. WMA-lossless is fine for sound, has good compression and can be played on most players. Beware, even without DRM, Microsoft may try to control what you do with it. The same comments stand for Apple formats. Flac is fine for sound, the compression may not be quite as good but the difference is very small and it's open format so you can guarentee you will be free to use the music as you like. It is also a little more flexible with tagging but it does have less player support. If you must have compression then use ogg, it beats the pants off the rest for sound and it's an open format with the same tagging as Flac. -- MrStan MrStan's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1771 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
AndrueC;134406 Wrote: Oh rubbish. WMA is a perfectly satisfactory format for ripping audio. It's widely accepted amongst players and although you can argue over the quality of its compression most people seem to think it's slightly better than MP3. You're kidding right? I can often tell a typical WMA compressed song inside of five seconds, at least if it's at ~128kbps or below. Who are these people that think it's better? Have they tried lame? I cringe when I hear WMA. -- eq72521 eq72521's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1512 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
Haven't you read the rules? It's forbidden to mention WM*, MP* and other loss* formats in the Audiophile forum. -- tommypeters SB3--Meridian G68--NuForce Ref8--Bc Acoustique ACT A3 tommypeters's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6528 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
Jeff Moore;133292 Wrote: 2006-09-03-11:48:24 mr_bill: What about WMA? What about it? It's a nasty Microsoft thing. You don't want to go there. Oh rubbish. WMA is a perfectly satisfactory format for ripping audio. It's widely accepted amongst players and although you can argue over the quality of its compression most people seem to think it's slightly better than MP3. It supports variable frame sizes without an add-on hack so you can have seamless track transitions. The only truly bad thing about it I can think of is that it supports DRM but of course when you're ripping that doesn't matter. There are better alternatives but like most high-end audio solutions they involve hassle getting them running. Windows Media player will rip a CD without you having to touch the keyboard or mouse. I borrowed a friend's autoloader one month and just kept feeding it 20 discs at a time. So I have to disagree here and accuse you of bashing Microsoft just because you think it's cool. Sorry :) -- AndrueC AndrueC's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6612 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
Jeff Moore;133292 Wrote: Its disadvantage is that it's uncompressed. And because of this, you get less play tine in the SqueezeBoxes internal buffer. Shouldn't be a problem if the player is wired, but may well be an issue if you are using wireless. You are also more likely to run into bandwidth issues using wireless and uncompressed. Costs may also be higher from SlimDevices ripping service, but i'm not sure about that. -- funkstar funkstar's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2335 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
funkstar;133388 Wrote: And because of this, you get less play tine in the SqueezeBoxes internal buffer. Shouldn't be a problem if the player is wired, but may well be an issue if you are using wireless. You are also more likely to run into bandwidth issues using wireless and uncompressed. I don't think that's true - there's a box under file types in server settings for AIFF FLAC, so (just as with WAV) slimserver can compress the file to FLAC before sending it, and the buffer will hold exactly the same amount of music. -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
mr_bill;133267 Wrote: Is the format AAC going to give this to me or should I be looking at something else? Not in the slightest, AAC is lossy like MP3. If you insist on using iTunes the only sensible choice is ALAC, if you can give that up then FLAC is the best choice for lossless when using a squeezebox. -- radish radish's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=77 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
Does ALAC stand for apple lossless audio codec? That's how I am ripping in to ITunes now. What about WMA? I don't imagine that I can use Flac with Itunes - I don't really know how I would manage two different format systems - Itunes and Flac. Thanks, Bill -- mr_bill mr_bill's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6737 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27004 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Ripping service and formats
2006-09-03-11:48:24 mr_bill: What about WMA? What about it? It's a nasty Microsoft thing. You don't want to go there. I don't imagine that I can use Flac with Itunes - I don't really know how I would manage two different format systems - Itunes and Flac. That's why, when managing things with iTunes but mostly playing things via SlimServer, I just use AIFF. It's an uncompressed lossless format (but a proper sensibly-defined tagged one, unlike WAV). Its primary advantage in this context is that it's the only tagged lossless format which is handled completely natively by both SlimServer/SB and iTunes. Kind of the commmon denominator -- no server-side on-the-fly extra conversion process required, or anything. Its disadvantage is that it's uncompressed. The lossless compressions (FLAC, Apple Lossless and chums) result in a file around 60% as big as AIFF or WAV. But if you have disk space to burn, there's the compelling just-works appeal of AIFF. And of course, as with any of the completely lossless formats (compressed or not), if you re-engineer your storage strategy at some later date, all your files can be converted to some other lossless format without loss of music bits, no re-ripping required. -Jeff ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
