[Gary Sheynkman]

I will now be hailed Gary...the king of polls!

FLAC and Ogg are great, but are not integrated very well. I find that i dont like the AAC encoding that apple uses at all (poor middle range...like bose speakers :lol: ) MP3 VBR is nice....but cant we move on? Windows media Im not a big fan of and dont get me started on Real (the legal virus). Atrac....please for the love of God...have some self respect

[Gary Sheynkman]

I will now be hailed Gary...the king of polls!

FLAC and Ogg are great, but are not integrated very well. I find that i dont like the AAC encoding that apple uses at all (poor middle range...like bose speakers :lol: ) MP3 VBR is nice....but cant we move on? Windows media Im not a big fan of and dont get me started on Real (the legal virus). Atrac....please for the love of God...have some self respect

[Janak Parekh]

I've got to disagree with you on several points. 8O

Originally Posted by Gary Sheynkman

FLAC and Ogg are great, but are not integrated very well.

Define "integrated". First off, be precise: Ogg Vorbis is lossy, while (Ogg) FLAC is not. FLAC is not widely supported, but that's because it's not mass-market. Ogg Vorbis, on the other hand, is -- a number of hard-drive based players, along with Winamp and a bunch of software, support it perfectly.

I find that i dont like the AAC encoding that apple uses at all (poor middle range...like bose speakers :lol: )

I'm assuming this is subjective. You might want to read some of the discussions at Hydrogen Audio; AAC has consistently gotten decent ratings.

MP3 VBR is nice....but cant we move on?

Sure -- why not AAC or Ogg, or even WMA? If you think they're all inferior, feel free to start one. It's not trivial, and by information theoretic properties you're always going to lose something with a lossy codec.

Windows media Im not a big fan of

Meaning...?

dont get me started on Real (the legal virus).

For once, we agree.

Atrac....please for the love of God...have some self respect

ATRAC was pretty darn ahead of its time, although it is getting in on age.

So, may I ask, what do you do? Use WAV?

--janak

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

MP3 for me! Maximum compatibility, quality is good enough for me. I find most of those who whine about MP3s not being good enough tend to be under the placebo effect; in a blind test they can't tell them apart.

[Russell]

Originally Posted by yslee

MP3 for me! Maximum compatibility, quality is good enough for me. I find most of those who whine about MP3s not being good enough tend to be under the placebo effect; in a blind test they can't tell them apart.

I must agree. I am more into using formats that are widely accepted across hardware platforms as opposed to those that have some minor cult following trying to overthrow the machine.

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by yslee

I find most of those who whine about MP3s not being good enough tend to be under the placebo effect; in a blind test they can't tell them apart.

Hmm. I can certainly tell 128kbps MP3, VBR or not. Cymbals often sound wishy-washy. Other codecs are noticeably better at that. You're probably right, though, that at 160kbps VBR I would probably have a tough time.

--janak

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Ah, I guess the music I listen to doesn't have a lot of cymbals (either that or I don't listen closely enough). But you do have a point about certain instruments or sequences tripping up a codec. Think there was a page on ATRAC's little hiccups; and I recall my MD recorder refusing to properly record a short sequence from one song properly. There'd be this really interesting sound artifact..

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by yslee

Ah, I guess the music I listen to doesn't have a lot of cymbals (either that or I don't listen closely enough).

Right -- if you listen to the high-frequency sounds closely, most lossy codecs trip up there first as you lower the bitrate. Cymbals, top-hats, etc. It "grates" on my ears. That's the biggest reason I can't go below 128kbps. They turn into generic "tinkly-thingies" which give me the shudders (at least, with MP3 and WMA).

--janak

[Gary Sheynkman]

wow.....killed by Janak...so much for being my hero :roll:

ok...i got my oppinion from AAC from the apple music store....maybe the bit rate is too low.

Ive recently got off the kazaa bug ( ops: ) where i downloaded every song i ever heard in crappy mp3 bit rates. So i wiped my pc clean. I want to start to build a nice CD collection (i know where to get them cheap).

i didnt like Atrac because Sony had this crazy check in/out system for their players. :x

The rio carma supports FLAC...so once a model that has audio input (on the fly encoding like iriver) i will definatly purchase one

um.... wma... im just suspicious of the Empire!



Pretty much i want for people to understand that lossless codecs are out there and that we are loosing precious music to poor encodings. A family friend is crazy about old school hifi music. Reel-to-Reel...lp...all the good stuff...its amazing (i hate this guy...he has more toys than anyone i know)

janak....please.....dont hurt me like this :lol:

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Mmm, indeed, anything less than 128kbps sounds quite terrible. There's this tiiiiny thing that goes on in the background that irks the hell out of me.

[Suhit Gupta]

Originally Posted by Gary Sheynkman

janak....please.....dont hurt me like this :lol:

I think that since you diss'ed every single format listed above, it irked him :-D. Don't stress though...

Originally Posted by yslee

Mmm, indeed, anything less than 128kbps sounds quite terrible. There's this tiiiiny thing that goes on in the background that irks the hell out of me.

I agree, especially in classical music. It almost sounds like a small scratchy/hissy noise, hard to discribe. Most of my music has been at 160kbps VBR, but I have gone up to 192 or 256 (just for kicks ) when ripping my Trance CDs. Truthfully though, I cannot tell the difference when at 160 and above.

Suhit