Best Format for Music?

[Jon Jon]

Hey guys, it's been a long time!

I recently purchased the Legend of Dragon World Soundtrack (based on Mike's recommendation from his recent CD review) as I was looking for a solid mostly complete album.



My question is, I've ripped this in iTunes to just WAV as I didn't want to lose any information.

However, how does say Apple's lossless format stack up? Should I use a different lossless format? How do they compare to WAV?

I'm fairly green when it comes to audio, so I'm genuinely curious.

Thanks guys!

[cRookie_Monster]

If it's truly lossless then it should sound the same as wav, just smaller files.

If you are comparing lossless formats then the things to consider are:
1) file size on disk
2) What players support the format.
3) processing power to play
4) RAM used during playback

and honestly you probably only care about #1 and #2.

[VegettoEX]

Also consider what you're going to be listening to the music in / via / out of. Are you going to be listening on Apple's stock earbuds? You don't really need anything other than probably a 192 kbps AAC/M4A file, and even that might be pushing it. It sounds like you might want to be preserving / backing-up the audio in case of disaster, though, since you're already thinking lossless. In that case, yeah, Apple's lossless format is fine, and it'll play in iTunes (which is helpful if that's what you use for music management). There's also FLAC for lossless encodes, but iTunes won't play the files (though you can set up pretty much anything else to play them... Winamp, VLC, etc.).

Since I just keep every CD I've ever purchased, I end up just upgrading / re-ripping my digital collection every few cycles of tech upgrades. Like everyone else, I started with 128 kbps MP3s. These days everything's pretty much 256 kbps AAC, but if I have the option of downloading a digital purchase in FLAC, I'll go for that. My goal is to keep a lossless version around (digital or physical, whatever) going forward into the future to always come back to and re-encode from.

[Jon Jon]

Thanks for the info!

I may rip again then using Apple's Lossless format for iTunes.

I actually have an ASUS Xonar Essence ST sound card that I have my Sony MDR V6 headphones plugged into the headphone amp via a 1/4 inch plug, so quality matters a lot to me.

I'm really loving this collection btw, as I did not have a high quality version of the SSJ2 Gohan transformation song, and there were just so many things going on in that song I just couldn't hear before!

Again, thanks for the information guys! If there are any other albums I should look into, definitely let me know! I'm actually considering the new movie soundtrack, but I'm on the fence. I'm sure there's a thread somewhere about that.

[theoriginalbilis]

I usually convert my CDs to 320 kbps, mp3 format. Been doing it for years. The quality sounds just fine to my ears, and you can play it on just about any device or program.

[dbboxkaifan]

FLAC > MP3

I usually avoid WAV because the files although uncompressed they take way too much space and the same can be accomplished in FLAC format. FLAC keeps uncompressed quality with a decent size.

I usually convert my CDs to 320 kbps, mp3 format. Been doing it for years. The quality sounds just fine to my ears, and you can play it on just about any device or program.

I agree. MP3 is a universal audio format and regardless of what kind of device they all play it, whereas FLAC and others might need an add-on to play.

[ricecake]

I typically convert my files to FLAC, and then when needed (for example, for my car audio player) I convert to MP3. If I want high-quality MP3s, I use lame -V2 (personally I think 320 kbps MP3 is overkill), or for a noisy environment like the car, I use lame -V5 so I can fit more songs on the drive and I won't be able to hear the difference over road noise and such. I used to use Ogg Vorbis but not many hardware devices support it, so I've moved away from it.

[IIMaxII]

I normally use lossless files for listening in the car because I have a really good system, but for listening via headphones or in ear monitors less than $500 you don't really need Apple Lossless, FLAC, or WAV. 256kbps AAC is Perfect. AAC is higher quality than MP3 at a lower bitrate, there's also OGG if you have players that support it...it's open source and I like it.

[Cursed Lemon]

Just so there's no ambiguity, lossless is lossless regardless of the filetype.

So Wav, AIFF, FLAC, Apple Lossless, Ape, WMA lossless, etc. all ripped from the same 16-bit 44k source are going to sound exactly the same, because the are actually the exact same data (provided there were no ripping errors, which there can be). The only difference is the metadata that the file container carries with them. For instance, the difference between a .wav file and an .aiff file is simple that the AIFF contains much more information embedded into it that makes it useful for manipulating in music programs.

As far as compression schemes tend to go, FLAC is more or less the clear lossless winner, as it's the most widely supported across platforms (you haven't stated whether you have a Mac or not, I think), and can handle multi-channel audio and high resolutions perfectly.

Lossless compression all hangs around 55-60% so you won't get much difference there.

With lossy compressors, it's all up to your ear. AAC, Lame MP3, OGG, everyone claims one of these sounds better than the other at any given bitrate. To me personally, I have to deal with people in the music industry who think they can hear the difference between a 96Khz wave file and a 192Khz wave file (hint: they can't), whereas I'm of the opinion that almost nobody is going to be able to tell the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and a full-quality CD wave file in all but the most critical listening environments.

[cRookie_Monster]

Just so there's no ambiguity, lossless is lossless regardless of the filetype.

So Wav, AIFF, FLAC, Apple Lossless, Ape, WMA lossless, etc. all ripped from the same 16-bit 44k source are going to sound exactly the same, because the are actually the exact same data (provided there were no ripping errors, which there can be). The only difference is the metadata that the file container carries with them. For instance, the difference between a .wav file and an .aiff file is simple that the AIFF contains much more information embedded into it that makes it useful for manipulating in music programs.

As far as compression schemes tend to go, FLAC is more or less the clear lossless winner, as it's the most widely supported across platforms (you haven't stated whether you have a Mac or not, I think), and can handle multi-channel audio and high resolutions perfectly.

Lossless compression all hangs around 55-60% so you won't get much difference there.

With lossy compressors, it's all up to your ear. AAC, Lame MP3, OGG, everyone claims one of these sounds better than the other at any given bitrate. To me personally, I have to deal with people in the music industry who think they can hear the difference between a 96Khz wave file and a 192Khz wave file (hint: they can't), whereas I'm of the opinion that almost nobody is going to be able to tell the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and a full-quality CD wave file in all but the most critical listening environments.

Lossless can also differ in size, but yes, should always sound the same!

Diff between 96k and 192k I actually think 48k vs 96k is kinda silly. High resolution is really important when recording/mixing/mastering...but Sheesh, once you are done...human ears are only so sensitive.

[Dalesy]

I normally use lossless files for listening in the car because I have a really good system, but for listening via headphones or in ear monitors less than $500 you don't really need Apple Lossless, FLAC, or WAV. 256kbps AAC is Perfect. AAC is higher quality than MP3 at a lower bitrate, there's also OGG if you have players that support it...it's open source and I like it.

Gotta disagree with you on that one. As someone who's using $200~ Sennheisers, the difference between AAC and FLAC is noticeable.

As far as the topic goes, I would recommend FLAC, assuming you have the hard drive space. If you like iTunes, Songbird is a great player that duplicates most of its functionality. It's practically a clone, but it plays FLAC.

[Ajay]

I normally use lossless files for listening in the car because I have a really good system, but for listening via headphones or in ear monitors less than $500 you don't really need Apple Lossless, FLAC, or WAV. 256kbps AAC is Perfect. AAC is higher quality than MP3 at a lower bitrate, there's also OGG if you have players that support it...it's open source and I like it.

Gotta disagree with you on that one. As someone who's using $200~ Sennheisers, the difference between AAC and FLAC is noticeable.

As far as the topic goes, I would recommend FLAC, assuming you have the hard drive space. If you like iTunes, Songbird is a great player that duplicates most of its functionality. It's practically a clone, but it plays FLAC.

Likewise, $150 Lindys here and I can tell the difference. FLAC recommendation from me too.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Does anyone know any FLAC rippers that can find the cover art and information of songs? Because that would be a big push for me to upgrade; using iTunes 256 kbps for the most part right now.

[Ajay]

Does anyone know any FLAC rippers that can find the cover art and information of songs? Because that would be a big push for me to upgrade; using iTunes 256 kbps for the most part right now.

Exact Audio Copy will do exactly what you're looking for! There's some great tutorials around for making the perfect rip with it too.