Are you an audiophile?
 

Just a simple polling guys... I wonder if there are lot people here are audiophiles. I'm not one, my ears hardly could differ the quality of 160 kbps with 320 kbps mp3. Honestly I don't want to be an audiophile since it will be troublesome for me If I demand all my songs are lossless.

Double Post:
damn, I want to make this a public poll. Moderator, is there any way to solve this?

Over the past few years, and after originally stumbling upon Gamingforce Audio way back when, I have slowly developped into a audiophile.

I have some friends that look at me weird when i show them the file sizes of the songs i have. But it always makes them go "It's no different" that urks me.. loseless sounds way different then lower encoded songs.

Can I claim to be halfway there? While like you I probably couldn't tell the difference between 160 and 320, I can definitely tell when I'm listening to a 120 that someone apparently recorded in their basement.

Maybe it's just that all the music I've been finding/ripping (I try to rip at highest level possible) has been high, which has gotten me used to that standard. Back when I was grateful to get music off Napster on my dial-up (a sign of how long ago that was), I would be happy with 96 kbps music as long as it worked, haha.

I can't stand 128kbps MP3's for instance. I'm not one of those "OH I CAN HEAR THE CRISP HIGHS AND THE BROODING LOWS WITH A 5.3 METRE SOUNDSTAGE AND I CAN HEAR THE SOUND OF THE DRUMMER'S EYELIDS CLOSING" type audiophiles, but if someone took my AKG K26s and I had to go back to using crappy sony in ear headphones, that would suck.

And VBR is your best friend.

Without a doubt, yes. Many years of performing music have developed my hearing extensively, and I can tell a distinct difference between low-end and high-end sound. For the moment, my Hi-Fi setup is limited merely to headphones, although I may finally make the jump this summer and pick up a decent speaker rig (Likely a Pair of B&W DM601S3 or 602S3, haven't decided on a proper Amp/Receiver yet).

Definitely not. I'm a wannabe audiophile - what with my plans to purchase some $300 US retail earbuds and my obsession with having high quality VBR mp3s for everything (you can't really tell much difference between this and lossless). I'm also obssessed with retagging and renaming everything that I download, except for #gamemp3s releases.

questions for non-audiophiles: are you actually wishing to become an audiophile? Why's that? Well, I'm afraid to become one actually, if that happens that would mean I must start collecting lossless then!

Yeah I used to be sorta like that as well... except now I can tell the diff. between below 128 and 128 and above. I can also detect between 320 and 128, but not minor things like 190 vs 160... I guess I'm just not that much of an wannabe audiophile.

For me though, VBR and 192 has become the defacto standard. I also am going to try and get FLAC for what I want to 'archive' to CD. Like Mucknuggle, I'm only a wannabe :p

That's stupid.

That's like being ashamed of wanting the best of something.

I'm not sure. I voted no because 192 kbps CBR is quite good enough for me, and I wouldn't want anything better than that. I see being an audiophile as a frustrating pursuit, because your hearing is going to get worse no matter what you do. Mine's worse now than it was at age 20.

I'm definitely not. I hate music encoded in less than 192kbs, since its not really that great to listen to, but aside from that, I don't mind. Having everything encoded in high bitrates would just mess with my iPod battery/disk space anyway!

I would say I'm more of an audio enthusiast than an audiophile. If it sounds good to me, it sounds good. I'm not going to ramble on about soundstage, palpability (?), speed, and all those other non-technical terms I hear a lot of audiophiles (90% of whom are probably average joes) spewing out.

"Oh yes, there's too much mid-bass, the midtones are muddy, and the highs are a bit too rolled off." Ugh. Some of the people on the Head-fi forums are especially bad about this. One of them just made a post stating that he had spent $5000 on headphones and amps since finding that forum. Five-thousand dollars? What a waste. Nobody needs a pair of AKG K-1000 headphones. (Headspeakers?)

I have been for quite a while. I fact the only person I truely trust to make perfect CD rips, is (surprise) myself. I think everyone else does something wrong to fudge up the rip. I only use mp3 because its so well supported. If I had a digital music player (with a large hard drive), I'd just rip everything to Monkey's Audio and never worry about having to hear mp3s anymore from my own rips.
Of course I'm too poor to get audio equipment good enough to hear the difference between -V 2 mp3s and lossless (best example of that: my headphones cost $12).

Actually I am not an audiophile. The reason is that some of my favorite recordings were made in the 20s and of course the sound was horrible, but they're still great recordings. As long as you can make out the nuances, I don't see what the big deal is. It's like people complaining that Citizen Kane is not as good a movie if it's not seen on HDTV.

Being an audiophile doesn't mean that you hate low-quality recordings, Minion. My personal favorite CD was recorded in 1977. Is it as full and rich as some modern recordings I have of the songs? No. But the precision and style are still there.

I'm definitely the same way. I just want what I have to sound good with what I've got. I'm fine with 128k MP3's on my speakers (although I prefer higher rates and VBR.) I don't care if my home audio system is not up to theatre standards. As long as what I'm listening to has a nice, full, rich sound, I'm more than happy.

In that case, I'm not even close to an audiophille, I shall take the monkier "Enthusiast", or maybe "Appreciator" or something like that :laugh:

Need. There's an interesting term. Do any of us NEED Headphones or Speakers or any sort? They're certainly not essential to my survival.

No, I suppose we don't. Although I must say I would be very sad indeed without my music. Sometimes I feel that it is the only thing maintaining my sanity.

I have tin ears, so being an audiophile is out of the question.

While I can sometimes detect some muddiness in the high or low ranges of a 128 kbps MP3, more often than not I don't. Only by comparing a 128 and, say, a 192 side by side can I detect any difference.

This is actually a benefit, as 192 VBR MP3's are widely available--almost the "standard" these days--and very portable.

Frankly, people who insist on lossless-only rips or spend thousands of dollars on expensive stereo systems frighten me. Kind of like people who consider themselves gourmands or artistes, actually--there can be a level of snobbishness about audiophilery.

No, in fact if we all were all hardcore, we'd all use our PCs without a monitor.
I'd say just settle for what tests the limits of your soundcard and your ears. Anything that goes higher than that (for example if it can output sound above 22000Hz, beyond what any human can hear) is a waste of money.

There are practical uses for lossless audio. If you want an archival copy of your CDs, lossless is the best way to go if you want a "perfect" copy in case you damage the original disc (but so are disc images.)

Insisting solely on lossless rips though, is just plain impractical on your hard drives.

I'd almost say half of being a "hardcore" audiophile is bragging about your setup and how it's better than everyone else's.

That's another thing. My classical collection alone is far too large to be loseless audio. I would need like, the Pentagon to fit it all.

I'm an audiophile, but I'm not so much into the digital music realm -- Vinyl is where it's at, baby. I swear, if you listen to classical recordings on a good sound system, with a good needle (and the vinyl is in decent shape, of course) you will know what I'm talking about. A full, rich sound that, no matter how high-bit they make CDs, it doesn't sound nearly the same.

As for MP3s, it depends on the music. For pop/rock and stuff I don't care about, I can *handle* 128. I don't like to, but unfortunately unless I actually want to pay for some of the music I have (heaven forbid!), I have to take what I can find. With my classical music I usually rip in .ogg format, just because I think it sounds better. Very little of my collection is lossless, simply because I don't have that kind of space on my computer. But it sounds vastly better than any of my 256 MP3s.

Double Post:
Exactly.

No, I'm not an audiophile. I don't have a single lossless music file in my comp, and i probably will never have one since it's such a waste.
I like my music 192CBR or over 200VBR, I can stand 128, but if a song is in 128 I'd look for a higher bitrate version unless it's not possible.

Gonna have to say yes. I can tell the different between a 128kbps and 192 kbps as clear as night and day. :/

It really annoys me when half of my collection is only 128 kbps because I can't find higher quality.

I'd like to be an audiophile, but I can't afford good equipment. I can very easily detect the difference in any mp3 less than 320kbps, and I can also very easily detect a poorly mastered CD when I hear "clipping".

My father's also an audiophile. We don't get along for shit, but over the years it's been discovered we have similar tastes in music. He's also obsessed with video equipment. He has so many DVD players, CD players, standalone writers, speakers, amps, etc. Drives my mother crazy.

What gets me is that even though I can tell low quality from high, I have trouble adjusting, say, an equalizer so that it sounds just right. It's almost like I can set it several different ways and music will sound just as good as before but merely different. I mostly just set the treble and bass high and leave it at that.

I'd say that I'm an audiophile, or at least I'm excessively picky about audio quality. ^^ At the very least, I can tell the difference between 128KBPS Xing-encoded MP3s and 256KBPS AAC or Musepack or whatever quite clearly, and I've spend a lot of time and money researching, buying, and occasionally restoring sound equipment, though I'd rather spend my time and money buying lots and lots of CDs and records. <3

On the other hand, I really think that a lot of people who claim to be audiophiles are just big fans of conspicuous spending. I can easily see a fairly wealthy person paying up for custom-molded in-ear headphones or flat speakers the size of a fairly large person, but do €500/meter power cables, Tiptoes for anything other than turntables, or even some particularly high-end sound equipment (big monoblocks or SET tube amps, anyone?) really improve anyone's listening experience at all, let alone to a degree that justifies their cost? Audiophilia is about music, not about HEY GUYS LOOK AT MY STACKED MERIDIAN MONOBLOCK BIWIRE HOSPITAL-GRADE POWER CABLES. :\

I am definitely not an audiophile.

I can certainly hear the difference between a 64kbps and 192kbps, but I usually just stick to the 128, unless I absolutely LOVE the song or artist. In which case, I try hard to obtain the closest thing I can to lossless.

But I don't have the time, the room, or the patience to maintain a lossless (or as near-to-lossless) music collection.

Yes you do. All you need is like a 250GB hard drive and an internet connection~

As others have said, such as Sass above, I can tell the difference between the standard 192kbps and the lowers ones, even 128 in some cases, but I'm by no means an audiophile. I often rip at a slightly higher bitrate, mostly because I can afford to having plentiful amounts of filespace available. Even so, I'll happily listen to 160kbps, or something, without being any the wiser.

If it sounds fine to me then it's all good.

I have better things to fill my hard drive up with, sir. I don't want to download endless amounts of shitty music just to listen to throughout my lifetime.

Besides. You'd have to BACK THAT SHIT UP, someday. I wouldn't look forward to it. I like to have a nice, clean, precise hardrive. I need all the room for my fucking FILES on all of you. ^_^

I have the cable connection and a 200GB drive. I just don't want to stuff it with lossless music I will PROBABLY never listen to more than three times.

Well Christ, I'd imagine maybe you'd but time into downloading some good music once in a while, not just shitty music.

Also, you don't have to back up stuff if you don't want to; it's really up to you.

"Nice, clean, precise harddrive." You know they're meant to be filled up with files, right.

This poses an interesting question: what format do you use? I have heard that Ogg Vorbis can have the same quality as mp3s at bitrates 25-50% lower than the mp3.
I generally am more concerned about the original rip then what I do with the files afterwards. Getting a bad rip is worse than encoding lossless to 128kbps CBR for me, which is why I'm into things like offset correction and AccurateRip. I do still have many unperfect rips laying around, simply because I'm too lazy (and don't care enough about the albums) to care about ripping them perfectly.

Of course back in 2000, I was ignorant to good audio as hell. When I used Music Match and ripped to 96kbps CBR Xing mp3s, I thought that sounded great, of course that's when I also had my HDD crash on me (and didn't get it replaced for nearly a year).

I never quite got into Lossless music myself. Or that FLAC thing whatsoever.

I guess I'm a bit of an audiophile since I prefer anything better than 128. 320? Eh, will do.

Well mp3s are old technology and were not meant to be used forever. Nevertheless, people refuse to move past them. Especially since drive space becomes more and more of a non-issue, no reason not to just encode mp3s as 320kbps and have them be supported by pretty much anything than encode in ogg. I actually see m4a used more often these days than ogg.

But I don't think we should restrict this thread to the talk of audio regarding computers.

Actually the big secret is real audiophiles use --preset extreme or -V 0 as of LAME 3.97, 320 CBR is for people who think it's the best, really all it does is fill up the mp3 with too many bits (like during silence, who needs 320kbps during that?).

Ogg is much better than MP3 at low bitrates, but it's not so good at higher rates. I actually think that MP3 gives better quality above around 192KBPS or so, though I wouldn't swear by it.

I personally encode all of my own music as 256KBPS AAC using everyone's least favourite program iTunes...it's as good as lossless on both my headphones and speakers, and works on my iPod (not the audiophile choice, I know) without any transcoding. ^^

I thought that real audiophiles used FLAC for lossless music?

The probelm is most mp3 players don't play lossless formats. Unless you want to burn dozens of CDs to an old fashioned CD player, you'll have to use mp3 or some other lossless format to listen to your music on the go.

Let me tell you all a little secret.

Nobody actually stores lossless formats on drives, unless they are serving the releases.

Oh yeah? Well I got an OST in FLAC, and I'm not serving it out on #gamemp3.

OH SHI--
Exception to the Rule!

Then how exactly ARE they stored? Because everyone I know (including myself) stores their lossless albums on drives.

It's a new technology called CDs.

I store all my stuff on my drive :( I've got a TB of space so I see no reason not to. I back them up to DVD and burn them to CD-RW when I want to listen to them off my PC. If I burned all my stuff to CD, it'd be like 300 CDs. As if I don't have enough random spindles of burned shit all over my room.

Do I insist on all my music being lossless? No. But with the exception of a few old CDs I've lost track of and can't find to re-rip, everything I OWN is in lossless or VBR and everything else I have is in 192CBR, LAME, or better. Personally, I only rip a disc to lossless when (A) It's very well mastered and (B) I absolutely love the tracks on it. Anything else I'm fine with VBR for my computer setup. But computers are lousy Hi-Fi sources anyway. Even if you get an EMU0404 or something it still won't compare to a good SACD player.

Because I have the space (Hooray for external hard drives!) I try to get all my music in 320kbps if possible.

I used to not care about the sound quality too much; if it was over 128k/s Mp3 it was fine for me. Though nowadays I can tell the difference between a 128 / 160 mp3. I rip / re-encode all my music now to 180Kb/s ABR, which is fine for me. I see 320kbps mp3s and definitely lossless audio as a waste, and any music I get like that I sometimes re-encode. Definitely if it's lossless.

I would've ripped all my CDs (audio or not) to a lossless format, if my HDD was big enough. I'm ultra-anal about data integrity and almost always throw away files that are broken or corrupted.
With LAME 3.97 being the way it is, I don't any reason to ever encode any mp3s at 320kbps CBR. It would take some high end hardware to tell the difference between -V 2 and --preset insane anymore.
I still wonder why people use CBR as opposed to ABR/VBR now, CBR is a waste of quality and space and isn't even necesary for streaming anymore. They should change LAME's default encoding settings from CBR 128 to ABR 128 or -V 5, generally most Mp3s encoded using these settings sound better than CBR 128 and sometimes use a lower bitrate (especially true for Genesis VGM rips).

Four years ago I couldn't tell the difference. Ever since, I can clearly hear the difference in quality between 160k and 320k. I'll mostly be on a lookout for the guitars, voice plus some other effects. When heard on certain headphones, the bass and treble can make a huge difference.

So yeah, I prefer 320k. As for VBRs, I prefer 192 VBR and above. Lossless are more of a waste of space for me, though I don't mind having for keepsake.

I'm also an audiophile.
However, I can actually tell the difference between 160 and higher resolutions. This is mostly because of my personal training in listening to harmonics, though. If not for that, I am not sure if I could heard the difference.

It might also help that I listen to good music, where most instruments are actually heard, instead of staticy and distorted shit.

Anyways, I usually stick with a 320-ish or higher resolution if I can.

For anything 320 or higher, I'd just go with lossless, the extra space lossless would use would not be that much more than 320kbps mp3s (320kbps is only 1/4 the size of CD quality source material).

Yeah, that is what I usually try to do.
I never actually rip CD's that I have already, but when downloading I always go for the lossless versions if possible.

Yeah, head-fi.org forums are scary. Whenever I go there I feel a bit creeped out. I get the impression what people squabble about there is about as meaningful as splitting hairs. "Ohh Headphone X with its inferior muddiness is an insult to my ears, get Headphone Z instead." Of course, both X and Z are probably around $750 each. I simply can't imagine a small difference in a particular quality of the music can be so meaningful to somebody. So I'm not an audiophile.

But maybe I am an "enthusiast," or perhaps just a lowly "acolyte." I did buy a pair of Grado headphones, because I wanted to see if indeed more "elite" headphones could bring out more depth from my music since I listen to it A LOT while at home. I couldn't tell you where they excel in enhancing any particular quality, but I do hear a lot more detail in terms of extra things in the background I didn't hear with other headphones, and this is what I was looking to achieve. But as far as having an entire rig (player/phones/amp/modified pads/modified Altoid can container/whatever) for home/portable/work...no way. As for bitrates, I'm not one of those that can really tell the difference. 128kbps mp3s sound just as fine as the handful of 320kbps I have.

I can recognize the difference between 160kbps and 320kbps, but I couldn't really care less. But when it's below 128kbps, it starts to bother me alot. I'd rather not listen to the song and spend my time searching for a better quality one. I'm also not picky with my headphones, speakers, sound equipment, etc. As long as I can hear it without it being complete crap I'm happy.

I have an okay ear for sound quality, but for me it's just not practical to worry about perfect quality all the time.

Most of the time I listen to music, it's on my mp3 player and I'm on the bus. Hardly ideal listening conditions, so why waste space on my mp3 player with anything higher than 192k or VBR.

Lossless formats sound nice, but I don't think they're worth the extra space. What bugs me is when people upload lossless soundtracks of SNES games or midi-based PS1 games.

Agreed. Above 320kbps, lossless or a hybrid like WavPack would be the best choice.

Use pure lossless if you don't mind bitrates of 640kbps+.

As for myself, I can tell the difference up to about 192kbps with some effort. Above that, I just can't.

Since I don't download music all that often, I go for the highest quality I can get. That way I can shrink it down if absolutely necessary for my MP3 player, and the quality is still tolerable.

I know that WAVs are technically lossless, so that's true. But I assumed that most of the "lossless" people were talking about was like FLAC or APE, in that it is lossless without being quite as large as WAVs.

My audio setup =
1 Mactontosh PowerBook with iTunes
1 iPod
1 Phillips 5-disc CD player
1 pair Sony purple earbuds

Tremble, ye mighty princes of speakery and headphonery! Thy master has arrived.

No. My audio setup is a $15 pair of Koss headphones from Walmart. I can tell the difference between a good recording and a bad one, but if you take the good recoding and encode it at 128 and 320, I'm not going to tell any difference.

The headphones are starting to die on me so it might be a good oppurtunity to get something a little better.

I've developed into an audiophile ever since I entered college; however, I'm not big on the lossless formats. I'm one to notice the difference between 320 kbps mp3s vs ... lower. Theres pretty much a fidelity factor with the various encodings.

As for hardware, I always just get whatever the best Logitech speakers are, so I've updraded 3 times during my time in college. As for headphones/earphones, I've had the Sennheiser HD-497s for a while. This year I recently acquired the $250 Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 pro earphones. I lost those things to death. I can hear only music when I put those things on. Take that crowded food court at student union. I can't hear you. You can't see me...

Yes PCM wav files are 'lossless' in quality, but lossless actually refers to the form of compression used (much like mp3s use lossy compression). A better term for wav, aiff and the like is uncompressed, like how PNGs are lossless and BMPs are uncompressed RGB pictures.
Of course even if lossless formats didn't compress at all, they'd still have a few advantages over wav files such as:
--Tag support (and Replaygain)
--Error detection/correction
--Streaming support (a few formats support this)
--More specific standards (WAV files can have Mp3, ADPCM, various speech codecs and even Sony's Atrac3 format contained in them, when most programs (outside of Windows at least) could only read standard PCM Waveforms)

Actually, some of those cheap Koss KSC series headphones are very musical. They aren't very detailed and don't have very good soundstaging, but they're really good for non-critical listening. If you can't find Sennheiser PX100s or AKG K26s locally, they're probably the best thing you can buy while sparing your wallet.

just don't buy new ones from wal-mart, since they're evil. o_o

I'm probably stuck somewhere in the middle. I can notice a quality difference between 128 and, say 320, and I rip all of my tunes at 320 now. I'm not going to shell out hundreds (thousands?!?) of dollars for some crazy audio equipment though (although I am looking at a pair of Technics headphones, but that's for my mixing...)

Sexy headphones

Double Post:
Yay level 2!

Dojomaster, there are MUCH better choices for far less. Heck, at $90-100, look at the Sennheiser HD-280. Very, very flat, detailed, cans. Some people don't like them for music listening compared to other cans in the price range (although I find them very nice), but for mixing they're stunning. Once again I reccomend looking around http://www.head-fi.com

Oh, and the Koss KSC-35 and KSC-75 (as well as the dicontinued PortaPro) are strunning phones for the price. As others have said, they're not the most detailed, but they're very enjoyable to listen to.

wow I'm surprised... the audiophiles actually outnumbered the non-audiophile ones. o.O I guess all of you must have super sharp ear. I really dont care too much about audio quality. My minimum would be 96 kbps. I don't like 320 kbps too much since my apacer mp3 player is too stupid to play 320 kbps.

I recently started to notice the difference between 128 and 192+ kilobits, then again, listening to stuff that go as low as 96 kilobits doesn't bother me. Anything lower than that does, though.

Don't know if I'd class as an audiophile but given the choice I'll always go for a higher bitrate or VBR file. That's even though I mainly listen to music in the car or on my MP3 player at the gym and probably couldn't tell the difference from a 128kbps file. It's just nice to know that the quality is there if I ever do want it.

The Koss phones took a while to adjust to. My Sony MDR-Q55SLs reached much better high notes, but they died recently.
Of course I'm once again able to tell the difference between lossless and 128kbps CBR (but not quite 192 or 256kbps, since they are cheap headphones).

I usually take whatever audio format 128k+ because anything below it sounds like shit.

Yeah, but I don't do lossless, mostly because I don't have the space needed for it(I have over 3,000 mp3s of various bitrates), and because a lot of the extra sounds you get with lossless, you can't really hear with regular human hearing, even with good headphones. My rat might appreciate it, though. :P

I thought one was an audiophile if they liked/hoarded a lot of music, or simply had eclectic tastes.

Depends on the type of music. Ogg vorbis streams I've listened to at ~80kbps sound acceptable, almost as much as -V 5 mp3s, that's because newer lossy codecs such as AAC and Vorbis emphasize lower bitrates moreso than LAME development has so far. It seems rock lends itself well to higher bitrates more thn most other genres of music.

I'm an audiophile. I don't go the way of lossless though. I usually stick to at least music in 192 CBR or above, or APS VBR or above. I've got a high quality soundcard and speaker system so imperfections in lower bitrates really make themselves known.

I am an audiophile to the point of owning Sound Forge 7.0, looping, crossfading, editing, etc.ing music and sound files, and going to Video Symphony in Burbank to study professional audio / sound editing to work in movie / music businesses.

As for sound quality..... really, anything over 160 is pointless. That's CD quality and unless you are trying to listen for a difference, you probably won't hear one (and even then most people won't hear one, only people with really sensitive, tuned ears will). At a certain point the human ear can't even hear it. This variable bitrate crap is a waste of space on the hard drive.

I can hear mp3 artifacting from a mile away. I mean, you really can't miss it. Nothing below 256kbps is acceptable. Personally, I use MPC for all of my music.

Like PiccoloNamek, I can hear all kinds of artifacts up until the -V 1 range (+224kbps VBR mp3.) Though only when I'm using my headphones =p. Its kind of like the one Arainach mentioned, except imagine the detailed flats with a more upfront sound. Its a shame the HD-595 costs so much or else I would recommend it to all my non-audiophile friends :(.

I would like to use a lossless source like flac or ape; but taking up over 3 times the space of a mp3 just can't be justified. But I do make exceptions here and there.

I make sure that most of my songs in my iPod have a BitRate of 128-192, just to maintain space and song quality.

The "160Kbps is CD quality" is a myth. They used to say that about 128Kbps too. Fact of the matter is that CD Quality is 44,100 samples per second of 16-bit audio data in 2 channels. That's (Roughly) 1200Kbps. MP3, OGG, and all of the other popular non-lossless audio formats use compression formulas that throw out and lose data; thus, they are inherently NOT CD-quality. Lossless formats are essentially like taking a WAV file and putting it in a ZIP or RAR Archive - smaller file, but no data is lost, preserving full CD quality.

Yes, yes i am, but on the crappy headphones i use you cant tell the diffirence between 128-320 now lower than that, it just sounds like absoult crap, but i can deal with it, because they are head phones. but generaly as long as the frequencey is at lease 44.1+mhz, I can tell the dif in the hz though, oh man can i, i cant stand anything less that 44.1 it just is like rapping your ears. oh, but the new Bond DVD i got is GLORYUSE! 5.1 32bit audio on the DVD site, it is the most beautiful thing ever

I try not to listen or atleast download anything below 192kbps.

But alot of my tunes are from OCremix.org and those remixes are at 128kbps, and for the most part it's fine. Heh.

So wtf did I even vote 'YES' to the poll? I guess I'm not really. But I would PREFER to listen to high quality MP3s so... I'm a wannabe audiophile? I'unno, u tell me. :D

Can't say I am an audiophile. I only use lossless to archive my collection and burn 1.1 copies of OOP CDs. I also can't say I can tell the difference on most music. If I focus and it's a low bitrate, maybe. But again, that's not why I use lossless...

The fact, I only use a Soundblaster Live 5.1 card and a pair of $50 speakers proves it! I am definitely no audiophile! ;)

GREAT, this thread made me into an audiophile, I can't even listen to 128kbps songs anymore. frig, this is going to do wonders for my bandwidth.

In other words, you base your life on other people's perceptions?

Threads don't turn you into an audiophile. Hearing really good music on really good equipment (or any variation on the "hearing sound better than I've ever heard before" theme) does.

True... no, I don't base my life on other people's perceptions. But the bit rate of mp3s was never really brought up in my mind. I now favor my songs which are at 192-256kbps over the older 128s. Just a recent realization which was over exaggerated with my quick response in this thread being bashed by you.

You guys are also guilty of turning me into an audiophile as well. I deleted 60 gigs of music; everything except a couple soundtracks that are in 160kbps. Now I will only listen to audiophile-quality mp3s on my laptop.

That's scary, how come you deleted the collection of, omg, 60 gb so easily? I would cry if that happens to my hdd.:eyebrow:

Please, at least tell me you listen to music on your laptop through earphones. Still, listening to music through a onboard soundcard (through a laptop no less) can't sound that good to any audiophile.
I only say this as my laptop's speakers sounds terrible compared to my desktop sound setup =/.

Haha, I regularly delete my entire collection off of my hdds (I format my music drives every now and then) and keep dvdr copies as backup. I'm crazy, I know.

But to permanently delete stuff from my collection.. I think I would shed a tear too :(.

It's about half and half. These Koss headphones from Wal-Mart seem to output very high quality sound, but I'm not sure because my laptop's speakers are supposedly pretty good as well. I don't think it really matters as long as the mp3s are at least 160 though.

Yeah, I'm yet another audio enthusiast rather than audiophile. In some songs I can tell the difference between lossless and higher-end MP3 encoding (192 in CBR more often than VBR), but my ears aren't quite trained enough to make me care all that much, and I'd rather keep it that way. Being an audiophile seems like hard work, always complaining about everyone else's encoding inadequacies and having to upgrade your systems to maintain bragging rights. It's just not worth it.

The hell I would to, I've been hoarding mp3s since 2003. But I do plan to replace a much of my music as possible with a higher quality encode. Conicidentally my oldest VGM is actually burned to CD, which means it's easily replaceable (come to think of it, they are easy to find and download songs, maybe I should just replace them if the worst should happen).

Are you guys fucking serious? Just because of sound quality, you hate some of the songs? Isn't the content more important? You guys must hate any old recordings of great artists then.

It's more of a matter of achieving the best possible playback of a given song IMHO...though, unfortunately, there are quite a few "audiophiles" (not very good ones, really) who seem to buy music to listen to their sound systems, not the other way around. -_-

I would have to call myself an Audiophile, although I'm not a very good one. None of my music is in lossless. I often times will listen to a CD in my computer, because I can honestly tell the difference.

I don't like downloading lossless rips though. It discourages me from buying the CD, which I often do. I really like supporting artists.

I recently got an Ipod and started ripping my CD's to 192 MP3. I did a test with 128 AAC files vs 192 and then 320 mp3 and they didn't sound any different to me (either through headphones or my PC). Now I just rip in 128 AAC for space purposes, since it doesn't sound any worse than larger files.

I figure if I ever need to archive "perfect" copies, I'll just buy the CD, like I usually do. Lossless files are too bulky to be worth the trouble (both in terms of downloading and storing).

I'm also pretty happy with a $50 GE speaker set-up and $20 Radioshack in-ear phones (which I use interchangably with the original Ipod earbuds). I'd probably invest in a more expensive pair of headphones if I could sample them to hear a noticable difference beforehand.

So I clicked on 'no'.

After hearing what lossless audio has to offer "against" a vbr mp3 rip or even a real cd, I became quite indifferent about the subject.

There really is loss. And the difference isn't that great.

I couldnt care less what the bitrate is. the system youre playing stuff on is way more important. 128kbps sounds fine on a good stereo. plus most of my stuff is on CD/vinyl anyway.

An audio setup is only as good as the weakest link. And 128kbps is a pretty goddamn weak link.

I'm not obsessed with quality. As long as it's tolerable, I don't mind. 128 is fine with me. While higher bitrates are great, there's no room for them on this wonderful hard drive, with its amazing limit of 27GB.

true but my point is it still sounds good.
its like comparing DVD to high def; obviously higher definition looks better but DVDs look fine.
I guess this means I cant be in audiophile club.

You'd say you'll just get the CD, let me spell it out for you:
Lossless audio: 350-550MB, or 8-13 CDs worth of perfect audio per 4.7GB 12cm DVD+-R

CD: 1 CDs worth of music per 12cm CD-R/ROM

DVD+-R is a great space saver, and if you keep it on an external hard drive, even better. I don't throw away my CDs, but it's always nice to have a perfect, tagged backup.
Regular CD

While I can see your point, in fact it's like comparing old grainy black-and-white picked-up-with-an-antenna TV to the latest HDTV images. 128kbps loses an insane amount of information. I mean, I could tell the difference between 128 and 160 (and higher) back on my Plantronics p90, and nowadays with my Senns (either pair) or a decent set of speakers..... yeah.

Did the same myself! Though, it was closer to 80GB and only for those I had ripped myself in MP3. I also got rid of some of the ones I downloaded that I wasn't going to bother to get on CD or in lossless anyway. Can't say I miss them, regardless whether I have re-ripped them or not yet... ;)

I guess it depends on whether you actually listen to and like the music you collect. Most of what I deleted was stuff I just downloaded originally for the sake of doing so, being new to broadband and all. Mostly, it was stuff that I was never going to listen to again. Mostly... ;)

I molest little audios all the time.

Audiophiles are music lovers.

AUDIOPHILES, however, are indiscriminate consumers prone to autosuggestion with impeded critical thinking skills who get hung up on bullshit distinctions such as lossy versus lossless.

I guess I am an audiophile... I hate .wma files and the like, and re-ripping cds of mp3s etc. I always rip vbr mp3s with EAC (as instructed by a tutorial on these boards before the downtime).
When downloading, I always try and get the best bitrate, and am on a constant mission to educate my heathen friends about the evils of their WMP.
I'm forever tagging and sorting mp3s; I've got my downloaded music separated from my ripped cds, which again are separated from ripped burnt cds.
On several occaisions my HD has been full due to music. Totally. 0bytes free space. If I had the HD space, I'd love to use .flac, and I'm still looking for a high capacity mp3 player with all the features I 'need'. Alas, I have not enough money for either.

Oh my hell do I have to spell it out. Look at my posts again and ask yourself again if I was actually doing anything more than playing along with the thread's own ignorance.

Nope, but hell if my brother doesn't get angry as hell if i'm playing anything other than lossless.

I laugh at AUDIOPHILES who pay $200 for "special" cables.

It depends, when dealing with ordinary albums/songs/soundtrack I'll listen to anything. I do try to avoid 128 kbps though.
When I'm dealing with bootlegs then it's another story, all my bootleg material needs to be lossless.

Indeed you were. My mistake! Sarcasm's invisible when you're scanning.

I believe the record states that I loathe audophiles.

I wish I could be an audiophile...disk space won't let me. With headphones you Can tell the difference between 320 and 128....I never noticed until I started using headphones (Mac Mini Speakers SUCK). *sigh* Someday when I have, like, a terabyte...Ha....

Anyway, all this bitrate talk isn't all that relevant. A 160kbps LAME MP3 can sound better than a 320kbps Blade MP3, for example.

Does this mean having sex with music. If so then yes I am an audiophile. GOA FTW, gotta make sure I hit all those freqs.

OK, I have a few questions for audiophiles.
1st - Let's say you got a song from the internet, or downloading or whatever, but definitely NOT from ripping CD. You don't like the sound quality of it because it's 128 (or lower) and is CBR. What would you do? I'm asking in the case that you really love the song and do not want to toss it away. My question is you would not convert it to VBR or even lossless or FLAC, would you? WHat I'm guessing is since its quality is "not good", you cannot convert it to a higher standard to make it "good", right? Just like you cannot burn a 128 mp3 to CD and make it sounds like a real CD, isn't it? What would you do in case you're a hardcore audiophile and you just want everything high birate?
2nd - Putting hardware aside, will sound effect plug-in from soundcard program or music player affect your judgement between ... say 128 and 192? With the EAX program come with the Creative Audigy deluxe that I own and winamp's equalizer, I can pimp a 96 sounds nearly as good as a 160 or around that. I can't tell the difference between 128 and 300 if I leave all my setting on.
3rd - The one above leads me to this one. Do you leave your sound effect setting the same with every song you listen to? For the home system, some people prefer real equalizer to make sound the way they like. But, will audiophiles (who have equalizer) come and change the setting as songs go? I think it must be a pain.

Sorry for the shitload of questions. I'm a audiophile wannabe so I want to hear opnions from every aspects. Though, I have an opinion about lossless or FLAC and the likes. I'm against the whole "everything lossless" thing. Let's say I have an OST CD of a video game from the previous generation. Its sound quality is already "not good" eventhough it's professionally recorded. Any PS1 OST or any portable system's games (hell, even PSP) will work my point. Some people are obsessed with ripping music from games. Those ripped music will never have good sound quality. It goes the same for the old music. Akkk... I don't wanna make all of them lossless. It's space and time killer while doesn't make the quality goes any higher.

As long as it isnt below the 128kbps mark, and is "normal sounding", I don't care. Anything below 128kbps, sounds a bit stale.

I can tell the difference in quality, but quite honestly, I don't care. Very rarely will you find a music file that is 320kbps or above on my computer, as I couldn't care what amount of kbps a file is. Just as long as it's enough to make the "stale" sound go away. Which in my opinion, is 128kbps, or in some cases, 112kbps.

Nope. Don't know the different between VBR or CBR, and don't spend much money to get a good set of soundsystem.

However, i like good music.

I think I may be becoming an audiophile. I recently bought my first DAC/Amplifier, a portable Total Bithead from HeadRoom. I have three pairs of rather high-end headphones, and I'm already looking at another. Although, in the end, the equipment is still a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

I have habits and equipment that may make me look like an audiophile, but I am not an audiophile. I used to use an 800 watt subwoofer that I played real soft to listen to Les Claypool or Victor Wooten, just for that clean, crisp bass. I have a bad habit of messing with people's systems when their 5.1 surround is completely off. I used to have a music file server that would only have .wav files, because they sound better than any .mp3s.

but I still think I am not an audiophile.

I don't listen to anything below 192kbps. I'll tolerate 128... On very rare occasions. I have shitty speakers, though, but I do have kickass earbud headphones with noise cancelling and changeable heads.

You can't add quality that's not there. Period. End of story. You have to get the file in a higher bitrate somehow. Either search the internet forever or, you know, you could actually BUY the song. Most music that I like I end up buying. And the stuff that's not worth buying I quite often delete to make room for better stuff, which I usually end up buying. It's a long cycle.All those settings ever do is equalize stuff, which I hate. I have an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (I bought the 2ZS for gaming and had an opportunity to purchase the front panel later for $10 and decided what the hell), and all of its various crystalization options only lower the end audio quality to my ears. Also, with an Audigy series card, get foobar2000 and have it upsample the output to 48000Hz. Most programs output at 44100Hz, which the Audigy 2 then internally upscales, but its internal algorithm sucks.I don't equalize anything. Nor do most of the "audiophiles" I know. But I do know some that change it depending on the song.

Partly!
I do not use Mp3's less than 192kbps, first of all. Secondly if there's this CD i really like, I rip it in WAV to get everything out of it ;)

Also, I've gone from using some random MP3-Player under $99 to now investing $300 in a player and headphones. I'm on my way!

(Is this thead old? It says I've already voted no in this poll)

I'm not really an audiophile. I mean, I can tell the difference between a poorly encoded file and one with better quality, but I'd rather save the disk space than have those extra samples that you're not really going to hear.

I don't think very many music has a need for anything higher than 192 kbps, and possibly for modern music not much of a need for anything higher than 128 kbps. For classical, it's best to have the highest possible, 192 VBR at least. With that said, I don't really consider myself an audiophile, but I will not accept anything lower than 128 CBR. The quality is too poor.

Well, the best possible thing you can do for the quality of most downloads is to leave them as they are.

Some of these filters will make it easier to tell apart MP3's, some will make it more difficult. It depends on what the filter is doing. For instance, a lowpass will make it more difficult to tell, but using an EQ to boost the high end will make it easier.

I generally leave settings the same. Generally on PC this means no settings at all and on my stereo it means just a simple bass boost - but only because it sounds downright anemic without it.

Agreed. For anything older than N64/PS1, I'd use either the native sound format (e.g. SPC, PSF) or MP3... and for anything newer, I might use lossless.

Unless the quality of file was really poor then maybe. The notes I am hearing is more important to me than the quality of the recording. Personally I just can't hear that world of difference.

I will admit to spending $55 on a pair of AKG K 81 DJ's (and very nice headphones they are), but I wouldn't call myself an audiophile as those headphones are the most expensive piece of audio equipment that I have, and I run those straight out of my laptop. But I do like to have MP3s encoded in 192 kbps or greater (lossless is also good) and won't listen to anything below 128 kbps.

Does having standards count as being an audiophile?

I guess I'm kinda on the fence with this. I love compression. I like to use the newest audio and video compression codecs because I love small files with great quality. The fact that I have archived about 4 songs in 4 types of Lame 3.97b2 compression settings just to prove the quality of the compression says to me that I'm an audiophile. Doing blind comparisions so that I can know my commandline is as good to-the-ear-quality wise as a CBR 320kpbs MP3 shows that I am anal when it comes to my audio.

Though if you notice, I'm willing to significantly compress. And most people (audiophiles) piss and moan that they can't stand compression. I only can't stand compression that I can notice. There is a difference.

When there is noticable lack of audio quality, I will comment, turn off, or just tune it out. So, I guess I am an audiophile elitist.

What I want to know is when did being an audiophile have so much to do with the manner in which you encode your audio? There is a lot more to being an audiophile than being able to tell the difference between an uncompressed WAV file and an Mp3.

That's great point. It used to be speaker quality and such, but now that seems to be the least of most peoples worries.

I find both audio compression and speaker quality to be very essential. For instance, great Mp3 encodes that I have sound great out my quality speaker system and in all headphones, but sound like ass out the MacBook Pro's speakers. Maybe iTunes is screwing up the files or something but I put alot of weight into the idea that speakers can make all the difference. Your Mp3's might sound good on your $2 headphone jack-powered computer speakers, but a decent speaker set will show them as the ass they really are.

That holds specially true for high-end headphones. Listening to a poorly encoded Mp3 on my Shure E4Gs or Etymotic ER-4Ss is a nightmare. Even my Grado SR-60s, which aren't quite as detailed, easily reveal any flaws. The high-quality DAC in my amplifier only exacerbates the problem.

A fantastic point. Audio is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain (million dollar cable freaks excluded from this argument). People go nuts worrying about how they encode their (usually horribly mastered) CDs and then play them through iBuds. Talk about screwed up priorities.

I've found the SR-60 to actually be one of the more forgiving high-end pairs of headphones I've owned. My HD-580 can put out better audio quality than even my AV-710+Pimeta can channel to them, but they're tolerable with lower grade stuff (you know it when you hear it, however). My HD-280 are flat and analytical, which leads to them being incredibly harsh on low-quality recordings. My SR-60 are great cans, and in my opinion scale up lower quality recordings better than the other two. They're the pair I listen to the least, but they're good for that use.

Quick Audio Comparo

Gladiator File #1

Gladiator File #2

Noticable quality differences?

BTW Try to ignore the filesizes :)

Haw, yeah. I recently visited a page which was selling a $3,000 power cable. At first I laughed, but then realized that people actually do buy those things. And it isn't even an interconnect or an audio cable at all; just a power cord.

Don't even get me started on poor mastering. I absolutely detest what the loudness war has done to music these days. It gets me steamed just looking at a waveform that has been compressed to hell, hard-limited, and normalized past 0dB. Why? I mean, Jesus Christ... I better stop before I break into a rant.

Huh. I've found my SR-60s to be very detailed, but then again, I haven't tried many other full-size headphones, so I don't have a frame of reference from which to make any valid comparisons. I know that I absolutely love their sound signature, and I listen to them more than any other headphone I own. I would like to get a pair of SR-225s or even RS-1s some day.

I want to say that the first file is more heavily compressed, but it's more of a feeling than anything I can hear. So in the end, no, I cannot truly tell the difference with any accuracy. Although I do know artifacting when I hear it.

I'm far from an audiophile - I guess I'm lucky that I can't hear much of a difference to a 128 CBR song compared to a VBR or 320 CBR song. Most of the mp3s on my computer are 128 CBR; I just can't see how someone would want to waste so much space on their computer for a mp3's quality (but I guess I 1) am not an audiophile and 2) wouldn't like it if my computer was full of 64 CBR mp3s, so I'm not one to talk.)

Pretty much yes.

I care how my CDs are encoded (usually EAC, Lame 97.2b -v2 --vbr-new) and sometimes I do ABX tests to see if the encoding is alright. If I had a set of super hi-fi speakers I would probably only listen to lossless, but on my system I hardly can tell the difference between lossless and -v2 VBR (with headphones I am able to on some music.. but they are exceptions and it doesn´t really bother me)

I have a pair of AKG K240S headphones though, which are pretty nonforgiving when it comes to bad compressed music. Their sound is excellent and pretty neutral, I love them. So a part of me is an audiophile, but not the elitist type that spends thousands of dollars on cables :D

Maybe everyone posting here should add what kind of audio setup they have a home or the place they're posting from. Because at least I think that most of you simply can't be audiophile because lacking a decent audio setup.
Like mentioned before, you possibly won't tell the difference between a mp3 and a lossless encoding if you're listening with cheap pc speakers or the earphones from you iPod.

My audio setup:
- Philips DVP 5505S DVD-standalone (also capable of playing SACD and DVD-audio with meridian lossless) [this one is main output for music]
- Soundblaster Live! Player 1024 with kX Project drivers [does the output when sitting in front of the pc]
- 2x BT-928 headphone amp (heavily modified, so output quality is quite decent) [one b-tech is for the philips, one is for the sb live]
- Teufel Concept E Magnum speaker set (this is a 5.1 surround set, not including a decoder) [hooked up at the philips b-tech, which does pass-through]
- Sennheiser HD570 Symphony headphone [hooked up a the sblive b-tech]
- Sennheiser RS140 wireless headphone [hooked up at the philips b-tech, second port]
- AKG K701 headphone [hooked up at philips b-tech, first port]
- iRiver iMP-550 portable CD-player-hybrid (this one gets the data from cd, ergo reads mp3-cds, cdda and also a bit of vorbis)
- Sony MDR-EX 81 SLB in-ear-phone [hooked up at iMP-550, the original iRiver headphone broke some time ago, defect membrane]

Thinking about building:
- DIY PIMETA headphone amplifier

And I vote for 'no' (because I don't own a STAX *g*)

cyay
liquid

I have my laptop computer hooked up to a HeadRoom Total Bithead DAC/Amplifier, a pair of Grado SR-60 headphones, a pair of Shure E4G IEMs, and a pair of Etymotic Research ER-4S IEMs. What I want to get in the near future is a Meier Corda Aria amplifier and a pair of AKG K701s, and a pair of Grado RS-1s. Possibly, I would like to get a Micro DAC as well.

I have a fifth generation iPod that has been RockBoxed. I use my Total Bithead with it. I have an AudioLineOut bling bling interconnect. I normally use my Shures and Etymotics with it.

I don't own any speakers.

If you're into DIY Piccolo maybe I can interest you in this:
http://www.tangentsoft.net/audio/pimeta/ (or any other DIY amp on the site)

Currently I don't have enough free time for another DIY project (still have to finish a few things on the second b-tech like socketed opamp and new power connector)... so the PIMETA has to wait :(

Quite simply, no. I just can't tell the difference unless it's 96 whatevers.

This is what I want:

http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/aria.htm

I hear it has good synergy (ugh) with the K701s. I'm not sure that I buy that, but I've heard it's good, and it's very snazzy looking to boot.

Hehe, I should support that because it's hardware made in Germany *g*

The Aria's a heck of an amp, but good luck tracking one down. I managed to hear one at a Head-Fi meet that happened in Chicago when I was there, and it's stunning, but due to its limited nature, finding one isn't always a simple matter.

I was told by a Head-Fier that they do in fact still make them, and than the line about only 500 being made isn't true.

They do? I was unaware of that if it's the case. All the better then.

I must say yes. I collect music despite whatever is (game, OSTs, mainstream...) People use to collect strange things (stamps, rocks, girls :P), I think my punish in life is music :D

I'm of the very strong opinion that you're doing something wrong if you spend more money on your sound system than on your music collection.

I personally use the headphone output of an iPod nano or my laptop to run a pair of Etymotic ER-6's, or the line-out of an iPod dock and a 60 watt Technics SA-626 receiver to run a rebuilt pair of Yamaha NS-690 speakers. I occasionally run a cheap Technics turntable with a Grado Black cartridge, though I've never really caught the appeal of vinyl. I think that I paid maybe $500 for the whole system, and half of that was the cost of my iPod, plus $100 to buy the speakers and get them refoamed and rebuilt. :\

At one time, I used AKG K501 headphones with a MINT amplifier, an X-Fi sound card, and a Sansui 9090DB receiver, but all of those parts have been sold except for the headphones, which I swapped for my current ER-6's. I honestly didn't find that they truly improved my listening experience compared to the simple system that I'm using now. Maybe in another hundred CD's, I'll buy another 9090DB (or, better yet, a CR-2020 or another suitably beefy old Yamaha receiver) and a set of Magnepans. ^_^

Oh, and I think I said it before in this thread, but I use 256KBPS AAC as my standard archive format, and I try to download music in APS VBR or better. That said, I have bought quite a bit of stuff off of the iTunes Music Store (128K AAC), and I don't find it to sound that bad. :\

Well, I don't know about that. Anything that can increase my musical enjoyment is good and worth buying. And a good pair of headphones does just that. I can't believe I ever used those crappy Sony MDR-V600s! My SR-60s are better in every way! (And $30 cheaper, too.) And the amplifier I bought, well, the crossfeed effect alone is more than worth the entire cost. It makes listening so much easier and more natural, especially when using soundstage-impaired headphones such as IEMs.

And there are always nicer headphones to get you even closer to your music... :D

Where can I grab one?

On their website, they have a page where they have ordering information, so you most likely would have to contact them and ask for one. I can't give you a link because I need more posts to be able to do so, but just search for "Corda Aria" on google, and go to their home page. There should be a "how to order" link under info.

Either that or you could try out eBay, or browse through the head-fi forums and hope someone has it for sale.

Hey, I need one more, so don't go taking mine.

:)

90-400 kbps for me.

I usually listen to music with the volume so high I tend to not notice any changes.

Ignoring for a moment how bad that is for your ears, I find that differences in quality (of equipment at least, haven't done extended testing of this with source files) is much more evident at moderately loud volumes.

I doubt I can even do that, the how to order section doesn't give much information on the pricing at all. It asks for a reservation and payment. :doh:

http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/index.htm

The Corda Aria costs
€375,- / $470,- outside EC
€425,- / $530,- inside EC
In other words, way too expensive for a a guy like me, so don't worry about me taking one. :p

You can check for the lastest updates in their prices for their amplifiers here:
http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/index.htm

as long as a song doesn't have any static in it I honestly can't tell the difference . In all honestly I don't even fully understand the whole bitrate thing.

Bitrate is the amount of memory that system takes to "copy" the sound wave. If we talk of 320 kbps, system will take 320 kilobits per second to take points wich represents the sound wave. 'Cos of this, audio files with 320 Kbps will have a more accurate sound wave than 128 kbps, theorically. Other wthing is if we talk about if human ear can difference between these sound qualities.


Correct me if I'm wrong.

250-320 MP3s or FLAC. Anything less is OUT OF THE QUESTION

I don't think it's that hard to tell the difference from a 128kbps and a 256kbps, although I heard we normally can't hear the difference between 256kbps and lossless/cd.

It varies person to person. I think alot of music is already compressed dynamically (the other kind) so much, it already sounds bit-i-fied. But depending on the source, and your encoder, you can get stuff that sounds good at VBR 112-224 or ABR 160. Maybe not transparent, but not horribly bad to the ear (on average).

Not only does it vary from person to person, it also depends a lot on the equipment that you use to play your music. No one is going to be able to tell the difference between a 128 MP3 and lossless out of an iPod with stock earbuds. If you don't have top of the line equipment, or at least very good equipment, it is very likely that most of the precieved differences you hear between 128 MP3s and lossless are imagined (ABX testing can be a very humbeling experience :(). That being said, I prefer my music lossless anyways :D

I know I prefer VBR on my MP3-player at least :)
Too bad it doesn't play FLAC. I could rip WAV's, but they take as much space as an Xbox.

192kbps or better is good for me. I can handle 128kbps, but only for a while...

I honestly can't tell the difference, but that may be because I do not have the pricey and nessessary equipment that is needed to hear the difference. If I did have such equipment though, I would probably be an audiophile, because I'm somewhat obssessive like that.

Human ear can't difference between 128 kbps and higher bitrates. So don't be foolish, you just could hear the song louder, but not with a richer sound (we talk always about tracks on 44010 Hz and stereo sound).

Umm.

Yes, it can.

wut~
there is an obvious lack of richness and blooming in 128kbps, something I can certainly tell the difference from side by side with a 256kbps+/VBR.

Humans can't hear the difference between a 128kbps mp3 file and a higher bitrate file? I'm afraid you are mistakened Takeru.
Maybe I should help elaborate more on the why.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...bitspersec.gif

To put it simply, the more complex the audio/waveform is the more resolution you'll need in each frame in a mp3 to retain the overall sound quality. Kinda like a movie frame being shown in 640x480 pixels as compared to a higher resolution movie frame like 1024x768 pixels. Of course you'll see the difference, the same would go for audio resolution in a mp3 file.

Sampling rates are a different story but is still one of the major factors in the filesize. Sampling rates set the frequency range at which the file will encode at. If the mp3 file had a sampling rate of 96kHz it will be able to capture more sounds (ie stuff outside of your hearing threshold) for you but at the cost of larger frames per second. Not that you're not increasing the resolution rather you're adding more details at that resolution... did that make sense? Umm its like adding more colors to each frame in a movie, thereby requiring more space.
Keep in mind encoding a 44kHz music CD into a 96kHz mp3 file will not make it sound better! True, the file will be bigger but that's because you're stuffing redundant data in the same frame. At best music files can only sound as good as its source.

All I'm really saying is a average person listening to their favorite song in mp3 at 128kbps will hear some differences (if not alot) compared to a 192kbps+ mp3 file. If they don't they either don't care or have poor hearing to begin with :(.

Replace 'resolution' by bits. The problem is entropy : you need a certain amount of bits to represent a block of information. This is a result of information theory, which always applies if you want to represent information.
That's also the reason why you can't compress data (lossless) to arbitrary sizes.

Now take away the lossless component. That introduces an error vector measuring the error between the original data and the data reconstructed from the compressed data. If you lower the amount of bits below the minimum-value given by the entropy you get a non-zero error vector. And error obviously increases if you reduce the bit amount more and more.

But we're talking about bitrate here, not resolution. The effect of low bitrate in a movie keeping the resolution constant are pixel errors, like macro block artifacts, ringing, etc. - also sharpness reduces and the image looks blurrier then the original. But the blur is a specific effect of MPEG encoding, more specific: the cosinus transformation.

Uhm, not directly. Maximum frequency range is determined by the sampling rate, but the sampling rate alone only tells you how times per second the analogue signal was sampled. Obviously the digital data is more exact (compared to the analogue source signal) if sampling rate is increased.
Now you can take the next step and ask yourself what maximum frequency you can reconstruct from such a digital stream with sampling frequency X. And the Nyquist-Shannon theorem tells you that the frequency is X/2. So for reconstruction of a signal from 0 to 21kHz you need 2*21kHz sampling frequency.

The enlarged frequency range is a nice sideeffect but you also get more precise signal reconstruction in the lower frequency range. So it's not only a waste of bits but does have its purpose.


cu
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No, I'm not an audiophile either, that would be too cumbersome, since I'd have to delete many of my existing albums. And I don't think you really need to be an audiophile, since all music 128 kbps or higher are all acceptable, except for those who have bad 128 quality.

That's minus 10 points from my exam ;_;

Well technically I'm at least half correct in saying higher audio resolution requires more bits.

It was a example. I know I was comparing apples to rocks but the theory was similar enough ;).

Hah, exactly my point. I'm not sure what the benefit is when a person sets a higher 'maximum' frequency than the source's maximum frequency.

I rip at the highest quality possible, end of story. Who honestly gives a shit about "I can tell the difference at ___ Kbps", or whether you can or can't, if you're an audiophile, YOU WILL RECORD AT THE HIGHEST QUALITY POSSIBLE because you know that even if you can't tell the difference in one file compared to another, the difference still exists, and that difference is unacceptable to you, whether it's noticable or not.

At least, that's the kind of audiophile I am. And honestly, it's pretty much a waste of space, all this 320 Kbps and variable bitrate crap, 160 is really a great bitrate (go ahead and say "I can hear differences all the way up to.... !" I don't care). But if you want to be sure in your heart that quality is maximized, go for the best quality.

Just reading the posts here could make someone acquire obsessive/compulsive behaviour.

I started out thinking 128kbps was a gift from God when I heard my very first MP3 ever, about three years ago (I think it was Liberi Fatali, good start :-D)

Then I switched over to 192kbps because I had some bad experience with poorly encoded 128kbps files. Then I started to feel the itch...

I did my own encoding from music cd's I checked out of my local library, I did so at 256kbps, because, hey, if I have the power to make it happen I'll go for a bit more quality. :-D

Then came along iTunes, it offered a new kind of MP3, MP4 :-D I was excited to find that 128kbps sounded incredibly good encoded in AAC.

But THEN came along the EXTREMELY CHEAP www.allofmp3.com that allowed me to buy my songs in whatever format imaginable! It was like music heaven to me :-D So now I buy my songs in 320kbps AAC m4a iPod format.

Even with high end equipment that would sound sweet :-)

I won't go further than this though, my iPod is 60gigs and after three years I've only collected 17 gigs of music. So the 320kbps isn't going to be that detrimental to my iPod's HD space. I'm happy knowing I have AAC in the highest possible quality and that I have some breathing room for future high end equipment purchases.

I'd defiantly say that I'm an audiophile. As of more recently I've been trying to obtain all the video game music in lossless quality as I can. Its been going well actually. My codec of choice is FLAC, mostly because it's easy to use and it has a nice decoder so that if I decide to encode in something like m4a I could easily do that.

I guess that I'm one of those people that have "golden ears" as it's called, I can actually tell the difference between audio encoded with 320cbr and lossless.

Well anyway it seems that I've resurrected an old thread; let the debate continue.

By the way I think this forum is awesome for its having lossless video game music so readily available. Thanks for that.

Wow, what a corpse!

At any rate, I sincerely doubt you could pass a double-blind test comparing 320kbps mp3s and FLAC files. Nobody's perception is that acute.

What kind of audio system do you have?

Even if I wanted to become an audiophille, I am partly deaf in one ear, so that limits just how well I can detect stuff. Don't get me wrong, I can plainly tell the difference between a 256kbps VBR song and a 128kbps CBR song, and I have made an effort to get all my music to at least 192kbps as a minimum, but its not done yet, or in a few cases, too much work right now. I do appreciate high quality in my music, but when it becomes more important then just enjoying the songs, then there's a problem.

Plus, if I were to have all of my music in Lossless, I'd need to get a whole new External Hard Drive, as mine couldn't hold it all.

I do love my Sennheiser HD 201 Headphones though.

So to answer poll: No.

Thanks.

Why not? I've been comparing them for awhile now. But for the most part, like I've said before, it's not just the CD quality accurateness of lossless but also its ease of use when encoding/decoding and changing to different formats.

Just a nice pair of headphones. I can hear more accurately with these anyway. :cool:

Pass a double-blind test with all variables (such as volume level) accounted for, and I'll believe you.

As for your system, what kind of headphones? Amplifier? Source? Cables? (If any, personally, I am not a believer in cables.)

OK I'll try this, where is it? Who knows, you might prove me wrong, I'll still prefer lossless though. :)

Nothing fancy just a 15$ pair of COBY headphones. Although I am using some really nice third party drivers for my SB Audigy Z/S 2 sound card, they've made everything sound better.

You call that a nice pair of headphones? My nice pair of headphones cost $300! They are an incredibly high-quality product, with a very smooth, even frequency response, very little harmonic distortion, and a very high build quality to boot. I find it even more suspect that you could tell apart high-quality mp3s and lossless files on a pair of low-end phones like that.

If you're a serious audiophile, you should at least upgrade to a pair of Grado SR-60s. You will not regret it.

Ha! Well I'm still an audiophile, just a broke audiophile. :erm:

I suppose I am sort of an audiophile. I take speakers and earphones quite seriously and have all my music encoded with the minimum at least being 192. Haven't gone into FLAC yet mainly due to lack of space and download quotas lol.

Used to be content with 192s but recently have stepped up my game to only be satisfied with at least V0 rips.

Honestly I am able to tell the difference between the qualities, but not significantly enough to declare with absolute confidence.

I'm partialy, Because I can't stand quality below 192, and even 192 I bitch, If I can choose, it's always 256 or 320, But I don't care to the point of making a holy quest for better quality, If only find in 128, so be it.

I think I might have put my opinion in this thread before a loooong time ago. But for me, it comes down to perceptive quality, and for that I'm very picky. At the same time, I want small file sizes. So for me, I want the best of both worlds.

I took a few days of really analyzing 320CBR, WAV, and various VBR MP3 settings to find the maximum that I could compress without hearing a difference. Used RazorLame and Lame 3.97b2 with its highly adaptive VBR to come up with these settings I swear to my ears these encodes are virtually lossless. I've tested on many various sources from orchestral to rock to very dynamic acoustic/folk and I've never been able to hear the "cooking bacon" of low quality MP3s.

The great thing about the VBR is, I get a file size comparable to 160CBR with a quality FAR superior.

I guess I'll keep it resurrected with my answer..

Audiophile? Not really, by most standards. I'm not really a fan of having randoms blips and crackles in my music, but it's gotta be pretty damn intrusive to make me find another version, re-name it to my IPod convention, connect my IPod, delete the old file off of it, etc...hassles have to be worth it.
As long as I can discern the melody,harmony, etc.., it's easy to filter out any technical shortcomings in your head anyway.

I converted to one sometime around last summer. A Sibelius recording finally did me in.

In the past i was not really an audiophile because i would always listen to 192kbps stuff most of the time. Now that i have gotten into VGM msuic all my rips and CD rips that i download or do have been lossless or 320kbps.

Can someone hear the difference between ogg and mp3 (320 kb/s)?

At high quality levels, almost certainly not.

I'll cringe at the sound of anything below 160kbps MP3s. Anything above that, I seriously do not hear the difference. I only have a crappy Soundblaster hooked to a 100 bucks Logitech sound system though, but I'm more than happy with it.

I download a lot of lossless music but convert everything to Lame APX MP3s.

+1 :eagletear:

if i want to continue this hobby, i must move into a better room with better acoustics...

i can never go back to listening with "multimedia / computer speakers".... they make my ears bleed :><:

Being an audiophile is too much of a hassle. But I think there's nothing wrong with being one. I think I'm halfway being and audiophile but nowhere really close to being one. I have crappy speakers, but I usually have VBRs and 192-320kbps mp3s. I'm thinking of purchasing one of those Altecs but I don't have enough money.

I think it's safe to say this guy is an audiophile.

The World's Greatest Music Collection - eBay (item 140206309501 end time Feb-21-08 06:00:00 PST)

OGG's feature better compression, imo. OGG tends not to cut out frequencies unnecessarily which leads to a better conversion standard.

I have a decent set of speakers, a decent pair of headphones, and though I can detect a very slight difference between, say, 192 and 256/320 kbps, I don't hear it unless I'm intentionally looking for it. It doesn't bother me, so the majority of my music collection is in 192. I don't have the disk space, nor do I plan on spending the money to have the space, for anything else anytime soon.

One thing that DOES bother me? Bose. Bose is so ridiculously overrated and overpriced. All-digital sound is like crap to a musician's ears. Give me all analog, or mixed digital-analog audio, but never ever subject me to pure digital sound. I hate it.

What the fuck are you even talking about, Ayos?

Bose do suck, but its because their stuff is incredibly overpriced. "all digital sound" ... Please start making sense. Either that or shut the fuck up.

Well, despite the name... I'm actually not as bad as some. There are some that have a fixation with the proper room design for heightened acoustics, and 24k gold plated connectors, and so on. At that point, though, it's really become more about the waveform and equipment than the emotional impact music has, which is of far greater value to me. However, if I can manage, I do like to have everything in at least preset standard, but if I can't get it except in something less, I'll still take it for the music.

Are you the only one on this planet who has never heard, or heard of, the difference between digital and analog audio? Okay, here.
Analog sound vs. digital sound
That, especially the brief sections about "analog warmth" will give you an idea. Sure, most music these days is stored in a digital format. That's fine, but there's still a distinct difference between playing it through separate types of audio systems. Bose, for instance, has all sorts of digital "enhancements" that drain the sound even more of the "analog warmth" for the sake of making it "cleaner" and louder, even out of small speakers. Bose's initial point of pride, when I first saw their commercials, was "all-digital sound" for crying out loud. Hell even playing music, whether mixed with live aspects or not, through an analog sound board presented a huge difference. The guy who built the thing from the ground up sat and talked with me for hours about the difference between analog and digital sound. Six professional musicians I was working with commented on it the moment we set it up and started running CDs through it. Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me there's no such thing? Don't be daft.

I don't get it, looks like you are in favor of analog stuff, however (taking the same article you posted), we can find this:

I'm certainly not an audiophile (I still have more cell brains than money) but I have spend the last months researching about this crap, and I came to one conclusion: everything is entirely subjective, specially if you have spend a ridiculous amount of money in your stuff. (Naturally, a lot of stuff is worthy, but man... it's nearly impossible to separate the crap from the truth.)

Anyways, I have read several sounds engineers/musicians talking about this subject and they usually come the same conclusion, here for example: The Audio Critic

Btw, Didn't want to sound "meanie", but it came out that way.... sorry.

Oh, I totally agree that it's all very subjective. Not surprising, considering what we're talking about. I'm not even saying that analog is better than digital. I just LIKE IT better. I don't think digital is vastly inferior to analog in any way. I just love the sound of analog, the "emotion" and "warmth" of it. Ergo, I hate Bose, because they've done even more to eliminate that. In the strictest sense, digital is "better" especially to audiophiles, which is part of why I voted no. I'm definitely not an audiophile. I love high-quality, clean, clear audio, but I'll take an old LP of Ray Charles over an iTunes digital release of the same music any day.

From a technical perspective, digital is far superior to analog, (if "analog" in this context is refers to vinyl records). The available dynamic range is greater, there is no hiss, no rumble, and no crackle. The medium does not degrade with use. The so-called "warmth" of vinyl records is a form of distortion. It may sound good, yes, but it isn't realistic.

As for the redbook audio format itself, there is nothing wrong with it. There is no reason to believe a properly recorded, mixed, and mastered CD will sound worse or somehow contain less musical information than a record. 44,100 samples per second at 16 bits per sample is more than enough. Enough to reproduce frequencies up to 22kHz with nearly 100db of dynamic range. CDs today are often mastered poorly, which leads many to the conclusion that the problem is with the format itself, which is untrue. Records often receive much more gentle treatment in post processing.

"All-digital" sound is nothing more than a selling point that companies that sell audio equipment use to convince people to purchase their products. It has no real meaning. What is "all-digital" anyway? Such a thing is impossible! Eventually, the sampled digital waveform will have to be sent to a DAC in order to be converted into an analog electrical signal, otherwise there would be no way to play it through speakers or headphones.

This strikes me as intuitively wrong, but even if it's not, 99% of digital masterings/recordings have the dynamic range so compressed that it's horribly wrong in practice anyway.And the reason I spend so much on audio isn't for a 'realistic' reproduction, it's for one that sounds good. And I don't even use vinyl. Imagine that.

"More than enough"? Look, it's simple math: A continuous (i.e. analog) scale has an infintely greater amount of precision than even the most precise discrete (i.e. digital) scale. Period. If you want to claim that you can't hear a difference, that's an argument you could make. But to claim that there is no difference in information, or, worse, that there's no reason to believe that there's more information, is absolutely wrong.Actually, there are now 100% digital amplifiers that literally amp the digital signal without a DAC. See the Panasonic XR-57 for one example.

Why does it strike you as intuitively wrong? What you say about mastering is true, though. I'm sure you've seen me mention the loudness war at least a couple of times...

Can't we have both? That is what I aim for. My system reproduces music realistically, and also sounds excellent. Personally, I think the two are correlated.

Haven't you heard of the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem? If the sampling frequency is twice frequency in question, the analog waveform can be reproduced perfectly from the sampled waveform. In reality, there are aliasing effects, but these are negligible. On an absolute scale, yes, there is more information in the original continuous waveform, but how much of this information is relevant? How many instruments produce frequencies greater than 22050hz? How many vocalists? This is why I said 44100 samples per second is more than enough, because it is. More than enough to reproduce all of the audible information.

I know about digital amplifiers. But the signal still has to pass through a DAC at some point. Unless you also happen to have digital speakers hooked up to your system.

Analogue for me, plz. Completely digital recordings sound cold, metallic and lifeless to my ears.