Are you an audiophile?

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

-m j -h -V4 --vbr-new

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Quick Audio Comparo

Gladiator File #1

Gladiator File #2

Noticable quality differences?

BTW Try to ignore the filesizes

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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).

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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

-m j -h -V4 --vbr-new

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 was speaking idiomatically.