Audio files format and the quest for answers

[StanleyB]

I tend to use WAV and mp3 myself, but I can't help feeling that the inventors of the various formats may well have been pushing their warez in the same way that we were told how much better Freeview reception would be compared to good old analogue. So I have now started to rip a number of my discs into a range of formats. My intention is to then sit down and listen to each format across a range of musical dimensions.

My aim is to try to find out if one audio format is more suitable for a particular type of instrumental arrangement over another. Or if even male and female vocals sound better in one over the other.

I got the idea after accidentally noticing that the so called lossless ripping formats did not equate to an equally dynamic and engaging encounter between one track and another. I use air pressure level ( i.e. chest thumps and gut pains) and floor vibrations to make certain observations when I tweak my DACs.

If anyone has done any similar work, please spill the beans. All research material and input are most welcome. Let's drag that old wife out of the cupboard and hear what tales he has to tell us.

STan

[DaveK]

"Let's drag that old wife out of the cupboard and hear what tales he has to tell us."

[lovejoy]

Hi Stan,
Yes, I know exactly what you mean. The marketing machine has definately been at work with regards to the different compression formats. I got caught out by the AAC bandwagon - on paper it looks like an amazing format - much more efficient than MP3 and purported to be as good as 128Kbps MP3 at just 64kbps. Well, whilst I'm not interested in lower bitrates I equated that AAC must also be better at the higher rates I like to encode my CDs with. Well, some extended listening tests have proven this not to be the case.

To illustrate, using EAC I ripped a handful of the same CDs using LAME for MP3 encoding (which I have always regarded as the best MP3 encoder) and the Nero encoder for AAC. Both encodings are done using 'extreme' settings, equating to between 200-280kbps. The differences are subtle and take a little while to pick up, but AAC sounds constrained and rather nasal in comparison with the MP3 which is much more open and dynamic and seems pretty flat in its response. I think AAC is much better suited to live internet streaming than it is to encoding a music collection, so for compressed music I have stopped using AAC altogether and returned to keeping the library in MP3 format - which for the most part I have a very hard time telling the difference between it and the original CD.

Similarly, I'm not a fan of Apple Lossless. Though, admittedly this is mostly because I committed a few 24-bit albums to ALAC and later found out I could not uncompress them to 24-bit format again. It took a bit of pleading to some of the record companies I bought the albums off to get them to allow me to re-download the originals too :-(.

[StanleyB]

"Let's drag that old wife out of the cupboard and hear what tales he has to tell us."

Not everyone wearing a skirt is a female... Watch C4 tonight at 11.10PM.

[twelvebears]

To be honest, I simply avoid anything other than lossless encoding unless I have absolutely no choice, I am however confused by debates over one form of lossless format vs another. While there are diffrences in terms of compatibility with some hardware and software for things like iTunes and Apple products with FLAC for example, and some regarding tagging, from a data perspective one lossless fromat should perform identically to another with the same DA conversion as it should be a bit-perfect copy.

This is obviously only the case with standard 16 bit CD recordings, not with 24 bit stuff that gets down-sampled.

Would be interested in other's views/experiences.

[StanleyB]

The problem that I see with all these formats boils down to one basic fact: they all have to be translated in real time to the digital format that the audio decoding chip can recognize and work with. The real time translating process appears to catch them out.

Having looked at some of the software source code, I noticed that there tends to be 'error correction' routines in the code that tries to take care of speed and timing issue when the decoding process cannot keep pace with the required playback speed.

Examples of such 'playback lag' are on slow processors and computers running all sorts of virus etc. software.

Stan

[Stratmangler]

Pretty well all of my digital music collection is ripped from CD to FLAC using EAC.

What I like about FLAC is that it is not a proprietory encoding method tied into any manufacturer at all (ie completely opensource, and available for free off the internet).

You can get FLAC frontend here http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html

Chris

[Stratmangler]

AAC+ radio streaming can sound incredible - check out Radio Paradise.
It would be nice to see the BBC adopt AAC+ at 128 kbs for their internet streams, but I'm not holding my breath.

I use a Squeezebox SB3 into a TC7510 (modded).

Access is controlled using Squeezecenter.

Chris

[twelvebears]

I must admit that during a brief 'damn Apple and their Big Brother like attempts to control the music world!' period, I did try and avoid Apple Lossless and use FLAC but because I do like iTunes as a music mangement tool, I now use Apple Lossless exclusively.

What REALLY, REALLY worries me is the future of digital music. At the moment, I can get CDs with their 'full fat' version of the original music and then rip using error correction to a lossless format of my choice, but I can see a future where the need for physical medium gets ditched in favour of downloading, but do we really think anyone will be offering lossless formats?

I know there will be millions of discs out there, much like vinyl now, but it could still mean trouble for the longterm availbility of new mainstream material in a truely high resolution format.....

[lovejoy]

The BBC already does use AAC/AAC+ - you just need to go to the iPlayer front page, click the BBC labs link at the bottom right of the screen, then on the next screen click the "I want to become a labs tester" box and when you go back to the main iPlayer page, all your radio streams will now be AAC/AAC+ and will sound rather good.