Won't lossy audio formats (ogg,mp3,etc) become obsolete soon?

[Sporkman]

Well I decided it's finally time to scan our 100-200 CD collection & put it on our home server. Having not done this thing before, I had to decide the format - namely lossy (ogg) or lossless (flac). Of course lossless is preferable, but the cost is greater file size - for regular-length songs, the file size seems to be around 25mb, which seems big...

But then you figure, for 100 CDs, 10 songs each, that's 100 x 10 x 25mb = 25 GB. That's nothing! Our home server has 500GB, and regular-priced USB keys even have at least this much storage space. And storage is continuing to become cheaper and cheaper.

What's the rationale for lossy audio formats continuing to exist going forward?


As an aside, another consideration was whether my wife's Mac would run flac files... I had to download & install "Cog" for it to do that.

[kyle99]

I think the main benefit of lossy formats is to use on portable devices, but of course, you can just keep a flac collecting and convert to ogg/mp3 to put on a player. I think in the next 1-2-3 years, lossy formats WILL become obsolete.

[Firestem4]

Trailing on what the previous poster said, With FLAC, the songs are CD quality. You can always convert it to other formats (eg: ogg) perfectly. Converting mp3 to ogg though is even more lossy because mp3 is a lossy codec itself.

I agree with you OP. As storage increases and prices become cheaper, storing all that information isn't as difficult. (This is a generalization though, as we know data capacity is not linear. The more data we have, the more storage we need. We will always need greater and greater amounts of storage for certain things.) Music however (unless songs start becoming 17minutes a peice) will remain the same.

I recommend that you rip your collection in FLAC. (Also if you don't mind spending a few extra seconds, do it at highest Compression. Compress 1-8 is still the same quality, just takes more to compress at 8 ). This way your music collection 20 years from now can be trans-coded to another format if the need arises, because FLAC is CD quality anyways. =)

[Paqman]

What's the rationale for lossy audio formats continuing to exist going forward?


Storage is one thing, bandwidth is another. 25GB might not be much of a bite out of your storage, but it's a big chunk of time to download. If your content is getting delivered digitally, then the bandwidth is a bigger issue than the storage.

Expanding storage simply relies on replacing discrete hardware, expanding bandwidth relies on improvements in infrastructure. It's a lot easier and cheaper to double the storage in a million computers than it is to double the bandwidth to a million homes. I know in Europe costs for next gen fiber networks are looking at about €1000 per user.

So I don't think compression is going to die out for a good few years yet.

[tubezninja]

I agree with you OP. As storage increases and prices become cheaper, storing all that information isn't as difficult. (This is a generalization though, as we know data capacity is not linear. The more data we have, the more storage we need. We will always need greater and greater amounts of storage for certain things.) Music however (unless songs start becoming 17minutes a peice) will remain the same.

And this is exactly why lossy formats will continue to be popular, even ignoring the bandwidth argument. If storage space really weren't an issue, we wouldn't be bothering with compression at all. Just store your files as raw uncompressed PCM. Why waste energy and CPU cycles? Storage is cheap, right?

The fact is that the more storage one has, the more stuff they're going to want to fit in it. Users are used to their 5 minute songs taking up only a few megs of space, and it's difficult to convince the average listener, who perceives little to no difference between a lossy compressed and a lossless or uncompressed rendition, that they should use their new 2TB hard drive to store media content that takes up more space.

[3rdalbum]

Well I decided it's finally time to scan our 100-200 CD collection & put it on our home server. Having not done this thing before, I had to decide the format - namely lossy (ogg) or lossless (flac). Of course lossless is preferable, but the cost is greater file size - for regular-length songs, the file size seems to be around 25mb, which seems big...

But then you figure, for 100 CDs, 10 songs each, that's 100 x 10 x 25mb = 25 GB. That's nothing! Our home server has 500GB, and regular-priced USB keys even have at least this much storage space. And storage is continuing to become cheaper and cheaper.

Two problems with this:

1. Home servers generally hold lots of video too; your FLAC-compressed audio takes up as much room as twelve compressed movies. I'd rather have the twelve compressed movies! (in fact, I'm deleting some of my audio from my server to make room for more video)

2. Economically, 1TB hard disks make the most sense. The biggest personal hard disk you can buy is 2TB, partly due to the El Torito disk size limit, and partly because a 2TB hard disk is much more expensive than two 1TB hard disks.

I only have room for one 3.5 inch hard disk in my home server... and until the prices come down, it's only going to be a 1TB!

Also, nobody seems to be interested in removing the disk size limit that we're currently nudging against - the workaround is to RAID, but even if you have a RAID-capable controller (I don't) and enough room in your server to have multiple HDDs (I don't) you're still halving the integrity of your data by splitting a filesystem across two disks. Until El Torito is replaced, I don't think we'll see consumer hard disks that exceed 2TB.

[hessiess]

Yes, lossy formats are going to become obsolete with increased storage capacity, but its still going to take a long time to shift the general public away from them.



you're still halving the integrity of your data by splitting a filesystem across two disks.


There are different versions of RAID and what you say is only valid for raid 0. Generally the point of RAID is so that data is not list if a drive fails, not to increase the storage capacity of a singe volume.

If you just want to increase the storage capacity but don't care about recoverability, manually splitting the data across multiple partitions would be a better option. The UNIX single tree file system makes this seamless to do.

[Warpnow]

Some poor assumptions have lead to a few misthoughts in my opinions:

1. Its not the cost of hard drives that matter, but the size OEMs put in computers.

2. The "regularily priced thumb drives" should be based off of prices at places like target, walmart, best buy, ect, who charge over $100 for a 32gb thumb drive.

[blueshiftoverwatch]

Storage space is increasing. But more and more people are relying on downloading services to obtain their music and bandwidth hasn't increased anywhere near as much as storage has. Especially in places where broadband isn't even available.

[Techsnap]

It would be nice, that's for sure, lossy formats are pretty annoying. Also Vinyl is my preferred platform for music.

[nickstu]

Do you guys really hear any difference between a cd and an mp3 at 128?
I decided to convert all my collection to 128 because I did some testing and it came out that I can't hear any difference. (I'm a musician, my ears don't suck :p)

[hessiess]

Do you guys really hear any difference between a cd and an mp3 at 128?
I decided to convert all my collection to 128 because I did some testing and it came out that I can't hear any difference. (I'm a musician, my ears don't suck :p)

Personally, usually no, but try re encoding a 128kbps MP3 a few times and you will notice the difference. Not so with lossless formats.

[daverich]

yes they will.

Also bear in mind licencing issues,- it makes sense to go lossless,- even if it is in an ogg (or something else) wrapper.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[Npl]

Personally, usually no, but try re encoding a 128kbps MP3 a few times and you will notice the difference. Not so with lossless formats.Why would you reencode a MP3?
Anyway, compression still leads to 1/10 - 1/5 of the uncompressed size, while the difference is inaudible for most people. So its an more efficient way of using space, no matter how much is available. You could easily have compressed 24bit/192kHz Audio that sounds better and needs less space than uncompressed CD-Audio. Instead of going uncompressed it makes sense to up the source quality and compress.

And space still is a concern, games use hours of speech and would be several times the size if the audio would be uncompressed, movies need alot space for video besides (7 channel) audio, portable players still only have a couple gigs of flash (at reasonable prices)...

[Sporkman]

2. The "regularily priced thumb drives" should be based off of prices at places like target, walmart, best buy, ect, who charge over $100 for a 32gb thumb drive.

You're right, I thought they were cheaper currently. But they'll get cheaper soon I'm sure.

The bandwidth argument is a valid one. Plus plain efficiency makes sense.

[Mehall]

in addition to reasons already mentioned:


My dad has around 1200 cd's now, and a lot of dvd's

were he to rip it all to digital, especially using FLAC for audio, he would need far too much storage space

[SuperSonic4]

Not really, bandwidth will always suck and until portable music players catch up, especially with headphones. Why bother encoding to flac if you have cheap headphones worth £10?

Expensive headphones are a thief magnet in the real world

[MetalMusicAddict]

(I'm a musician, my ears don't suck :p)

Because you're a musician is exactly why your ears can suck. Stand away from the monitors. :) I'm a engineer. :P

Just FWIW, my 785 CD collection converted to FLAC (with --best) is ~250GB. If you want to use your music on some personal device just set up a script to convert and output to your connected player.

I have one if you want it. (or tons out there already)

[pwnst*r]

And this is exactly why lossy formats will continue to be popular, even ignoring the bandwidth argument. If storage space really weren't an issue, we wouldn't be bothering with compression at all. Just store your files as raw uncompressed PCM. Why waste energy and CPU cycles? Storage is cheap, right?

The fact is that the more storage one has, the more stuff they're going to want to fit in it. Users are used to their 5 minute songs taking up only a few megs of space, and it's difficult to convince the average listener, who perceives little to no difference between a lossy compressed and a lossless or uncompressed rendition, that they should use their new 2TB hard drive to store media content that takes up more space.

I don't agree with that at all. Storage is NOT an issue...at home. It's an issue on a portable. That being said, What's the point in having your entire collection on your portable anyway? You can't and WON'T listen to the entire collection no matter how much time you have.

[Xbehave]

Do you guys really hear any difference between a cd and an mp3 at 128?
I decided to convert all my collection to 128 because I did some testing and it came out that I can't hear any difference. (I'm a musician, my ears don't suck :p)
+1 for anybody but an audiophile, 196kbps* is audio transparent and a 196kbps mp3 has advantages over a FLAC

supported by more devices (hardware decoders are cheap)
more fit on a portable media
use less battery to play on a laptop (less disc access)

*personally i find ~90 vbr mp3s (encoded by lame at high quality) good enough for portable devices, and 128 vbr audio transparent for almost anything, but i'll accept others can notice 198, anything above that is just being a snob though!


Personally, usually no, but try re encoding a 128kbps MP3 a few times and you will notice the difference. Not so with lossless formats.
Why would you re-encode a few times? Unless your doing autoediting you will never need to do more than 1 lossy -> lossy (e.g changing your 320kbps -> 98kbps for a portable device) and the loss isn't noticable until your in atleast double digits (write a script for lame to rencode 128 vbr hq -> 128 vbr hq and see how many it takes for you to notice the degradation, my bet is that for anything but classical music you can probably get above 20)

[pwnst*r]

Do you guys really hear any difference between a cd and an mp3 at 128?
I decided to convert all my collection to 128 because I did some testing and it came out that I can't hear any difference. (I'm a musician, my ears don't suck :p)

That's super subjective so let's not even bring that argument in here.

[Techsnap]

Do you guys really hear any difference between a cd and an mp3 at 128?

I most certainly do, but that's not for here.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Storage space is increasing. But more and more people are relying on downloading services to obtain their music and bandwidth hasn't increased anywhere near as much as storage has. Especially in places where broadband isn't even available.
Exactly. That's the main reason lossy will not be going away anytime soon.

As far as the difference in sound between CD > Flac > mp3? There is none to my ears. Much of my CD collection is encoded at either 256 (vbr) or 320 (cbr). The sound is flawless. I'd bet the farm that nobody could tell the difference.

[pwnst*r]

Oh brother.

[forrestcupp]

Storage is one thing, bandwidth is another. 25GB might not be much of a bite out of your storage, but it's a big chunk of time to download. If your content is getting delivered digitally, then the bandwidth is a bigger issue than the storage.+1
This is the reason lossy will not become obsolete. And it's not just about downloading, but also about streaming. Try streaming lossless media over the internet or even over your wireless home network and you'll see why lossy will be important for a very long time. When it comes to video, I can't smoothly play an avi file over my network, but mpg's and wmv's work just fine. Lossless audio has the same consequences.


Do you guys really hear any difference between a cd and an mp3 at 128?Yes, but not 196.


That's super subjective so let's not even bring that argument in here.
+1
Next thing you know, people will be talking about why $5000 cables and cords really make a difference. ;)

[Xbehave]

That's super subjective so let's not even bring that argument in here.
Well perhaps 128 v 328 isn't for here but there is a point at which most people (100% of non snobs IMO) can't tell the difference so there is no point in wasting space on lossless.

[ticopelp]

My dad has around 1200 cd's now, and a lot of dvd's

were he to rip it all to digital, especially using FLAC for audio, he would need far too much storage space

Exactly the reason I abandoned FLAC after trying unsuccessfully to convert. I have a huge music collection and FLAC took far too much hard drive space. Sure, I could spend lots of money on a larger HD now and spend all those hours re-ripping my collection... but why on earth would I bother?

[Странник]

I don't see them getting obsolete soon. I even saw some podcasts converting or adding speex feeds. Now that's even worse

[pwnst*r]

Well perhaps 128 v 328 isn't for here but there is a point at which most people (100% of non snobs IMO) can't tell the difference so there is no point in wasting space on lossless.

"snobs". Nice blanket.


Exactly the reason I abandoned FLAC after trying unsuccessfully to convert. I have a huge music collection and FLAC took far too much hard drive space. Sure, I could spend lots of money on a larger HD now and spend all those hours re-ripping my collection... but why on earth would I bother?

Well if you would have done it correctly to begin with, you wouldn't have that issue. And "lots of money"? HDD's are cheap.

[ticopelp]

Well if you would have done it correctly to begin with, you wouldn't have that issue. And "lots of money"? HDD's are cheap.

They're cheap now. They weren't as cheap when I started converting my music to mp3 ten years ago or so, nor did they have nearly the storage capacity we do now.

Anyway, I can't hear the difference between FLAC and mp3, so I have other things I'd rather be doing.

[forrestcupp]

Well if you would have done it correctly to begin with, you wouldn't have that issue. And "lots of money"? HDD's are cheap.

Cheap is relative. If you're a teenager with a $5 allowance or someone who is laid off because of the economy, HDD's are not cheap.

[gletob]

Two problems with this:

1. Home servers generally hold lots of video too; your FLAC-compressed audio takes up as much room as twelve compressed movies. I'd rather have the twelve compressed movies! (in fact, I'm deleting some of my audio from my server to make room for more video)

2. Economically, 1TB hard disks make the most sense. The biggest personal hard disk you can buy is 2TB, partly due to the El Torito disk size limit, and partly because a 2TB hard disk is much more expensive than two 1TB hard disks.

I only have room for one 3.5 inch hard disk in my home server... and until the prices come down, it's only going to be a 1TB!

Also, nobody seems to be interested in removing the disk size limit that we're currently nudging against - the workaround is to RAID, but even if you have a RAID-capable controller (I don't) and enough room in your server to have multiple HDDs (I don't) you're still halving the integrity of your data by splitting a filesystem across two disks. Until El Torito is replaced, I don't think we'll see consumer hard disks that exceed 2TB.

Can you explain to me what ISO 9660 Specifications has to do with hard disks?

[MooPi]

It seems a waste to save files in a format that can't be discerned from a smaller compression algorithm. I generally save all of my music to ogg -q 10. Compressed but highest quality VBR. Video is another thread though. VOB versus .avi, .ogv etc......

[Firestem4]

I'm not exactly sure why people keep brining up bandwidth in the conversation. I don't remember the OP mentioning he was going to stream his collection on the internet?

The way I view it, and the same thing I intend on doing is creating a home media server which stores all of my families movies, music, etc. And to be able to easily stream it inside of our home network. Bandwidth is not an issue at that point.

[SuperSonic4]

Downloaded music is getting bigger and bigger. That's why bandwidth matters

Plus it's all in the title.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

They're cheap now. They weren't as cheap when I started converting my music to mp3 ten years ago or so, nor did they have nearly the storage capacity we do now.

Anyway, I can't hear the difference between FLAC and mp3, so I have other things I'd rather be doing.

+1 on both counts!

1) Even at the so-called "cheap" prices, that's to much for me. Having just gotten back to work after an 8 month layoff, there is no such thing as "cheap".

2) The difference in sound between Flac rip and a high quality 320 mp3 rip is indistinguishable. Period.

[pwnst*r]

Cheap is relative. If you're a teenager with a $5 allowance or someone who is laid off because of the economy, HDD's are not cheap.

A job would be a good start.


+1 on both counts!

1) Even at the so-called "cheap" prices, that's to much for me. Having just gotten back to work after an 8 month layoff, there is no such thing as "cheap".

2) The difference in sound between Flac rip and a high quality 320 mp3 rip is indistinguishable. Period.


1) Sucks for you.
2) Wrong. Period.

[markp1989]

i keep all my my music as mp3 196kbps , i dont see alot of point in having bigger lossless files when i cannot hear the difference.

just because i have the space to be able to save the larger files, doesnt seem much point to me.

same as why would i spend alot of money on object a, when object b can do the same function as what i want for alot less


A job would be a good start.


People who speak like this anoy me , if people (like me) have been laid off because of the economy (lucky you as it sounds like you havnt) then saying "get a job" isnt going to help them is it?

[pwnst*r]

People like you anoy me, if people (like me) have been laid off because of the economy (lucky you as it sounds like you havnt) then saying "get a job" isnt going to help them is it?

Good I'm glad.

Also, my post was directed toward this $5/week allowance for teenagers. Teens whine about not getting everything handed to them anyway and considering how most of this forum expects everything for free, well, welcome to the real world.

[MooPi]

Thank you "pwnst*r" for another positive and enlightening response to a post.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

1) Even at the so-called "cheap" prices, that's to much for me. Having just gotten back to work after an 8 month layoff, there is no such thing as "cheap".

2) The difference in sound between Flac rip and a high quality 320 mp3 rip is indistinguishable. Period.

1) Sucks for you.
2) Wrong. Period.

1) Thanks for the warm thoughts.
2) Just as my statement was an opinion, so is yours. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I will say, however, that having played the same song back to back (one Flac and one 320 mp3), I really hear no difference at all.

[Sporkman]

Hey, I paid good money to the music industry for those bits - I'm keeping them all! :)

[pwnst*r]

1) Thanks for the warm thoughts.
2) Just as my statement was an opinion, so is yours. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I will say, however, that having played the same song back to back (one Flac and one 320 mp3), I really hear no difference at all.

No harm, no foul.

[ticopelp]

People who speak like this anoy me , if people (like me) have been laid off because of the economy (lucky you as it sounds like you havnt) then saying "get a job" isnt going to help them is it?

pwnst*r rarely has anything to add to a thread that isn't just taking cheap shots at other posters.

[RATM_Owns]

Many people can't tell the difference between VBR MP3 and lossless FLAC.

And most people can't tell the difference between 320 MP3 and VBR MP3 (VBR is smaller than 320).

[markp1989]

pwnst*r rarely has anything to add to a thread that isn't just taking cheap shots at other posters.

i see (s)he posts alot in the cafe, alot of the time its just cheap shots, a few of there posts are usefull.

btw i agree 100% with your sig :)


Many people can't tell the difference between VBR MP3 and lossless FLAC.

And most people can't tell the difference between 320 MP3 and VBR MP3 (VBR is smaller than 320).


I cant tell the difference, im happy with any thing better then mp3 128 , i cant notice any benifits above that. if people can then lucky them because the have more sensitive hearing then me :)

for videos its different, compresed videos can be bad. i encode videos seperatly for use on my ipod (saving up to get a decent mp4 player soon) , because its got a small screen i dont need hd videos

[nothingspecial]

1) Thanks for the warm thoughts.
2) Just as my statement was an opinion, so is yours. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I will say, however, that having played the same song back to back (one Flac and one 320 mp3), I really hear no difference at all.

Brother Spellbinder,

Weather or not you can here the difference or not, the fact remains that a flac file is pretty much exactly the same as the cd and an mp3, regardless of bitrate, is not.

Once you have your (jealously huge) collection ripped to flac (and backed up), you can put all your cds/vinyl in the attic/garage and forget about them......and convert them to whatever you like, whenever you need to.

With kindest regards :D

[forrestcupp]

Once you have your (jealously huge) collection ripped to flac (and backed up), you can put all your cds/vinyl in the attic/garage and forget about them......and convert them to whatever you like, whenever you need to.

That's good advice for people who care enough to spend that much time doing that.

Personally, I don't have a $10,000 stereo system that I play my digital music on, like pwnstar. So anything more than a 192 mp3 is overkill for my needs.

[pwnst*r]

It's about half that.

[nothingspecial]

That's good advice for people who care enough to spend that much time doing that.

Personally, I don't have a $10,000 stereo system that I play my digital music on, like pwnstar. So anything more than a 192 mp3 is overkill for my needs.

That`s fair enough. :D

I`m an audiophile.......so shoot me.

And yes I do have expensive (not $10,000) systems to play my music on. It`s my thing :P

What I was trying to say, was that if you rip your cds to flac, then (in as much as you can) you have a playable image of your cd. If it is securely backed up, then it doesn`t matter if you loose/break..... the cd.

If you have it as mp3s, then noticeable difference or not, you`ve not got what you paid for.

That`s all.

[arnab_das]

depends on what kind of a music system u have. on a basic 5.1 without decoders and amplifiers its difficult to spot the difference.

[pwnst*r]

depends on what kind of a music system u have. on a basic 5.1 without decoders and amplifiers its difficult to spot the difference.

5.1 has nothing to do with quality. Sorry.

[cascade9]

Like a lot of people have siad, lossy isnt going away any time soon. Mainly due to bandwidth and storage space. But-

Flac, and other lossless files, are just going to get more popular though. I have no idea how many CDs the 'average' person has (its probably as silly an idea as the 'average' computer user) but I would guess 100 or less. That is only 40GB in flac, tiny in this day and age. Even a huge 1000CD collection is only going to be 400GB, and 1TB HDDs are cheap.

Flash-based MP3 players are getting a lot cheaper, and with SD/MicoSD expansion they can get pretty big. As bigger and bigger SD cards come out, and prices come down, its not going to be that long until you could store even a massive 1000CD collection on a flash memory player.....

I'm not totally against MP3s, Ogg Vorbis or other lossy formats- I still use v0 VBR MP3s on my media player (mainly due to space, I'm too broke ATM to go and and buy a new player). But anything less than aprox 200k/sec I avoid, I can clearly hear the difference between a 192K CBR MP3 and flac. Once you go much past that, it gets harder to pick the difference, depending on what your playing.

I'll be sticking with flac, even if v0 or -q 9 vorbis is 'transparent'- I've got several CDs, that I've always taken care off that are unplayable now due to disc degradation. CDs dont last 'forever' like the original adds stated......some of them are lucky to survive even 10-15 years. Once you've gone lossy, there is to getting that data back. With a nice backup of my discs in flac


Once you have your (jealously huge) collection ripped to flac (and backed up), you can put all your cds/vinyl in the attic/garage and forget about them......and convert them to whatever you like, whenever you need to.

That is exactly what I do. CDs, begone into storage!


It seems a waste to save files in a format that can't be discerned from a smaller compression algorithm. I generally save all of my music to ogg -q 10. Compressed but highest quality VBR. Video is another thread though. VOB versus .avi, .ogv etc......

-q 10 is 500k/sec. I've got .flacs that are smaller than that. Yeah, on average they are bigger. But IMO, -q 10 is pretty pointless, I'd use flac instead or drop to -q 9 (which is still totally, or pretty transparent depending on your ear, equipment etc).

[madnessjack]

I play my music through tinny headphones, so compression is the least of my worries.

Also does the job. Yeah I notice the difference a lot, but I just don't care with a passion.

[Zoot7]

As for Lossy V Lossless, there is a discernable difference to the trained ear, but I don't think it warrants the extra storage space.
For instance the tens of Gigabytes of Music I have would grow quite considerably in size were I to convert to FLAC.

[3rdalbum]

If you just want to increase the storage capacity but don't care about recoverability, manually splitting the data across multiple partitions would be a better option. The UNIX single tree file system makes this seamless to do.

True, and that's what I'll have to do with some external USB hard disks. But not everyone uses Unix :-)

Also I just realised I said the wrong thing - El Torito is for optical media. I still can't think of the right name for what I was referencing, but you still can't boot off volumes bigger than 2TB.

[samjh]

I think in the next 1-2-3 years, lossy formats WILL become obsolete.

I don't think the world (even just developed and developing countries) will be able to enjoy universally-accessible high-speed broadband with unlimited downloads in three years.

No. Lossy formats will still be the choice for online audio and video. Besides, the loss of quality is unnoticeable for most users, even with trained eyes and ears, without conscious effort.

[MetalMusicAddict]

I know alot of these chats are made up of so much opinion but anyone who thinks a 128kbps is "transparent" needs to have their ears checked. I'm not being sarcastic either. My children cringe when I play them. They can even hear the difference in things like cymbal crashes and the like. You don't have to be a snob to hear this. Arguing FLAC @ -8/--best vs. CD is getting a bit ridiculous. ;)

It's a fact dynamic range is destroyed in lossy formats. And this is my issue. Not space.

Another sad fact is there's a whole generation of folks coming up in the age of the "Loudness War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war)". High volume and compression is the norm. They know no better and I really can't fault them for it. This ignorance is what will ultimately kill music for me. (but this all goes a little off-topic) :P

[blueshiftoverwatch]

Another sad fact is there's a whole generation of folks coming up in the age of the "Loudness War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war)". High volume and compression is the norm. They know no better and I really can't fault them for it. This ignorance is what will ultimately kill music for me. (but this all goes a little off-topic) :P
I prefer my music to be loud because when I'm listening to it on my MP3 player I can only get the sound to go up so far. When I'm in an environment with a lot of background noise I sometimes can't even get all of my current albums to go up as high as I'd like. It's kind of annoying when I have a whole bunch of songs in a playlist and I'll get to a song that is significantly quieter than the others.

I was actually thinking of modifying my music collection to make the songs on my MP3 player louder by default. But I'm kinda lazy and probably won't ever get around to doing it unless theirs a way (which there probably is) to mass modify several hundred files.

[pwnst*r]

I prefer my music to be loud because when I'm listening to it on my MP3 player I can only get the sound to go up so far. When I'm in an environment with a lot of background noise I sometimes can't even get all of my current albums to go up as high as I'd like. It's kind of annoying when I have a whole bunch of songs in a playlist and I'll get to a song that is significantly quieter than the others.

I was actually thinking of modifying my music collection to make the songs on my MP3 player louder by default. But I'm kinda lazy and probably won't ever get around to doing it unless theirs a way (which there probably is) to mass modify several hundred files.

Note that doing that is the same as transcoding UNLESS you're using ReplayGain, which I don't think any DAP supports sadly.

[HappyFeet]

2. The "regularily priced thumb drives" should be based off of prices at places like target, walmart, best buy, ect, who charge over $100 for a 32gb thumb drive.

Once you know, you newegg. ;)

[HappyFeet]

I play my music through tinny headphones, so compression is the least of my worries.

Also does the job. Yeah I notice the difference a lot, but I just don't care with a passion.

Same here. I use $20 Sony earbuds. 320kb/sec sounds good to me.

[Ylon]

Because you're a musician is exactly why your ears can suck. Stand away from the monitors. :) I'm a engineer. :P

Just FWIW, my 785 CD collection converted to FLAC (with --best) is ~250GB. If you want to use your music on some personal device just set up a script to convert and output to your connected player.

I have one if you want it. (or tons out there already)

785 CD are 70 days of music... 24/7 to play interrupted and without ear more than once every track.



An engineer with lot of free time :p

[ssam]

yes. i recently did the maths and decided to rerip all my CDs to flac (used to have them in ogg vorbis). as a bonus musicbrainz is much better than CDDB used to be, so now i just have R.E.M. instead of half the albums being REM, and Belle and Sebastian with no Belle & Sebastian etc.

rhymbox (and i am sure others) will automatically convert music to the right format when you copy to a portable media player. though if your pmp is new you might need a .is_audio_player (http://live.gnome.org/Rhythmbox/FAQ) file.

[NCLI]

Once you know, you newegg. ;)

If you live in the US, the rest of us have to rely on eBay for goo prices...

Anyway, I can hear the difference between 128, 192 and 320 on any pair of fairly good headphones(Read: not made by Apple or *INSERT UNKNOWN CHINESE COMPANY HERE*), but to hear the difference between 320 mp3's and flac's, I need my Sennheiser IE 8's or similar high-end headphones, or some awesome speakers.

I will say this though: Anyone who claims that they can't hear the difference between a 128 ANYTHING and a lossless format such as flac needs to clean his ears, because 128 mp3's are horrible, HORRIBLE, ear-raping monstrosities.

[MoebusNet]

Lossy audio (and even video) formats will become more widespread, not less for one reason: money.

The reason? Apple has demonstrated that you can turn a profit by selling inferior (lossy) music formats which do not lend themselves well to digital copying and recopying. Look for companies that sell digital audio and video to use formats that are increasingly hostile to recopying in a pathetic attempt to shore up crumbling profits. By distributing only copy-hostile formats, it will become more difficult for the average user to share his music/video between his various devices.

God, I hope I'm wrong!

[Luke has no name]

I have more than 2TB of hard drive space. I have plenty of room for a lot of music and movies. I still download 720p and I encode the FLAC to OGG high quality. Why? Because I like being frugal. And when it comes to a 192kbps vorbis track and a FLAC master, I can't tell the difference.

[lisati]

Because you're a musician is exactly why your ears can suck. Stand away from the monitors. :) I'm a engineer. :P

Just FWIW, my 785 CD collection converted to FLAC (with --best) is ~250GB. If you want to use your music on some personal device just set up a script to convert and output to your connected player.

I have one if you want it. (or tons out there already)

+1 for being careful with sound levels. My Dad, who spent a large portion of his working life around noisy machinery, noticed some degradation in his hearing.

[audiomick]

It really makes me sad an annoys me that the sound quality of mp3 files is so widely accepted, or worse still, that people apparently aren't aware of the drawbacks. They sound like crap!
I don't know how often I have spent a considerable amount of time setting up a PA to sound good, only to have someone turn up with a sound source with mp3 files on it and then want to know why my system sounds so bad.

You can't make them sound good, either. No matter what you do with your EQ, they just sound bad.

I believe Ogg is a bit better, but haven't made a direct comparison yet. I listen to my music from CD or vinyl.

I hope lossy formats do become obsolete soon. It would make my life a lot easier...

[kilosan]

too big audio file will lag or slowdown in access in a home network.

besides storage may get better, but our ears are not, we can hardly hear any difference from a cd quality to a 196kbps quality.

the use of lossless quality is recommended for backup or storage only.

[nikhilbhardwaj]

What's the rationale for lossy audio formats continuing to exist going forward?

just because disk space and bandwidth are getting cheaper doesn't mean one should waste them.

i've tried listening to an mp3 at 192kbps 320kbps and the same song with flac
and there was no difference atleast i couldn't make it out.

i'm not sure as to how sensitive the human ear is but i don't think theres any point of this lossless thing.