Entertainment For Lively Minds
2009: Let's buy MORE cd's!
In response to DrJ's blog re: 'Let's not buy any CD's' I have this to report. A couple of years ago I 'downgraded' my music system to a funky little Denon system that had all the whistles and bells that modern technology allows including a hard drive to store MP3's. Although the sound quality was less than I was used to, as i was by now mostly listening to music via my Mac with a reasonable pair of speakers attached I didn't really notice too much difference. I still bought a lot of CD's but once ripped to MP3 I rarely played the actual disc - something I'm guessing a lot on here can relate to. Why still buy the disc then when downloading is so cheap and easy you might ask. Well, I still want the actual 'record' with all that that brings in terms of sleeve and information, etc and I'm just too oldskool now to give up the collecting aspect I guess.
So to the point of this blog. A few weeks before christmas the Denon system began to get very temperamental to the point were I decided to replace it. However, having started to miss the sound quality I had before, I went for a separate amp & cd player and brought my old pair of Mission speakers down from the loft. I have always kept a turntable operational so I was good to go in time for a bit of R & R over the holiday period. Now I don't want to come over all Neil Young but the difference was a revelation! EVERYTHING sounded better! I'd bought the 'Kind Of Blue' 50th Anniversary boxset as a christmas present to myself and spent a lovely Sunday morning REALLY hearing this album for the first time in years. Wonderful! Incidentally, although I've have had this album for years it was the recent article in Word that made me stump up for the box, well worth £50 as its a gorgeous item and the DVD is fantastic.
I am now buying even MORE cd's than I was before AND actually playing them! Don't get me wrong, I still listen to a lot of music via my iPod and computer but rediscovering the sound quality that is missing from MP3's has been a joy.
So in conclusion. Let's all buy MORE cd's in 2009 - they ARE better than MP3's!
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Almost
the only time I get to listen to music these days is on my daily commute by train, so I really don't have much choice but to listen to everything via the ipod. I still buy the CD and rip it, though, rather than downloading, as I still like to have the disc, booklet etc.
I'm sure everything would indeed sound better if I had a decent separates system, but for the moment it's rather academic, I'm afraid.
I guess the two killer points are...
At what bitrate were you ripping your CDs? Anything less than 320kbps and you can *definitely* hear the difference between mp3 and CD. 320kbps or higher it's pretty unusual to be able to detect a difference
Second factor is the stereo you're using. you've moved from an all-in-one (the Denon) to a decent separates system. You sure it's not that that's making the difference rather than the source (mp3 vs. turntable?)
I can only comment from my own experience which is that through my QUAD system (33/303 amps, ESL57 speakers), 320kbps mp3s sound every bit as good as CDs ever did.
Yep, your right...
a half decent system does make a difference, although mine is only around a grand in total so its nothing exotic.
BUT...
the key thing is, it's better than the Denon that you were using to listen to your mp3s. I suspect if you listened to your mp3's through your 'proper' system, you might feel differently
Can you...
...rip higher than 320kps (if so, it's news to me)? Isn't 192kps generally agreed to be nigh-on indistinguishable from the original source, anyway?
To me, 192 is certainly distinguishable...
256 is generally (but not always) indistinguishable from the original
320 is always indistinguishable from the original
When I started ripping my CD collection about 5 years ago, I spent a couple of months conducting ABX tests of various albums ripped at an assortment of rates as well as reading as much literature as I could find on the subject.
I was conscious that this was a one-off, irreversible decision I was making and I wanted to get it right. At that time 320kbps seemed hugely expensive in disk space but disk space *always* gets cheaper.
Beg to diiffer
but "320 is always indistinguishable from the original" is too sweeping a statement.
It may be almost true for many modern recordings (which sound like shit in their original orange book form anyway), but it is certainly NOT true for many top rate recordings with decent dynamics.
Quality
FLAC is the answer. It's a lossless format, which means there's no drop in audio quality when you compress the files. It's also compatible with iTunes after a bit of tweaking, although not (yet, I believe) compatible with the iPod. Still, if you have the space, you could rip to mp3 and FLAC, and use the former for portable listening.
Totally agree with you...
...wherever possible I buy in FLAC. More and more artists are offering FLAC as an option, typically for a couple of quid more per album but it's worth it as it provides an exact clone of the CD.
Having bought the FLAc then it's my choice to keep the original FLACs when I 'rip' the FLAC to 320kbps mp3s.
FLAC is definitely the answer
FLAC
torrents are the best answer.
:)
Yup...
You can rip at 1411kbps .wav which equates to an exact 'bit-for-bit' clone of the CD
Is there
an idiot's guide anywhere on the net to all this stuff? It's all double Dutch to me. I confess that I installed iTunes, accepted all the defaults, and then started ripping CDs. I've no idea what format I'm ripping them in (and even if I did know it wouldn't mean anything to me), or at what speed.
iTunes is great for ripping..
...but the default bitrate is (I think) 128 which equates to the sound quality you'd get off a wax cylinder.
Set it to rip at 320kbps, fixed rate, normal stereo and you'll do fine.
iTunes -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Importing -> Settings (although Im using an old version of iTunes so it might have changed)
Thanks
And how about the choice between AAC, Apple Lossless, MP3, AIFF or WAV? I'm guessing there are advantages and disadvantages to each one?
OK, it goes like this...
WAV - Uncompressed. Can hold CD quality audio (1411kpbs) as an exact clone of a CD. Big
MP3 - Compressed and lossy. Currently the standard format, *everything* plays mp3s, can sound good or bad depending on the 'encoder' you use and the bit rate you use.
AIFF - Uncompressed (see WAV) but was developed by Apple. Not always so well supported by Windows/PC software
FLAC - Compressed but lossless. A FLAC can be uncompressed back into it's original WAV format without any loss of fidelity.
My personal opinion is, currently, 320kbps mp3 is a good compromise between fidelity, size and useability. In the future, with the drop in the cost of disk space and the increase in the performance of computers, FLAC may well take over as the format of choice
Thanks
again
This
is all monumentally dull isn't it?
Then ignore the thread
SOME of us find this sort of stuff interesting in the same way that SOME of us are happy to spend hours discussing cymbal stands or Moog filter circuitry.
It's all music.
Oh God,
cymbal stands...Moog...WAV thingies...
sorry. Wrong planet.
Cymbal stands, no
Cymbals, on the other hand... for your own good, please don't get me started!
Heh...
I'm in the market for a large China/Pang cymbal. Got any recommendations?
That depends...
on your budget, what sound you want, and what other stuff you've already got. For budget stuff go for something from Stagg or Dream. Stagg are rather variable but if you find a good one it'll be a steal. All the bigger companies (Zildjian, Sabian, Paiste, Meinl, etc.) have a range of sounds and prices (beginner to pro, heavy, jazzy, all-rounder), and also have sound samples on their websites so you can get an idea what sounds like what.
Personally I love Paiste, and recently got an 18" Traditional Medium Light China, from ecymbals.co.uk and I love it. The guy who runs that site, Julian, is also an enormously helpful guy, who'll happily talk you through what you're after for as long as you want.
Alternatively, if you know what you're after, there's plenty of bargains on ebay.
...I told you not to get me started!
I've not looked back since ripping my collection...
...But I spent a long time ensuring I got it right as I never want to rip and tag 500 CDs again. 1st decision was the format - clearly it had to be lossless, and you can't add metadata (tags) to .wav files, so FLAC was the obvious choice, and EAC the best free ripper I could find. Next was consistency of tags. For this I can't sing the praises of Musicbrainz highly enough - essentially it's a version of the old FreeDB, but all tags are subject to peer votes to ensure they meet clearly outlined standards. The end result is correct tags - something that neither MS Media Player or iTunes achieve particularly well.
All the tracks are stored on a QNAP 409 NAS (RAID 5 for fault tolerance). The NAS is powerful enough to run SlimServer, and for playback, I use SlimDevices (sorry Logitech) Squeezeboxes attached to fairly decent amplifiers.
As FLAC is still rather unsuited to mobile players, I've written a bit of VBScript to convert the lot to MP3s, and I maintain separate directories of each.
If anyone is still awake, the advantages are
1)Instantaneous music
2)The joy of random shuffle
3)The space-saving benefits of not having 500 disks lying around
4)Synchronised (or different music through the house)
5)The ability to stream my music anywhere, via the internet.
Links for the interested
EAC http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
MusicBrainz http://musicbrainz.org/
SlimDevices http://www.slimdevices.com/
QNAP http://www.qnap.com/
Because I'm a masochist, I'm doing the same thing for my DVDs, so I have my own online movie library, linked directly to the Telly with a Popcorn Hour
http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/
In An Ideal World... (2)
...All music would come in a 12'' gatefold sleeve,
With lyrics and liner notes, and a beautiful cover
But,
would be on a format that could be uploaded to a computer/hard drive,
with all the convenience and fun that that can bring
But,
would have the sound quality of crackle and pop free Vinyl which was being played through a top end system,
and be affordable too.
Until then...
It's a trade off (aren't most things?)
I still buy cd's and download albums from emusic plus the occasional track from iTunes.
Most of the albums I rate most highly from the last few years have been downloaded from emusic and if I like something enough I will buy it again on cd.
So I will continue to mix n' match (or pick n' mix - if you prefer) Until the day of day's arrives.
What shall I do
with my old 78s?
Do you want woofers and Tweeters, grandad?
Rip 'em...
...to 8-Track
I think getting decent ear phones
is worth the cost i got some reduced in price in ear seinhesier ones recently and they make listening to mp3 much better on my nokia phone player.