Promise of lossless at 60% compression ???

Axiom Home Page

Hi folks, quick history.
I'm like many who have posted about how much they love thier Axiom speakers but now realize that thier inherant accuracy now makes listening to most MP3s almost unbearable now that they can actually hear the compression loss.

I used to really enjoy playing mixes of random tunes from a PC and choosing these tunes on my TV screen with a remote. The phsycadelic add ons on my 46" widescreen were also cool.

One option is to by a megasized new hard drive and do the same thing with the pure .wav files taken from all my CDs.

I've also been reading up on ther compression formats that promise better sound quality than MP3. There are the mainstream ones but there are some smaller names making bigger claims.

For instance, "Monkey's Audio" promises lossless audio quality at 60% compression. WinAmp compatible with an add on. They have a section explaining the math behind the theory but I don't have the patience to go through it as it looks like a physicists blackboard and my skills are pretty rusty.

Anybody out there experimenting with 'better' compression tools or is CD the bare minimum solution for you guys and I'll take a virtual whipping for asking?

Murph

IMHO
forget about proprietary formats such as monkey audio.
go with FLAC.
flac website

Sorry but I cant recommend a specific windows client as I use linux (xmms). Here is some windows specific info
Windows and flac

If you find something that works well, please let me know.

I know I have listened to flac in windows, but dont remember which client i utilized. It was only a test.

hth

Randy

ps I have 26G of flac, much more of mp3. didnt hear the limitiations of my mp3's till I got my axiom speakers

Think of it as winzip for audio files.

You can also use iTunes to rip them to ALAC as well. Downside: You can only play it through iTunes or Quicktime player for now. There is talk of a module for Winamp to play ALAC. FLAC is of course more portable, being F/OSS.

I have all of my CDs ripped in FLAC. As mentioned above, FLAC is a free open source lossless codec. This means no DRM, and you're not tied to a proprietary format like AAC and ALAC. I stream it wirelessly to a Squeezebox connected to my receiver - sounds perfect.

There is a free FLAC codec enabling you to play FLAC files with most players - Windows Media Player, WinAmp and foobar2000 being examples. The Squeezebox/Slimserver interface handles them natively as well.

For iPod use, etc, I used foobar2000 to convert the FLAC files to mp3s at fairly low bitrates. Therefore I have 2 copies of each track - one lossless FLAC copy for critical listening and one mp3 at 96k for portable media player use. Given how relatively cheap hard drives are these days, this isn't that big of a deal.

I also recommend using FLAC. If you ever decide to get a squeezebox, it will play FLAC's. Your best bet is to get EAC and accuraterip and take it from there. You might also want to check out http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php
They have a ton of info regarding compression formats. You should also check out foobar2000.

FLAC is great for home but not for portables. 128k mp3's (or anything) isn't enough, but a "properly" encoded mp3 sounds just as good as the origonal content to me on my Axioms. LAME is a great encoder. I have also found WMA's to be a great format, and it's probably second only to mp3's in usability. AAC is just not as good from what I've read compared to other modern formats like WMA and OGG.

Foobar is a great player. Efficient, lightweight, yet it offers advanced features such as kernel streaming and normalization. FLAC and Foobar2000 are a great way to go.

I've just looked, and I'm not finding anything that says that AAC is inferior to WMA. Can you site an article? AAC works just dandy for me; I can't tell any difference between ~192k and CDs.

Moreover, here's some results indicating that (at least at 128k VBR), they're largely identical.

Also, the Apple Lossless format purports to get 50% compression, although I've never tried it. So I think it's reasonable to assume that 60% compression would be, well, pretty much lossless.

Quote:

As mentioned above, FLAC is a free open source lossless codec. This means no DRM, and you're not tied to a proprietary format like AAC and ALAC.

Mind, I've got nothing at all against FLAC. But nothing (other than Zune squirts) is going to have DRM if you rip it yourself! DRM is tacked on on top of AAC, just like it's tacked on on top of WMA, just like it could (against license) be tacked on FLAC. And while ALAC is proprietary, AAC isn't.

BTW, here's a FOSS decoder for ALAC.

HydrogenAudio has a good comparison of lossless codecs here.

Personally, I rip music from CD to FLAC using ExactAudioCopy.

Then I use Foobar2000 to convert to lossless WMA and apply AlbumGain to normalize the volume across all my CDs.

There's probably more efficient ways to do this, but this is how I roll. I like WMA because it's the easiest lossless format to use with Windows Media Center.

Just getting back from some travel to read the great advice and say thanks.

'm now hoping to convert my CDs to FLAC and tinker with the add ons for Windows Media Player. I'm not a big fan of the MS player but I already own Dell Media Player software. It pretends to be it's own WMC software but it obviously is just a front end for Windows Media Player except that it lets me use a remote control. I use an RF remote control and an IR blaster to change my tunes from anywhere in the house.

One Question for the last poster. If WMA Lossless is already 'lossless' then why use FLAC first and then change to WMA? Better compression?

There is no reason to go from FLAC to WMA unless you have already ripped your entire collection of music on your computer as FLAC and want some low-quality copies of your music for an MP3 player or something.

Quote:

One Question for the last poster. If WMA Lossless is already 'lossless' then why use FLAC first and then change to WMA? Better compression?

I like WMA lossless because it integrates better with Windows Media Center (I'm buying a Vista Media Center PC for my living room in the next couple months, now that CableCard HTPCs are finally starting to pop up). FLAC requires a bit too much hackwork for my own liking to get it to read the music tags in Media Center & Media Player. It can be done, but I just don't like how it works. It's a shame that Microsoft doesn't have native support for FLAC in its media players.

I imagine that there's a way to rip directly to Lossless WMA with AlbumGain using EAC. I just don't know how to do it.

Who is selling PC's with cablecard support? I've been looking every once in a while, but haven't seen one yet.

I use Apple Lossless for music that might be subjected to critical listening. Otherwise, 192kb MP3's for me.

For the vast majority of music, I usually can't tell a difference between the original CD and the 192kb MP3 - but every now and then there will be something that sneaks in that sounds compressed. I'm thinking things like subtle overtones on a saxophone, or brush strokes on a quiet cymbol. I have heard compression artifacts there on 192kb mp3's when doing critical listening. They are subtle, very rare, and require concentration to hear them, but I've heard them. For every other circumstance (in the car, working out, background at a party, etc) they're fine.

I have never heard any sort of compression artifacts using the Apple Lossless format (Rip CD -> Reburn to CD -> play on stereo), and I've found that CD's usually boil down to about 300mb, which is roughly 50% compression.

Quote:

Who is selling PC's with cablecard support? I've been looking every once in a while, but haven't seen one yet.

There are a couple places selling them for ridiculous $10k prices. The closest thing to a reasonably-priced setup is through Velocity Micro (~$2000-3000+ depending on configuration). Looks like there's about a 1-month wait once you order, though.

Sony also appears to have a model out there for just over 3-large (with Blu-Ray).

I did a quick spec of one and it came to about $2300. I'll probably wait until August or so and then look at getting something. Prices should be down a bit by then. It being new plus there being limited places that carry them I'm sure is bringing up the price. I wonder what places like Dell and the other big companies will do as far as a case goes for these. They don't have any HTPC style cases now that I am aware of.

Guys... you might want to check this thread out before you buy any Cable Card PC.

FLAC, EAC, and a Sqeezebox. You'll never use your CD player again.... well, almost never.

Seriously...now that you have speakers that will allow you to hear just how bad MP3's are you'll truly appreciate a lossless format. Flac is open source, you can convert it to anything, and it's as future proof as anything can be. I use my Sqeezeboxes 99.9% of the time.

Quote:

Seriously...now that you have speakers that will allow you to hear just how bad MP3's are you'll truly appreciate a lossless format.

yes i agree,
and it was painful to accept that my well maintained mp3 collection was limiting my sonic bliss.

and as others have mentioned
if you need a smaller footprint for ipod or other on the go devices, the flac file can provide the original source material.

Randy