ggking7 Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Has anyone ever reported hearing a difference between a lossless compressed format and uncompressed? My music collection is in FLAC format, but I have a new 1TB drive and I don't need to save space anymore. I'm wondering if there would be any benefit to switching to AIFF or another uncompressed taggable format. Link to comment
Roseval Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Many has reported this claim. FLAC must be decompressed, this requires more system activity then uncompressed audio. System activity generates more sample rate jitter. Search a forum like http://www.audioasylum.com/ Counterclaims are that is a placebo effect only, most of these claims are not substantiated by a ABX test. Modern processors are so powerful that decompression might require less then1% of processor capacity. The right answer if of course, rip a couple of tracks to FLAC and AIFF and do a ABX test, then you know for sure before you embark on a possibly senseless conversion of your collection http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/Perception.html Link to comment
tfarney Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 There are many who belive that lossless = lossless. I'm in that camp. Tim I confess. I\'m an audiophool. Link to comment
flat6 Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 i've compared audio files in Apple Lossless & AIFF formats (both ripped fm CDs). couldn't really tell a diff. Link to comment
ggking7 Posted January 22, 2009 Author Share Posted January 22, 2009 Preliinary tests tell me they sound the same too. Link to comment
DavidJPettifor Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 I'm with Tim and the lossless is lossless camp. With regards compression, this from the Hydrogenaudio Knowledgbase; Lossless compression is a compression methodology in which the result of the compression can be restored faithfully, i.e. bit-by-bit identical with the uncompressed data. In a nutshell, it is somewhat like compressing a Waveform file with ZIP or RAR. The difference between 'mere' ZIP/RAR is that lossless compression algorithms are especially tuned and designed for the characteristics of Waveform data, thus achieving compression far greater than can be achieved by generic compression utilities. As lossless compression preserves all information of the original Waveform file, audio compressed with lossless compression will unavoidably be larger than audio compressed with lossy compression. However, this disadvantage is more than offset by lossless' ability to be transcoded to other lossless format without any quality degradation. -- djp Intel iMac + Beresford TC-7510 + Little Dot MK III + beyerdynamics DT 231 = Computer audiophile quality on the cheap! --- Samsung Q1 + M-Audio Transit + Sennheiser PX 100 = Computer audiophile quality on the go! Link to comment
audiozorro Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 Lossless equals lossless Compressed lossless has the same data as uncompressed lossless The timing info is not part of this data Not all bit perfect rippers are the same Different configuration settings in the same ripper can produce different audio results and still be bit perfect Different CD drives with the same ripper can produce different audio results and still be bit perfect Bit perfect at 16/44.1 is not the same as bit perfect at 16/48 or 24/88.2 or 24/192. Is there any wonder why there is confusion? Is there a need for a better ripper? Can a bit perfect ripper ever be improved to produce higher quality audio files? Link to comment
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