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Uncompressed v. Lossless Compression


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Probably mentioned before but:

 

1. They won't & don't sound "better" than .ape or .flac.

2. You can't directly tag .wav files with metadata.

3. You can have "illegal" characters in your .flac/.ape tags

4. Wav files are cumbersome (filesize).

5. Current computers can handle the decode algorithm for lossless with no strain on system performance.

 

I find J. River to sound more realistic than iTunes; the sound is uncolored (.ape playback>DAC1>tube pre & monoblocks>RF-7s). Strange that J. river was found to be fatiguing to you; they use 32bit processing internally and use a high quality asio interface (which must be written by for/by each app as per the ASIO standard).

 

my .02,

JC

 

Windows 10 x64 (no major tweaks)>JRMC v20>Adnaco S3B (Anker battery)>PPA USB>Auralic Vega (XLR output)>Tortuga Audio LDR v2 (custopm LPSU)>Decware EL34 (VCAPS, bias and UFO tranny mod)>Zu Union Cubes (Juptier Cap mod) - Cabling: Lectraline speaker, Antipodes Komako, Decware, and Huffman ICs

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Hi JC welcome to Computer Audiophile.

 

I think you raise some very valid points. Personally I rip to AIFF uncompressed which handles metadata perfectly. I'm not a big fan of wav because of the tags and covert art issues, but sound-wise I am a fan of wav. There are a couple different groups with opinions about lossless compression v. uncompressed. No doubt you are in the the group that chooses lossless compression over everything else. I am in the other group that prefers uncompressed music. I am far from convinced that lossless compression sounds as good as uncompressed music. This whole "issue" reminds me of the whole Tube v. Solid State "issue" that audiophiles like to argue about. I don't think there is a right answer. It all comes down to preference.

 

As you suggest current computers can handle the codecs used for lossless music. I also think current computers make file size a non-issue as well. With Gb Ethernet ubiquitous and 1 TB of storage for $220, I don't think size is an issue.

 

All this is why I say people should listen for themselves and make their own decision. To me it all comes down to sound quality. For others it may also be sound quality that rules their decision making but they may decide 320kbps AAC files are good enough.

 

What really matters is that we're all listening to music and having fun! Thanks for posting JC.

 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

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Back during the time-frame you are talking about, I even tried a product similar to 'disk doubler'. Remember that one? It would give you somewhere between 20 - 50% 'more' disk space in realtime by compressing and decompressing different types of files using different schemes, but it did it on the fly. It worked GREAT. Until the HD started getting lossy. Then you were in trouble unless you made it a point to back up to separate media IMMEDIATELY. Most people either won't run their HD's in 'verbose error reporting' mode, and certainly don't do uncompressed backups regularly, so a lot of folks had rude awakenings back then. I THINK we are a bit wiser today. At least I hope so.

 

markr

 

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  • 1 month later...

First of all - Great site Chris C!

 

Thanks to the discussion in this section, I converted some of my Apple lossless files to AIFF. You are so right, Chris C. The lack of fatigue and the effortlessness of uncompressed music does it for me. The iPod seems to handle gapless files better as a pleasant side effect. (Makes sense as the iPod has less computing to do.)

 

As a result of this, I now have to convert 3000 albums, and massively increase my hard drive space!

 

For everyone's information, I used dbpoweramp (www.dbpoweramp.com) to convert some of the files to AIFF. Convenient and fast. Files play in iTunes and iPod but NOT on my Squeezebox. :(

Files converted to AIFF using iTunes play on everything. :)

 

AB tests are very misleading and will always end up in confusion. The long haul, as with everything, is what counts.

 

 

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