CD's vs MP3's

[BW4me]

I have a nice set up running Rotel RSX 1067 with B&Ws that I enjoy for home theater, but I also enjoy 2ch audio listening a lot. As I've gotten out some older music I've be wishing I had CDs for pre-CD music I enjoyed which now can be found on itunes. So it's got me thinking about how much difference there is in audio quality or maybe I should ask if there's much or any audio quality loss with music that is downloaded in a compressed format? If not, I would probably just by most of my music that way.

Any thoughts, opinions or suggestions out there?

Steve

[Nolan B]

IMO the difference is nothing short of huge. I have over 1500 songs on my itunes and not a single one is MP3.

By the disc, rip to APL or FLAC.

[Alaric]

IMO the difference is nothing short of huge

I wouldn't have thought it that subtle.

[Hdale85]

It depends on the type of music but generally for older stuff CD is always better and Vinyl sometimes even better just because of different mastering processes.

[audioqueso]

Wait, are you asking if there is a difference between compressed audio vs CDs? Or other compressed audio vs mp3s?

Compressed vs CDs - a lot.
Lossless vs CDs - I can't hear the difference.
Other compressed audio vs MP3 - varies on how it's ripped.

[HDBLU]

I will not touch MP3 what so ever. I some time use FLAC if I have to and converted back up to wave they sound alright, but am a SACD lover :B

[bigburner]

Hi Steve,

I listen to a lot of albums in mp3 format because that's how I decide which CDs I want to buy. I agree with others here that a CD is far superior to its mp3 equivalent. However the original mixing and mastering of the CD is equally important. So...

1. Buying a CD is no guarantee that the audio will be high quality just because it's a CD.
2. The mp3 rip of a well mixed and mastered CD can sound remarkably good.

Nigel.

[mjb]

MP3 is an old codec, and showing its age. AAC is better, but quality still greatly depends on the bit rate used. A lossy format is never going to be as good as a lossless format (FLAC or Apple Lossless) by its very nature. If you want to digitise your own music, you are limited only by your available hard drive space, and can go lossless in which case you will not notice any difference. A high bit rate AAC (256k) rip will be a much smaller file and only slightly "duller" than the lossless version, a low bit rate MP3 will be a very small file and sound very uninspiring!

[littlesaint]

I recently did a comparison with a few CDs. I rip all of my CDs to Apple Lossless for my media PC and 256kbps AAC (same as the iTunes store) for my portable. No perceived difference between the CD and ALAC as expected. To my surprise though the difference between the CD and AAC was very hard to perceive. Now this could be a function of my playback equipment which is admittedly modest, but the difference certainly was not huge, and for many discs it was nearly impossible to tell. If I didn't have the original to compare, I probably wouldn't have noticed at all. It really does depend on the type of music and the quality of the recording as to whether a compressed form is noticeably different from the original.

[mjb]

Santino, I totally agree. To my ears, the difference between lossless and AAC/256K is very small, perhaps even negligible - I've ripped all my music in Apple Lossless, but sometimes I wonder if I'd be just as happy with AAC/256K given the savings in file size and thus streaming bandwidth.

[BW4me]

Thanks for the feedback. So it sounds like not all CDs are created equal, a lot depending how the mixing is done. So what about older albums that can now be found as digitally remastered CDs? Is this still the same case, maybe good quality and maybe not?

As far as itunes music goes. When you buy a song the download file is AAC, but you can rip your own CDs to Apple Lossless format for best audio, that is if a difference can be heard?



Maybe I'll download an older Pat Metheny or Return to Forever album I'm thinking of (now on CD and itunes) just to see how it sounds and buy the remastered CD as well to compare.

Thanks again for the input.

[Chris D]

Yup, I rip everything to Apple Lossless, but my entire library takes up too much space on AL to put it on my iPod. So I've created 320Kbps MP3 versions of every song as well. At first, I put the entire 320Kbps MP3 library on my iPod, as well as AL versions of my favorite songs. Well, to be honest, I've found I can't hear a difference between the two on my iPod, so now I'm taking all the AL versions off my iPod. The MP3 versions will be for my iPod, and the AL versions will be for home audio and archival use.

[chrispy35]

What you need is music monkey so you can rip everything lossless and then have it automatically downconvert to whatever bitrate you want for your portable.

I'm surprised this feature is not ubiquitous in all music management software by now. It can't be that hard to implement and it sure is handy.

Chris P.

[Nolan B]

What you need is music monkey so you can rip everything lossless and then have it automatically downconvert to whatever bitrate you want for your portable.

I'm surprised this feature is not ubiquitous in all music management software by now. It can't be that hard to implement and it sure is handy.

Chris P.

Make sure you buy the correct type of monkey. I regret the mistake I made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSm7BcQHWXk

[kmcheng]

I can think of another reason to go for CD rather than iTunes (MP3 or lossless).

If you are like me, you most likely would not store the music locally on your computer's hard drive. I store them on a network-attached drive. Network congestion sometimes becomes a problem both when ripping the track and during playback. Occasionally my music would literally "skipped a bit" when iTunes on my iMac is playing an Apple Lossless track stored on my Time Capsule.

I probably have a lousy home network, but still.

You won't have that problem with a decent CD player.

[Johnloudb]

Make sure you buy the correct type of monkey. I regret the mistake I made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSm7BcQHWXk

Contributing to the delinquency of monkeys. Very Sad! What's the world coming to? :scratchhead:

[Hdale85]

I'm going to have to agree with you on the lousy network. Even on a 54 or 108mbps wireless connection it would be very hard for music alone being played ripped or otherwise at the same time to every use up all of your available bandwidth. I have a gigabit network and can stream 1080p blu ray quality rips to multiple locations in my residence and that's a MUCH MUCH MUCH more daunting task then music. Unless maybe you are running an old 802.11g connection and doing much more then just music.

I can think of another reason to go for CD rather than iTunes (MP3 or lossless).

If you are like me, you most likely would not store the music locally on your computer's hard drive. I store them on a network-attached drive. Network congestion sometimes becomes a problem both when ripping the track and during playback. Occasionally my music would literally "skipped a bit" when iTunes on my iMac is playing an Apple Lossless track stored on my Time Capsule.

I probably have a lousy home network, but still.

You won't have that problem with a decent CD player.

[mjb]

If you are like me, you most likely would not store the music locally on your computer's hard drive. I store them on a network-attached drive. Network congestion sometimes becomes a problem both when ripping the track and during playback. Occasionally my music would literally "skipped a bit" when iTunes on my iMac is playing an Apple Lossless track stored on my Time Capsule.

Using iTunes with a network attached drive willl double the bandwidth requirement, as the file is pulled into iTunes, and then streamed out again. There are two simultaneous data streams.

Even with a local drive, streaming lossless files can be a challenge - especially over wireless. I used to get very frustrated with my Squeezbox(s) for dropping out.

AppleTV is a great solution, as it syncs a hard drive with iTunes and then streams form that.

But this is the question, is lossless really worth the effort (big file size and high streaming bandwidth) when a 256k AAC file purportedly sounds as good in blind tests?

[kmcheng]

Using iTunes with a network attached drive willl double the bandwidth requirement, as the file is pulled into iTunes, and then streamed out again. There are two simultaneous data streams.

Good point, but any time you use a computer to stream from a network-attached drive, you face the same challenge. By the way, I have everything hard-wired with ethernet and optical cables.

Even with a local drive, streaming lossless files can be a challenge - especially over wireless. I used to get very frustrated with my Squeezbox(s) for dropping out.

I was going to say that gadgets such as Squeezbox would work, but apparently it has its own challenges too.

AppleTV is a great solution, as it syncs a hard drive with iTunes and then streams form that.

AppleTV is a great product, but what if I do not want to turn on the TV when I only want to listen to music?

But this is the question, is lossless really worth the effort (big file size and high streaming bandwidth) when a 256k AAC file purportedly sounds as good in blind tests?

It depends on how you are using the music. If I am playing background music while hosting a party, I do not care if it is AAC or lossless. If I am really listening to my music, then I care a lot about the quality. I tell myself that I can hear a difference between various lossy formats vs. the lossless format. I also tell myself that I can hear a difference between the lossless streams vs. playing the CD, mostly because of the drop-outs. Therefore, I almost always play directly from the CD.

Now if I am ripping the music so that I can listen to it on a crowded subway car, then I would go MP3 for everything.

I would also agree that a properly-setup music server is much more convenient to use than locating the right CD. However, there is also a lot of work and time involved in ripping the CD, getting cover arts, setting up the library, etc. Life is short. My collection is reasonably small that I know approximately where all my CDs are located. I also think that getting my lazy b_tt away from the couch every once in a while is supposed to be good for my health.

[littlesaint]

Network playback depends on what you are calling streaming. Properly streamed music will use a protocol suitable for the task. Something like RTP, or other UDP based protocols are ideal as they have little overhead making them very fast in comparison to TCP based protocols which carry a lot of overhead. Raw CDs play at a bandwidth requirement of 1.44Mbps which is a fraction of most Ethernet and WiFi networks. It's the protocol that causes the latency which makes it "skip". If you are using a streaming server, which usually uses a UDP protocol, or at least one designed for streaming media with suitable buffering, you shouldn't have any problems. If you are simply mounting a drive and playing the media files, this is probably one of the worst ways to playback music, as most filesystem protocols are TCP based and generally terrible in this regard.

[BW4me]

But this is the question, is lossless really worth the effort (big file size and high streaming bandwidth) when a 256k AAC file purportedly sounds as good in blind tests?[/QUOTE]

That's very interesting to hear. I think I'll conduct my own little test assuming CDs sound the same as Lossless, and see if I can hear much or any difference between that and my 256 AAC music.

Steve

[littlesaint]

But this is the question, is lossless really worth the effort (big file size and high streaming bandwidth) when a 256k AAC file purportedly sounds as good in blind tests?

That's very interesting to hear. I think I'll conduct my own little test assuming CDs sound the same as Lossless, and see if I can hear much or any difference between that and my 256 AAC music.

Steve[/QUOTE]

Admittedly, there's a psychological factor in play as well. On my Blackberry or iPod using earbuds, fidelity isn't all that important to me. From my media PC through my main system, there's that voice whispering "you know this is compressed, right?".

[mjb]

AppleTV: if you have an iPhone, there is a Remote application (free from Apple) which controls either iTunes or AppleTV over WiFi, and it works really well. I rarely turn on the TV when I’m listening to my AppleTV. I guess otherwise you need to turn the TV on though.

Ripping: if you use iTunes, you can make it start ripping when you insert a CD, and spit it out when its done. This makes the process a lot easier. iTunes also automatically takes care of album art (in most cases).

UDP is more suitable for streaming because there’s no end to end negotiation (no handshake to start a session), and no packet sequence checking - lost packets are simply ignored. iTunes uses a mixture of TCP and UDP, TCP for control, and UDP for streaming.

I totally agree with the nagging voice whispering “this isn’t lossless”! I’m sure it’s mostly psychological, but it still won’t go away. So I’m looking forward to hearing some other opinions from blind testing: comparing lossless with 256K AAC.