Utard Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 So here is the deal. I am unhappy with the quality of my music! This is the long story. Skip this paragraph if you just want to goto the question. This all started a few months ago when I upgraded all of my a/v gear. I have not bought music in a long, long time. So I got a Led Zepplin box set. It just did not sound like I remember as a teen on cassette/vinyl. Now I knew with my a/v rec. I was having problems with getting 2.1 music. So I was thinking it was most likely the a/v rec. was more for HT than music? I just was not liking the music coming through the 82's. So I read a thread here about music loudness. I got me thinking. Anyway I read another thread about Gold CD's or SACD's so I thought what the heck and I got Pink Floyd DSTM on Gold disk and Dire Straights on SACD. I have to say that was a vast improvement from the current music I had on hard drive. So today I finally figured out the 2.1 with a/v rec. I figured out the sub has to be set on PLUS not just on ON. So this morning I have been listening to music and FINALLY I am getting music that sounds good for the most part except stuff on hard drive. So here is my dilemma. All of the music I have in digital on my computer I am thinking sucks? Back when I ripped a lot of cd's I just used the settings it was set to. I have since given away a lot of the cd's so I have maybe a third of them left to rerip. So my question is what are the best settings to set the computer to for this? What kps? MP3 or WMA? I don't want to do at the highest rate because I know there has to be a point that it is just being wasteful with the storage space. I really hate to embark on a project like this because its going to be about 300 CD's. But I hate to listen to crappy sound if I liked crappy sound I would have gone with Bose or Kraco. Any way thanks for any help. If you know any good threads already out there please link them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 See this thread: http://community.klipsch.com/forums/p/157039/1657640.aspx#1657640 Just about any lossless format is the way that I'd rip music to a hard drive nowadays: the use of wma and mp3 formats is a waste of time if you are going to play the music on your main rig. The lossy formats are for iPods, IMHO. Chris [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 I throw in a few things, first today's avrs are not going to do music like an old 70"s stereo Marantz, Pioneer etc...I don't know why but most avrs suck at music, period.Many of us search years and spend whatever it takes to get music and HT from one box.I rip for my mp3 player etc at 320 kbps and it is great for everything but critical listening, few could hear any difference from a CD except we know it ain't.If you're gonna listen critically you need to spin a disc in my world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 wav format is about as universal and risk free as exists. Audiophile magazines report that, in spite of being theoretically lossless, flac and the like do have some issues, especially when converting back to wav to make a CD if you want to. wav is the way to go, IMHO. File size hasn't been an issue for years, so why not just say "no" to file compression? Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LHF63 Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 File size hasn't been an issue for years, so why not just say "no" to file compression? +1 300 CDs x 700MB (max) per CD = 210,000 MB or 210 GB. Easy to get a 1 TB drive for under $100 these days, so store them as uncompressed files. You can always down-convert them to MP3s for your iPod if you decide you want to in the future. Lou Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Utard Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 It looks like I will be spending a lot of time putting in cd's again and reripping in the WAV format. Oh joy. What about mpeg-4 files? I have some on my computer but I would like to turn them into WAV. I do not have the cd's so I would need to convert somhow. Any one know how to do this? I am anti apple so I don't want anything to do with any Igarbarge crap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LHF63 Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 MPEG-4 is an AV standard, but all the audio format possibilities are compressed. There are both lossless and lossy compression formats allowed under MPEG-4, but who knows which one or ones were used for your files? If it was lossy compression, which is likely, then you can expect no increase in quality converting it back to wav (lossy means the data is lost, unrecoverable). If it was lossless you might get some small improvement converting them to wav files. Regardless, you can find lots of converters just by googling "mpeg4 to wav converter". Lou Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Utard Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 MPEG-4 is an AV standard, but all the audio format possibilities are compressed. There are both lossless and lossy compression formats allowed under MPEG-4, but who knows which one or ones were used for your files? If it was lossy compression, which is likely, then you can expect no increase in quality converting it back to wav (lossy means the data is lost, unrecoverable). If it was lossless you might get some small improvement converting them to wav files. Regardless, you can find lots of converters just by googling "mpeg4 to wav converter". Lou The only reason I would want to convert is for my truck I put a lot of music on a USB Flash and I do not think it is reading MPEG-4. It does the MP3 and WMA ok. I guess I should check if it does WAV. I do the same with my A/V Receiver and it only will play MP3, WMA and Wav. It will not read MPEG-4. I guess that is only where it really matters that I need better quality at home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 wav files are almost exactly the same as what is on a cd, which is a filename.cda. Make wave files of your CDs. For your car/truck, make MP3s from those. I think Exact Audio Copy (EAC) will make both at the same time. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormin Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 wav vs flac always ends the same. absolutely no difference besides a little space. which both are identical to the content on the cd. this test has been done hundreds or maybe even thousands of times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormin Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WAV-FLAC.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokestak Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 320 kps mp3 is exact cd quality to most ears in my estimation. 256 sounds great to most. a lot of the time a 256 will not have a sound loss due to whatever small amount of compression between the 320 and 256 not being recognizable to most. 192, not as good some of the time. the old school when hd space was real important was 128. basically i think that breaks down to the amount of energy one gets from a certain track. the higher quality mp3 should have more. i've tested the difference between a 192 and 256 and the 256 sounded noticeably brighter, some tracks arent that complicated so the 192 is enough. when the track is not complicated the compression algorithm can make looping compressions more abundantly resulting in smaller files with the same quality.re-encode the mp3 to 256 or 320. realistically what happens is all the information whether one encoded the mp3 as low as 54 or up to 320 will still be present when you decode the thing back to a wav. so re-encoding to a higher kps should result in higher sound quality granted the track is complicated. mp3 is easier for things like ipods and phones to recognize. i have a lot of tracks that are wma and i can't tell the difference between that and the mp3s i have. when i add a wma to my ipod the track has to be converted by itunes to a mp3; the reconverting takes aboout 8 secs each file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 320 kps mp3 is exact cd quality. 256 sounds great to most. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkboy Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 I use Mediamonkey for all my mp3/flac needs. Ripping 300 or more CD's won't actually take you very long using this program. It will automatically label everything and retrieve album art and any number other things from genre to song lyrics depending on the plugins you get. It's a really easy and fast thing to do... A few minutes per CD tops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 320 kps mp3 is exact cd quality. I wish that were true... "I happened to run across this trace I made comparing frequency response of various bit-rate MP3s. In each case this was my HP sweep generator feeding my Roland digital recorder. I first ran the sweep generator directly into the spectrum analyzer to establish what should be perfect. Then I recorded the sweep generator output as a WAV and at various MP3 bit rates and then played the recordings into the spectrum analyzer. The levels are all the same, I just offset the traces a couple of dBs to be able to see each one. Bob Crites" Welcome to the forum, smokestak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WAV-FLAC.htmThanks for the link - I have found a lot of "audiophilia nonsense" attached to this subject. I believe that test measurements have to be taken into consideration, else we get into "witch hunting".Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokestak Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 as far as the mp3 vs cd debate goes i've heard some prefer the energy of the spin of a cd. some say a mp3 will gain energy as you feel energy listening to each mp3 each time. some think all of the sound quality is from the encoder that a system that's on. i'd say getting a quality copy can be important in 2 ways apart from the encoder quality, both bitrate and overall the compressing algorithm.. first the og might be better than the re-release sound quality mastering wise. 2nd being each og might have many different sounds respectively up to 20 variants so far. some guys claim they hear different things with a new system from a track they have heard a thousand times. i've heard way different cds from the same og cd ripped the same way. i first experienced this back in '97 when my friend with the same cd wanted me to rip mine and upload the files to his server. he didn't always want to me to listen first and put my spin on that rap cd. i'm sure he wanted to hear differences, granted any on my copy in line with his. also, a cd plus the covers and case should have a sitting energy that you can tap in as needed or feel the whole time possibly without noticing until now. on another level i've heard that the spinning of the cd remembers the thoughts you have during each track. so don't go giving away all those cds. some old cd players also don't play a cd-r. a lot of for sure don't play a cd-rw. plus owning a tight cd collection rules. as far as an audiophile goes i wonder what they hear sometimes. i think some of them can find a unique angle to listen to the music and can hear nuances. some might have a sensitive system or a not very in-tune one to all sounds. some i think have heard so many systmes they start to get smart about what music to put in there and how the track should sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 I thought I would throw in....you could have an mp3 from one artist that's better than the vinyl of another, it's all about the original recording quality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 I am anti apple so I don't want anything to do with any Igarbarge crap. Thanks for the chuckle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokestak Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 thanks for the welcome invite cask. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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