Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'Ian Molton school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:


Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)


A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I wonder... how high a bitrate would an (stereo) ogg vorbis file need
before it surpassed CD quality? Obv you would have to be encoding not from
a CD to start with, but I think the point would be well below CD bitrate,
assuming humans can actually distinguish better-than-CD audio.

If ogg takes off there's a very interesting technology - bitrate peeling;
for a given hosted file with bitrate X you could download a copy with any
quality upto X without re-encoding. This would allow the musicians to
encode at very high bitrates, but still make the music avaliable to 56k
users. I believe there is a BitTorrent plugin in development to do this
transparently.

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Ian Molton" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:14:51 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for
normal
day-to-day listening

320 is known to be able to pass for real in double-blind tests.

Hmmm... I've been pretty pleased with most of the many 320 tracks I've
downloaded/burned so I can believe that. It'd be interesting to read the
studies though - any references on the WWW?


That said, LAME does an *extremely* good job of variable bitrate
encoding, the theory being that you only use as many bits as needed to
reach 'indistinguishable' quality.

Hmmm... (again). I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs fixed
rate rip? I might have a play over the weekend. I think my concern is
that, for file sharing purposes, people often search for tracks at a
specific bitrate (i.e. minimum 256). Although variable bitrate ripping
might save a little space, the lower bitrate won't do anything to raise the
average bitrate used for sharing

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Ian Molton" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:14:51 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for
normal
day-to-day listening

320 is known to be able to pass for real in double-blind tests.

Hmmm... I've been pretty pleased with most of the many 320 tracks I've
downloaded/burned so I can believe that. It'd be interesting to read the
studies though - any references on the WWW?


That said, LAME does an *extremely* good job of variable bitrate
encoding, the theory being that you only use as many bits as needed to
reach 'indistinguishable' quality.

Hmmm... (again). I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs fixed
rate rip? I might have a play over the weekend. I think my concern is
that, for file sharing purposes, people often search for tracks at a
specific bitrate (i.e. minimum 256). Although variable bitrate ripping
might save a little space, the lower bitrate won't do anything to raise the
average bitrate used for sharing

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month about how
to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that anything lossy at all
was a no-no and one should only ever rip at 'full size' (1411 kbps). I've
done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320 kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle
to find *too much* difference. I think ripping at 320 is about the point
where the old diminishing returns thing kicks in.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month about how
to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that anything lossy at all
was a no-no and one should only ever rip at 'full size' (1411 kbps). I've
done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320 kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle
to find *too much* difference. I think ripping at 320 is about the point
where the old diminishing returns thing kicks in.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:27:44 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs
fixed rate rip?

No, I figure if I cant distinguish the fixed OR the variable from the
original, both are good enough, and I'll take the smaller one.

:-)

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with
ketchup.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:27:44 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs
fixed rate rip?

No, I figure if I cant distinguish the fixed OR the variable from the
original, both are good enough, and I'll take the smaller one.

:-)

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with
ketchup.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Maybe 5.1 audio will help ogg take off, dvda/sacd ripping would certainly
help ease people away from old stereo formats like mp3. There are also some
cheap ogg decoding chips for portable players around now. Thanks to the
dodgy buisness practices wma has a large share of audio on personal
computers, but is less often shared than mp3.

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs
- FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary
of data compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ
lossless data compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month
about how to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that
anything lossy at all was a no-no and one should only ever rip at
'full size' (1411 kbps). I've done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320
kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle to find *too much* difference.
I think ripping at 320 is about the point where the old diminishing
returns thing kicks in.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k it's
really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing high, out of
spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality to scale nicely. I
do not believe there to be audiable difference between an r3mix lame rip
(vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Maybe 5.1 audio will help ogg take off, dvda/sacd ripping would certainly
help ease people away from old stereo formats like mp3. There are also some
cheap ogg decoding chips for portable players around now. Thanks to the
dodgy buisness practices wma has a large share of audio on personal
computers, but is less often shared than mp3.

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs
- FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary
of data compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ
lossless data compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month
about how to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that
anything lossy at all was a no-no and one should only ever rip at
'full size' (1411 kbps). I've done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320
kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle to find *too much* difference.
I think ripping at 320 is about the point where the old diminishing
returns thing kicks in.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k it's
really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing high, out of
spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality to scale nicely. I
do not believe there to be audiable difference between an r3mix lame rip
(vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.


Actually both SACD and DVD-A do employ losses compression, DST for SACD and
MLP for DVD-A.