II Guys from Petra now on Spotify (and other tips)

[Boray]

IMO, There is no excuse for using FLAC now, with hard drives being so cheap, unless you have to tag. There isn't a dramatic difference in file size.

Unless you think 30% compression is dramatic. Better than nothing for me.

[executioner]

And still Exe and Brent refuse to test their gifted hearing abilities by determining which of the two snippets in Boray's file is actually lossless. If you are so convinced of the fact that you can clearly hear the difference between lossless and compressed, how easy should it be for you to just listen to the file and write down A = lossless and B = compressed, or A = compressed and B = lossless. I takes even less time than me typing this post. Unbelievable... Step up to the challenge, guys.

The thing is that Brent don't even believe that FLAC is lossless so he probably thinks my test is bad or of no interest or something.

Ok here it is my opinion take it or leave it. BOTH FILES(EXAMPLES) SOUND CRAPPY AND DISTORTED and sound NOTHING like the CD and too be honest sounds like a different production from the CD. Thank our Almighty God I have the CD and will never have to listen to them ever again. In anyway shape or form MP3 SUCKS no matter what type of quality of player you've got it on. To me B sounds better than A, but they both sound like @$^$$^!!!!

I will go as far and say if that was the only versions I had an option to listen too I wouldn't be buying it.

[executioner]

And still Exe and Brent refuse to test their gifted hearing abilities by determining which of the two snippets in Boray's file is actually lossless. If you are so convinced of the fact that you can clearly hear the difference between lossless and compressed, how easy should it be for you to just listen to the file and write down A = lossless and B = compressed, or A = compressed and B = lossless. I takes even less time than me typing this post. Unbelievable... Step up to the challenge, guys.

There thats all you will get from me now I will politely say "GET A LIFE"

[executioner]

It seems that Brent and Exe are going to chicken out. Lots of excuses, but it all comes down to the fact that the test takes less than a minute and they both claim you can easily hear the difference. It seems it's not that easy...

Being very certain about anything (in this case the difference between CD and mp3) is often a lot easier when you're not confronted with reality or facts.

By the way, Exe. If you download Boray's file it will NOT be compressed. If you burn the file to a CD-R the Flac-part of it will be of the exact same quality as the original CD. No difference at all. The mp3 part of it might or might not sound different. But a CD does not “shine” any more than a Flac. Since this is 2012 I'm sure that there are a lot of options for you to test this even if you haven't got your own computer.

Dude, I just saw this, because I a have a life and I am busy with a church sound system install, have kids graduating, etc. Sorry I didn't rush out and do this, just because someone wants me to. Oh, yeah, I squeezed in a Van Halen concert the other night too. Forgot about that.

Anyway, when I get a free moment in about a week, I will post a file of stereo tones, and use the best MP3 codec to convert four different files from broadcast wav to MP3. Anyone that is not deaf will hear a difference. Now, hearing a difference in sample rates is splitting some split hairs. But hearing a difference between MP3s and wavs is not that hard, unless you have poor hearing, poor playback equipment, etc.

I guess everyone like Boray that can't hear the difference or chooses not too is deaf; There it's settled.

[Boray]

And still Exe and Brent refuse to test their gifted hearing abilities by determining which of the two snippets in Boray's file is actually lossless. If you are so convinced of the fact that you can clearly hear the difference between lossless and compressed, how easy should it be for you to just listen to the file and write down A = lossless and B = compressed, or A = compressed and B = lossless. I takes even less time than me typing this post. Unbelievable... Step up to the challenge, guys.

The thing is that Brent don't even believe that FLAC is lossless so he probably thinks my test is bad or of no interest or something.

Ok here it is my opinion take it or leave it. BOTH FILES(EXAMPLES) SOUND CRAPPY AND DISTORTED and sound NOTHING like the CD and too be honest sounds like a different production from the CD. Thank our Almighty God I have the CD and will never have to listen to them ever again. In anyway shape or form MP3 SUCKS no matter what type of quality of player you've got it on. To me B sounds better than A, but they both sound like @$^$$^!!!!

I will go as far and say if that was the only versions I had an option to listen too I wouldn't be buying it.

I guess what you are saying is that Sue has done something wrong when uploading the wavs to Bandcamp then?

[Boray]

I guess everyone like Boray that can't hear the difference or chooses not too is deaf; There it's settled.

Go back and count the number of times where I have said there is a difference. I can hear it.

[executioner]

I guess everyone like Boray that can't hear the difference or chooses not too is deaf; There it's settled.

Go back and count the number of times where I have said there is a difference. I can hear it.

But the 2 examples you sent are clearly substandard compared to CD quality, and you say there is a minimal difference and really shouldn't be noticed by most users, and I say if anyone can't hear the huge difference between the examples you sent and an actual physical CD than I would proclaim you are either deaf, stupid or in ignorant bliss.

[Boray]

I guess everyone like Boray that can't hear the difference or chooses not too is deaf; There it's settled.

Go back and count the number of times where I have said there is a difference. I can hear it.

But the 2 examples you sent are clearly substandard compared to CD quality, and you say there is a minimal difference and really shouldn't be noticed by most users, and I say if anyone can't hear the huge difference between the examples you sent and an actual physical CD than I would proclaim you are either deaf, stupid or in ignorant bliss.

One of the examples should be equal to the actual CD. If it isn't when you listen, then there are these possible explanations:

A: Sue did something wrong when uploading the wavs to bandcamp.
B: Bandcamp did something wrong when encoding the flacs.
C: Reaper's flac decoding is faulty.
D: I did something wrong when making the test.
E: You are not able to play wavs in the same high quality as CDs.
F: You are either deaf, stupid or in ignorant bliss.

If I were to take a guess, I would say E.

[Boray]

To rule out E you could dump the same section from the CD to wav and compare with my wav if you like.

[brent]

CD contains wav files, so that one kind of doesn't make sense to me.

Reaper had some known issues with files not rendering the same way twice, with varying lengths, sub par SRC, etc. But I think that is all fixed now.

Not all music sites sound good, plain and simple. No two sound the same.

[Boray]

CD contains wav files, so that one kind of doesn't make sense to me.

A standard audio CD does not contain any wav files. It contains digital audio data encoded in a way to be able to play it even if the CD contains errors such as scratches, dirt on the surface or actual manufacturing errors. Wav files have no such encoding, it's just the raw audio data.

[brent]

Technically, you are correct, but 99% of the commercial releases, and John's project, were wav and/or aiff in the daw and mastering stages, until converted to Red Book. There is no change or difference in the data.

BTW, Wikipedia is wrong about why Red Book is named Red Book. My friend and former employer (multi-platinum selling, Grammy nominated artist and engineer) spoke with the old man who spear headed the research, and that old man said that it was named Red Book because they stored the notes in a red notebook back in the late 60s/early 70s.

[Boray]

Yep, but what I suspect is that Exe can play CDs just fine, but that there is something wrong when he plays files, for example some idiotic automatic normalization or something. I had to turn normalization off both in the soundcard's settings and in Windows Media Player on a brand new computer for example. Of course there can be something similar in a hardware player as well.

[curt]

If Exe can hear a difference between flac and CD then this difference is surely due to some other factor than a difference in quality. Flac files are of the exact same quality as the CD. They are lossless, so there is no difference if everything is setup correctly. So there has got to be some factor creating a difference, because there is no difference in the sound quality if all other conditions are the same. And by claiming this I'm stating a fact. If exe is stil using his smartphone it might be the soundcard in this that is causing the great difference between flac and CD.

If anyone would like to compare different formats and qualities you can try these test files and see if you can hear a difference. Some of the master quality files might not sound better on your system than the other files if your system can't handle 24 bit (it might automatically convert it to 16 bit): http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-downloa ... files.aspx

I stil find it hard to hear a difference. Perhaps I would be able to hear it if one day I became a buisy man with lots of things to do

[curt]

MP3's stink. The only reason I tolerate them is because of the convenience and there is no way I can afford to pay for every physical cd. emusic is cheap mp3's but they are at least legit and not illegal. Comparing a clean cd from the master to an mp3 is absurd. It's kinda like when someone tells me that a video on youtube is hd, just like the bluray disc.

AMEN!!!

Did you take the test rexreed? Since MP3's stink it should be quite easy to "smell" them in Borays test.