Going over to the Dark Side?


Oh no! So, I finally succumbed to temptation yesterday and got the new 30GB iPod. When I got it, I figured I would store all my songs in .WAV or Apple lossless. Yesterday I spent 6 hours choosing songs from a variety of disks and loading them into iTunes via Apple lossless. Sounded great. But now I'm getting greedy. I think about all the CDs I have (over 1000 easily), and the fact that the iPod would be used for listening while skiing, flying, or in the car, none of which is an excellent listening environment. I already have a reference music system, and at home I'll be listening mainly to vinyl, with the occasional foray into CDs. Now I'm thinking that I could easily triple or quadruple my storage by using the highest AAC setting (320kBS) instead of Apple lossless for my iPod and store a lot more songs.

tonight I ripped a version of a song in Apple lossless and in AAC. I keep listening back and forth through my powered studio monitors. There is a difference, but it seems slight. Then I think of the tiny earbuds, the listening environment, and I hear the siren song of the dark side of lossy compression calling. Oh no!! Run away!!!

Has anyone else faced this dilema, and what was your solution?
arafel

Showing 1 response by ultraviolet

Cwlondon, many of us think otherwise because the burden of proof is on our side. Please provide some evidence of your fantastic hearing and sound system in you convertible. Specifically, use the foobar ABX test--post the results here. Also please be sure to let us know the codec and presets used for your mp3's and the settings you're currently running in EAC. And I'll even make it easier--you can do this on your main system. Then we can discuss this issue using at least some semblence of logic and (I know these forums often run from this...) science.

Arafel, congratulations on actually listening and being honest in what you hear. I'm sorry, but you will probably be mocked for that. I picked up a set of Shure e5c's for my ipod and I have never ever been able to tell the slightest difference between APS mp3 and lossless. Even on my main system, using the method that Cwlondon's hopefully going to wow us with, I can have never been able to consistantly identify the source in a blind listening test. Hint: neither has any one else to any statistical significance--ever. Perhaps Cwlondon will be the first...

All that being said--I was in a similar situation as you. I have a few thousand albums, wanted them all ripped to my computer and was largely content with APS or APX mp3. However I still ripped to FLAC (and bought a whole bunch of hard drives). My reason was simply that this ripping process took me months and I NEVER want to do it again. If you keep them in lossless format, you can transcode to another future lossless format with no loss in quality if you current format is ever to become extinct. APS mp3 is great for now, but if you try to transcode a lossy format into something else, you will start to see some serious sound degredation.

If you're not specifically looking for equipment purchases, I would recommend you head over to hydrogenaudio, if you haven't already, and ask this same question over there. They would be better served to help you make this decision and help you pick a lossless format for archiving your collection to disc