lpchouinard

The music industry is managed by a bunch greedy retards...

Big Content" Is Strangling American Innovation

Denonite

iTrader: (1)

^^exactly...I keep seeing this from time to time...lossless means exactly that? Once decompressed, it is bit for bit perfect!! not much else to say there, and there are more than enough ways to check that. Read this and all will be clear:

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless

Bumpin Balt

Listen for yourself. When you put the songs through a high end, low distortion sound system, you CAN hear the difference. I'm not alone on that and there IS a reason for that.

Some think the loss in SQ may be caused in the process of decompressing of the lossless file by your DAC. I have done a lot of reading on this subject. The reason for the loss of SQ isn't entirely clear, but A LOT of audiophiles agree it exists.

It makes complete sense. A song doesn't go from 1411kpbs to ~1100kbps or less without some information being lost. It's just less obvious than a 320kbps or less MP3.

Bumpin Balt

An mp3 can't be "uncompressed". I was misinformed regarding that in my earlier post.

Denonite

iTrader: (1)

^^after you read the wikipedia link...go to this one as it explains the pitfalls most audiophiles fall into with regards to lossless vs cd, so no point re-iterating:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...hp/t54961.html

Bumpin Balt

I read another thread on the topic. If lossless files sound the same to you, then stick with them. I hear the difference, so I'm using AIFF encoding from here on out. It's not my head unit either. The Alpine CDA-117 24bit DAC is as good as it gets.

lpchouinard

What does that prove? Give me some hard evidence, then I'll argue.

Denonite

iTrader: (1)

I think the basic problem is that most "audiophiles" or enthusiasts don't understand how compression works..they assume that if it's compressed, it's automatically lost something...that's only true if it's a "lossy" format like mp3 or aac etc...when a file is compressed using lossless systems, absolutely nothing is lost, the comprssion codec just assigns certain values that are common between all files and removes those...leaving only the essential (different) portions of the file. This is what makes it smaller. When it's decompressed, those known common portions are added back to the essential portions to give you the complete file. Think of it this way; we need to store credit card numbers, and all those numbers have a common 6 digit initial marker. well instead of storing all 15 numbers, we just need to store the 9 numbers after the common 6 digits. when we retreive the information, the codec will replace the 6 digits in the number stream and you have the exact number you started with...that's lossless compression..mathematically identical. Therefore, if 2 files are mathematically identical (assuming that user error hasn't corrupted the info or there are problems with your hardware), then the files can not sound different played throught he same equipment as they are identical...any difference is in the mind of the user..placebo effect.

jstoner22

iTrader: (1)

there is no difference between lossless and cd. they are mathematically the same, simply a more efficient way of packaging them.

personally i don't find any difference. i was leary myself using lossless on my ipod, but after listening to countless hours back to back on my P99, lossless = cd. there is no 'clipped bass' or 'clearer highs'. its all pschyoacoustic in my opinion.


and the industry IS beggining to use these technologies. take a look at some of the high end decks offering DAC bypassing capabilities to utilize such formats on IPODs etc.

goalie 35

go to youtube and check out the audio myth workshop.. that will answer all your questions about sound quality with mp3, aiff, bit torrents, ect.. basically we cant hear any difference when compressed.. and they prove it.. sorry but its like amps sound different.. every physics major says they dont but every guy who dumps 10k on a sq amp says they do.. i think this is going to happen here as well... but these guys are the best in the world at what they do.. so watch the video and get give me some comments..