I am going to have to stand my ground on saying subpar processing gear is used and everything sounds bad either 128 or 320. Nobody can tell the difference. 320 sounds as bad as 128. If the gear can only output quality of 128, you can play 1000 on it and it will still sound the same. Time to upgrade the soundcard

 

I am going to have to stand my ground on saying subpar processing gear is used and everything sounds bad either 128 or 320. Nobody can tell the difference. 320 sounds as bad as 128. If the gear can only output quality of 128, you can play 1000 on it and it will still sound the same, and now we are all limited to hearing 128. You're maxing out your Audigy capabilities, which is not strong for audiophile music at all. Time to upgrade the soundcard You can thank me later

 

Sorry for all the double posts, people. My pc is screwy last few days and CCA pages are loading badly, and where the heck is the thread delete function???

 

^^are you saying that the guy's audigy sound card or any sound card for that matter can't rip lossless tracks accurately? I can see your possible point regarding lossy files but not lossless or .wav...which is essentially a direct copy. I think many would disagree with you on that. All a good sound card does is process the information better to sound better, essentially you're saying that the xonar carded computer will play a cd or lossless track and sound better than an audigy equipped computer. well if that's true, then your computer should have played the lossless portion of Denonite's mixed track even better than his computer, and you should have easily been able to tell the difference between the lossless and lossy portions!

 

yeah, there seems to be some misconception as to what the files are. Track 1 is a direct cd rip with ALA (apple lossless) and apple 112 kbps ripped from the lossless. Both of those tracks were mixed..digitally...and stored/sampled using .wav (1411 kbps). As I see it, if you have a higher quality sound card, the differences should be more obvious as veeman and alpha mentioned. Track 2 I'll discount at this time since I didn't have a true cd...at least i don't know if it is. I'll look for similar types of music and do another track and share it when i get a chance. Just as another FYI...over 30 people have downloaded the tracks including friends and family and no one has identified the changes.

 

Question is, why are we listening to test tracks over computer hardware that may not be up to snuff ??.

Get those tracks on to a CD or USB, head out to the car, find a quiet spot and listen... :-)

I also listen to about the same type of music, but it's electronica, all instrumental, no voices.

 

That is exactly what I am saying. I have been doing pc mixing for years, and have gone through several sound cards, and everytime you process a track any track one way or the other, soundcard always plays a role and also the mixing software as well. I have been getting same quality rips since the mid 90's, and since the cards kept getting better, the results kept getting better. Also, what is very important and still pisses me off the inferior cards original rippers use to make an inferior rip to start with, one thing has gotten better since the digital pay per download kicked in, as some tracks are originally ripped by the artist, and those who know and who care have very nice quality rips indeed, but that is like 5% of material tops.

It may sound identical on someone's pc due to maxing out that person's card's capabilities, but if someone uses a Xonar, and has truly lossless rips to start with, then processes the track into 128 and 320, the differences should be more pronounced and heard on any soundcard. In this case, it would bhe hard to compare lossless to 320, as losslees is not in its original state as it sounds layered as two tracks are playing together, so what is the point here? And yes, if you have a cd or lossless track, a Xonat equipped machine will play it better than an Audiogy, is it not the point of getting a better soundcard, this is just moronic to think otherwise. If that is so, why would people not use a Sound Blaster Live? And what a piece of crap that was, but at the time you just did not know or expect any better from a pc. A higher end card will reproduce the sound better than a cheaper card. I still dont get it, how you could think otherwise. Come on!!!

 

Cause that would be pointless, as the conditions of the test are flawed to begin with with inferior gear, and the final product sounds very poorly from start to finish, so that people cant tell the difference, and it does not matter where they would play it back.

 

Denonite, if you have the budget, I urge you to get a Xonar Essence card, and you will be blown away. And this has nothing to do with this thread, nor is it intended to prove or disprove anyone's point, you will see how much of a disaster sound card the Audiogy really is in comparison to Xonar. I could not do satisfactory quality processing until I got the Xonar, and I did not know what I was missing when I had an X-Fi. Now I have no card to blame with certain processing imperfections, but the mixing software codecs/audio plug-ins etc. Go for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Alright I have to ask it, do you own, own stock in or have some connection to xonar?