Hi,

I really agree with your thoughts on "making the best of it" if I can sum it up like that. I hear too many people putting down less then redbook bit and sample rate material as "non-listenable". It seems to me this falls into the extreme of the source first arguement. My system makes 128Kbps radio streams sound pretty good, and I do not feel the need to compare with redbook or better sources!

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I really like going from 88.2 to RedBook.

I am a little bit confused here...are you saying you take compressed music and use software to go back up to redbook standards??

Hi Jim,

At the risk of getting a bit repetitive I'll run through this this lossy compression stuff again. I won't say "one last time" because I'm quite sure this won't be the last.

A lot of what you write about the sound of some well made compressed digital audio files sounding surprisingly good when played back on a decent, i.e. high end, audio system are true. I'm not really sure that anyone who has done any serious listening to compressed audio files could give you much of an argument on that point. The problems with compressed audio files lie elsewhere.

For me there are two main areas of concern. The first is the type of compression used and the second is the general public's false belief that anything "digital" is perfect. Real serious problems arise when one combines bad compression with the false belief in the perfection of digital, as I'll explain in a moment.

Currently there are at least 4 major types of lossy audio compression codecs available (mp3, wma, real audio and apple) and at least another 4 or 5 lesser known ones available (ogg, mp3pro, etc.) and each one these codecs allows one to encode at a variety of bit rates, fixed or variable, but the one thing they all seem to have in common is that they are all optimized to yield the smallest file size, not the best sounding file. Is it any wonder why audiophiles don't like them?

Part B of the compression area of concern is that a wave file compressed to a 96K fixed bit rate MP3 file will not sound as good as the same wave file compressed to a 96K variable bit rate MP3 file. Nor will it sound anywhere near as good as the same wave file compressed to a 192K variable bit rate MP3 file. And then there's the subject of the program used to do the compression. Not to mention the subject of digital rights management. Man, my head is starting to hurt.

Second area of concern. Anything digital must be good. Pure marketing BS. Anything bought from iTunes or through Windows Media Player is not only compressed (where you have no control over how it was compressed, i.e. bit rate and codec used) but the file is copy protected, so your ability to use the file is severly limited.

Now we get to the good part. Joe buys some songs from iTunes in the Apple lossy compression format. Joe burns these songs to an audio CD, which one is allowed to do. Joe lends the CD to his friend Fred, who happens to dislike Apple and iTunes, so Fred rips the CD onto his computer using Windows Media Player. Window Media Player rips audio CDs into the lossy wma format by default, so Fred now has the songs on his computer as wma files. Fred then makes an audio CD to give to his brother Bob. Bob uses Winamp and likes MP3 files, so he rips the CD into MP3 files on his computer.

The sad part is that both Fred and Bob thought that since they were ripping from an aduio CD they were getting high quality files. Wrong. What they were getting were files filled with all sorts of digital artifacts created as the result of the various encoding and decoding steps. In fact what they have on their computers is no better than those fourth or fifth generation cassette tape copies Deadheads used to collect, but at least the Deadheads kept track of the generations!

Jim, a word of caution. Apple and many others are making a killing selling very low (audio) quality music and the audiophile community should in no way shape or form support their efforts. I hope this post has helped to educate you to how a some fancy marketing can be used to hide an obvious lack of concern for the rights of the consumer.

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With the exception of FLAC is there another format?

Of course...a simple click of tools/options/rip music in Windows Media Player 10 and you can change the default setting to WMA Lossless.

RG

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With the exception of FLAC is there another format?

And Apple Lossless of course...

Good Morning Jim,

I hadn't realized that you wanted to go to school on the subject of MP3s and compressed digital audio but if that's what you want then sit up straight, put away that comic book, stop chewing that gum and take out your notebook 'cause school's about to begin.

Lesson One: Various types of lossy and lossless compression codecs available.

From Wikipedia: "A Codec is a device or program capable of performing encoding and decoding on a digital data stream or signal. The word "codec" is a portmanteau of any of the following: 'Compressor-Decompressor', 'Coder-Decoder', or 'Compression/Decompression algorithm'."

Use this link to see some well organized tables of the various audio codecs available: Wikipedia Codec Comparsion Tables

What all of this boils down to is this. MP3 is the most widely used lossy format and the most widely supported format. In other words, an MP3 file will play in almost any device or by any music playback software. Most of the other lossy file formats cannot make this claim. As an added bonus, MP3 files have no DRM schemes attached. For more on DRM see this link: Wikipedia DRM

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I ran aross this old web site:
Compression Codecs
Nothing has been added since 2002. I guess they perfected it?

The problem with this link is basically what I stated in my previous post, it goes on and on about how to get the best sounding and smallest file size. That's great if you have a 128MB flash MP3 player but for a 40 or 60GB iPod I'm really not all that concerned about saving 2MB of memory. That's why as audiophiles we need to look at this issue from a different perspective.

Here's what I've found out through my own research, listening, testing and experience. A well made MP3 file, as in I encode the file from a CD or wave file using Exact Audio Copy with the LAME MP3 encoder with a setting of "--alt-preset extreme", sounds almost indistinguishable from the same file encoded using iTunes into Apple lossless format when played back on my third generation iPod with Etymotic ER-4 earphones. Plus besides being a somewhat smaller files, the MP3 files do not skip or cause the iPod to crash as the Apple lossless files often do.

Okay, a few words about that "Exact Audio Copy with the LAME MP3 encoder with a setting of "--alt-preset extreme"" I threw in that last paragraph, since this is MP3 101. Exact Audio Copy (EAC) is the gold standard of CD copying and ripping (ripping is the term used to denote the copying of the CD audio files onto a computer's hard drive) programs. The truly great thing about EAC is that it is freeware. I'm not even going to give you a link, Google it. LAME (LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder) is, in fact, an MP3 encoder and like EAC is also freeware. The problem with both EAC and LAME is that they both do not have brain dead user friendly front ends and require some thinking, know how and guidance to properly set and use, but once set up properly they can't be beat by any commercially available software, period. LAME is command line driven program and the "--alt-preset extreme" is a setting one places in EAC to pass along to LAME to tell LAME how what settings to use to encode the MP3 files. There are several presets in the MP3 encoding algorithm and "--alt-preset extreme" is the penultimate one, with "--alt-preset insane" being the top. Anyway, the preset yields a variable bitrate file of about 224 to 256KB, optimized for audio playback.

Some more thoughts on MP3s.

Variable bit rates usually sound better than fixed bit rates - for a given bit rate. In other words a VBR 128kb file will sound better than a fixed bit rate 128kb file. However, the difference is less apparent a higher bit rates, i.e. 256kb and there is no difference at all at 320kb since 320 is the highest bit rate allowed.

Anything below 160kb (fixed rate) is pretty much garbage. If you don't believe me, just do some encoding and listening tests for yourself.

I've yet to hear a computer based audio playback system with anywhere near the bottom end response of a stand alone CD player. Sorry, but the bass just doesn't have the weight and authority that a good CD player, let alone a good turntable, seems to provide.

Tomorrow's lesson: the other lossy formats.