Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion
best song format
[Saint]:
I am really surprised this question didn't get pummelled into the dirt by audiophiles.
Putting that aside, some of the statements made, whether in the view of an audiophile or just an experienced listener, are quite untrue.
While it may not be the case for some (perhaps most?) of the population, discerning listeners can certainly perceive a difference between mp3@320 and lossless codecs. When you know what to listen for, it can be very easy to pick up on artefacts from the encoding process. Especially in tracks you are familiar with.
But the simple fact of it is, for a large percentage of people, no matter how accurately your device can reproduce the samples, be they lossless or lossy, the monitors most people use will have a rather serious impact on whether or not the listener is able to perceive any difference.
Basically, it all boils down to "it depends".
It depends wildly on the original recording, how accurately the device can reproduce that recording, how much detail from that the monitors can present to the listener, and the age of the listener how badly theirs hearing is affected (for men in particular, loss in the higher ranges can happen at a fairly young age, regardless if hearing damage from environmental or industrial stresses is present or not. For women, this effect is somewhat lessened, and occurs slightly later in life as a general rule - this effect is known as presbycusis).
All in all, generally speaking, I believe it to be a fallacy to say that lthe difference between lossless codecs and high bitrate mp3 is imperceptible.
[Saint]
monoid:
--- Quote from: [Saint] on January 28, 2015, 09:44:48 PM ---All in all, generally speaking, I believe it to be a fallacy to say that lthe difference between lossless codecs and high bitrate mp3 is imperceptible.
--- End quote ---
You are right. But.
The difference between lossless codecs and high bitrate mp3 is IMHO imperceptible for most of real world cases and most of listeners.
Of course, there are experienced listeners with good hearing, who are able to distinguish those two, if proper recording is played on the high quality equipment and good environment. But unfortunately it is probably a tiny, tiny fraction of percent of users and usage cases, I guess.
High percentage of recordings are of low quality even in loosles, high percentahe of users are not experienced listeners, high percentage of users do not have good hearing and high percentage of users do not use the equipment to take the advantage of loosless over hi-bitrate loosy. Not speaking about environment where high percentage of users listens to music. And also what attention they pay to music listened.
But still, I prefer loosless. But to be honest, I doubt I am a member of that tiny fraction of percent's group. Unfortunately, I have to say. I love music.
Fernando Negro:
saratoga,
I've checked the link, and I was able to find that exact information. Thank you very much for your answer. :)
404_user_not_found,
Well, for the usual 32 GB limit of SD cards size, that the majority of players support, it can make quite a difference, in the number of albums you can put on a card, whether you use lossless or lossy formats. You can still put a good number of albums in an SD card using a lossless format, yes. But, if the quality difference is very (very) little to none, it ends up being more convenient to use a lossy format. (That's why I think this issue matters.)
[Saint] and monoid,
I know there are a few people (I don't know the percentage in the population) who can hear better than the average person. And, in those, yes, I know it can make a difference. I didn't state this - at least, explicitly - but I was referring to the regular audio listeners. (Since, I'm sure that the people who have "extra" hearing capabilities are already aware of such differences.) I just don't know how rare this persons are.
As for the difference between high-rate MP3 files and FLAC ones, I read contradictory statements on the Internet. But, having then read what I stated above (I remember it was on what it looked to be a credible forum, but I now can't remember which one was it), that some people reported that there was no difference, even in hi-fi equipments, I then concluded that the belief(?) that FLAC files were better, was just a "psychological suggestion" (I'm not sure what's the best term in English - but, what I mean is a kind of "placebo effect"). And, I have yet to make the test myself...
I guess it might be what monoid says... That you need to have an either "trained" or exceptionally good hearing, to notice any difference, at all. And, that might have been what I have read, also. But, being just a regular listener myself, what my memory kept was a simple: "there's no difference".
And, I suppose that the best thing for anyone to do, in order to clear his or her doubts, is to just make a "blind" test him or herself - and draw their own conclusions... :)
monoid:
Yes, probably best way is to make a blind or even better double blind test.
My friend, who is sound engineer, who has a training, equipment, optimal hearing room and is young says that it has been prooved in many tests that people are not able to distinguish loosless and hi-bitrate loosy.
I would not be so cathegorical and I accept possibility that some people are able to in optimal conditions.
But, we speak about equipment worth thousands of dollars, maybe tens of thousands. I may be wrong, but IMHO if one uses DAP worth several hundreds of dollars and headphones in similar price level then even the best listeners with finest bat-ears cannot tell the difference.
I guess, the best is to have music in flac in computer or NAS, if your collection fits to a card, than no problem. If not, convert it to loosy for use in DAP (unless you are sure, you can hear the difference) and keep it in flac at source collection.
[Saint]:
--- Quote from: Fernando Negro on February 01, 2015, 08:54:37 PM ---...
Well, for the usual 32 GB limit of SD cards size, that the majority of players support
...
--- End quote ---
In almost every single case when a device states that it supports "up to *GB", it is a marketing blunder.
The manufacturer and/or its marketing department is just stating that it has support for what was probably the highest density μSD card at the time the product was launched. It is incredibly rare to find a device which actually has an artificial (because it would be completely, and totally, artificial) limitation on how much removable storage the device can address.
In reality, if it were possible to manufacture cards with such a high density (and it isn't, we're struggling to get to 256GB) devices would happily address 2TB (yep, two terabytes, or two thousand gigabytes if you prefer).
[Saint]
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