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Q: What file-format is best recommended by you to download purchased music in? And why?


psytones

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As the title asks. What file-format is the best one in your opinion to download your bought music, and store it in?

Wav. FLAC, AAC, ogg-vorbis, AIFF, ALAC, AAC, mp3 320, mp3 V0? ... and there is more formats to choose from on discogs.com

And why do you always DL your music and save it for safe-keeping in "that" format? 

I'm n00by of me, so I've always ripped, and DL-ed bought music on i.e. Bandcamp in WAV, or from Ektoplazm, always choose wav.. .. is that stupid of me, should I start to DL bought music and save it to my safe-keeping External HD in another file-format then WAV.? 2 Terrabite HD etc. is not so expensive anymore.. though sure, a strong good Ex. HD will safe-keep your music longer without a silly crash.. Double backup! + CDr's (dj-gigs and home enjoyment). 

Same with ripping original CD's, is it not so space-smart and most important, sound-quality-smart, to rip CD's in WAV. instead of another new and better file-format? I don't wanna be stuck on preferring WAV. --- but it's a safe choice for me when I don't know much better. 

I don't have MAC/Apple, I use PC..


  

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57 minutes ago, Redo said:

 ......more universal ......  FLAC's and other lossless formats aren't supported by all devices.

So yeah FLAC rules I see. I do not wanna save my gold in mp3 320 .. I might be missing out on some good storage space because of it, but I prefer to safe it and save my music in the best file-quality possible, even if it's an illusion (its not.. i guess that's the same old discussion that we are not going into here). So FLAC takes a little less space then WAV. but have the same lossless quality. My "problem"  is that FLAC -as quoted- is not so universally supported by all devices ........ *n00b-attitude*. So in this case so far, I will continue my slavery to WAV.

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Guess i'm not such a hopeless n00b hanging behind after all then. And will continue my Wav. loyalty B) 'i think my n00byness actually have fear towards FLAC, and have never gotten to know the format. Ogg btw. I only use when wishing to have small sized files to put on mixcloud .. where they do not take too big files (like Wav.)

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I'd love to see the results of a double blind listening test between wav, FLAC, and 320kbps mp3 around here, especially trying to distinguish the difference using electronic music. Fantastically produced acoustic music, you might be able to notice a 3.287% difference. Electronic music, or anything else that's compressed similarly, I bet nobody here could tell the difference. 

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1 hour ago, Grayling said:

I'd love to see the results of a double blind listening test between wav, FLAC. 

There's definitely something wrong if you can hear a difference between 2 lossless formats. The audio data in a FLAC is bitwise 100% identical to the WAV it was encoded from.

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If you're archiving, archive in Flac. You'll save space and can ensure that you can encode it to mp3 or burn as wav without losing data or residual artifacts.

If you save as mp3, decompressing and recompressing will eventually lead to signal noise and icky stuff.

If you save as wav, you won't have the tags and metadata. And you'll be wasting space.

I really think long-term data backup should just be in flac. I rarely need to encode to mp3 these days, it's not really a bother when i to need to...

 

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I use FLAC

only problem is the one mentioned above... and shame on Pioneer for not adding the FLAC codec (it's a free codec), it's just weak!

 

On 5/16/2018 at 5:02 AM, the goa constrictor said:

FLAC is better for tags

very good point, cover art can also cause problems...

On 5/19/2018 at 8:00 PM, Grayling said:

I'd love to see the results of a double blind listening test between wav, FLAC, and 320kbps mp3 around here, especially trying to distinguish the difference using electronic music. Fantastically produced acoustic music, you might be able to notice a 3.287% difference. Electronic music, or anything else that's compressed similarly, I bet nobody here could tell the difference. 

The audible difference between loss less and 320 is dependent on the system you play your music on, on a mediocre setup you might not hear any difference, but that is not due to the file-format...

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  • 1 month later...

Not going to make a new topic as it kinda fits here, I think. For some time now Ultimae is selling their "regular" digital releases for 5€ while asking 10€ for 24 bit versions? Would you pay extra for the 24 bit version? Does it make much of a difference?

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i wouldn't pay extra and it doesn't make any audible difference. the way music is mastered we are miles away from coming close to using the headroom we get with 16bit.

not even 320 mp3 can be distinguished in double blind tests by professionals in their studios, so how could 24bit make any difference?

there's so much placebo in audio quality. if you've ever been in a hifi shop and witnessed what they sell to people you will have been surprised. and if you've ever eq'd a channel that wasn't even playing you know why it works ;)

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On 5/22/2018 at 2:08 PM, Drosophila said:

I use FLAC

only problem is the one mentioned above... and shame on Pioneer for not adding the FLAC codec (it's a free codec), it's just weak!

 

very good point, cover art can also cause problems...

The audible difference between loss less and 320 is dependent on the system you play your music on, on a mediocre setup you might not hear any difference, but that is not due to the file-format...

I use iFi DSD Micro Black Label fed by a Fiio X3 into Audeze LCD-2 headphones... hardly mediocre, and the only time I can tell the difference between lossless and 320 mp3 is with very well recorded acoustic music. Even then, I have to really concentrate hard on every detail to be able to distinguish between the two. It makes no real difference with electronic music.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/9/2018 at 10:34 PM, Grayling said:

I use iFi DSD Micro Black Label fed by a Fiio X3 into Audeze LCD-2 headphones... hardly mediocre, and the only time I can tell the difference between lossless and 320 mp3 is with very well recorded acoustic music. Even then, I have to really concentrate hard on every detail to be able to distinguish between the two. It makes no real difference with electronic music.

A rare bird of my feather....mine is iFi DSD micro black fed by Sony NW_ZX300 into Sennheiser HD6xx. I agree with your interpretation, however, I do tend to collect FLAC 16bit as my baseline bc I feel the rips to a proper FLAC are made by encoders that are competent and passionate for quality sound.

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Oh man, I'm looking at getting either the NW-ZX300A (Chinese version of ZX300, only difference being internal storage) or NW-A45. Does the balanced out on your 300 sound much different than single end out? That's really my only concern, as I don't plan on buying a bunch of balanced cables and I read that Sony put more engineering effort into the balanced ports. 

I got the Campfire Audio Cascade recently. Very highly recommended for electronic music. Good for other genres too. 

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Actually I just recommended to my co-worker to get the A45 if he didn't specifically want balanced. It has EVERYTHING else plus extra battery life because less thermal efficiency w/ the processing in ZX300. But yea the balanced sounds damn good but not like a must have if you have other balanced audio options. The ZX300 was my first delve into balanced portable audio so that was my main purchase point of it!

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Awesome, thanks for the advice. A45 with a 400gb micro SD comes out to the same price as the ZX300A. And yeah, that 45 hour battery life is pretty unbelievable! 

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4 minutes ago, Grayling said:

Awesome, thanks for the advice. A45 with a 400gb micro SD comes out to the same price as the ZX300A. And yeah, that 45 hour battery life is pretty unbelievable! 

Haha yea I got my 400gb on Amazon Prime day for $135 bucks. Love it though!

 

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