Audio Format Poll

[drspy00]

Re: MP3 is best compromise

I use ogg vorbis now because I dont like mp3 much, the quality isnt as good as ogg. I ripped all my CDs to ogg to allow easy access to them. I hope I encoded them at a high enough bitrate though. Is it ok to convert ogg to mp3 because If I get an mp3 player I will have to do this.

[ChristinaS]

Re: Audio Format Poll

I generally prefer wma because I have noticed a better sound quality over mp3 at the same bit rate. In fact I think a wma file at, say 128kbps, is equivalent to an mp3 at 256kbps, but at only half the size. Of course you have to encode to wma from a wav or other hi-fi original, there's no point converting mp3 @ 128kbps to wma @ 128kbps and expect an improvement.

[drspy00]

Re: Audio Format Poll

I've changed my mind now! I think Monkeys audio or other lossless audio formats are the best (although I havent tried any other lossless other than monkeys) especially for archival purposes and to backup entire CD collections for backup and easy access.

I don't really see a point in trying the other lossless formats but might try a few. Are there any better than monkeys audio?

[Spoons]

Re: Audio Format Poll

i use flac for lossless. i bailed out on monkey's because it had issues with win98se not working with the latest release. and the developer of monkey didn't seem interested. so i went to flac and never looked back.

[ferris209]

Re: Audio Format Poll

I read an article a couple weeks back about a symptom known as "disk rot" where the CD's and DVD's are beginning to rot and bubble for some unknown reason. The only thing they can think of is extreme and sudden tempuature changes. They suggest storing the CD's vertical, but now scientitst are beginning to s doubt the old "CD's will last 100 years" theory. So for this reason I will be soon getting a couple of external HDD, probably 250 gigs or more, and I will archive my entire 200+ VALUABLE CD collection to lossless, dunno which format to go with yet though. Between monkeys and flac. I would just die if I lost these precious gems which I hold in the form of music.

Brandon :(

[ChristinaS]

Re: Audio Format Poll

I read an article a couple weeks back about a symptom known as "disk rot" where the CD's and DVD's are beginning to rot and bubble for some unknown reason. The only thing they can think of is extreme and sudden tempuature changes. They suggest storing the CD's vertical, but now scientitst are beginning to s doubt the old "CD's will last 100 years" theory. So for this reason I will be soon getting a couple of external HDD, probably 250 gigs or more, and I will archive my entire 200+ VALUABLE CD collection to lossless, dunno which format to go with yet though. Between monkeys and flac. I would just die if I lost these precious gems which I hold in the form of music.

Brandon :(

OK, I'm just ranting here - never mind me

Have you ever experienced a hard disk crash? Then you wish you'd had everything on CD or DVD :D

The truth is that no matter which medium you have for storage it may get ruined or otherwise become unusable through changes in technology.

Maybe the only way is to continually keep copying your data from one medium to another so as to keep up with evolving technology. That and keep older technology that still works around.

I have quite a few old vinyl records. I still have the old turntable. What I don't have is the old amplifier that the old turntable used to work with. I have a new one that works with the new CD player The old turntable, while it can be plugged into the new amplifier, sounds terrible, as they are not really compatible. I won't buy a new turntable for that, I am not that desperate. Especially since most everything I wanted to salvage off of my old vinyls is available on remastered cd's anyway. :D For the most part it's even cheaper than new current releases, and it beats any ability and patience I may have to transfer everything myself. But that's just me :D

[ferris209]

Re: Audio Format Poll

It's kind of funny, seems that those old records will hold up better than most of our stuff these days!

[ChristinaS]

Re: Audio Format Poll

It's kind of funny, seems that those old records will hold up better than most of our stuff these days!

At a time when last month's hit is about as popular today as last week's salad still is, yes, this is true

[Themutant86]

Re: Audio Format Poll

On my Computer, I use all 16 Bit Wav files, all undeleated mp3's I download get converted to .wav also. Besides my computer, other than a couple cds, I have a nice sized vinyl collection coming along pretty nicely.

[Archon]

Re: Audio Format Poll

I have mp3's mostly, but I'm are ripping to ogg , and there are a couple of wavs that are still hanging around here...

[drspy00]

Re: Audio Format Poll

On my Computer, I use all 16 Bit Wav files, all undeleated mp3's I download get converted to .wav also. Besides my computer, other than a couple cds, I have a nice sized vinyl collection coming along pretty nicely.

Does converting compressed audio like mp3 to wav make the quality better? Because if it doesnt it would be better to keep the files as mp3s as it saves space.

[Themutant86]

Re: Audio Format Poll

Well supposively once it's converted to mp3 u can't get the quality/original sound back. But even so I found that it makes all songs sound much better. Well it seems that the sound mp3's produce, sounds kinda muffled in a certain way. It just doesn't sound right for some reason. When I convert an mp3 to a Wav file it seems like it balances out all the frequencies as a matter of speeching, In turn making it sound better without raising the bit rate or kbps.

[drspy00]

Re: Audio Format Poll

Oh, I see.
I dont like the mp3 format much at all, I only download in that format since its what most songs are in and if I got an mp3 player I guess I'd have to use mp3 more. I do find though that most good quality mp3s can sound almost as good as a CD.

[ChristinaS]

Re: Audio Format Poll

Well supposively once it's converted to mp3 u can't get the quality/original sound back. But even so I found that it makes all songs sound much better. Well it seems that the sound mp3's produce, sounds kinda muffled in a certain way. It just doesn't sound right for some reason. When I convert an mp3 to a Wav file it seems like it balances out all the frequencies as a matter of speeching, In turn making it sound better without raising the bit rate or kbps.

That's kind of not quite true. MP3 is a lossy encoding format, so it is a little (or a lot) worse than the original wav. You'll never get back the original wav, it's just the nature of lossy formats.

What may happen is that with a wav you can use variuous enhancements to make it sound a bit better than the original mp3 from which is was created.

It's also possible that the mp3's you're considering inferior in quality to the resultant wav files are played in a poorer player, while the wav files may be played in a better player, which will leave you with the false impression that the wav recovered from an mp3 is better.

Mind you, all compresson/decompression changes a bit the wave pattern and thus the sound, so it could be pure fluke that you detect an improvement after converting to wav. It could as well have been a deterioration.

It serves no purpose to convert mp3's to wav and store them that way other than for enhancement and in order to convert to other formats you may need. A wav takes about 9 times more space than the typical mp3 file at 128kbps.

Yes, the original wav is better than any lossy compressed format. But I stress original here. You are not getting that from an mp3 to wav conversion, no matter how much you fiddle with it.

[Themutant86]

Re: Audio Format Poll

Thanks for the info