Digital Music

TTony

I've been through most formats in my listening life, starting out with the old vinyl, through cassettes, minidiscs, CD and then mp3/FLAC, and even a bit of streaming.

That journey *had* led me to listening primarily on my phone when travelling, and from mp3s through onboard audio on my PC when not travelling.

It was the journey of least resistance really - 128Gb card in my phone meant that I could carry a load of music and retire the iPod, so only carrying one device.  Win, obviously!

Then, for a reason that I forget, I ended up taking my iPod on a journey, and - even on a train, though through over-ear headphones - I heard a noticeable quality difference.  Dug out my old headphone amp via the iPod's docking port, and quality up again.  Went back to source CD, and quality up again (OK, so at least some of that is going to be the playback kit).  Stuck a USB DAC onto the PC and quality up - and using headphones from the DAC the quality is really quite impressive.

So, my sweetspots are now;
- sitting room = CD via some reasonable kit
- office = mp3s from PC via USB DAC into headphones
- mobile = iPod

I've got my NAS hooked up to the hifi amp, so I can play mp3s/FLACs through the main system, but I typically don't bother.

richardhomer

I've gone 'very' digital recently, having used a Linn CD system until it died at the start of the year.

I've moved over to a Naim streamer, playing (mainly) CDs ripped to FLAC on a NAS drive. It'll do all the Spotify/Tidally things as well - but even using Tidal Lossless - they don't sound as good.

I had a pile of old Naim separates which I've basically swapped to afford this. Early signs are very good - spent hours listening to music today - which is is a good sign....

RandallFlagg

I have around 3,500 albums as MP3 or Apple .m4a in iTunes. The files I encoded myself to 320Kbps from CD sound excellent as do many downloaded files, some of the older MP3s I have at 192kbps are noticeably not so good and I'm replacing these with 320 as I can.

My biggest gripe is one album I paid for and downloaded from iTunes: The Jam - The Gift Super Deluxe edition. It's the official release on iTunes and is in the standard iTunes format of 256kbps .m4a and it sounds awful. It's gargly and noticeably lower quality encoding that the CD rip I have, yet it's meant to be remastered! And they left off Weller's spoken intro to the album. Very poor.

However, the Setting Sons super deluxe I also purchased from iTunes sounds better than the CD rip.

Sporky

dindude said:

I moved to CD quality digital a long time ago and found it fine with a decent system. Used to get really frustrated that some 30 years after the introduction of CD's that the digital audio game hadn't moved forwards from a technical point of view

In terms of quality that's largely because when they created the CD format they got the specs right - and human hearing hasn't improved since.

There have been significant advances in the mastering, encoding, decoding and playback so (ignoring brickwall mastering) modern CDs on modern systems do sound better than the very early equivalents,  but there's surprisingly little advantage in higher bit depths or sample rates at the consumption end. At production, why not.

Even then I've fooled pro audio people in shootouts - it's surprisingly easy. One was blathering on and on about MP3 having "no air", but he was relying on the readout on the player to tell whether the source had been compressed or not. I changed some MP3 files to FLAC format and he insisted they sounded better than the same MP3 files...

Actually, that gives me an idea - I'll have to do a seminar next year, I might do a series of rigged shootouts and use the audience as guinea pigs.

ICBM

Sporky said:

There have been significant advances in the mastering, encoding, decoding and playback so (ignoring brickwall mastering) modern CDs on modern systems do sound better than the very early equivalents,  but there's surprisingly little advantage in higher bit depths or sample rates at the consumption end.

None - at best. At worst it's actually counterproductive.

At the production stage while it's all in the digital domain then it is better to use higher resolution.

I know you've seen this before, but for anyone who hasn't this is worth reading - https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html (It's a bit long and technical - and not actually about Neil Young .)

Rocker

No matter what technology is used for sound reproduction, it has failed for you if you don't feel the urge to listen to music.

I have come a long way in music listening and an extremely long and expensive journey buying hi-fi equipment.  For me the low point was in the mid 1980s when I had a Linn LP12, Linn Asak cartridge, Naim Audio amplification and Linn SARA speakers.  The magazines of the day stated that that system was the best that could be assembled.  But for me it left me cold and in fact it was unused for most of the time.  My high point in vinyl replay was when I had a Linn LP12 with Rega arm and Supex MC cartridge, an A&R integrated amp and Celestion speakers.  That system sounded wonderful until the Supex died and a replacement did not sound anywhere as good.  So that is how I ended up at my low point.

Fast forward to today and I listen to all music from digital sources.  Every CD I buy gets ripped to FLAC and is stored on an external HD on my computer.  IMHO the most important component in a digital replay system is the DAC.  These have come on in leaps and bounds in the last decade or so.  System control is easy using an iPad or smartphone.  We have three systems in our house and, for music on the move, I use my little Zen player and Sennheiser headphones.  The Zen plays FLAC so it is simple to copy files to it from my computer.

Sound quality wise, I expect the replay of a Telecaster solo to sound like a Telecaster.  A Hammond organ to sound like a Hammond organ.  And so on.  Good music, well recorded can be an exhilarating experience.  Sadly most music falls short of that ideal but it is still listenable and enjoyable.

Axe_meister

Regardless of the encoding quality, to my ears, the amp/speakers/headphones you play in on have the biggest impact.
Yes a badly encoded file will show up it's weakness but any information that is still present will still sound good. Play a better encoded file and it will sound even better.
I have all my music stored on a plex server which I stream to either my Apple TV which is connected to a good AV-amp, the the two front channels go into a proper Hi-Fi amp and the AV power stage is sub par.
In the kitchen I have a Chromecast audio connected to some small monitors, but If I want it to sound better, during a long cooking session I connect the phone directly as the phone has a better DAC than the Chromecast 

Rocker

It can be surprising just how good that old Pioneer/Sansui/Rotel/Technics amp can sound.  A lot of these old integrated amps were used with turntables [most have a phono stage fitted] and, not surprisingly, the phono stage is the weak link.  But input a good digital signal into one of the line inputs and prepare to be entertained by the music.  Modern amps tend to sound bright and highlight detail in the recording, whereas the older amps have a slightly 'woolier' sound that compliments digital to a tee.

Decent sound in your home/apartment need not cost a fortune.  Just get decent speakers for one of those old amps listed above.

beed84

Thanks for all the replies guys. There have been some insightful reads and it has helped me view the way I see/listen to music in a different way. @Sporky ;@english_bob and @darthed1981 - the analogies and explanations on the whys and wherefores have been most helpful. I'm starting to grasp how the digital format works now!

My next step is to get a 2TB HD to put all my CDs on in FLAC or Apple Lossless format. But to do that I'm gonna have to get a Apple external CD drive first...

english_bob

beed84 said:

My next step is to get a 2TB HD to put all my CDs on in FLAC or Apple Lossless format. But to do that I'm gonna have to get a Apple external CD drive first...

Worth giving some thought to how exactly you do that. "Rip to ALAC, store in a thing" is fine of course, but what thing you store them on will determine what you can do with the files later. A bog standard USB storage drive is simple, but you can only listen to your music from whatever it's attached to.  A Network Attached Storage drive is designed to attach to your WIFI router and makes whatever you store on it accessible from other devices on your home WIFI network. That opens up all sorts of exciting multi room audio options as well as the equally exciting prospect of not having to have your laptop on to hear your tunes. A NAS is more expensive, but capable of more stuff than a "dumb" HDD. 

Also worth considering how you back up your tunes. Cloud storage generally costs money, but is safe from all the sort of things that might happen to something in your house. A single HDD can fail so consider a second, or a HDD that has redundancy built in- my 2TB NAS has two 2TB drives, both containing all the same information- if one fails it can be replaced while all my stuff is safe on the other. No good if someone nicks it, or if my house burns down of course...

Lastly, think about what happens to your physical media once it's all ripped. The law currently (AFAIK) doesn't allow you to own electronic files of stuff you don't own in physical format unless you can show that you got them legitimately (downloaded from iTunes etc.) so while you might be tempted to rip all your CDs then send them off to Music Magpie or somewhere, that's technically illegal. Plus, if it turns out that your rips have errors you can't re-rip from the disc if you don't have it any more. 

ICBM

Currently - as far as I understand - it's once again actually illegal to rip your own CDs for your own use even if you keep the discs. ie the law has made an ass of itself again...

I would certainly never get rid of the CDs anyway, exactly because it would prevent re-ripping - if much better encoding software comes along, or huge capacity iPods that can store the whole lot at full resolution or something.

beed84

ICBM said:

Currently - as far as I understand - it's once again actually illegal to rip your own CDs for your own use even if you keep the discs. ie the law has made an ass of itself again...

I would certainly never get rid of the CDs anyway, exactly because it would prevent re-ripping - if much better encoding software comes along, or huge capacity iPods that can store the whole lot at full resolution or something.

Ah that old chestnut. I seem to remember you mentioning that in another thread elsewhere. Seems totally dumb to me, especially since music is so accessible these days. By that rule surely half the stuff on YouTube is illegal, then. Either way I'll be keeping my CDs for sure. Spent far too long collecting them. Besides, I like having them.

beed84

@english_bob - all duly noted. I'll indeed do my research and figure out what's best to do. 

ICBM

beed84 said:

Ah that old chestnut. I seem to remember you mentioning that in another thread elsewhere. Seems totally dumb to me, especially since music is so accessible these days. By that rule surely half the stuff on YouTube is illegal, then. Either way I'll be keeping my CDs for sure. Spent far too long collecting them. Besides, I like having them.

Yes, it is absolutely dumb - the quickest way to cause disrespect for the law is to introduce blatantly stupid ones that no-one pays any attention to. But it is the case, since 2015 - after having previously been legal, it was then made illegal again by the government's ruling being overturned in the courts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/33566933/ripping-music-and-films-illegal-again-after-high-court-overturns-new-law

Half the stuff on YouTube is also illegal, yes. They rely on copyright owners requesting it being taken down - because they are only a platform, YouTube are not responsible until they do. (I think that's correct.)

Rocker

Not sure what the law on ripping copies of CDs to a hard drive is in Ireland. Not too bothered either. It is a great way to listen to music. And a very easy way to listen to various artists interpretations of a particular song.

english_bob

ICBM said:

I would certainly never get rid of the CDs anyway, exactly because it would prevent re-ripping - if much better encoding software comes along, or huge capacity iPods that can store the whole lot at full resolution or something.

That day probably isn't far off, although it won't be an iPod. Apple would rather tie you in to their cloud services.

My ~18000 track collection of FLAC rips (used to be two fully occupied 5' x 3' - ish racks of CDs) fits in to just over 0.5TB, which is roughly 500GB. You can currently get a 256GB MicroSD card for slightly north of a ton, and another hundred will get you a nice player like the FiiO X1ii that'll cope with the card and play back the music in style, which means I could carry half that collection around in my pocket today.

512GB MicroSD cards are still pretty pricey, but those prices come down pretty quickly over time. A year or two I reckon, and you might have to break out those CDs.

RocknRollDave

My entire music collection is on my iPod, ripped in Apple's format, not FLAC or WAV. I can certainly tell the difference between lossy and lossless, but for the ease of storage I am perfectly fine with the compromise in sound quality - It's not terrible.
People who talk up the "better" sound quality of vinyl always say "oh but on a proper high quality record player...." ah let me stop you there. I grew up in the 70's and 80's, when vinyl was commonplace as primary format, and most of us had cheap/ entry level record players. They sounded rubbish by today's standards. Sorry if that offends your hipster worldview. My iPod sounds better than my music sounded to me when I was growing up. That's not an opinion, it's a fact of my experience using the gear available to me.

TheBigDipper

@beed84 Thanks for starting this thread. I already owned a Cyrus/Mission-based CD system that lives in the lounge, but the posts have inspired me to buy a DAC/headphone amp to use with my iPhone/iPad/Macbook (storing the data on a fairly empty 2TB NAS that's attached to my network). I bought an Oppo HA-2 SE and it's really decent with all my headphones, but especially with some rather old Sennheiser HD580s. I've gone ALAC rather than FLAC, but it's all the same once the DAC gets to see the data. 

Lovely!

Rocker

RocknRollDave said:

My entire music collection is on my iPod, ripped in Apple's format, not FLAC or WAV. I can certainly tell the difference between lossy and lossless, but for the ease of storage I am perfectly fine with the compromise in sound quality - It's not terrible.
People who talk up the "better" sound quality of vinyl always say "oh but on a proper high quality record player...." ah let me stop you there. I grew up in the 70's and 80's, when vinyl was commonplace as primary format, and most of us had cheap/ entry level record players. They sounded rubbish by today's standards. Sorry if that offends your hipster worldview. My iPod sounds better than my music sounded to me when I was growing up. That's not an opinion, it's a fact of my experience using the gear available to me.

My God man! In the 1970s, a Trio, Pioneer, Thorens, Ariston, Rega record deck cost relatively little, yet they sounded very good when used with a decent budget hi-fi system. A lot of people did not understand how to get the best from the kit they had. Most believed that they would not hear any difference anyway, so they did not bother finding out for themselves. Much the same as today actually.

darthed1981

english_bob said:

Lastly, think about what happens to your physical media once it's all ripped. The law currently (AFAIK) doesn't allow you to own electronic files of stuff you don't own in physical format unless you can show that you got them legitimately (downloaded from iTunes etc.) so while you might be tempted to rip all your CDs then send them off to Music Magpie or somewhere, that's technically illegal. Plus, if it turns out that your rips have errors you can't re-rip from the disc if you don't have it any more. 

As daft as that would be, and however widely believed it is, that isn't the law, at least not in the UK.

The law in the UK is that you have violated copyright by ripping a CD... AT ALL!

They intended to change it to match much of the world where ripping a CD you own is perfectly legal, but while in the process of agreeing it with the industry the government refused to put a small levy on the sale of media (HDDs etc) that would go towards the music industry to mitigate an (arguable) loss, so the industry would not agree to the law change.

What they did go on record to say is that they would never pursue anyone for ripping CDs they have bought.  So rip away, they basically said they don't care.  Sell to music magpie afterwards if you like, the idea that in some way you get rid of the CD you have lost rights is a myth in the UK, technically, all ripping is "illegal" - the law is an ass.

The practical moral issue can only go so far, however, it is a matter of personal choice.  I know a lot of people who have literally never paid for music.  They downloaded from Limewire, then from Pirate Bay, now they use Youtube.  Ironically, given Google's program to compensate creators and allow them to take down illegal uploads (they have a choice) eventually they fell into "legality".

The fundamental thing is we should all be paying for music, whether acquiring it through streaming, on CD, download or Vinyl.  Some greedy sods at the labels would argue if you borrow and album off a mate and listen to it you are violating the terms of purchase, it can go too far in either direction.