Questions on CDR and MP3.

Well, i guess i can try again--at the end, i have nothing to loose.
But then one more thing is if i keep all my songs in Ogg, and my
friend asks for a piece, i'll have to convert to mp3, which will
result in quality loss. BUT...what the hell, main thing is that I
will have highest possible quality with lowest possible filesize.
I'm not in favor to ANY format, i would just like to have songs in top
quality and not such big filesize.

In that case you should investigate Monkey's Audio APE format. This produces
files 50% the size of WAV, with no loss due to compression, and which given
the appropriate codec Exact Audio Copy can handle directly. With the aid of
dbpoweramp you can quickly and easily convert between formats (including
WAV, Unprotected WMA, MP3, OGG, APE - and just about any other format that
takes your fancy)

--

Graham Mayor

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
SleeperMan wrote:

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

toyota liteace wrote:
[...]
2) Can the ordinary music lover tell the difference between a 128
kbps mp3 and 160 kbps or 256 kbps? I already did this but my ear
really can't tell the difference but it may be because of some
particular music or songs.

[...] But why don't you just use Ogg Vorbis? 160kbps Ogg Vorbis
files sound the same as 256kbps (or even 320) mp3 files. I made
the switch, and I must say Ogg is even better than I expected.
[...]

I tried vorbis once in various formats and filesizes came out as
many as 15 M and more...in this case it's better just to leave song
in Wav format.

Ogg is a relatively new format. It isn't too long ago since the
first 1.0 stable version was released. With that, and at quality
setting 5 (the scale is -1 to 10; currently, 5 is 160kbps VBR, and
the standard "good quality" setting is 3, representing 112kbps VBR),
I get *better* quality than a VBR mp3 at the highest possible quality
(256kbps VBR), especially with Metal and Psychedelic Trance music (no
mp3 bitrate can decently encode the base-drum of a P.T. piece). At
the same time, file size is as small as a 160kbps CBR mp3.


Second, if you heard the difference, then you didn't use big enough
rate. Using VBR high quality in mp3 difference is not heard, but it
is if you use 128 kbit CBR or even 160. files come out 5-7M long.

I only use VBR for mp3. But Ogg gives much, much better quality at
the same bitrates, and the same quality at much lower ones. Really,
try the newest version from the Ogg site; you won't be disappointed.
I only use mp3 for hardware mp3-players.


-- Niko

Hey...i've got some OggdropXPD proggy and tried...It's fast, i can say
that... and truly, i can't tell the difference between Wav, mp3 160 CBR ,
mp3 VBR max quality and Ogg q=5., so if you can give me some clues what to
encode, what to listen, i mean i do have pretty decent home stereo (i don't
listen on computer speakers).

Second, i encoded mp3 with two programs: CDEx and Easy CD DA extractor. Can
you tell anything about those two - which is suppose to be better etc.... i
know that one is free and other payable, but still...CDEx is way faster with
more or less same settiings (VBR highest quality), so i assume it's not that
much quality...?

Graham Mayor wrote:
Well, i guess i can try again--at the end, i have nothing to loose.
But then one more thing is if i keep all my songs in Ogg, and my
friend asks for a piece, i'll have to convert to mp3, which will
result in quality loss. BUT...what the hell, main thing is that I
will have highest possible quality with lowest possible filesize.
I'm not in favor to ANY format, i would just like to have songs in
top quality and not such big filesize.

In that case you should investigate Monkey's Audio APE format. This
produces files 50% the size of WAV, with no loss due to compression,
and which given the appropriate codec Exact Audio Copy can handle
directly. With the aid of dbpoweramp you can quickly and easily
convert between formats (including WAV, Unprotected WMA, MP3, OGG,
APE - and just about any other format that takes your fancy)

So APE is losseless format?
Still, 15M instead 30 is pretty big.

I assume you deal with mp3 ---maybe you could tell in favor of any program
(like i wrote in other thread) between CDEx and EasyCD DA Extractor (if you
worked with it)? Or what is about OGG in your opinion?

SleeperMan wrote:
Graham Mayor wrote:
Well, i guess i can try again--at the end, i have nothing to loose.
But then one more thing is if i keep all my songs in Ogg, and my
friend asks for a piece, i'll have to convert to mp3, which will
result in quality loss. BUT...what the hell, main thing is that I
will have highest possible quality with lowest possible filesize.
I'm not in favor to ANY format, i would just like to have songs in
top quality and not such big filesize.

In that case you should investigate Monkey's Audio APE format. This
produces files 50% the size of WAV, with no loss due to compression,
and which given the appropriate codec Exact Audio Copy can handle
directly. With the aid of dbpoweramp you can quickly and easily
convert between formats (including WAV, Unprotected WMA, MP3, OGG,
APE - and just about any other format that takes your fancy)

So APE is losseless format?
Still, 15M instead 30 is pretty big.

I assume you deal with mp3 ---maybe you could tell in favor of any
program (like i wrote in other thread) between CDEx and EasyCD DA
Extractor (if you worked with it)? Or what is about OGG in your
opinion?

Ape is completely lossless, so I tend to use it for stuff I want to store on
hard drive. Try it! http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm ;
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-monkeys.htm and
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

As for converting to mp3, if the apps use the same codecs, then provided the
rip is good, there is no difference between the applications. They should
produce identical files. The problems occur when the source disc is harder
to read. For this sort of stuff there is nothing better than EAC. CDex has a
paranoia rip setting which seems to work quite well. It also creates a
sensible directory structure which makes things simpler when transferring to
a stand-alone mp3 player. Easy CD DA and OGG are answers to problems I don't
have. I therefore hesitate to comment on them.

Frankly I tend to avoid mp3 like the plague. I can see its convenience for
in-car use and for portable 'walkman' type players, but for serious
recordings, on good quality doemstic audio equipment, I prefer to use loss
free uncompressed formats. Given that most of what I do with audio concerns
the transcribing of vinyl to CDR, I don't see the point of impairing the
signal further.

--

Graham Mayor

Graham Mayor wrote:
SleeperMan wrote:
Graham Mayor wrote:
Well, i guess i can try again--at the end, i have nothing to loose.
But then one more thing is if i keep all my songs in Ogg, and my
friend asks for a piece, i'll have to convert to mp3, which will
result in quality loss. BUT...what the hell, main thing is that I
will have highest possible quality with lowest possible filesize.
I'm not in favor to ANY format, i would just like to have songs in
top quality and not such big filesize.

In that case you should investigate Monkey's Audio APE format. This
produces files 50% the size of WAV, with no loss due to compression,
and which given the appropriate codec Exact Audio Copy can handle
directly. With the aid of dbpoweramp you can quickly and easily
convert between formats (including WAV, Unprotected WMA, MP3, OGG,
APE - and just about any other format that takes your fancy)

So APE is losseless format?
Still, 15M instead 30 is pretty big.

I assume you deal with mp3 ---maybe you could tell in favor of any
program (like i wrote in other thread) between CDEx and EasyCD DA
Extractor (if you worked with it)? Or what is about OGG in your
opinion?

Ape is completely lossless, so I tend to use it for stuff I want to
store on hard drive. Try it! http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm ;
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-monkeys.htm and
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

As for converting to mp3, if the apps use the same codecs, then
provided the rip is good, there is no difference between the
applications. They should produce identical files. The problems occur
when the source disc is harder to read. For this sort of stuff there
is nothing better than EAC. CDex has a paranoia rip setting which
seems to work quite well. It also creates a sensible directory
structure which makes things simpler when transferring to a
stand-alone mp3 player. Easy CD DA and OGG are answers to problems I
don't have. I therefore hesitate to comment on them.

Frankly I tend to avoid mp3 like the plague. I can see its
convenience for in-car use and for portable 'walkman' type players,
but for serious recordings, on good quality doemstic audio equipment,
I prefer to use loss free uncompressed formats. Given that most of
what I do with audio concerns the transcribing of vinyl to CDR, I
don't see the point of impairing the signal further.

Good thinking. Thanks for opinion. (i'll try ape)

SleeperMan wrote:
[...]

Hey...i've got some OggdropXPD proggy and tried...It's fast, i can say
that... and truly, i can't tell the difference between Wav, mp3 160
CBR , mp3 VBR max quality and Ogg q=5., so if you can give me some
clues what to encode, what to listen, i mean i do have pretty decent
home stereo (i don't listen on computer speakers).

Hmm. Try AC/DC's "Hell's Bells". The Bell can't be encoded in mp3, while
in Ogg it sounds much better. Second, the base-drum of most of the
Psychedelic Trance pieces sound awfull in mp3 on my Acoustic Research
sub-woofer. Ogg encodes them right (even in lower quality VBR).


Second, i encoded mp3 with two programs: CDEx and Easy CD DA xtractor.
Can you tell anything about those two - which is suppose to be better
etc.... i know that one is free and other payable, but still...CDEx is
way faster with more or less same settiings (VBR highest quality), so
i assume it's not that much quality...?

When mp3fying wavefiles, I only use Lame. In the past, I used the Xing
encoder that comes with AudioCatalyst, but Lame sounds better. Way, way
back, I used an encoder whose name I forgot. It was really good; it did
*real* mp3-encoding, no approximations whatsoever (or maybe only a few), but
encoding of a 5 min track took over 2 hours. Although sound quality was
excellent, I stopped using it since it took forever to encode a whole CD. I
don't remember the name; the only thing I remember is that the program was
declared "illegal" for some reason.

As for the programs you mention, I never used them. But aren't they
CD-rippers? I think they use an external encoder.


-- Niko

default wrote:
[...]
Have you run into problems with equipment or software when it comes to
ogg vorbis?

Seems to me it is a better format, but I have trouble converting them
to audio for burning. Then there is relatively little ogg on
fileshare or usenet.

I simply use the OggDrop utility (it can both encode from wav to ogg, as
well as decode from ogg to wav). As an alternative, you can use the
"DiskWritter" plugin that comes with WinAmp. In the latter case, don't
forget to disable "Manual Playlist Advance" in WinAmp's prefferences, so you
won't have to click "Play" for each track. Also, disable the equalizer as
well as any DSPs.


-- Niko

Graham Mayor wrote:
[...]
In that case you should investigate Monkey's Audio APE format. This
produces files 50% the size of WAV, with no loss due to compression,
and which given the appropriate codec Exact Audio Copy can handle
directly. With the aid of dbpoweramp you can quickly and easily
convert between formats (including WAV, Unprotected WMA, MP3, OGG, APE
- and just about any other format that takes your fancy)

Hmm, it's a "Zip For Audio". But since it compresses better, I would say
"bzip2 For Audio" (http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/).

Still, the compression algorithm seems to be highly optimized for audio.


-- Niko

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
Graham Mayor wrote:
[...]
In that case you should investigate Monkey's Audio APE format. This
produces files 50% the size of WAV, with no loss due to compression,
and which given the appropriate codec Exact Audio Copy can handle
directly. With the aid of dbpoweramp you can quickly and easily
convert between formats (including WAV, Unprotected WMA, MP3, OGG,
APE
- and just about any other format that takes your fancy)

Hmm, it's a "Zip For Audio". But since it compresses better, I would
say "bzip2 For Audio" (http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/).

Still, the compression algorithm seems to be highly optimized for
audio.

If we assume that this is lossless compression, then does it integrate with
applications by means of Windows codecs like the suggested compressors, or
is it some fringe cul-de-sac? For those using Windows at least, APE is the
best of the lossless compression utilities for audio.

--

Graham Mayor