Winamp's woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself.

Gornot said:

Studio mixing, however, can be done in greater bit depth and a higher frequency.

I would hope so.

Well, there are cases. In the recent years many artists chose to fund their albums better in order to, for example, later release a DVD-audio disc, which is much better quality than the regular 16bit/44100Hz

That's what I meant when I said FLAC doesn't look good to me either. With today's cheap but efficient integrated audio cards that don't always support anything better than the standard CDA architecture people just choose what they can get, which sucks.

I guess I should've explained it better xD

I have seen some music downloads offered at 96kHz(?).

I've never tried any, as I'm not sure my players will play it (and my ears aren't that good anymore). :)

Gornot said:

Well, there are cases. In the recent years many artists chose to fund their albums better in order to, for example, later release a DVD-audio disc, which is much better quality than the regular 16bit/44100Hz

That's what I meant when I said FLAC doesn't look good to me either. With today's cheap but efficient integrated audio cards that don't always support anything better than the standard CDA architecture people just choose what they can get, which sucks.

I guess I should've explained it better xD

Hi there
I think you've mis-understood the whole idea about LOSSLESS COMPRESSION.

What LOSSLESS COMPRESSION does is take the SOURCE file ==> whatever source it is and then COMPRESSES IT LOSSLESSLY to an OUTPUT file ==>your FLAC file.

The issue here isn't whether FLAC is OK or not but on the nature of the compression.

The original CD sound (whatever you think of the quality or otherwise of the CD standard) is compressed LOSSLESSLY into FLAC and can be re-created again from the FLAC file back into the Cda or even WAV format.

Now the algorithm to compress say a 96 kHz download might be different from the standard 16 bit 41Khz CD so the compressed (Lossless) format could be different -- doesn't have to be FLAC -- but if it can be compressed LOSSLESSLY then that's all I'm saying -- LOSSLESS compression algorithms DO NOT LOSE QUALITY -- they faithfully can re-create the exact source sound (or video) files.

Mp3 CANNOT do this -- any mp3 music of lower than 256kbs compression if listened to on anything other than those hideous bud ear phones --especially the "white" one's where the poor people sitting next to those using these wretched things hear MORE music than the actual wearers -- will be hideously contaminated with all sorts of "artifacts" etc -- and each time you open and save an mp3 file the quality will deteriorate too. This doesn't happen with LOSLESSLY compressed files such as FLAC.

You need to understand the difference between the mathemetics / physics of compression -- this is nothing to do whether you "like" FLAC / OGG or whatever and what you hear as the end result which depends largely on the player and headphones / speaker system..

You need to choose the correct or appropriate compression algorithm for the source stream you want to compress-- for the bog standard CD audio standard 16 bit 41 khz standard FLAC is fine -- for the superior DVD / HQ audio at 96 kHz it might be something else -- I don't know as CD quality is fine for me - especially at my age. There are all sorts of encoding algorithms around -- but the point of the post is to say that a LOSSLESS compression algorithm does just that -- Compresses WITHOUT ANY LOSS or degradation of the original file.

Whether your music device can actually PLAY the compressed data stream is also another matter ==> FLAC is quite well supported as a lossless codec.

Finally even if your music device CAN play the codec the actual quality of the output will depend on the quality of the DAC (Digital ==> Analog converter) in the player (Ears can only hear in analog mode -- I'm not going into mathematics like Fourier analysis etc) but the digital bits of the music need to be converted into bits of "Sine waves" and of course the quality of the headphones / speakers you use as well will also influence the sound quality of the final piece of music being listened to.

(A 50 HZ Mains hum for example is a 50 HZ Sine wave which is an analog signal for example. Music is composed of a very great numbers of these individual sine waves at different frequencies --- designing a good DAC is NOT a trivial exercise and you can pay top dollar for really good quality. In today's "on the move" Ipod generation I doubt if a lot of people have ever heard high quality sound via expensive amplifiers or studio quality speakers -- you'd get a real shock if you plugged your Ipod with your 128 kbs mp3 compressed music into a high grade studio amp and speaker set. !!).

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo, my friend, now I feel bad for being too lazy to explain fully and properly when you go and write such long posts for me. I apologize.

So, yeah, I learned something today. So, FLAC, as any other lossless compression format, does apparently keep the quality of the original CD. The fact is that me not liking FLAC means not liking lossless in general; despite the preservation of quality the filesizes get drastically complicated to manage if I want to move my music to a phone and keep it with me. Add to that the fact that my music collection is HUGE - from jazz and blues artists with my own (old) LP->CD mono transformations, poor MP3s from indie YouTube artists, and tons and tons of other genres from physical CDs, it gets really complicated remembering what files are what (original) quality and where they came from. Keeping as much of it in lossless is nothing short of complicated, especially because a lot of the music I listen to is back from the 30s and 40s and so on...

It is true that , in terms of today's colossal storage devices, external drives etc. it might not be so hard to keep a music library composed of only lossless formats - but I always thought that even lossless compression did have some differences from the original (seeing as how the size of the files can split to half the original) and thought that it wasn't really the thing for me, especially since I like to keep a lot of music on my phone when I'm out and about, so as to not connect it to the PC almost every day to sync and manage it...

But now I'm thinking that I may just re-consider lossless compression, mainly FLAC, to keep on my PC, then perhaps just create an MP3 version to store on mobile devices. It sounds troublesome to keep two versions of the same files organized, though, especially since pretty much all my money is spent almost every day for a new CD or two; I just can't get enough of music xD


Unless, perhaps, I just use MP3 @CBR 320 or VBR @ V0. I heard that the newest build of LAME MP3 is amazing and that it achieves transparency at very low bitrates. I know all too well that it still can't compare to lossless compression, but for the sake of mobility I am very much interested in finding out whether the newest build has been properly tested for compression efficiency.

If it so happens, I would rather store a high quality MP3 and just transfer the files to any device I wish rather than keep two versions of the same files, compressing lossless to MP3 every time I want to change the music I take with me - especially because sometimes I just don't have the time - if I'm urgently called back to work to take an extra shift, or I sleep in, or for any other reason am late wherever I need to go, I like to be able to just jump into something comfortable and get out of the house as soon as possible - waiting for music to convert in case I want to listen to something different isn't really an option.

I also realize that today's PCs are amazingly fast at encoding music, but until that time I have such a PC, and not this decaying dual core, I can only take what I can get.

So perhaps my question is: is there an efficient "middle" between lossless compression (such as the most popular FLAC or APE) and MP3s - like I mentioned, VBR @V0 or CBR @320 - that I can settle on to rip my CD collection and keep just one version of the files to store anywhere I want to go; keeping in mind that I only have a 320GB HDD, a low storage phone (for now), a semi-fast PC for encoding files etc. etc.
Balance is important to me, and I usually much prefer that rather than keeping organization (in this case, of music) complicated but close to "perfection".


EDIT: and let me get back to topic real quick, in case the discussion continues. As far as Winamp goes, yes, it has become a buggy, sluggish bloatware full of crap and unnecessary features... BUT at least one can keep it completely in check during installation. The last time I used Winamp I restricted EVERYTHING to it, and didn't let it do ANYTHING other than playing audio files and reading my meta tags. No encoders, ripping, burning, ShoutCast, video, vis, replay gain, automated library whatever (having experienced a horrible bug in many versions where whenever I edit a tag for a file in Winamp, the file gets deleted... it just disappears "without a trace") - NOTHING other than playback. I don't even allow it access the internet. THEN it works great and uses little RAM and doesn't bug the hell out xD

iTunes for Windows was designed as it is. Nobody in their right mind would actually put the extra effort into making iTunes better on Windows. Same goes for Safari.

On a Mac, iTunes is pretty basic, functional, and efficient, and is enough for what most people need. iTunes' highlight is the Store, no more no less. If it wasn't for that, it would've died a long time ago, or made into something that's actually usable.

Having said that, for basic stuff such as playback and radio, iTunes is enough for an average user, even on Windows... Despite the RAM leaks and bogged performance.

I've been exchanging file formats for many years. As a noob I started out with WMA, then Fraunhofer MP3 at CBR @320 only to realize that the files were far too large for my 80GB HDD (that was back in 2004/2005). From there I used OGG, but as the time passed I didn't like the fact that my (then) current Nokia didn't really like OGG, so after some research I switched to the old Coding Technologies' AAC. Storage always being an issue and never an actual satisfying reason for expenses, I used the HE-AAC profile @64 which was very low but at the time with my old PC sound setup and mobile devices it was enough. Eventually I started using iTunes which provided better quality but still used the HE-AAC profile VBR @80 and until only recently I never thought the sound quality was as bad as it actually was. Most music I ripped still sounded great, but as I am a perfectionist (to a point) when it comes to audio formats, organization, tagging etc. I always disliked having tons of random filetypes in my collection.

After so many years, storage is still important to me (because my country has gone to s**t and deeper, the wages are small and expenses, especially anything that has to do with tech, high), but the actual quality became more important as well, and I decided to just give up on trying to find a perfect solution and instead use a carefully measured balance.

I honestly despise MP3, having heard so much bad quality music through the internet over the years, that I cringe every time I think about using it again... Or at least I would if it wasn't for LAME MP3. Since I change my media players like I change my bed sheets (at least once a week) whenever I get bored or frustrated with some features, intrusions and bugs, so I'm not even going into that, but the last piece of software that I purchased and will probably never regret it buying was Poikosoft's Easy CD-DA Extractor which supports LAME MP3 and tons of other formats, is constantly updated and has perfect tagging and file structuring features.

Still, MP3 @ VBR V0 does sound like a great balance between filesize and quality, even though neither are perfect. And considering the fact that I'm not going to go the Apple way anytime soon (if ever) nor trip the hell out and use a(ny) Linux distro (again) on my PC, AND the fact that I have a tendency to use multiple mobile devices and platforms, MP3 seems like a logical choice to avoid worrying about compatibility... EVER!