# Lossy vs lossless formats / audibility threshold?



## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

How big difference is there between lossless formats like flac/wave and an ordinary mp3 file (lossy)? Is there any benefit in stuffing your iPod full of lossless audio? Will the improvement with lossless audio be significant enough to justify the larger file size? If you only got a limited amount of songs on your iPod (or if you by chance using a classic version) it might not be any concern at all. Neither if you running a USB harddrive etc etc. However if you're using a iPhone or iPod touch the disk space is kinda limited, especially if you got over 2000 songs stored on it. No way I got enough space for lossless (and I refuse using a iPod classic btw...)

Alternitive 2: Using lossy formats. Mp3 and AAC are two formats that's commonly used and supported by many headunits out there. Lossy means something been taken away from the original file. A lossy format compresses the audio file with different algorithms to reduce file size, depending on compression level and format a lossy audio file might be 5-10 times smaller than a lossless (file size differs between lossless formats as well). 

So what's been taken away? How audible is it? There are definitely differences between lossy formats and there's a big audible difference between bitrates (higher compression = lower bitrate), at least at the lower range. For the record there are no audible or measurable difference between lossless formats. The very definition of lossless is that they have retained all available information from the source file. Some people claim to hear differences between flac and wav files, well... there are none.

Using lame codec for mp3s. You can use variable bitrate (VBR) and constant bitrate (CBR). VBR is probably the better choise but I chose CBR for testing purposes now. VBR v0-v2 use bitrates around 200kbit+ and are usually 'good enough'. AAC is another format that claim higher compression than mp3 with retained sound quality. Not used it much, did try a 128k AAC vs a 128k~ avg equivalent VBR mp3. Didn't hear that much difference between them, never measured them though...

Did some measurements on how different bitrates compare to the lossless source file and subtracted the 'missing' information and compared it as a waveform to the original file. Tested myself with a ABX plugin, had difficulty discerning any differences above ~200kbit/s or so. Listened through pair of "decent" Sennheiser headphones from a SB Audigy4 Xtrememusic soundcard. The test only tells you how much my hearing sucks so it's not a "fact"...

Made a neat little graphs of the result, tried 5 different songs (flac vs X bitrates). Two tries with each song equals 10x A/B choices/bitrate. AS you can see results were random once I hit 224kbit/s. Now that just me, but you should do the same, test yourself and see if you can hear the difference.

(Actually it was version "3.99.5", audacity lied xD)

*Edit: PICTURE SOMEHOW GOT DELETED FROM PHOTOBUCKET...*

And here the measurements (Audio file: Eagles - Hotel California (Unplugged).

This is a spectrogram of the different bitrates, 192k CBR/256k CBR and FLAC. The lack of "blue" stuff at the top of the mp3 spectrograms indicate that high frequency information has been removed from compression. 320k doing pretty good vs the flac.



















These two is another representation of the spectrogram. This shows the lowpass function of the mp3 file at ~20kHz (above - the 320k CBR codec). Note that the graphs are scaled differently ^^



















This is the subtracted "lost information" from a flac to 320k CBR conversion. Compared to the orginal waveform it ain't "that" much. It's very audible if you listen to the extracted audio only, but quite inaudible (IMO) once mixed with the flac (subtraction mixed). 

It can easily be done by phase inversion and mixing two tracks in Audacity fyi.


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

Good post! I'm sticking to my AAC files though .
I would even go to flac if my HU let me.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Wesayso said:


> Good post! I'm sticking to my AAC files though .
> I would even go to flac if my HU let me.


Flac is alot better than storing wav files in any case. Kinda agree, flac support would be really nice to have actually. I'll try encode some AAC tomorrow


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## co_leonard (Aug 14, 2009)

Tried the same test with "Hotel California" and did the auditioning in my car.

I have the original "Hell Freezes Over" CD. I also used LAME to encode "Hotel California" to 320k CBR MP3 "-q 0."

To my ears, when the car is moving and I have tire noise, engine noise, A/C noise and ambient noise from other cars, 320k MP3 is indistinguishable from the original CD.

But when I park my car in a cool, quiet place at night and listen with the engine off, A/C off and windows closed and do critical listening, differences are audible and obvious. 

With the MP3, I detect a loss of air and ambience. Soundstage narrows a bit and gets shallower. Vocals sound thinner. Bass (the big bass drum that sets the beat for the song) is just as loud but less defined. Biggest difference is the envelope (ADSR) gets muddy. Its actually not that bad, a lot of the "feeling" and "emotion" one gets from listening to that song is still present.

If all I had to listen to in my car with my present gear and in its present state of tune was the 320k CBR version, I could live the rest of my life happy.

That is, until I listen to the original CD.


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## co_leonard (Aug 14, 2009)

I'll try again with other songs.


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

Hanatsu said:


> Flac is alot better than storing wav files in any case. Kinda agree, flac support would be really nice to have actually. I'll try encode some AAC tomorrow


Can't wait to see that! I think AAC will keep more of that airy feeling up top.
And I have to admit, I too felt the bass was there with mp3 but not as defined. But that was a purely subjective observation. I can't prove that. 
(all in my mind I guess )


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

For the record. The 'Abx test' was done with 5 different songs from diferent genres. I can do some listening inside the car instead, headphones might not be ideal to perform a "soundstage" test idk.

I have a friend who can hear completely crazy things like when I moved my TV like 4cm (he didn't know I had done that) and he came to my house the following day and listened to some tracks. He said "what have you done to your system??. Sounds like crap today"" The only thing I had done was to move the TV slightly so I moved it back and he felt it sounded good again lol. 

I couldn't tell the difference. I'm quite sensitive to changes in tonality but I feel I 'fix' that with EQ. So what I'm trying to say is that I'm no audiophile, can't hear anything above 16,5kHz so HF differences doesn't matter to me that much 

I'll try some AAC later and see how it compares 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Generally, I find loss of dynamics with mp3 even at 320 vs original cd. The focal tuning disks on here are AAC and they sound absolutely stunning. Much better than a lot of cd's. Of course its been recorded really well in the first place.


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## 14642 (May 19, 2008)

Hanatsu said:


> How big difference is there between lossless formats like flac/wave and an ordinary mp3 file (lossy)? Is there any benefit in stuffing your iPod full of lossless audio? Will the improvement with lossless audio be significant enough to justify the larger file size? If you only got a limited amount of songs on your iPod (or if you by chance using a classic version) it might not be any concern at all. Neither if you running a USB harddrive etc etc. However if you're using a iPhone or iPod touch the disk space is kinda limited, especially if you got over 2000 songs stored on it. No way I got enough space for lossless (and I refuse using a iPod classic btw...)
> 
> Alternitive 2: Using lossy formats. Mp3 and AAC are two formats that's commonly used and supported by many headunits out there. Lossy means something been taken away from the original file. A lossy format compresses the audio file with different algorithms to reduce file size, depending on compression level and format a lossy audio file might be 5-10 times smaller than a lossless (file size differs between lossless formats as well).
> 
> ...


Nice post. I have a similar presentation that I do for dealer trainings that includes some audio demonstrations and ends with a session listening to the "missing information". Keep in mind that even this presentation is misleading because the information that's missing has been carefully chosen by the developers of the algorithms to be difficult to distinguish. If you listen carefully to the result of subtracting one selection from the other, you'll hear that the missing stuff is high frequency information that happens at the same time as a much louder and lower frequency event. 

There's also some phase distortion that happens at lower bit rates, but at 320, even a phase graph sampled various points in the track is so close that one could call it "the same". I use "Flyin' Shoes" by Lyle Lovett for this because there's a lot of high frequency ambient information. Typical audiophile complaints about data compression (at least the ones that are somewhat credible) are about a loss of space between instruments.

My presentation also includes a comparison of dynamic range for the various sample rates because there's a bunch of confusion about dynamic range compression and data compression. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding is often made even by record producers and musicians, and there's no dynamic range compression in these data compression algorithms. 

I find that 256kMP3 is really difficult to distinguish from CD quality and 320k is indistinguishable. 128k MP3 does sound different and kinda yucky, but mostly because of the artifacts.


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## co_leonard (Aug 14, 2009)

That's the MP3 psy-model at work.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

co_leonard said:


> Tried the same test with "Hotel California" and did the auditioning in my car.
> 
> I have the original "Hell Freezes Over" CD. I also used LAME to encode "Hotel California" to 320k CBR MP3 "-q 0."
> 
> ...



Let's see some data! 

Great job, Hanatsu.


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

Hanatsu said:


> I'll try some AAC later and see how it compares
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


May I suggest using Nero AAC encoder 1.5.1? Nero AAC Codec - Technologies


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## Fricasseekid (Apr 19, 2011)

Scrizzled


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## manowar_gub (Dec 18, 2012)

prefer to nero aac 1.0.0.2 @ 320 kb/sec (this version do not cut off 18 khz+ freq) - can't hear difference with wav)


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## co_leonard (Aug 14, 2009)

MarkZ said:


> Let's see some data!
> 
> Great job, Hanatsu.


Hard to get data for that. All I've got are my ears. Hehe..


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

manowar_gub said:


> prefer to nero aac 1.0.0.2 @ 320 kb/sec (this version do not cut off 18 khz+ freq) - can't hear difference with wav)


Nero aac encoder 1.5.1 shouldn't either, at least not on the 370 kbps i used:









Edit: just checked and you're right. There is a lowpass at ~20 Khz with Nero 1.5.1 @ 320 CBR.
I always use ~ 375 kbps VBR and at that level there is no low pass. Although Pioneer mentions in the specs it will only run AAC at 320 my Pioneer CD UB100 USB will run up to 400. But at 400 I get the occasional READ pause so I stuck with ~ 375 kbps VBR._ (Quality setting at 0.9)_


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Andy Wehmeyer said:


> I find that 256kMP3 is really difficult to distinguish from CD quality and 320k is indistinguishable. 128k MP3 does sound different and kinda yucky, but mostly because of the artifacts.


That's good enough for me. My test wasn't a blind a/b, I should have mentioned that and given my mindset, there must have been some psycho acoustics at play.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

co_leonard said:


> Hard to get data for that. All I've got are my ears. Hehe..


Hanatsu didn't have a problem...


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Wesayso said:


> Nero aac encoder 1.5.1 shouldn't either, at least not on the 370 kbps i use:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



FWIW, Lame allows you to select the lowpass frequency. You can choose 20kHz if you want. The reason they lowpass is that it's evidently more difficult (ie. requires higher bitrates) to encode very high frequencies, so they choose a compromise. IIRC, the V0 preset lowpasses at 19.5kHz, so obviously it's not going to have a big impact.


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

MarkZ said:


> FWIW, Lame allows you to select the lowpass frequency. You can choose 20kHz if you want. The reason they lowpass is that it's evidently more difficult (ie. requires higher bitrates) to encode very high frequencies, so they choose a compromise. IIRC, the V0 preset lowpasses at 19.5kHz, so obviously it's not going to have a big impact.


I know, I just missed the fact that AAC at 320 CBR also had a lowpass active. Maybe I forgot about that because I always run higher bitrates.


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## co_leonard (Aug 14, 2009)

MarkZ said:


> Hanatsu didn't have a problem...


I see. In that case, to each his own. If there's something I learned here in Diyma, it's respect for the opinion of others. If something can be quantified with hard data gathered through scientific measurements, I'm all for it. But in the matter of PERSONAL TASTE, everyone is correct. Like that song that goes "I say pohtahto, you say pow-tay-toe."


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## 14642 (May 19, 2008)

Personal taste should be stated as "I like" or "I prefer" or "I believe". Facts ought to be stated as "it is".


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Would have posted further testing, but I'm having issues with my stationary computer. Doing a RAID reconstruction after some supposed disk failure idk...

I'll post it tomorrow, included some comparisons of VBR/CBR Mp3, AAC and OGG. OGG ain't available for most if not all headunits but it can still be used by CAR-PC owners so wth


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

co_leonard said:


> I see. In that case, to each his own. If there's something I learned here in Diyma, it's respect for the opinion of others. If something can be quantified with hard data gathered through scientific measurements, I'm all for it. But in the matter of PERSONAL TASTE, everyone is correct. Like that song that goes "I say pohtahto, you say pow-tay-toe."


Personal taste takes a backseat to discriminability. If you can't hear a difference between A and B, then you sure can't prefer one over the other.


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## Darth SQ (Sep 17, 2010)

Subscribed.
Very usefull and informational thread guys. 


Bret
PPI-ART COLLECTOR


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

Hanatsu said:


> Would have posted further testing, but I'm having issues with my stationary computer. Doing a RAID reconstruction after some supposed disk failure idk...
> 
> I'll post it tomorrow, included some comparisons of VBR/CBR Mp3, AAC and OGG. OGG ain't available for most if not all headunits but it can still be used by CAR-PC owners so wth


No wma love? It was the specs of my CD-UB100 USB stating it could play wma CBR at 384 kbps that made me try higher bitrate aac. I never found a wma encoder that was any good though.

I suspect it all comes down to how inaudible the artifacts are that remain at higher bitrates. All formats will still be lossy so it comes down to the psy model to determine what is acceptable to the end user.

I don't think we will be able to show much with substracting the lossy format from the original. They will all have a difference signal left. It really comes down to what it takes out/hides and how audible that is to the specific end user.

We could try our own listening tests with mp3, aac and ogg coded back to wave or flac to hide the extension. You'd have to disable the low pass as well though to hide it from spectrum analisers. And that could use up valuable bits otherwise used for quality. (one of my reasons to go for higher bitrates after abx tests, just to be save)

Is it possible to encode mp3 at higher than 320 kbps?



Andy Wehmeyer said:


> There's also some phase distortion that happens at lower bit rates, but at 320, even a phase graph sampled various points in the track is so close that one could call it "the same". I use "Flyin' Shoes" by Lyle Lovett for this because there's a lot of high frequency ambient information. Typical audiophile complaints about data compression (at least the ones that are somewhat credible) are about a loss of space between instruments.


I'm still wondering if phase differences could have been the reason for my perception of mp3 @ 320 beeing different in the bass output. Last time I had mp3 material it was a downloaded file encoded at 320 but not by me. So there's no telling how it was made and with what encoder/settings. But I wanted to try the song and it seemed not as tight in the bass. Muddy and bloathed if you will. I bought the flac version later on and encoded that to aac and forgot about it. It is entirely possible some sort of EQ was used on the mp3 to make that difference, say a loudness curve. 

It's not that I always immediatly hear a difference between files. It can also be a feel experience for me after listening for a while. The feeling I'm missing something. I've had that same experience in my home when my CD player was broken. While it was away I played everything trough my PC to the stereo and I was quite satisfied at first. But after a while, without thinking about it I felt 'like I was missing something in my music. Untill then I never sat down and listen for it, It just wasn't the same as I was used to.
I couldn't point a finger at it. When I got my CD player back (a month and a half later!) it felt right again. This was in ~ 2000/2001 and I had a standard creative soundblaster soundcard at the time.

Thinking about it some more I think I may have discarded mp3 for the wrong reasons. I had mp3's encoded with lame (the latest version that was available at the time) and used MP3 Gain to make the songs equal loudness at ~89-91 dB. I later found out that MP3 gain was adding a loudness curve. I had some sine waves encoded to mp3 at equal loudness and checking them with MP3 gain showed that they were not considered equal. It showed lower values for the bass and higher ones than the typical midrange sine waves. I switched to replay gain (possible audio degradation I know but I hate having to constantly adjust volume between songs) in the encoding stages but had allready made the choise to go for aac after spending some time on hydrogenaudio.org doing some tests and my own abx. At medium bitrates I was able to pick out the mp3. The aac encoded files fooled me more often. That's when I went for aac at the highest bitrate I could run.

I can allready see someone like MarkZ respond to this with his abx frame of mind saying I'm wasting space or something  (not intended as an insult). But the tests I did were with headphones and not in my car. My car sounds different from my headphones and that's a good reason for me to use higher settings than I can spot on the headphones. At least in my car the stage sounds bigger, bass is more extended. I can feel the bass in my body and separation is way better. I like playing music in the car better than on my headphones(!). Due to the fact it sounds more real to me. Sometimes I really like a song on my headphones that sound way different than I expected in the car. The stage would be smaller or it would sound like it was recorded in a small room... I don't always hear that as well on my headphones. _For the record, my headphones are German Maestro GMP 8.35D driven by a Asus Xonar ST soundcard, songs played by JRiver Media Center 17.0.189._

If I could play flac for a reasonable amount of money on this HU I would. So why not take the _"best encoder I liked"_ and encode the signal the highest I can?


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## bbfoto (Aug 28, 2005)

Thanks for starting this thread.  I know there are a bazillion of these types of threads, but always wonder if they are "dated"...

Have the quality of the encoders/algorithms, and also the codecs themselves changed very much in the last few years?

I'm also interested in what the real-world differences would be between CBR and VBR MP3 files...and what about "ABR" MP3?

Andy, thanks for your contribution to this topic as well. I know you're a very busy dude, but I've been meaning to ask if you might have a List of Demo Tracks that you could share with us (in a new thread, when you have the time)?

I'd love to know what tracks you like to use for testing/evaluating? 

Subscribed...


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

bbfoto said:


> Thanks for starting this thread.  I know there are a bazillion of these types of threads, but always wonder if they are "dated"...
> 
> Have the quality of the encoders/algorithms, and also the codecs themselves changed very much in the last few years?
> 
> ...


The codecs has improved over the years, quite much actually. ABR (avg bitrate) is a method to encode VBR mp3s.

To wesayso; Forgot about wma, I'll include it as well... later 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

Hanatsu said:


> The codecs has improved over the years, quite much actually. ABR (avg bitrate) is a method to encode VBR mp3s.
> 
> To wesayso; Forgot about wma, I'll include it as well... later
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


Nero's latest aac is 3 years old now? I guess they are pleased or abandoned the project.  The previous upgrades were ~2 years apart...


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

First off. Don't take my ABX testing as facts, it's just what I hear. Someone else might have better hearing what I have and therefore take my conclusions from the ABX test as my opinion!

Ok. Been at this for 2-3 hours or so now and I reached 'some' conclusions. Tested 128k Mp3 with LAME codec (CBR-VBR-VBR(ABR)), AAC Q105 (128k~), OGG Q4 (128k~) and WMA (128k). WMA codec was a little tricky, I couldn't find any info on WHAT version I actually used. Used FFmpeg's lastest codec pack with .wma format included, from what I could understand v2, v7-v9 is basically the same codec with different DRM routines, idk... WMA do have a version 10 but I couldn't use or find it for some reason. All other formats used the lastest codec version available.

Anyway here's the result:

*128k spectrogram, standard settings are used. Notice how ABR and CBR look similar and the other 3 looks slightly different. AAC have a interesting "soft clip" (dunno what to call it) to the lowpass function. WMA retains some of the HF data but it's a mess and sounds worse than all the other formats with obvious distortion.*










*Here's a zoomed in version of the same picture:*










*Here are the higher resolution 256k data. AAC and OGG retains the most HF data between the formats. Lame MP3 codec do allow raising the lowpass frequency though. It's not a good idea at lower bitrates though as shown by the next picture (after this one).*










*Tried raising lowpass frequency from 15kHz (standard) to 17kHz. Resulted in less data lower in frequency, can be seen at 10kHz to the left in the picture below. (Fyi, changing lowpass within LAME can be done in this command): 

lame -V6 --vbr-new -b112 --lowpass 17 -q0 - "%f" *










*Did an ABX test with a Foobar2000 plugin and here's some random results:*










*File size at equivalent quality, not that informative since it must be relation to the perceived sound quality of each format (size in MB)*










*Conclusion:*

As seen from the ABX test, I had problems hearing difference between a Q4 OGG and flac. Q4 OGG is about the same size as a 128k VBR Mp3 file and without doubt the best sounding codec I tried here. AAC takes the second spot after careful listening, VBR Mp3 closely after.

CBR and WMA at 128k was BAD. Especially WMA, sounded worst of all codecs at 128k. Muddy in the higher frequencies and audible distortion. At 256k all codecs sounded as good as the flac file, except the WMA (I can swear I did hear differences but not enough I could pass the ABX test lol... that sounded stupid =/

At 128k I rank the codecs in the following order (there was clearly an audible difference between VBR v6 and CBR as shown by ABX test):

1. OGG (by far best)
2. AAC (sounds decent, slightly distorted low-end and audible highend muddiness)
3. VBR v6 Mp3 (similar to AAC, but slightly worse)
4. VBR/ABR and CBR sounded similar and bad overall
5. WMA was worst in all aspects, also the biggest file size.

At 256k since all formats was pretty much similar to me, I rank them by file size and usability (can't use OGG in today's headunits...)

1. VBR Mp3 (v0)
2. AAC
3. CBR
4. VBR/ABR
5. OGG
6. WMA (again biggest format)

Finally, here a spectrogram of a FLAC and an OGG at Q7 (~256k)


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

In one word: dedication!
In more words: awesome job!


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Forgot to mention. This was tested at my home audio system and not with headphones this time, XTZ Class A 100-D3 amp and 3-way DYI Scan Illuminator towers.

*I consider* VBR v0-v1 audible equivalent to lossless (know you might not agree, but I hear no difference). There are a difference, a measured difference so I will not argue if you say there are one, cause there really is a difference... yep ^^ 

If I were to use lower bitrates in the car, I'd go for AAC (since I don't got OGG support). With higher bitrates I'd go for VBR v1, final conclusion!


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## WestCo (Aug 19, 2012)

Hanatsu said:


> Flac is alot better than storing wav files in any case. Kinda agree, flac support would be really nice to have actually. I'll try encode some AAC tomorrow


Are there any good portable flac players with optical or digital output?


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

WestCo said:


> Are there any good portable flac players with optical or digital output?


Hm... good question. You can use an iPod with AIFF (apple lossless). It will basically do the same thing flac does. But you need to convert the files.


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## WestCo (Aug 19, 2012)

Hanatsu said:


> Hm... good question. You can use an iPod with AIFF (apple lossless). It will basically do the same thing flac does. But you need to convert the files.


Fantastic! Thank you very much!


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## bbfoto (Aug 28, 2005)

WestCo said:


> Are there any good portable flac players with optical or digital output?


One of the better ones (if you've got the cash) that doesn't require any add-ons or work-arounds is the iBasso DX100.

Hanatsu, once again, THANK YOU for all of your time to do these tests and post your findings! 

AWESOME!


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

Hanatsu said:


> Forgot to mention. This was tested at my home audio system and not with headphones this time, XTZ Class A 100-D3 amp and 3-way DYI Scan Illuminator towers.
> 
> *I consider* VBR v0-v1 audible equivalent to lossless (know you might not agree, but I hear no difference). There are a difference, a measured difference so I will not argue if you say there are one, cause there really is a difference... yep ^^
> 
> If I were to use lower bitrates in the car, I'd go for AAC (since I don't got OGG support). With higher bitrates I'd go for VBR v1, final conclusion!


So my choise to go with highest bitrate VBR AAC my HU can play seems still valid. Best quality a lossy file can give me if I don't care about space.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Wesayso said:


> So my choise to go with highest bitrate VBR AAC my HU can play seems still valid. Best quality a lossy file can give me if I don't care about space.


Indeed. If you hear the difference, that's the way to go!


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## WestCo (Aug 19, 2012)

bbfoto said:


> One of the better ones (if you've got the cash) that doesn't require any add-ons or work-arounds is the iBasso DX100.
> 
> Hanatsu, once again, THANK YOU for all of your time to do these tests and post your findings!
> 
> AWESOME!


I will have to keep that one in mind, the specs are impressive :O)

I been quite accustomed to buying cd's and transferring them over to ubs or micro cards. But does anyone know of a place where I can buy apple lossless files or flac's instead of just mp3's online? Can itunes do that? I haven't used itunes in years, but I last I checked I only saw mp3's.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

I think the standard format for bought iTunes songs is 256k AAC (.m4v)

No lossless option available on iTunes for now (pretty certain...)


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

o:-x


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Hanatsu said:


> The codecs has improved over the years, quite much actually. ABR (avg bitrate) is a method to encode VBR mp3s.
> 
> To wesayso; Forgot about wma, I'll include it as well... later
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


I actually don't think they've changed much. The last major change in the LAME encoder occurred about 7 years ago, IIRC.

Also, ABR usually refers to as "adaptive bit rate", which is supposedly a more streamlined version of what VBR was supposed to be. I see it attached to video encoders sometimes that use Nero AAC or Fraunhoffer... I don't think it's a LAME setting, but I might be wrong about that.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Hanatsu said:


> Forgot to mention. This was tested at my home audio system and not with headphones this time, XTZ Class A 100-D3 amp and 3-way DYI Scan Illuminator towers.
> 
> *I consider* VBR v0-v1 audible equivalent to lossless (know you might not agree, but I hear no difference). There are a difference, a measured difference so I will not argue if you say there are one, cause there really is a difference... yep ^^
> 
> If I were to use lower bitrates in the car, I'd go for AAC (since I don't got OGG support). With higher bitrates I'd go for VBR v1, final conclusion!


Nice job! 

I'd suggest two things... 

1) test V2  It's a popular setting for a lot of people.
2) I'd like to hear dissenters give suggestions of program material that they feel is particularly revealing of these differences. The problem that people are going to have with your results is: "Yeah, there's no difference between mp3 and wav with *that* music, but there's a big difference with *this* music."


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## co_leonard (Aug 14, 2009)

MarkZ said:


> Personal taste takes a backseat to discriminability. If you can't hear a difference between A and B, then you sure can't prefer one over the other.





Andy Wehmeyer said:


> Personal taste should be stated as "I like" or "I prefer" or "I believe". Facts ought to be stated as "it is".


I agree.

In my post above (#4), I describe my personal taste as the differences I hear between one song in an original cd versus a high-bitrate mp3 I made of the same song.

My head unit can play both mp3 and wav. The fact that parts of the song are discarded by mp3's lossy algorithm is reason enough for me to prefer the wav format.

*To MarkZ:* I genuinely applaud Hanatsu's efforts to provide data that justifies storing music in smaller high bitrate mp3 format versus larger lossless formats for *devices of limited capacity, such as the iPhone or iPod Touch he mentioned in his first post*. If I provide the "data" you are requesting, I am most certain it will validate Hanatsu's findings. But I have plenty of disk space (an external 250GB hard drive) and I can hear the difference. Besides, it is my car and my ears. So there is no need. You store your music the way you see fit and I'll do the same with mine. Peace!


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

MarkZ said:


> I actually don't think they've changed much. The last major change in the LAME encoder occurred about 7 years ago, IIRC.
> 
> Also, ABR usually refers to as "adaptive bit rate", which is supposedly a more streamlined version of what VBR was supposed to be. I see it attached to video encoders sometimes that use Nero AAC or Fraunhoffer... I don't think it's a LAME setting, but I might be wrong about that.


Ah I misinterpreted the ABR meaning. Thanks for correcting that.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

co_leonard said:


> I agree.
> 
> In my post above (#4), I describe my personal taste as the differences I hear between one song in an original cd versus a high-bitrate mp3 I made of the same song.
> 
> ...


I think both Andy and Mark had issues with our posts on account of us voicing personal preferences. I don't listen to any burnt cd's that's just my preference. On the forum as long as that preference can be backed with data its fine. This forum is not big on subjectivity as that can quickly spiral out of hand. That's why I retracted my statement and backed off. But if its any consolation you've got company, cause we both prefer original CD's.


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## co_leonard (Aug 14, 2009)

sqnut said:


> I think both Andy and Mark had issues with our posts on account of us voicing personal preferences. I don't listen to any burnt cd's that's just my preference. On the forum as long as that preference can be backed with data its fine. This forum is not big on subjectivity as that can quickly spiral out of hand. That's why I retracted my statement and backed off. But if its any consolation you've got company, cause we both prefer original CD's.


Thanks! Yup, I do prefer original CDs. 

*Hypothetical scenario:* I wonder how high a MECA SQ competitor would score tuning his system with a 320k mp3 version of the official "Chesky Ultimate Demonstration Disc" judging tracks, just because his opinion is that is indistinguishable from the original CD, when all other competitors are tuning with the original CD. 

I've enjoyed mild success competing in hardcore SQ competitions since 2007. Tuning with mp3s, however high the bitrate and however excellent the compression algorithm, would in my opinion, be unwise.

Unless, of course, the SQ competitor can successfully convince all other SQ competitors, all the judges as well as the entire MECA community that their mp3s sound just like the original CD. And the chances of that happening are slim. I could be wrong, though.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

For 99% of the time I'm listening to music in the car, I do it while I'm driving. Never suggested that you should enter a hardcore SQ competition and use lossy audio files for playback. There would be no reason at all doing that.

For the record. I did enter a small easca competition once and used a copied version of the competition disc, for some reason I'd ripped the original CD to mp3 and not wav as I thought I did. Even though there were only like 5 people competing in my class I did win and I actually got 19/20 points on 'highs'. Kinda amusing, didn't dare telling the judge it was a mp3 album he had listened at xD

Never challenged fate after that one time though, using the real CDs nowadays at competitions/judging.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

co_leonard said:


> I agree.
> 
> In my post above (#4), I describe my personal taste as the differences I hear between one song in an original cd versus a high-bitrate mp3 I made of the same song.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately, we're still at a stage where disk space matters. As long as people continue to use ipods, iphones, and flash drives, it's going to be an issue. So it's worth trying to understand how much compression we can tolerate before it becomes detectable. That's what Hanatsu is trying to provide here.

We deal with compression all the time and usually don't notice. You realize that BluRay uses lossy compression too, right? The discs can only store a finite amount of information, so they compress the data to fit. If you watch TV, those streams (cable and broadcast) are highly compressed too. 

The point is that we're always dealing with data compression. Always. The key is to figure out the optimal compression strategies. At least until bandwidths and storage media catch up. If ever.


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## Tropikal_Knights (Jul 13, 2012)

Hanatsu great work I must say......lots of time and effort put into to it to support your date......

Seems there are and will be different views to it...which is great.......I do applaud the effort though

However, I am firmly in the original cd camp...


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## Tropikal_Knights (Jul 13, 2012)

co_leonard said:


> I agree.
> 
> In my post above (#4), I describe my personal taste as the differences I hear between one song in an original cd versus a high-bitrate mp3 I made of the same song.
> 
> ...



Have to agree with that........to me and it is not supported by date original cd is it...but that is just my opinion


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## Tropikal_Knights (Jul 13, 2012)

Wesayso said:


> So my choise to go with highest bitrate VBR AAC my HU can play seems still valid. Best quality a lossy file can give me if I don't care about space.


I think this could have been resolved if the 99 just played flac files.......


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

co_leonard said:


> *Hypothetical scenario:* I wonder how high a MECA SQ competitor would score tuning his system with a 320k mp3 version of the official "Chesky Ultimate Demonstration Disc" judging tracks, just because his opinion is that is indistinguishable from the original CD, when all other competitors are tuning with the original CD.


I did notice something like pink noise tracks don't work that great in a lossy compressed format .


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

As requested by MarkZ 

Comparison of lossless, v0, v2 VBR (LAME)

Spectrogram of "Madonna - Tell me"










Heard slight changes in some songs in high treble, not 'that' significant. Failed ABX test on 3 of the 5 songs I tested (v0 vs v2). Too lazy to post the pictures now xD

_File size: v0 = 7.46Mb // v2 = 6.28Mb_


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## WinWiz (Sep 25, 2013)

Hanatsu said:


> Would have posted further testing, but I'm having issues with my stationary computer. Doing a RAID reconstruction after some supposed disk failure idk...
> 
> I'll post it tomorrow, included some comparisons of VBR/CBR Mp3, AAC and OGG. OGG ain't available for most if not all headunits but it can still be used by CAR-PC owners so wth


How do you backup 180k mp3 songs, RAID level 5?


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## WinWiz (Sep 25, 2013)

MarkZ said:


> Personal taste takes a backseat to discriminability. If you can't hear a difference between A and B, then you sure can't prefer one over the other.


Not true, if wav and mp3 sound equal some might prefer mp3 for things like metadata support and compatibility. Personally I prefer flac because its an open standard and easy to reencode in best possible quality...


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

WinWiz said:


> How do you backup 180k mp3 songs, RAID level 5?


A friend of mine had some space on his computer 

I got 28TB disk space using Raid 6 now from a hardware controller. 1Gbit/s internet connection ftw xD


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

WinWiz said:


> Not true, if wav and mp3 sound equal some might prefer mp3 for things like metadata support and compatibility. Personally I prefer flac because its an open standard and easy to reencode in best possible quality...


Unfortunately, flac ain't widely supported in car audio. Neither is OGG, which is another great format.

I use ALAC cause my iPod support it. Only for competition and SQ demo tracks though. I usually download lossless and encode it myself to v1 or v2 VBR lame.


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## WinWiz (Sep 25, 2013)

MarkZ said:


> Unfortunately, we're still at a stage where disk space matters. As long as people continue to use ipods, iphones, and flash drives, it's going to be an issue. So it's worth trying to understand how much compression we can tolerate before it becomes detectable. That's what Hanatsu is trying to provide here.
> 
> We deal with compression all the time and usually don't notice. You realize that BluRay uses lossy compression too, right? The discs can only store a finite amount of information, so they compress the data to fit. If you watch TV, those streams (cable and broadcast) are highly compressed too.
> 
> The point is that we're always dealing with data compression. Always. The key is to figure out the optimal compression strategies. At least until bandwidths and storage media catch up. If ever.


Yes blueray audio is compressed (LPCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio is lossless) because it store 6-8 or more HD audio channels + video so space is an issue. When space is not unlimited you can actually improve quality using compression. A compressed audio stream with 8 channel 96kHz @ 4.736Mbit/s can simply store more audio detail compared to uncompressed 8 channel 96kHz @ 4.736Mbit/s.

This thread makes me wonder why some people prefer SACD to normal redbook CD audio.
Anyone ever tried to blindtest 44kHz vs 96kHz lossless compression? Personally I think (when limited space isn't an issue) that high res audio 96kHz can sound better than standard 44kHz audio, but I don't have any data to support this claim.
I also think that some (rare) recordings might sound worse with lossy compression because I don't think any psychoacoustic model is perfect, so if anyone have any tracks to illustrate this I would be very interested. 
Because all mp3 are not created equally I always prefer to store my music in lossless format, so I can reencode to any device/format with optimal quality. Harddrive space is very cheap today.

Some people claim an original CD sounds better than a 1:1 digital copy. I used to assume this was BS but my Benq cd burner support cd quality scans and these scans often shows that cheap noname cdr media has lower quality than branded quality cdr media. Normally original CDs top the quality of any CDR. As far as I know redbook audio cds use weak crc error correction compared to data cds so now I'm thinking original CDs might actually sound better than a 1:1 copy.


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## BoomHz (Apr 20, 2007)

Here's a very off the wall question that I've heard but doesn't relate, but kinda relate..........whaaaaa


So I'm not an Apple fan........I think at some point they'll be responsible for a world wide colllapse of some sort...............

Anyways, I've heard that it's possible to use use Foobar to download my FLAC files onto the Ipod to play in my car. Has anyone heard of this? Anyone have any experience with this? Just thought I'd ask others concerned with high quality formats in the car.


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## WinWiz (Sep 25, 2013)

BoomHz said:


> Here's a very off the wall question that I've heard but doesn't relate, but kinda relate..........whaaaaa
> 
> 
> So I'm not an Apple fan........I think at some point they'll be responsible for a world wide colllapse of some sort...............
> ...


Ipods doesn't support flac because apple want to force their alac format on you.
But you can convert the flac files to alac with no quality loss:
How do I convert FLAC to Apple Lossless?


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## cajunner (Apr 13, 2007)

isn't the point of hating on Apple a result of their insistence on having us all store our music on their proprietary algorithm, so they can control it and you and I, and the world?

world domination, because Apple sees the profit motive in keeping your music tied to their algorithm, and if you enjoy your easy Apple noose around your neck, you'll never feel the tug on the reins as controlling you, you'll see it as simple tugs to keep you steered in the right direction according to Apple's marketing department.

no one should look at Apple's insistence on algorithm exclusivity as a good thing, as a simple thing, or as a fair market, open source thing, because it's the best example we probably could generate of the opposite, and the heinous motives behind it, we now have in the modern day era.

they generate laws on monopolies and oligarchy in the business domain precisely to prevent this amount of control, and this amount of influence by one company. That people just see it as convenient to have their lossless be codec'ed by Apple's design team, and that between lossless, who really can tell the difference anyways? Those people are being led off a cliff where the market can't be turned, Apple has their complete domination and their influence can be felt in Apple's shares rising to the tune... a corporate cornering of the market in the most tightly regulated industry known to man besides nuclear technologies, where just a hint of a sample causes lawsuits and big money shifts to the whims of the American imagination...

Apple's design is an evil that is not necessary, nor altruist, nor philanthropic in nature. It's cut-throat and it's illegal in almost every regulated sector of our existence, by governments everywhere. 

down with Apple domination!


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

WinWiz said:


> Yes blueray audio is compressed (LPCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio is lossless) because it store 6-8 or more HD audio channels + video so space is an issue. When space is not unlimited you can actually improve quality using compression. A compressed audio stream with 8 channel 96kHz @ 4.736Mbit/s can simply store more audio detail compared to uncompressed 8 channel 96kHz @ 4.736Mbit/s.
> 
> This thread makes me wonder why some people prefer SACD to normal redbook CD audio.
> Anyone ever tried to blindtest 44kHz vs 96kHz lossless compression? Personally I think (when limited space isn't an issue) that high res audio 96kHz can sound better than standard 44kHz audio, but I don't have any data to support this claim.
> ...


What did you use to compare?


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

BoomHz said:


> Here's a very off the wall question that I've heard but doesn't relate, but kinda relate..........whaaaaa
> 
> 
> So I'm not an Apple fan........I think at some point they'll be responsible for a world wide colllapse of some sort...............
> ...


You can use a FLAC app like "golden ear" or "FLAC player" to play those formats. You'll just have to upload the music onto the idevice as files from itunes instead of media. You will be limited to the functionality of the app though since it does not integrate into the iOS the way the native player does. The media can only be seen from that app as well IIRC.


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## WinWiz (Sep 25, 2013)

t3sn4f2 said:


> What did you use to compare?


It was many years ago, but as far as I remember I used Benq's tool and the advanced disc quality scanning features in Nero CD-DVD Speed.

Please note that very few CD/DVD drives are reliable for this kind of error scanning (Jitter, c1,c2 and c3 errors).


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

WinWiz said:


> Is was many years ago, but as far as I remember I used Benq's tool and the advanced disc quality scanning features in Nero CD-DVD Speed.
> 
> Please note that very few CD/DVD drives are reliable for this kind of error scanning.


I'd like to try something like this one day. Rip from CD, burn one copy to CDR, re-rip that one, and compare to the original rip through Foobar's binary comparator plugin. And also do an Audacity sample/inverted sample simultaneous playback for a different comparison.

I've done it for ripping quality. Rip from two different random drives and compare the resulting files. They were sample- identical in that case.


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## WinWiz (Sep 25, 2013)

cajunner said:


> isn't the point of hating on Apple a result of their insistence on having us all store our music on their proprietary algorithm, so they can control it and you and I, and the world?
> 
> world domination, because Apple sees the profit motive in keeping your music tied to their algorithm, and if you enjoy your easy Apple noose around your neck, you'll never feel the tug on the reins as controlling you, you'll see it as simple tugs to keep you steered in the right direction according to Apple's marketing department.
> 
> ...


Actually its about way more than just music. I have been a PC geek for 25 years and Apple has always created their own closed standards instead of using open standards. I'm sure they do this because the high profit margins on Apple branded products simply wouldn't be possible if the had to compete on equal terms with the rest of the world.
But I think open standards will eventually win over closed formats, its only a matter of time. Monopolies are bad!


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## WinWiz (Sep 25, 2013)

t3sn4f2 said:


> I'd like to try something like this one day. Rip from CD, burn one copy to CDR, re-rip that one, and compare to the original rip through Foobar's binary comparator plugin. And also do an Audacity sample/inverted sample simultaneous playback for a different comparison.
> 
> I've done it for ripping quality. Rip from two different random drives and compare the resulting files. They were sample- identical in that case.


Yeah that would actually be interesting. For a worst case scenario I suggest ripping and burning at high speed using two different drives. Maybe even using a disc with some scratches?
I don't know enough about red book error correction to say if the results will be different. 
But I do know copy-protected discs will often create different results on different drives. And high quality media burned at slow speed tend to have nice quality scans and better compatibility in picky drives.


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## BoomHz (Apr 20, 2007)

WinWiz said:


> Ipods doesn't support flac because apple want to force their alac format on you.
> But you can convert the flac files to alac with no quality loss:
> How do I convert FLAC to Apple Lossless?


Yeah was aware of that little tidbit, but I have destroyed all ALAC files from all my computers........I refuse to go back

I more interested in hacking my Ipod. More of a middle finger to apple more than anything. I'd love to have a player that I could plug into my deck for my FLAC files. I've kinda convinced the woman on an IBASSO player...........just can't convince her on the price.


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## BoomHz (Apr 20, 2007)

cajunner said:


> isn't the point of hating on Apple a result of their insistence on having us all store our music on their proprietary algorithm, so they can control it and you and I, and the world?
> 
> world domination, because Apple sees the profit motive in keeping your music tied to their algorithm, and if you enjoy your easy Apple noose around your neck, you'll never feel the tug on the reins as controlling you, you'll see it as simple tugs to keep you steered in the right direction according to Apple's marketing department.
> 
> ...


Very admirable rant there, your always a very interesting character on here. What part of La are you in? I'm originally from BR.....no regrets on leaving:surprised:


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## cajunner (Apr 13, 2007)

BoomHz said:


> Very admirable rant there, your always a very interesting character on here. What part of La are you in? I'm originally from BR.....no regrets on leaving:surprised:


down in the delta, Lafourche Parish way...

and don't read into the posts too much, like the rear-view mirror says, I'm less interesting than I appear.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

cajunner said:


> down in the delta, Lafourche Parish way...
> 
> and don't read into the posts too much, like the rear-view mirror says, I'm less interesting than I appear.


I thought "LA" meant Los Angeles lol.


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## BoomHz (Apr 20, 2007)

cajunner said:


> down in the delta, Lafourche Parish way...
> 
> and don't read into the posts too much, like the rear-view mirror says, I'm less interesting than I appear.


Holy ish................that's 100 percent cajun country................one of your decendents came up and got my greatgram pregnant back in the day.......and here I am.......in Alaska...........where they don't know what cajun is!!:laugh:


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## cajunner (Apr 13, 2007)

Hanatsu said:


> I thought "LA" meant Los Angeles lol.


I leave it like that, because people naturally think you're smart if you live in LA.

lol..



BoomHz said:


> Holy ish................that's 100 percent cajun country................one of your decendents came up and got my greatgram pregnant back in the day.......and here I am.......in Alaska...........where they don't know what cajun is!!:laugh:


sorry about that, cajun is as cajun does.


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