# What's the best audio quality I should expect?



## sub_junkie (Apr 14, 2009)

I've been making sure that all of my music files are 320kbps...but I'm looking for better quality. Is that possible with downloaded or copies off of a CD? If not, are there any places that do offer better quality files?

BTW, I'm not sure if this is in the right section or not...I figured it sounded like the best place though.


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## gorb (Sep 5, 2010)

Well, lossy formats like mp3 certainly aren't the best. You can get lossless compressed files (flac is the most common codec) but there are also WMA lossless/ALAC/APE/WavPack and others. You can also get straight up uncompressed files in WAV but there's no point in doing that when something like flac exists.

If you want to rip cds to flac, I recommend using exactaudiocopy. If you are unfamiliar with the program you can set it up using this guide to get perfect rips:
http://blowfish.be/eac/

Several online shops sell lossless as well but it honestly isn't that common - the big stores like itunes and amazon stick to lossy aac or mp3 unfortunately. Depending on what band or artist you are looking for, it might be possible that they have a bandcamp website where you can buy the flacs directly.


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## sub_junkie (Apr 14, 2009)

gorb said:


> Well, lossy formats like mp3 certainly aren't the best. You can get lossless compressed files (flac is the most common codec) but there are also WMA lossless/ALAC/APE/WavPack and others. You can also get straight up uncompressed files in WAV but there's no point in doing that when something like flac exists.
> 
> If you want to rip cds to flac, I recommend using exactaudiocopy. If you are unfamiliar with the program you can set it up using this guide to get perfect rips:
> http://blowfish.be/eac/
> ...


I hear you there. haha. I've been struggling to find just 320kbps .mp3 formats for my music. I also gotta say that I have been downloading my music for free.....I've bought wayy too many songs through iTunes, and they're usually 220-256kbps, and maybe its all in my head, but I know that I can tell a difference between 256 and 320 on almost all of the songs that I have.

By any chance do you have an extremely high quality song that you could upload or email to me, so I can compare it to a 320kbps version, and see the difference?

Thanks for that link; I'll check it out.


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## gorb (Sep 5, 2010)

I'll see what I can do.

Also, in regards to mp3, v0 (a variable bitrate LAME encoding preset) has the same quality as a 320kbps lame encoded mp3 but in a smaller package due to the variable bitrate. No need for 320kbps of silence on a track or whatever.


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## sub_junkie (Apr 14, 2009)

gorb said:


> I'll see what I can do.
> 
> Also, in regards to mp3, v0 (a variable bitrate LAME encoding preset) has the same quality as a 320kbps lame encoded mp3 but in a smaller package due to the variable bitrate. No need for 320kbps of silence on a track or whatever.


Okay, thank you. I've been dying to try something with a higher quality than 320kbps, but I haven't known what to search to find something like that.


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## fusseli (May 1, 2007)

A few years ago there was a site I found that would let you download WMA lossless songs. Their selection was kinda limited and then the site went under and the DRM left the songs I bought from them unplayable. Not cool.

Everything I download nowadays is off of Zune, most songs are 320kbps though a few are 192-256kbps. At least it's a lot better than the 128kbps that itunes used to exclusively have.

If/when you rip CDs I'd suggest using WMP to encode to WMA lossless. Sounds great and it's easier to use than flac since you can use somehting built into windows already, and WMP will download all the album info for you. If you are worried about disk space (shouldn't be nowadays!) you can set the bitrate of WMA VBR to various levels, the highest being just under lossless.


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## gorb (Sep 5, 2010)

I actually sent him a link to an archive I uploaded on mediafire...the same song in flac/320/v0. Nothing wrong with having more things to test out though


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## fusseli (May 1, 2007)

Ok nice work. I added the same song compressed to 320kbps and 96kbps for comparison to the same post. You can easily tell a big difference in dynamic range.


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## erwinbel (Mar 23, 2010)

sub_junkie said:


> I hear you there. haha. I've been struggling to find just 320kbps .mp3 formats for my music. I also gotta say that I have been downloading my music for free.....I've bought wayy too many songs through iTunes, and they're usually 220-256kbps, and maybe its all in my head, but I swear that I can tell a difference between 256 and 320 on almost all of the songs that I have.


The difference between 256 and 320 would be extremely difficult to hear IMO.

If you are looking to test FLAC's for free, there are various blogspots that provide links to download from. These are usualy RAR files, so you need (free) RAR-expander to see the FLAC album. Most of these blogspots are about serious music. Radiohead, yes. Justin Timberfake, no! There's justice for Justin in the end.:devil:

Google blogspot / FLAC :innocent:

If you use a Mac or iTunes, you need to convert the FLAC to AIFF (uncompressed, but still supportive of metadata) or Apple Lossless (Mac version of FLAC) using a free converter such as XLD.

I recently read that there's also "uncompressed" FLAC. This means it's like WAV, but with metadata.

And if all your music in iTunes would be AIFF/ALAC, you could save space on your iPod by opting to "sync in 128 kbps AAC"

One of my favourite artists, BTW, is Jah Wobble. For good music with good bass, look no further. I have 7-8 of his albums. All good! He had one hit, long ago: Pig Bag. He was in Public Image Ltd, with Johny Rotten from The Sex Pistols.


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## sub_junkie (Apr 14, 2009)

I'm officially hooked on flac music stuff now...I've downloaded a lot of All That Remains, Avenged Sevenfold, Whitechapel and more, all in flac. Been listening to it mostly by media server to my ps3, no pesky dac's getting in the way.


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## erwinbel (Mar 23, 2010)

sub_junkie said:


> I'm officially hooked on flac music stuff now...I've downloaded a lot of All That Remains, Avenged Sevenfold, Whitechapel and more, all in flac. Been listening to it mostly by media server to my ps3, no pesky dac's getting in the way.


Only now, I am discovering great music that I had no budget for when I was young. You needed to rely on good friends kind enough to tape you their LP's.

These days, I'd rather spend it on hardware and live gigs. I still buy a lot of music though. Gigs and music, probably €2,000 for my wife, daughter and me, this year alone...


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## gdstupak (Jul 13, 2010)

https://www.hdtracks.com/
HDTracks is what I've been using lately, they have standard CD quality 44/16 resolution, and quite a bit of higher resolution 96/24. 
Mostly jazz and classical, not much rock. But they are adding more and more rock all the time.


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## donnymac (Nov 6, 2009)

Great info here for an audio newbie like me. I just bought a Pioneer Elite VSX-51 so I want to hear the best from my music collection. My receiver allows me to connect to my home network and stream music from my computer. Now that I have ripped a couple of CD's using WMP I want to make sure I am playing it in the appropriate mode. My AVR says it is receiving PCM. The GUI menu onscreen says the format is L16 at a bitrate of1411 kbps. What is the appropriate audio mode for me to play these lossless rips? Should I just let the receiver autodetect the playback mode?


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

Try GOLDWAVE off of CNET.com and resample MP3 to a WAV file at 96k.... lots of difference for free :T


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## gorb (Sep 5, 2010)

RTS100x5 said:


> Try GOLDWAVE off of CNET.com and resample MP3 to a WAV file at 96k.... lots of difference for free :T


what


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## fusseli (May 1, 2007)

You can't add data back in when a lossy compression algorithm has already stripped some out...


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## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

For a blind test, I just posted one here: http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/audio-processing/52143-wav.html#post474600

Check it out to see WAV vs AAC 320

Dan


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## ghost rider (Dec 29, 2010)

gdstupak said:


> https://www.hdtracks.com/
> HDTracks is what I've been using lately, they have standard CD quality 44/16 resolution, and quite a bit of higher resolution 96/24.
> Mostly jazz and classical, not much rock. But they are adding more and more rock all the time.


I was checking these guys out. I was looking for the quality statement, where they tell you it was recorded off studio masters. I could not find it.

Yesterday I started remastering my old Jazz LPs @ 24/96 something like 4608 kbps. They sound great. I'm able to clean them up and I think it still has that analog sound. I can email a 100mb if someone would like to sample it. A couple of them I have a CD and LP it will interesting what I come up with.

If these guys at HDtracks are mastering off of LPs. It may not be worth the money.

PM me a email address


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## gdstupak (Jul 13, 2010)

Concerning HDTracks and mastering/quality:
This is one unreliable point with HDTracks. Although to be fair, I don't put the blame on HDTracks because they just sell what the music labels give them.
The music labels sell all the music downloads to HDTRacks. The music labels tell HDTracks that they have mastered certain downloads at certain qualities. Because of the high volume that HDTracks tries to provide, they do not have the manpower to check the quality for themselves.
Usually, the high bitrate downloads are the same masters that were used for the music label's SACD's, these high bitrate downloads were not redone specifically for HDTracks. It has been found that some of the higher bitrate SACD's (along with their higher bitrate downloadable counterparts) are just upsampled audio from the CD's master (shame, shame, shame). 
The online store, iTrax, is one that is very vocal about this upsampling tragedy and I think they say they actually test every download and offer a guarantee. Here is one of their latest articles concerning upsampling: http://www.itrax.com/Pages/ArticleDetails.php?aID=32

For a closer look at a proper high resolution download, check out the review here of Cobb's Corner: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/medi...eviews/891-hd-music-reviews-october-2010.html

For a closer look at an upsampled download, check out the review here of Frederic Chopin - Piano Concerto No. 2 - Mari Kodama (this is the last review near bottom of page) : http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/medi...wnloads-for-the-audiophile-november-2010.html

There are several online stores that sell high resolution downloads, here is a link to a good list (below the list is a link to a custom search bar for high resolution music downloads): http://zeeblues.blogspot.com/2011/03/high-resolution-music-downloads.html


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