Kage
Golden Master
- Messages
- 13,873
I'm pretty bored, so I actually started searching different audio formats, because I know this sounds stupid, but I'm kind of bored with MP3.
FLAC & MONKEY'S AUDIO:
Lossless formats are becoming increasingly common, where hard drive prices are dropping, and people are starting to rip their music collection in these formats.
FLAC sounds amazing, as its lossless, but compressed, so the original file is the exact quality as the original CD source. Its a lot smaller than an uncompressed WAVE though.
Another lossless audio format is Monkeys Audio (.APE) format, but I haven't been able to get a file converted to that to play yet even with a plugin, so FLAC wins
FLAC plays on quite a few portable MP3 players now (I-Audio being my personal favourite), and the file is quite a bit smaller than a uncompressed WAVE file, but quite a bit larger than an MP3.
I ripped two albums in FLAC and it was 1GB in size however.
Monkey's Audio files seem to be a tad bit smaller, but they don't have the same support as FLAC files do, on pretty much anything.
OGG VORBIS:
I then decided to search for more file formats, and came across OGG Vorbis, which I had heard about, which is a compressed, lossful format, so it is like MP3, in the way it loses bits of data it doesn't think you'll be able to hear.
Wow, though, it sounds tonnes better than MP3, especially at lower bitrates..
http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/listen.html
Download the first file in WAVE which is uncompressed, and so sounds the best it can, and then download the OGG vorbis 64kbps file, and then the same 64kbps file in MP3.
I didn't expect much, but the 64kbps OGG file sounded exactly the same to me as the original WAVE file, even though it was only 500KB in size, compared with the 5MB WAVE for the 30 second file...
The same file in MP3 though sounded crap.
I suggest you try it if you are bored like me
BUYING ALBUMS:
I'm now hunting for places to buy albums in these formats, but so far I haven't found anywhere that is popular enough to house well known bands, in for example FLAC format.
FLAC & MONKEY'S AUDIO:
Lossless formats are becoming increasingly common, where hard drive prices are dropping, and people are starting to rip their music collection in these formats.
FLAC sounds amazing, as its lossless, but compressed, so the original file is the exact quality as the original CD source. Its a lot smaller than an uncompressed WAVE though.
Another lossless audio format is Monkeys Audio (.APE) format, but I haven't been able to get a file converted to that to play yet even with a plugin, so FLAC wins
FLAC plays on quite a few portable MP3 players now (I-Audio being my personal favourite), and the file is quite a bit smaller than a uncompressed WAVE file, but quite a bit larger than an MP3.
I ripped two albums in FLAC and it was 1GB in size however.
Monkey's Audio files seem to be a tad bit smaller, but they don't have the same support as FLAC files do, on pretty much anything.
OGG VORBIS:
I then decided to search for more file formats, and came across OGG Vorbis, which I had heard about, which is a compressed, lossful format, so it is like MP3, in the way it loses bits of data it doesn't think you'll be able to hear.
Wow, though, it sounds tonnes better than MP3, especially at lower bitrates..
http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/listen.html
Download the first file in WAVE which is uncompressed, and so sounds the best it can, and then download the OGG vorbis 64kbps file, and then the same 64kbps file in MP3.
I didn't expect much, but the 64kbps OGG file sounded exactly the same to me as the original WAVE file, even though it was only 500KB in size, compared with the 5MB WAVE for the 30 second file...
The same file in MP3 though sounded crap.
I suggest you try it if you are bored like me
BUYING ALBUMS:
I'm now hunting for places to buy albums in these formats, but so far I haven't found anywhere that is popular enough to house well known bands, in for example FLAC format.
