Apple Lossless or WAV

[71 dB]

     I wasn't aware that people differed to the extent that CDs were still popular. That's some difference. I thought that they were tailspinning towards extinction even though some people still liked them. I still think that.

Well, people are different. The market has divided into groups. CD has not tailspinned toward extinction (whatever that means). People who buy and listen to CDs form a subgroup within music consumers. DCC and DVD-Audio are examples of dead formats, not CD.

Look, CDs were great.

They still are great in my opinion.

I loved them, especially when the music companies began remastering them using the best available tapes.

I started buying CDs in 1990 when I bought my first CD player. By that time CDs were mastered pretty well. Even today, I don't own many of the early CDs. Some, but not many.

Before that they were hit and miss based on what was put on them. That's how they got their bad reputation among audiophiles who, then as now, were incapable of differentiating between the source and the medium, attributing the problems of the former to the supposed limitations of the latter.

People said stupid things about CD. So what? Doesn't make the format worse for me since I differentiate between the source and the medium.

I bought some of this too at the time, but eventually detoxified and came to see the CDs as...how shall I put it? Perfect Sound Forever! It's funny...it turned out to be true.

Perfect sound forever?

[drogulus]

      We probably agree more than not when you get down to it.

      Don't we? Oh well....

      About "perfect sound forever", that was the slogan that audiophiles made fun of. No, it's not perfect sound, because there are torture tests that can flummox an encoder, though these are usually not music. I'd say that you could take the best thousand master tapes of stereo music from the last half century, chosen by a committee of music critics and random fans of various genres, encode them all at 16/44 and at 24/96 or DSD or whatever you choose and not one of them would exhibit the slightest difference. But you couldn't cheat. There could be no substituting a different mix to make the high rez sound different (and therefore "better"). The 2 tapes would be derived from the same master, the 16/44 using dithering/noise shaping and the high rez raw.

      Actually the test has already been done though not with thousands of samples (I'm referring to the famous Meyer/Moran test which showed a 16/44 bottleneck was inaudible in an SACD playback system). To me that's as close as perfect as anyone can reasonably expect. The designers of the Redbook standard were not idiots, and working within some rather severe limits they accomplished their goal.

[drogulus]

      I guess I love CDs.

      I just did a burning/ripping session using iTunes and ALAC. It was the only program on my PC that could do everything trouble-free. Why would I want to burn and rip files I already had? I needed to join a bunch of files gaplessly into one big file, and iTunes does this really well for CDs. So I burned a CD, joined the tracks and ripped it. Surprisingly all my other programs messed it up with imperfect joins.

[71 dB]

No, it's not perfect sound, because there are torture tests that can flummox an encoder

What encoder? Are you talking about AD conversion? If the analog signal is correctly band- ja amplitude-limited, there is no flummox.

I'd say that you could take the best thousand master tapes of stereo music from the last half century, chosen by a committee of music critics and random fans of various genres, encode them all at 16/44 and at 24/96 or DSD or whatever you choose and not one of them would exhibit the slightest difference. But you couldn't cheat. There could be no substituting a different mix to make the high rez sound different (and therefore "better"). The 2 tapes would be derived from the same master, the 16/44 using dithering/noise shaping and the high rez raw.

      Actually the test has already been done though not with thousands of samples (I'm referring to the famous Meyer/Moran test which showed a 16/44 bottleneck was inaudible in an SACD playback system). To me that's as close as perfect as anyone can reasonably expect. The designers of the Redbook standard were not idiots, and working within some rather severe limits they accomplished their goal.

Yes, it's difficult to tell stereo SACD apart from stereo CD but as I have said many times, multichannel support is SACD's true strength.

Back in the 70's when CD was developped, 16 bit/44.1 kHz was difficult/expensive to execute. There was also concerns about the length of CD. As you said, the engineers behind CD wasn't idiot. They knew were the critical limits are.

[DavidW]

Yes, it's difficult to tell stereo SACD apart from stereo CD but as I have said many times, multichannel support is SACD's true strength.

But the multichannel was kind of developed as an afterthought, it was originally intended to be an audiophile stereo format.  The dvd-audio format does a much better job with several types of multichannel so you can at least get a dd or dts track out of it if you don't have the connections available for lossless multichannel audio.  I think that SACD was a piss poor design, poorly marketed and came out at the wrong time and it deserved it's death.  Blu-Ray will stand a much better chance.  Use bd for audio because (a) already have lossless multichannel audio as it's spec, (b) people are investing in the equipment to receive lossless multichannel audio (usually through hdmi) through AVRs that are coming down in price, even if just for movies.  It might fail too if most people listen to music through cell phones and mp3 players, but it's worth a shot.

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

It may be surprising for some audiophiles, but I am very sure there's a bigger difference between grammophones and CDs than between CDs and SACDs. To be honest: Take a CD, encode it lossy at a decent high level, put the result onto an SACD and audiophiles would praise the superior quality of the SACD, of their gear, but they only mean the size of their d***. It's all too human.
I think we rather have to be thankful that audible differences nowadays are not as obvious as in a gramophone era (and hey, I'm sure people enjoyed the music as well), but a matter of faith. This is good, we are in a good position.

[drogulus]

As you said, the engineers behind CD wasn't idiot. They knew were the critical limits are.

     Indeed they did. What I'm drawing attention to is the practical and theoretical meaning of those limits as these engineers understood them. That is, that the flaws in a 16 bit, 44.1 kHz sample rate recording/playback system would be inaudible, though measurable. That's theory confirmed by practice. Therefore I conclude that everything that audiophiles say to the contrary, that the designers were wrong on this point, is full of shit.

     Returning to the threads subject, what advantage is there to WAV, as opposed to one or another of the lossless schemes (FLAC, ALAC, WMA lossless etc.)? I can think of one, nearly complete universality. Is that it, or is there something else?

[Renfield]

audiophiles would praise the superior quality of the SACD, of their gear, but they only mean the size of their d***.

I have to agree with this. Not in terms of SACD not offering (technically) superior quality, but in terms of a likely exaggeration sometimes going on around it, compared to the very real revolution of the switch from analogue.

It might be impressive, and multi-channel. But I think the only current genuinely [Jens alert] impactful step up from CD is the download of the studio master made available by some labels (for example, Linn Records).

[71 dB]

But the multichannel was kind of developed as an afterthought, it was originally intended to be an audiophile stereo format.

Sony developed SACD to be the developer of "Super CD format".  It's all business. Multichannel support was a good afterthought but necessary to compete with DVD-A.

The dvd-audio format does a much better job with several types of multichannel so you can at least get a dd or dts track out of it if you don't have the connections available for lossless multichannel audio.

Yes, but DD and DTS are lossy formats and DVD is all you need for them. Hybrid SACD does better job being "CD compatible."

I think that SACD was a piss poor design, poorly marketed and came out at the wrong time and it deserved it's death.

Hybrid SACD is a brilliant design. Poorly marketed? Yes! It's difficult to know what masses want. Wrong time? Perhaps? Timing is difficult.
SACD is not death, it's marginalized. When all record companies stop releases SACD then it is dead. I love SACD so it will be a sad day when it happens. I don't own any DVD-A discs but I have understood it succeeded much worse than SACD.

Blu-Ray will stand a much better chance.

Blu-ray has already succeeded well. So what? When will people realize we are living times of MANY formats (CD, SACD, DVD, Blu-ray,..even vinyl!). Choose your own favorites and let others choose theirs.

Use bd for audio because (a) already have lossless multichannel audio as it's spec, (b) people are investing in the equipment to receive lossless multichannel audio (usually through hdmi) through AVRs that are coming down in price, even if just for movies.  It might fail too if most people listen to music through cell phones and mp3 players, but it's worth a shot.

(a) Yes.
(b) Yes but I am not investing yet. Before that I am happy with SACD.

[71 dB]

Returning to the threads subject, what advantage is there to WAV, as opposed to one or another of the lossless schemes (FLAC, ALAC, WMA lossless etc.)? I can think of one, nearly complete universality. Is that it, or is there something else?

You can't modify (say, filter) compressed formats without converting them to WAV or other PCM format. That's why WAV is good if you tinker with your sound files (as I do sometimes).

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

It might be impressive, and multi-channel. But I think the only current genuinely [Jens alert] impactful step up from CD is the download of the studio master made available by some labels (for example, Linn Records).

Well, it's nice to have, but that about it. But do people have the gear e.g. for playing back 192khz audio? No. They praise the superior quality while their gear calculates everything down to 44.1/48/88.2 ...

[Renfield]

Well, it's nice to have, but that about it. But do people have the gear e.g. for playing back 192khz audio? No. They praise the superior quality while their gear calculates everything down to 44.1/48/88.2 ...

True. I was referring to a situation with ideal playback conditions.

(Goodness, am I turning into a physicist? )

[George]

True. I was referring to a situation with ideal playback conditions.

(Goodness, am I turning into a physicist? )

I bet DavidW could confirm that for you. 

[DavidW]

I bet DavidW could confirm that for you. 

Yeah he's on his way.  Now he just needs to treat music as a pure sin wave...

[George]

Yeah he's on his way.  Now he just needs to treat music as a pure sin wave...

I'm sure you've already calculated the time it will take him, but better for him to be surprised, right? 

[DavidW]

I'm sure you've already calculated the time it will take him, but better for him to be surprised, right? 

Yup.  I can treat Renfield as a spherical cow right?

[George]

Yup.  I can treat Renfield as a spherical cow right?

That one flew over my head. (I only took college Physics 1-3)

[DavidW]

That one flew over my head. (I only took college Physics 1-3)

Enjoy, sometimes wiki rocks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

[Renfield]

I am greatly enjoying this conversation, from the perfectly frictionless chair I am at rest on (until disturbed).


Edit: When I was still at school, I actually considered a career in theoretical physics!

[Valentino]

Hi Andante, usually my music goes this route: IBM Thinkpad T23 with SB Audigy 2 ZS Notebook -> Pioneer Amp -> Jamo Speaker.
And if I'm lazy: Converted to Vorbis @Q8 -> Cowon iAudio7 -> Pioneer Amp -> Jamo Speakers.
Very often: In car.

The weakest spot in my audio chain at home is: THE LIVING ROOM. Parquet floor. A 3.5m wide windows. Music sounds horrible here. I love Notebook solutions; but I admit, the Notebook fan is an unsolved problem here.

I just have to quote Siegfried Linkwitz:
The room is not the problem. The loudspeaker is the problem. www.linkwitzlab.com
I do not know what kind of Jamos you have, but maybe there are other  Jamos, like the 907, that would make you more happy with your room.
I have parquet floor and a total of 9m window surface in my living room, but my speakers are very similar to the Linkwitz and Jamo 907s.

Topic:
I rip to FLAC, and use the Logitech Squeezebox family for playback around the house. While commuting I use Squeeze-software on my laptop.