Well then you have far more choice at better prices than we have. I would look at the Centrance DAC mini CX for your DAC/headphone amp
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ATV2 requires iTunes Match...feeling played.
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Well then you have far more choice at better prices than we have. I would look at the Centrance DAC mini CX for your DAC/headphone amp
I find it very strange that so many "hear" differences. After all the blind-listening-tests that show that thats not possible so many that do hear a difference? Reminds me heavily on hifi-voodoo...
Plenty of blind tests have shown that most people do hear the difference. It's actually quite obvious so perhaps you're referring to some other tests or are just confused?
This is not voodoo. But $300 power cables for your hifi are voodoo.
Perhaps the a/b tests over at hydrogen audio when listening on portables and similar they don't hear any difference.
But when you are feeding lossless music, optically into a DAC and £3,500 worth of audio kit you can hear a difference.
Links to studies showing this with proper statistical significance please? (For properly encoded, high bitrate files, say 256k or higher).
I am afraid that I don't know where to find this on the net. The ones I am referring to are from magazines.
There is one thing to bear in mind. If you're just copying a CD then it's very possible that there won't be a difference between a lossless and lossy encoding since many CDs are terribly compressed in the first place. The source material that you're working with matters.
I think you are confusing digital compression and analog audio compression, two completely unrelated things.
A.
Nope. I am talking how CDs are mastered these days.
http://www.audioholics.com/education/audio-formats-technology/cd-compression-depression
http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicrange.htm
That still doesn't really have anything to do with the kind of compression used for lossy audio. The maximum dynamic range is determined by the bit depth of the recording. While its true that many modern recordings have a very narrow dynamic range in order to sound 'louder', that doesn't really say anything of relevance about the transparency of lossy compression. I still await some references...
I've already responded to your post about references. What do you need? Year and month of the magazine?
Onto the new topic, perhaps I am somehow confused. If I take a file that is compressed with a narrow dynamic range and rip into wav then encode into lossless and a lossy format like AC3 format my expectations are that the differences between the two files would indeed be heard to hear in a blind test. However, if I take a high quality master and encode into both lossless and lossy, I would expect the difference to be pronounced when played back via a decent DAC + Headphones.
I am not an expert on this by any means. I am a software architect / consultant with an interest in audio so I am keen to "hear" where my understanding has gone wrong.
Your links confirm that you are mixing up two completely separate and distinct uses of the word 'compression'. Audio compression has been used for decades, long before CDs, most notably in FM radio. It has to do with 'dynamic range' - the difference between the loudest and the softest passages in an audio program. Think of a classical music program with an almost silent violin intro at the beginning and a fantastic crescendo at the end.
The articles you mention are lamenting the fact that although CDs have fantastic dynamic range, the record industry wastes this and creates products where the violin at the beginning of the piece is as loud as the finale - turning up the gain during the quiet passages and turning it back down again during the loud sections. This is called 'compression' in the audio world. It is used a lot in popular music today, and it's really sad.
The fact that computers have brought us digital audio and ways of making things smaller using a process called 'compression' has nothing to do with audio compression.
A.
The articles you mention are lamenting the fact that although CDs have fantastic dynamic range, the record industry wastes this and creates products where the violin at the beginning of the piece is as loud as the finale - turning up the gain during the quiet passages and turning it back down again during the loud sections. This is called 'compression' in the audio world. It is used a lot in popular music today, and it's really sad.
The fact that computers have brought us digital audio and ways of making things smaller using a process called 'compression' has nothing to do with audio compression.
A.
Ok. So there is a distinct difference between dynamic range compression and data compression. I have always assumed that the algorithms used were similar, but my question above stands.
The other suggestion floating around here is that a lossy data compression of music does not result in a noticeable difference to the human ear. I would still beg to differ.
Perhaps it would be fruitful for us to discuss in depth how music is actually produced from the recording studio until it ends up in our ears. I think that would be quite interesting. I am particularly interested in where sites like HD Tracks get their songs from.
A simple example anyone can test: Take a photo and save it as jpg in different qualities. At some point no difference between photo and jpg is visible anymore. jpg is as lossy as aac or mp3 - From a certain point there is no noticeable difference anymore.
ATV2 requires iTunes Match...feeling played.
Big point that is being missed but was alluded to. Say you only have one lap top computer that has your music files that is out of the house and someone else at home wants to listen to music. Certainly $24.00 a year to be able to stream is a lot cheaper than having a second computer that needs to be replaced every 5 to ten years, a hell of a lot cheaper. And on top of that you don't even have to pay for the electricity to run it!!! Itunes Match really is a great deal from that point of view, cheapest second source for your files that you can imagine.
Big point that is being missed but was alluded to. Say you only have one lap top computer that has your music files that is out of the house and someone else at home wants to listen to music. Certainly $24.00 a year to be able to stream is a lot cheaper than having a second computer that needs to be replaced every 5 to ten years, a hell of a lot cheaper. And on top of that you don't even have to pay for the electricity to run it!!! Itunes Match really is a great deal from that point of view, cheapest second source for your files that you can imagine.