iPod Audiophile and Nano (if that's possible)

[GermanSuplex]

The option is there for people who want to use it.

I use it for archiving lossy material for a one-time lossy-lossy conversion. If I take a video with lossy AC3 audio or a rare format, I can convert it to WAV with Super, add it to iTunes, convert it to Apple Lossless, then convert it once to something more universal like mp3 or AAC. Then I archive the ALAC format. Yes, it's a waste of space since I'm ballooning the file and lossy to lossy is bad for audio, but my ears fail to tell the difference after only one conversion, but I know what I'm doing. If something ever happens to my lossy file, I can go back to the ALAC file and it's exactly the same as ripping the audio from the video again.

Also, anyone who says 256kbps AAC isn't cutting it for them needs to do blind tests and post test results. I just don't believe that.

Many people say they can tell a difference between lossless music and incredibly high bitrate lossy audio with good encoders, but few people ever backup their claims with tests. But, I guess its irrelevant if people are doing what makes them happy.

 

[Richard8655]

The option is there for people who want to use it.

I use it for archiving lossy material for a one-time lossy-lossy conversion. If I take a video with lossy AC3 audio or a rare format, I can convert it to WAV with Super, add it to iTunes, convert it to Apple Lossless, then convert it once to something more universal like mp3 or AAC. Then I archive the ALAC format. Yes, it's a waste of space since I'm ballooning the file and lossy to lossy is bad for audio, but my ears fail to tell the difference after only one conversion, but I know what I'm doing. If something ever happens to my lossy file, I can go back to the ALAC file and it's exactly the same as ripping the audio from the video again.

Also, anyone who says 256kbps AAC isn't cutting it for them needs to do blind tests and post test results. I just don't believe that.

Many people say they can tell a difference between lossless music and incredibly high bitrate lossy audio with good encoders, but few people ever backup their claims with tests. But, I guess its irrelevant if people are doing what makes them happy.

Blind listening tests are mostly subjective, and as such are unmeasurable. Some people can discern things like soundstage and depth better than others. For others, this level of detail in sound quality just doesn't matter. It also depends on what kind of music one listens to. I do hear a difference between 256AAC and Lossless, and it is subjective.

 

[benlangdon]

Also, anyone who says 256kbps AAC isn't cutting it for them needs to do blind tests and post test results. I just don't believe that.

i have taken a test on line.
with the speakers on my laptop i could barelly hear a difference, the highs were a bit weak.
the second time i did it with my beyer headphones and i clearly saw a huge difference.

anyone can tell if they have good headphones.
give me a pair of apple earbuds and ten bucks says i couldn't tell a difference.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Nobody ever posts results though. Not that they are required to prove things to me or anyone else, but really, so many people say they can hear a difference when actual tests with real results show an insanely, insanely low fraction of people can actually tell a difference, even on great equipment.

Blind listening tests are mostly subjective, and as such are unmeasurable. Some people can discern things like soundstage and depth better than others. For others, this level of detail in sound quality just doesn't matter. It also depends on what kind of music one listens to. I do hear a difference between 256AAC and Lossless, and it is subjective.

Well, yeah, it's only subjective in that you pass or fail. It IS measurable.. not sure what you mean by that. It's the same as covering the label of a coke can and a pepsi can and doing taste tests. Some people will know the difference, some won't. The difference here, is that most people can't tell a difference between a decently-encoded lossy file and it's lossless counterpart. Many read stuff online (like this thread) and question lossy files, others fall to the placebo effect... Anyone who reads this thread should be aware that they need to do blind tests and do what works for them, otherwise they're just kidding themselves and wasting drive space.

That's not to say NOBODY can tell a difference, and by all means I'm not telling you what you do or don't hear.. just that tests are important to be the most effecient in managing your library.

 

[flopticalcube]

i have taken a test on line.
with the speakers on my laptop i could barelly hear a difference, the highs were a bit weak.

If there is a difference in frequency response, it would show up as a measurable result. AFAIK, no such result exists. Other artifacts appear the more you move away from lossless but not a decrease in frequency response.

anyone can tell if they have good headphones.

Surely that would depend on each individuals hearing acuity.

 

[benlangdon]

It's the same as covering the label of a coke can and a pepsi can and doing taste tests. Some people will know the difference, some won't.

well hey, not to be lame, but i actually can tell the difference, pepsi is sweeter.

If there is a difference in frequency response, it would show up as a measurable result. AFAIK, no such result exists. Other artifacts appear the more you move away from lossless but not a decrease in frequency response.
Surely that would depend on each individuals hearing acuity.

ya but for a easy test, try and play a song with heavy bass in a car with massive subs and the quality of the song is really recognizable.

 

[GermanSuplex]

ya but for a easy test, try and play a song with heavy bass in a car with massive subs and the quality of the song is really recognizable.

A car is one of the places you're least likely to tell the difference between even a 128kbps lossy file and a lossless file.

I don't care if you have a $1,500 dollar car sound system, you can't tell a difference between a good lossy encode and a lossless encode in a car.

 

[benlangdon]

ok but here is what im talking about a good sound source.
good headphones/speakers, will defiantly show a difference.

every day i tune my classical guitar with this web site.
http://www.howtotuneaguitar.org/
but everytime i try and tune it with the laptop speakers (when i don't have my headphones) it always comes out a bit _____. it always requires me to tune it by hand after. But if i use my headphones (beyerdynamic dt 770 pro's) to tune my guitar it comes out better than i can do by hand.

 

[Alan64]

ok but here is what im talking about a good sound source.
good headphones/speakers, will defiantly show a difference.

every day i tune my classical guitar with this web site.
http://www.howtotuneaguitar.org/
but everytime i try and tune it with the laptop speakers (when i don't have my headphones) it always comes out a bit _____. it always requires me to tune it by hand after. But if i use my headphones (beyerdynamic dt 770 pro's) to tune my guitar it comes out better than i can do by hand.

If you have an iPhone, check out the Guitar Toolkit app. It's got a great tuner, plus metronome, chord encyclopedia, fretboard map, etc. Very cool app for guitar players.

 

[benlangdon]

If you have an iPhone, check out the Guitar Toolkit app. It's got a great tuner, plus metronome, chord encyclopedia, fretboard map, etc. Very cool app for guitar players.

nope no iphone.
i wish i had a metronome around me because i actually play drums.
i do have a boss db 60, which is awesome.

 

[GermanSuplex]

ok but here is what im talking about a good sound source.
good headphones/speakers, will defiantly show a difference.

every day i tune my classical guitar with this web site.
http://www.howtotuneaguitar.org/
but everytime i try and tune it with the laptop speakers (when i don't have my headphones) it always comes out a bit _____. it always requires me to tune it by hand after. But if i use my headphones (beyerdynamic dt 770 pro's) to tune my guitar it comes out better than i can do by hand.

That really has nothing to do with lossy/lossless. Lossless will sound like crap on crap speakers, and good lossy encodes will sound great on good systems.

 

[benlangdon]

That really has nothing to do with lossy/lossless. Lossless will sound like crap on crap speakers, and good lossy encodes will sound great on good systems.

well my point wasn't very clear.
well, since most people have bad speakers, there is no way in telling the difference between a good rip and a bad one. you have to have good hardware to be able to pick up on the subtleties of the music, and those subtleties are more recognizable with higher bit rate music.

 

[GermanSuplex]

well my point wasn't very clear.
well, since most people have bad speakers, there is no way in telling the difference between a good rip and a bad one. you have to have good hardware to be able to pick up on the subtleties of the music, and those subtleties are more recognizable with higher bit rate music.

In theory, this is correct. However, you will not tell a difference in a car. I don't care how expensive your car system is.

For other equipment, you will have to be rocking a seriously expensive set of headphones and playing your music from an extremely good soundcard or soundsystem to tell the difference. And you'll probably have to have earbuds greater than 99.99 percent of the population.

The thing about lossy encoding is that most of the information they get rid of isn't even able to be picked up by human ears. And the advances in lossy encoders over the years has resulted in very effective encoders. Many people love to tell themselves they hear the difference between a lossy file and a lossless one, or that it takes a 320kbps mp3 or AAC file to be listenable to them, but it's pretty telling that nobody ever posts their ABX results.

 

[benlangdon]

In theory, this is correct. However, you will not tell a difference in a car. I don't care how expensive your car system is.

For other equipment, you will have to be rocking a seriously expensive set of headphones and playing your music from an extremely good soundcard or soundsystem to tell the difference. And you'll probably have to have earbuds greater than 99.99 percent of the population.

The thing about lossy encoding is that most of the information they get rid of isn't even able to be picked up by human ears. And the advances in lossy encoders over the years has resulted in very effective encoders. Many people love to tell themselves they hear the difference between a lossy file and a lossless one, or that it takes a 320kbps mp3 or AAC file to be listenable to them, but it's pretty telling that nobody ever posts their ABX results.

to be honest i don't know anything about the formats.
all i get is 320 kbs or flac and then convert the flac to apple lossless. thats all i ever do. only reason why i don't use more flac is because i have to rip it to apple lossless which is just annoying.

 

[GermanSuplex]

What do you mean "All you get"? You mean that all the music you download is 320kbps mp3 or flac? For flac, by all means convert to Apple Lossless for archiving. You lose no quality and you get an iTunes compatible format. However, I'd suggest converting those Apple Lossless files to LAME mp3 or, if you want to do it in iTunes, use the AAC encoder. I would download foobar and do a blind abx test and determine which bitrate is best for you.

I'm not sure which online test you did, but a true abx test is your best bet. Get a lossless song, convert it to 128kbps mp3 or AAC, and test the lossy and lossless files against each other. foobar will tell you how many you got wrong and the probability you are guessing. Many people only do 5 trials and say "Wow, I guessed 3 out of 5, I can tell a difference". Do 25 trials or more and get a real feel for whether or not you can tell a difference. If you can, use a higher bitrate lossy file and try again. I could not tell a difference on anything I own between 128kbps lame mp3 VBR, but I went with 192kbps VBR just to be safe.

For 320kbps lossy files, go ahead and keep them in that format, no need to go from lossy to lossy.

Plus, you'd be wasting space on your Nano by using lossless. The odds are that, even in the small chance you can tell the difference between lossy and lossless, you will never have your nano in an environment where the lossless files make a difference.

 

[Jackintosh]

What do you mean "All you get"? You mean that all the music you download is 320kbps mp3 or flac? For flac, by all means convert to Apple Lossless for archiving. You lose no quality and you get an iTunes compatible format. However, I'd suggest converting those Apple Lossless files to LAME mp3 or, if you want to do it in iTunes, use the AAC encoder. I would download foobar and do a blind abx test and determine which bitrate is best for you.

I'm not sure which online test you did, but a true abx test is your best bet. Get a lossless song, convert it to 128kbps mp3 or AAC, and test the lossy and lossless files against each other. foobar will tell you how many you got wrong and the probability you are guessing. Many people only do 5 trials and say "Wow, I guessed 3 out of 5, I can tell a difference". Do 25 trials or more and get a real feel for whether or not you can tell a difference. If you can, use a higher bitrate lossy file and try again. I could not tell a difference on anything I own between 128kbps lame mp3 VBR, but I went with 192kbps VBR just to be safe.

For 320kbps lossy files, go ahead and keep them in that format, no need to go from lossy to lossy.

Plus, you'd be wasting space on your Nano by using lossless. The odds are that, even in the small chance you can tell the difference between lossy and lossless, you will never have your nano in an environment where the lossless files make a difference.

I disagree for 2 reasons. 1) If you have high quality headphones connected to your Nano and if you have discerning ears, you'll hear an improvement with Lossless over any AAC. 2) If you connect your Nano as an input device to high quality home gear, I guarantee you'll hear a difference.

 

[JonHimself]

Ok thanks. Just seems to me that Apple wouldn't provide a utility that has no purpose. Or it doesn't do what it claims to do.

I feel like I'm missing something from that part of the discussion, but isn't the convert to Apple Lossless setting there for importing CDs as lossless files?
It sounds like the question is: Converting a lossy format to lossless is useless so why does Apple include it as an option? and the answers were that the setting is useless. Sorry if I'm missing something.

 

[Jackintosh]

I feel like I'm missing something from that part of the discussion, but isn't the convert to Apple Lossless setting there for importing CDs as lossless files?
It sounds like the question is: Converting a lossy format to lossless is useless so why does Apple include it as an option? and the answers were that the setting is useless. Sorry if I'm missing something.

I think you have it correct. The discussion was not about importing CDs as Lossless, which has much value. It was regarding "conversion" of an existing, previously-imported Lossy AAC to Apple Lossless, which apparently is pretty worthless. Which leads to the question of why does Apple provide it as an option then.

 

[GermanSuplex]

I disagree for 2 reasons. 1) If you have high quality headphones connected to your Nano and if you have discerning ears, you'll hear an improvement with Lossless over any AAC. 2) If you connect your Nano as an input device to high quality home gear, I guarantee you'll hear a difference.

That's your opinion/experience with lossy/lossless files, and you may even be right, since everyone hears different things. But it is a fact that most people TELL themselves they hear a difference when in fact they don't... even with very, very expensive equipment. The truth is high-end equipment doesn't just enhance the listening experience of lossless files, it also enhances the listening experience of lossy files. So its usually a wash for most people unless, again, you are one of the small fraction of people (and I do mean small fraction) who can tell a difference.

Have you conducted a proper ABX test?

 

[KPJLK]

This is my question too. Through discussions here we know that conversion from AAC to Lossloss (probably) doesn't result in a Lossless file. SO, what's the purpose of the iTunes option "Create Apple Lossless Version" in converting from an AAC file?

When you change the encode format in the import settings, the menu option you refer to changes to whatever you have now selected, in case you wish to convert your existing library to match. This change is made uncritically, resulting in some pointless options. That's all.

 

[Jackintosh]

That's your opinion/experience with lossy/lossless files, and you may even be right, since everyone hears different things. But it is a fact that most people TELL themselves they hear a difference when in fact they don't... even with very, very expensive equipment. The truth is high-end equipment doesn't just enhance the listening experience of lossless files, it also enhances the listening experience of lossy files. So its usually a wash for most people unless, again, you are one of the small fraction of people (and I do mean small fraction) who can tell a difference.

Have you conducted a proper ABX test?

Yes I agree, it would be a relatively small number of people who could tell the difference or even care that much. Since Lossless is not missing anything, recorded detail not heard with low end equipment (cheap earbids, amps, etc). could be heard with high end electronics able to reproduce nuanced sound from a Lossless recording. As far as high end gear enhancing Lossy files, that's questionable. Low res recordings can't really be enhanced by much if at all, since much of the needed information is missing. Lossy means just that... detail has been sacrificed to gain space and due to lack of interest.

AB tests are useful but of limited value. The listening experience is your final judge. The ear doesn't read statistical test reports.

But you make a good point about the small minority interested in this.

 

[gnasher729]

I think you have it correct. The discussion was not about importing CDs as Lossless, which has much value. It was regarding "conversion" of an existing, previously-imported Lossy AAC to Apple Lossless, which apparently is pretty worthless. Which leads to the question of why does Apple provide it as an option then.

If you have a format that your iPod doesn't convert, like Org or FLAC, and you have the Quicktime codec for it, you can convert it to Apple Lossless without any loss of quality and then play it on your iPod.

 

[epo]

People hear what they want to hear

Erm, a 'conversion' is made from lossy to lossless, and the converted file declared superior and this thread didn't just collapse into a fit of giggles, why not?

And so-called audiophile judgments based on the headphone socket?

Maybe it's just me.

 

[GermanSuplex]

AB tests are useful but of limited value. The listening experience is your final judge. The ear doesn't read statistical test reports.

I guess this is a prime example of why there's disagreements. That is basically saying "Do what makes you happy" (which is perfectly a fair enough thing to do). But how are the tests of limited value? You either hear a difference or you don't, and the blind tests will prove to you whether you do or not. I mean, how can someone argue with proof?

If you fail a blind test, it is proof that you can't tell a difference on whatever equipment you used to conduct the test on. You can say "To hell with the results", but the proof is there.

 

[Jackintosh]

I guess this is a prime example of why there's disagreements. That is basically saying "Do what makes you happy" (which is perfectly a fair enough thing to do). But how are the tests of limited value? You either hear a difference or you don't, and the blind tests will prove to you whether you do or not. I mean, how can someone argue with proof?

If you fail a blind test, it is proof that you can't tell a difference on whatever equipment you used to conduct the test on. You can say "To hell with the results", but the proof is there.

Listening is a subjective experience, and equipment measurement tests (if that's what you mean) won't necessarily agree with one's subjective judgment and preference. Equipment used to measure and compare sound, as good as it may be, won't necessarily capture everything the ear can detect, and does not account for personal preference. Blind tests I completely agree are valid. But the real discussion here should be accuracy, not sounding better, I admit.

epo- The existence of a headphone socket doesn't imply lack of high end listening. Take a look at expert reviews of quality headphones, and most will confirm that they provide much more accurate sound than most speaker systems on the market.