[RKW]

If you have a good sound system and you've never heard about/tried lossless audio you owe it to yourself to audition a lossless recording. The difference is not subtle.

The best source I've found for lossless recordings is Youtube. Use the search term "lossless audiophile music". Tell me what you think.

 

[SoJ_51]

...Amen, Lord Vinyl..

 

[NCalHippie]

Setting here listening to the original "Let it Be" vinyl on my Harmon/Kardon 330B, Sony PS-X20 turntable combo. Can't beat the real thing!

 

[GrizzlyetteAdams]

Thanks RKW. I do believe I've been in the woods too long, and never heard about this lossless audiophile stuff...(I love new ear candy!)

I found a lossless audiiophile Pink Floyd song:

for comparison, here is a "regular" one of the same song:

Can anyone tell the difference? (Maybe it's just because I am a bit hearing impaired...but I'm not sure.)

 

[NCalHippie]

Thanks RKW. I do believe I've been in the woods too long, and never heard about this lossless audiophile stuff...(I love new ear candy!)

I found a lossless audiiophile Pink Floyd song:

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd (1975) 24bit FLAC Lossless - YouTube


for comparison, here is a "regular" one of the same song:

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (with lyrics) - YouTube


Can anyone tell the difference? (Maybe it's just because I am a bit hearing impaired...but I'm not sure.)

Nope, can't tell the difference. But then again, you can't tell the difference between HD and regular on a non-HD TV.

 

[Bob3rd]

Lossless audio is nothing new. FLAC format recordings are lossless and I've had those for years. The link is from cnet, for some reason the site wouldn't let me list the complete link....

cnet.com/news/whats-lossless-audio-and-do-i-need-it/

What lossless audio compression does is retain every single bit of detail from the original recording, while still managing to reduce file sizes considerably. A typical song as it is on a CD takes about 50MB of memory. A decent-quality, 256kbps MP3 of the same song is around 5MB -- that's a massive amount of data lost in the compression process. A higher bit rate MP3 will give you a better quality audio file, and a larger file size, but it can still never touch the quality of the original recording. This is where lossless audio comes into play.

A typical song compressed into a lossless format, such as FLAC or Apple's Lossless audio format, clocks in at about 30MB on average. Although this is much smaller than the original 50MB file on a CD, it still retains every last bit of information.

 

[Timberline]

I was pretty surprised by the difference my 50-some year old ears could discern between the same material in FLAC vs MP3.

 

[Eddie_T]

MP3 kinda wiped out the days of hi-fidelity. Of course most music goes through so much re-mix it bears little resemblance to the original recording. I route my TV audio to a 100 watt/channel stereo audio-video controller receiver and to halfway decent speakers and sub-woofer. It's not true high fidelity but sure sounds better than smaller speakers, even for MP3. I used to favor Karlson enclosures with 12" speakers but they require too much real estate so I compromised.

 

[daddyusmaximus]

Thanks RKW. I do believe I've been in the woods too long, and never heard about this lossless audiophile stuff...(I love new ear candy!)

I found a lossless audiiophile Pink Floyd song:

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd (1975) 24bit FLAC Lossless - YouTube


for comparison, here is a "regular" one of the same song:

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (with lyrics) - YouTube


Can anyone tell the difference? (Maybe it's just because I am a bit hearing impaired...but I'm not sure.)

The guitar seemed a bit cleaner on the loossless version to me, but it could be me wanting it to sound better...
My problem is I don't really have the equipment to play it on that would make the difference.
I'm listening to it on a laptop with Bose speakers...

 

[daddyusmaximus]

...Amen, Lord Vinyl..

Pink Floyd Greatest Hits | Pink Floyd Full Album Best Of Songs - YouTube

I would never listen to that...

It should be illegal to play "Time" and not play "The great gig in the sky" following... It's like they are two parts of one song...

 

[ajole]

Lossless audio on your 2” laptop speakers is a bit silly.

Thanks to hip hop and mega watt 2 ohm amps driving big floppy woofers, most people today don’t know what real music sounds like anyway.

Took this pic as I was moving in and setting up the system...Yamaha surround receiver/pre-amp, Carver M1.0 amps and the Amazing Loudspeakers.

 

[cujet]

Tell me what you think.

Thank you for the "heads up". I have an acceptable audio system with an Xbox one, old Yamaha receiver and Polk RTia9 speakers and sunfire sub.

Went down that rabbit hole for hours last night. What fun. The sound quality was superb, with no compression. It seems I need more power.....

Searching did not work all that well, but clicking on lossless youtube videos that contained 40 videos, opened up a long list of different songs to listen to.

Really enjoyed the vinyl stuff. Spot on!

Pink Floyd "another brick in the wall" simply sounded amazing, with fantastic stereo separation and all the wonders of analog tech.

Yeah, I know we can do better today with all our digital perfection. But we don't. Today's stuff sounds like it's compressed, maybe because it is.

 

[NCalHippie]

I am more concerned with RMS wattage and THD (total harmonic distortion) at said wattage. I would rather have 20 watts per channel at .4% THD than a claimed 1200 watts peak with 15% THD.

 

[rriley]

The best source I've found for lossless recordings is Youtube. Use the search term "lossless audiophile music". Tell me what you think.

The torrent sites are the best sites for downloading lossless (i.e. FLAC and DSF) music, do a search for "torrent sites". Some of the music on the torrent sites there is out of copyright and public domain.

Some music players do not decode these two formats, Media Center does both. There is a free download of Music Center at jriver.com.

If you have a halfway decent music system you will notice a big difference between mp3 files and high res files.

 

[Eddie_T]

If you have a good sound system and you've never heard about/tried lossless audio you owe it to yourself to audition a lossless recording. The difference is not subtle.

The best source I've found for lossless recordings is Youtube. Use the search term "lossless audiophile music". Tell me what you think.

Thank you for your post, I had no idea such a thing exists. I just chose a long one for background music. House of the Rising Sun was the second song in, what a pleasure to hear both the instruments and vocals so clear. There is hope!

 

[NCalHippie]

Thank you for your post, I had no idea such a thing exists. I just chose a long one for background music. House of the Rising Sun was the second song in, what a pleasure to hear both the instruments and vocals so clear. There is hope!

Give vinyl a try!:

 

[cujet]

Give vinyl a try!:

There really was something magical about a great album. Unfortunately, just like today, many albums were crummy pressings, poorly mastered and/or just junk.

The good ones are hard to find today.

I have a nice vinyl collection and a Technics 1210MK5 turntable and an OK Shure cartridge. An honest assessment is that about 10% of my vinyl has that amazing uncompressed analog sound that is "to die for".

Of course, a vintage vinyl/CD sound comparison sometimes has the CD's coming across as a bit muffled and compressed. Many reasons for this. One was to reduce tape hiss from the master recordings. Also tape degrades over time.

PF Animals is a great example, where the CD sounds muffled and not crisp. The original vinyl was wonderfully clear and bright.

Few artists put out similarly mastered music today. Compression is the norm.

 

[ajole]

The other problem with vinyl was...you had to be serious about taking care of it.
You know those guys that angle attack a simple driveway at 3 mph in their jacked up F350 for fear of tweaking the suspension? Same idea. :thumb:

 

[Bob3rd]

I am more concerned with RMS wattage and THD (total harmonic distortion) at said wattage. I would rather have 20 watts per channel at .4% THD than a claimed 1200 watts peak with 15% THD.

LOL Yeah, my old system (goes back to 1985 and won't part with it) is 220W RMS per channel @ .5% THD. When my daughter was a kid and had a sleepover I'd wake them up by turning the speaker to the wall and cranking In-A-Godda-Da-Yida LOL :
ETA

 

[NCalHippie]

There really was something magical about a great album. Unfortunately, just like today, many albums were crummy pressings, poorly mastered and/or just junk.

The good ones are hard to find today.

I have a nice vinyl collection and a Technics 1210MK5 turntable and an OK Shure cartridge. An honest assessment is that about 10% of my vinyl has that amazing uncompressed analog sound that is "to die for".

Of course, a vintage vinyl/CD sound comparison sometimes has the CD's coming across as a bit muffled and compressed. Many reasons for this. One was to reduce tape hiss from the master recordings. Also tape degrades over time.

PF Animals is a great example, where the CD sounds muffled and not crisp. The original vinyl was wonderfully clear and bright.

Few artists put out similarly mastered music today. Compression is the norm.

Try Heart's Dog and Butterfly or Al Green's Year of the Cat on vinyl, what a difference!! Another one would be Suzi Quatro with If you Can't Give Me Love when the bass kicks in, you can hardly hear it on digital.