Apple to launch 24 bit lossless downloads

[PJ S]

Dibblington said:

It makes a lot of difference! Just try it, encode a track from CD to flac and mp3 and switch between the 2 on your home stereo, only takes 10 minutes.

FLAC and ALE Dibbs, not MP3!
Both are lossless, so I'd be interested in if anyone has compared the two, and what they heard each time they compared different songs - as opposed to flicking back & forth on the same one.

[Dibblington]

Ahhh, I thought you meant lossy and lossless comparisons from this:
]

PJ S said:

Beyond a meagre handful (by comparison) of audiophiles, who in the real world knows of or understands much over MP3 and possibly WAV?

Personally, I don't have any need for another format like ALE, flac does everything lossless and MP3 is good enough for compressed audio. Don't know why Microsoft, Apple, Realplayer etc have their own proprietary formats when the world is backing mp3 and flac.

[k-ink]

I'll stick to physical discs in my hand thanks. No worries over losing it all if / when the hardware storage fails.

[Blue Meanie]

k-ink said:

I'll stick to physical discs in my hand thanks. No worries over losing it all if / when the hardware storage fails.

let me introduce you to backups...

[k-ink]

Still not appealing. My computers die every two years it seems. Plus portable backup hard drives are easily stolen. So in the worst case scenario what are you going to do? Buy all your music again. Even if I have all my music on a server I still want to know I have the hard copy stored somewhere else safe.

[Dibblington]

12,000 albums on CD or record take up a lot of room. The same amount of albums take up 1.5TB of hard drive space and gets streamed around the house at the press of a button, a CD multiplayer is technically capable of the samee thing but you'd need one hell of a jukebox.

An ipod holds hundreds of albums, to carry this around with a portable CD player would require a hefty rucksack.

To change an album I don't have to crawl about on my hands and knees down by the hi-fi.

There are pros and cons to physical and digital formats. I'll stick with digital.

[Blue Meanie]

k-ink said:

Still not appealing. My computers die every two years it seems. Plus portable backup hard drives are easily stolen. So in the worst case scenario what are you going to do? Buy all your music again. Even if I have all my music on a server I still want to know I have the hard copy stored somewhere else safe.

House fire? Burglary? Physical damage? Your scenario can be used for anything. Remember, you can have multiple backups at home, and remotely.

[k-ink]

For a start there are nowhere near 12,000 albums worth owning! Maybe 10% of that at a real push if you were confused over what sort of music you actually like. So storage is less of an issue. I personally love a collection of quality with no fillers at all. Every single disc has to be a stunner, or it gets removed.

Also I love to hold the case and disc in my hands, especially if it's a mint digipack with lovely artwork, graphic design, special print on the CD, or limited edition box sets or even rare promo's.


I know people that say they have ten billion years of music on their hard drives. 90% of it is utter crap. None of it paid for.

[JustinP1]

k-ink said:

Still not appealing. My computers die every two years it seems. Plus portable backup hard drives are easily stolen. So in the worst case scenario what are you going to do? Buy all your music again. Even if I have all my music on a server I still want to know I have the hard copy stored somewhere else safe.

I take it you currently have copies of all of your CDs at an alternative location at the moment, in case they get stolen?

[k-ink]

I actually do have duplicates of my rarest CD's for that reason. Not that I'd want to open them ideally as they are rare and sealed. They are worth a bit now but will be worth a lot more when the music industry is dead in a few decades.

[Dibblington]

JustinP1 said:

k-ink said:

Still not appealing. My computers die every two years it seems. Plus portable backup hard drives are easily stolen. So in the worst case scenario what are you going to do? Buy all your music again. Even if I have all my music on a server I still want to know I have the hard copy stored somewhere else safe.

I take it you currently have copies of all of your CDs at an alternative location at the moment, in case they get stolen?

Or in case of a house fire because CDs aren't fireproof.

TBH I'm more worried about losing my collection of digital photos: wedding, honeymoon, holidays, dead friends and relatives and all those memories. I don't use film and paper just because I'm scared of losing the information, I keep a backup hard drive with the parents plus one at home and swap them over, it insures against house fires, electrical surges, theft. Don't mind sacrificing the music to a house fire because it's only music and can be re-downloaded. Photos are a different story (to me) and lots of them can't be re-taken.

How 'bout you k-ink? Have you made the switch to digital photos? Or still on film with copies of nagatives off site in case of fire?

[k-ink]

I have owned a large fire proof safe for five or six years now. Inside that I have two identical Lacie drives with 1T of storage. One mirrors the other. On those I have all my work files, photos, literaly anything important. Nothing is stored on my computer as I find they are disposable after two years and I avoid the hassle of lost data. Also my data is backed up on another computer at my other halfs house. Same place where my rare CD's are kept. So in the event of fire or theft it is not a huge deal.

So I guess I could so easily get on the band wagon of selling my CD's. But I won't. They are important to me in a way a bit of data on a HD will never be. Yes I know that may be odd to some people.

[Blue Meanie]

No-one said it was odd. It was your comment about computers dying that was odd. Whats safer. One copy of something, or multiple copies?

[Sonic]

k-ink said:

Also I love to hold the case and disc in my hands, especially if it's a mint digipack with lovely artwork, graphic design, special print on the CD, or limited edition box sets or even rare promo's.

I can appreciate that. Have you tried a digital media device out of interest?

You could copy all your CD's onto the computer, like most of us have, and have all the benefits of using streaming media whilst still holding the CD in your hand.

Just because you have the CD as digital files on a disk somewhere it doesn't mean you need to get rid of you CD's - heck, it's even another backup

[k-ink]

I can see your points.

I did have the 160GB ipod for a while but I gave it to my other half. I didn't rate the experience to be honest. To make it sound ok I had to use a portable Graham Slee amp and huge Denon cans to get the isolation. That made it too large to be portable. For me music has to sound right, or it's just irritating noise.

A proper home server would be good. I looked into the Olives. But for a HD in a box with a simple interface they want thousands, the jokers.

[Blue Meanie]

Well, CD's are simply digital files themselves.

[Dibblington]

Exactly, some people don't like CDs and prefer records. Tend to use flac files as they contain all the data off the original CD, mp3 doesn't sound 100% right because it's compressed but sometimes it's more about the quality of the music than the quality of the sound.

k-ink said:

So I guess I could so easily get on the band wagon of selling my CD's. But I won't. They are important to me in a way a bit of data on a HD will never be. Yes I know that may be odd to some people.

Not odd at all, some people like the tactile covers and leflets, personally, I couldn't give two hoots what colour the cover is and haven't opened half of the CD inserts.

[k-ink]

I'm actually with you with regards to the music IS more important than the sound. I hate audiophiles that listen to dire lift music just because it's well recorded. But the sound is still very important to me. I don't like listening to good music on below par systems as I know what I am missing. It's like watching Gladiator on a portable tv.