How to tell lossless from lossy.(Music talk)

[twncam]

My main journey as a pirate is to get music.

Mp3 is good and sounds great but how do you tell the difference as compared to lossless.

Unless I rip and upload an album, I cant assure you of the quality but I have a couple little apps that may help.

I DL most of my music as lossless but is it really lossless or a cheap upcode?

These are 3 app I use to check audio files.

auCDtectTaskManager_1.6.0_RC1
Lossless-Audio-Checker-Windows-64bit
spek-0.8.2

Are the perfect?
Not really as nothing is perfect but they help you to learn how to be an audiofile.

Dont forget there are thoses that will upcode a MP3 to flac and you are wasting you bandwidth on this.

These are not perfect but give you a general account of the quality.

Lossless is over 20kHz.

If you have better apps for this please post.

Please comment and help everyone to know........

 

[twncam]

OK, lets talk music.

 

[Katzenfreund]

A related question is whether one can tell the difference between lossless and high quality MP3, e.g. 256 kbps.

I consider myself sincere enough to admit that I can't, but this may be due to my preference for oldies, which have loser quality, which I listen to thru the speakers of my PC.

A further question is whether a barely audible sub-subtle difference is worth the bother. In my case it's not, or as Mr Spock put it:
"A difference that makes no difference is not a difference."

Note: As people's demands and equipment differ wildly, my above comment is in no way intended to undervalue OP's contribution.

 

[Tania Tee]

Another application you can use is Fakin' The Funk. Not only does it automatically check if the audio file is upscaled or not but it will also tell you what the actually quality of the audio file is i.e. Says 320kpbs but actually is 128kbps. The only catch the first 100 fakes detected are free after that you have to pay a small fee to continue using it. The work around I noticed is you can still use it without paying you just need to do one or two tracks at a time as it will still give you a notification its fake just not the real bitrate but who cares all you want to know if its fake or not right?

Spek is a free alternative however based on the spectrogram graph you have to work it out yourself manually whether its upscaled or not. Some files are quite obvious whilst might not be. Trail and error I guess.

In my view 99% of the time quality is guided by your ear. Some tracks clearly sound good or bad and some you can notice the difference between two files. Nonetheless, most people prefer lossless (WAV or FLAC) 20-22kHz for more superior quality by default however it takes a lot of hard drive space especially WAV files just like movies and TV shows I guess eg. HD, 4K, UHD & MKV, MP4. On the other hand 320kps 18kHz (I think) is the next best substitute with some quality loss but a much more smaller file size.

From my own experience, generally lossless (WAV/FLAC ) tracks do sounds better than lossy 320kbps but most the time it's sounds almost the same i.e. can't really hear a significant or any difference. Ironically on the flip side lossy (mp3) tracks at 128kbps can sometimes sound better than 320kbps. Not idea why though, again your ear if your best friend and the source of where the file came from but of course you don't want a collection of upscaled fakes either.

Hope this helps.

 

[whitefish]

twncam, end this fear of lossless, get a Mac ...

the fish

 

[twncam]

I have used "Fakin' The Funk" also Tania.

Dont save many movies/tv shows and have always loved collecting music since I started my pirating dayz.
I remember the old dial up and taking what seemed like forever to get one song and then the connection would drop out
For me mp3 is good enough as my hearing is not what it used to be and as stated most people can't tell the difference.
But I do want my archives to be lossless as I can always downgrade to mp3 to share.

Just wanted to start a conversation and maybe learn of some new apps,tricks and tips to make me "More Smart"

 

[twncam]

Just an FYI if you see a file titled HTOA in your lossless music, this is a good sign that this is a legitimate rip as this is usually first few moments of silence on a CD.

The beginning of the first track doesn’t always start at 00:00:00. Cuetools will preserve any data from 00:00:00 up to the beginning of the first track even if it is just silence. Sometimes you might find actual content there which is why it is called Hidden Track One Audio (HTOA).

 

[NavyRet]

It also helps if you have good speakers. I have Bose on my computer and Sansui on my living room player. I prefer the Bose over the Sansui, but it's close.

 

[Tania Tee]

I have used "Fakin' The Funk" also Tania.
I remember the old dial up and taking what seemed like forever to get one song and then the connection would drop out
For me mp3 is good enough as my hearing is not what it used to be and as stated most people can't tell the difference.
But I do want my archives to be lossless as I can always downgrade to mp3 to share.

Just wanted to start a conversation and maybe learn of some new apps,tricks and tips to make me "More Smart"

Cool twncam, for me Fakin The Funk does the job but no doubt there are better and more importantly free tools out there I gather
Likewise, I remember dial up and when he damn connection drop out at 98% after waiting 2 hours for a 4 minute track to download and you had to do it all again from the start lol
I think that as well, majority of the time mp3 is good enough although lately i've been moving towards lossless (WAV) its just the files take up so much damn space. Might bite the bullet and go back to mp3 but see the benefit of lossless that you an always convert down but never can covert up regardless of the audio file type without it being an upscaled fake.
No doubt you're a smart cookie already but agree new tricks and tips always come handy

 

[Katzenfreund]

For those content with MP3 but who still want the best quality for the file size, the encoder used plays a role as well, while VBR (variable bit rate) will yield a smaller file for the quality, or better quality for the file size. And I'd be greatly surprised if any modern MP3 player doesn't support it. Even my old SONY the size of a flash stick does.

As for the encoder to choose, the free, opens source LAME is considered the best MP3 encoder at mid-high bitrates and at VBR.

 

[EMS]

Urm....wasn't the question, what's the difference between lossy and lossless? Just saying

I can't be bothered to explain it so I hope this helps....

https://techterms.com/definition/lossless

https://techterms.com/definition/lossy

 

[twncam]

Thanks EMS for the links but I dont need this as I know the difference.

This is just a general conversation about music as far as tips,tricks and good apps to have.

I used to use SMLoadr to get muisc from Deezer, you could get flac or mp3 @ 320/128 but they closed the backdoor so to speak,
You can still use it but only get 128kbps quality.

But I found another one that works and does allow you to DL lossless from deezer.
It is called Deemix.
Open source and works good so far..
You have to have an account on deezer and get your cookie(arl) to put into deemix to allow it to download.

Download links here

https://download.deemix.app/pyweb/
OR
https://download.deemix.app/gui/

So far so good.

(Just a note as this app reaches out to download, it may set off your AV on set up.
I use the pyweb and it is portable)

 

[Tania Tee]

twncam - if you want download music files from Deezer in FLAC and MP3 use the website below. It was posted on the forum some time ago and works well. Just make sure to use Fakin The Funk or Spek as some files are still upscaled

https://free-mp3-download.net/

 

[Rickkins]

Sorry for going off topic, but I'm wondering what the best tagging options are today. Had an app years ago which I used to strip all but the titles from the songs, to use on my Kenwood car stereo. Now I have a double din thing and would like to spruce up the list but I no longer have the app. Any recomends...???
Thanks.

 

[twncam]

Sorry for going off topic, but I'm wondering what the best tagging options are today. Had an app years ago which I used to strip all but the titles from the songs, to use on my Kenwood car stereo. Now I have a double din thing and would like to spruce up the list but I no longer have the app. Any recomends...???
Thanks.

Nothing off topic here if music related.
I use Mp3tag for tagging my music.
Works good and best of all, it is free.

https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

If you need any help, send me a PM..twncam

 

[EMS]

Mp3tag is the one I use too......I don't like all the details on my tunes, just the name of the artist and the song, don't need what track number etc etc

I'm happy with Mp3 320kbs because the quality is good enough and its a smaller file, which means getting more on a HD. WMA files take up a lot of room too

 

[Rickkins]

I'm happy with Mp3 320kbs because the quality is good enough and its a smaller file, which means getting more on a HD. WMA files take up a lot of room too

Yea, that's really next on my 'to do' list, upgrading my songs so many of which were grabbed with the original Napster. By the time that gem closed down, I had grabbed just about every tune I ever liked...

I guess Soulseek is the way to go...??

 

[EMS]

I've always done it.....get rid of all the rubbish information that I don't need, manually, was a nightmare....Mp3tag saves soooooooo much time and when you do it manually, it doesn't always mean you get rid of everything...I don't like the album png attached to the songs or the albums. I'm not interested in those either. Just the music

I used to use limewire and another one I can't remember now, it was dance specific but after multiple years of doing stuff, HDs dying and all the other issues.....I had to start again, so I did...1000's upon 1000's of tunes had to be redownloaded and I probably still don't have all the tunes I used to have, mainly because I can't remember them

 

[Tania Tee]

Mp3tag is the one I use too......I don't like all the details on my tunes, just the name of the artist and the song, don't need what track number etc etc

Same, also I don't need the covert art, year it was released or who wrote the track either

 

[EMS]

Same, also I don't need the covert art, year it was released or who wrote the track either

And then you have the idiots filling in all the subject details...year, genre, what colour hair they've got etc etc

 

[Tania Tee]

And then you have the idiots filling in all the subject details...year, genre, what colour hair they've got etc etc

Spot on including other idiots that put personal email address, links to forums, sites etc.

Foobar2000 also does a decent job at bulk tagging in one go which saves heaps of time, you can also play lossless files and has an inbuilt converter

 

[EMS]

Spot on including other idiots that put personal email address, links to forums, sites etc.

Foobar2000 also does a decent job at bulk tagging in one go which saves heaps of time, you can also play lossless files and has an inbuilt converter

I play my stuff on VLC, used to use the WMP but found I can save the whole playlist with VLC, WMP will only save part of the list because its so big. Mp3 does batch tagging, so I'm good with that

 

[twncam]

I agree that there is nothing worse them music tagged with information not related to the music.
I tag everything I upload and remove tags such as "uploaded by blahblah.com"

Tagging is important on my music and I always try to make sure they are tagged properly.

 

[Tania Tee]

I play my stuff on VLC, used to use the WMP but found I can save the whole playlist with VLC, WMP will only save part of the list because its so big. Mp3 does batch tagging, so I'm good with that

For audio I use foobar and video WMP at the moment. Had major problems with VLC so ditched although many think its great

 

[BGMacaw]

This is a great thread. I noticed there's one subject that hasn't really been mentioned that's kind of a big thing for me personally, compression.
Not the compression relating to file size but the compression of the audio content within the file.
The following is just my personal opinion as someone who spent a few years working with audio, your mileage may vary.
My preference for my digital archives is to be in uncompressed full dynamic range FLAC format (A good 320k mp3 also makes the grade). I want my source to always be as clean and fully dynamic as possible.
The lower the file's quality the worse the high end sounds to me, things like cymbal work, sibilance, and so on take on a crunchy almost distorted quality.
If I need to compress or convert to mp3 for different listening environments where clarity isn't critical or file size is an issue I like to be able to control that myself.
I've tossed many a download in the recycle bin after giving them a listen and looking at the wave form. To me there's no point in having a FLAC of even a 320k mp3 file if it's been
crushed into oblivion, that's like putting lipstick and perfume on a pig. A smaller 160-256k will suffice until I find a better source.
To me an over compressed /maximized what ever you want to call it file has a very over saturated flat papery sound and lacks depth, much like FM radio transmissions.
I don't want to waste time going into the specifics of compression here but this page has a good explanation on the basics if you're unfamiliar >

https://blog.landr.com/how-to-use-a-compressor/

Here's a screen grab of a Beatles song, one is what I'd call over compressed the other is not compressed at all.
As you can see there's a big difference which very noticeably translates into what you hear regardless if it's a lossless high bitrate or a lossy lower bitrate file.

Anyway, this is just my 2 cents worth, I'm not meaning to offend, criticize, or complain, in the end it's all about personal preference.
I just thought it might be a good subject for a music related thread.
Party on Garth

 

[twncam]

Nice informative read BGMacaw.

 

[EMS]

I don't like FLAC for one main reason......they take up too much space.. Mp3 320kbs is fine for me, although I use creative 5.1 speakers through a soundblaster card, that's fine for me.

 

[twncam]

I don't like FLAC for one main reason......they take up too much space.. Mp3 320kbs is fine for me, although I use creative 5.1 speakers through a soundblaster card, that's fine for me.

This is good but if you want the real music, flac is the way.
While I may upload music in mp3, I try to get all in flac as they are the best quality.
I like a good mp3 @ 32o but in my head I know I can do better.

As I get older I must admit 320 mp3 is good enough.
But I still want proper flac files for my archives.

 

[BGMacaw]

I don't like FLAC for one main reason......they take up too much space..

Yes they do take up more space, no argument about that. I only keep FLAC downloads that I think are worth having a FLAC copy of for that reason.
Honestly I'd rather have a 320K or even a 256K MP3 in full dynamic range than a FLAC that's been compressed and crushed into oblivion.
FLAC is just my preference for a well done rip particularly if the program material has a wide dynamic range like classical or something like Pink Floyd and other rock with subtle passages like Since I Been Loving You by Zeppelin - You can hear Bonham's kick drum pedal squeaking. Did I mention I'm a Led head?
That high frequency crunchy distorted sound I mentioned before draws my ear like a magnet and is like nails on a blackboard to me particularly in a quiet environment like at home.
I'm not nearly as critical and don't mind some compression on tracks loaded on a flash drive for my car stereo. It actually helps make quieter things more easily heard over the road noise and my exhaust.
Yeah I know, sounds a bit OCD but I can't help it.

 

[EMS]

Nah that's not OCD, that's just beig accepting of good music that hasn't had the shite ripped out of it. We all get that, I'm not too fussy about dynamic range, I put music on for 2 main reasons, 1 to blow off some steam or when I'm driving....so either way a full dynamic range isn'y really going to wreck my day....