Re: Re: lossy or FLAC or CD
By: Ogg to All on Sun Aug 02 2020 02:42 pm
I've bought one or two albums in FLAC format. I've seen sites that
sell music in FLAC format, though the selection doesn't seem as
extensive as what's available on CD (which is why I often default to
just buying the CD). In one instance though, the FLAC version of an
album was just $2 more than the MP3 version. It was something like
$12 for MP3s and $14 for FLAC or something.
WHERE did you find FLAC versions at $14? The few places that I've looked at (in the distant past) have always had prices in the $25+ range.
One of my favorite musicians is Mark Knopfler (he was the main guy in the band Dire Straits), and his web site sells his music & other merchandise. I went to one of his concerts several years ago, and they had live recordings of his shows at multiple locations (including my location), and from what I remember, they were about $14 for the FLAC version of the album.
It almost felt a bit high, but I figured that's about what a new
music CD would cost anyway. And why would I want to buy music in a
lossy compressed format? I can convert it to MP3 myself.
Sometimes, a 384Kbps version is "good enough" for me! LOL
People always used to say 128kbit was enough. I've listened to a lot of 128kbit MP3s and they sounded good to me.. The last time I tried a listen, I had a hard time telling the difference between 128kbit and 320kbit. Perhaps if I listened close with headphones, I can tell a difference.
But I totally agree with you. I found it abhorrent that iTunes initially offered only 128Kbps mp3 versions. It only makes sense because their target market were the portable player iPod users. But for me, I preferred to burn to CD so that I could enjoy tunes on a conventional hi- fi system. 128Kbps versions burned to CD sounded like they were being pushed through a saw-tooth filter. The bass was often too boomy.
I've never actually had a high-quality hi-fi music player.. In the past, I've almost alawys listened to music on a portable player like a Walkman or portable CD player with headphones. I had a boom box stereo at home for quite a while, which was a fairly average (but decent) dual-cassette AM/FM stereo. More recently (in the past 12+ years or so), I usually listen to music on a portable MP3 player or in my car. So I'd probably have a hard time telling the difference between 128kbit and a higher-quality audio file, but I'd still prefer to have a lossless copy somewhere..
I was totally jealous of people who boasted acquiring much less lossy ogg vorbis versions of their tunes. But for me, still on dialup at that time, that was a difficult market to participate in.
Yeah, I remember when I first discovered MP3s and I realized I could download a song over dialup in a much more reasonable time than something like a WAV file.. I thought it was really cool.
The backstory how mp3 was first developed and how (and why) it got into the hands of the masses is an interesting story.
I've heard some somewhat differing stories about that. I worked at Intel for a while, and when I was new, during the new employee orientation, someone mentioned that the MP3 codec was first developed by someone or a group at Intel and then they didn't know what to do with it, so they ended up selling the patent to Fraunhofer. But I'm not sure how true that is, since I haven't been able to find anything to back up that story.
Nightfox
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