320kb is the minimum you should be using, 128kb is blasphemy.

Don't play 128

how is this stilla question in this day and age... I mean I know how, but yes Cyclone NEVER play anything but 320 or better.

We'll, 256 AAC is fine IMO but that's AAC - not mp3

Always good to qualify our answers. :)

Yes, Try To Make 320K Your Minimum Or 256+ AAC.

Most of my music is at 320, but some is at 256kbps. The difference is minimal, but most of my MP3 files are transferred from store bought CDs. You can definitely hear the difference when you go down to 128. Mostly in the high frequencies that get all wishy washy. I can't stand that ultra compressed sound personally, BUT for a new DJ playing through some Mr. DJ of Pyle Pro speakers, the difference won't be as noticeable as it will sound like crap either way. Simply slightly different flavors of crap. :-) If you're using good quality speakers OTOH, the lower bitrate tracks will be even more obvious.



Al

The fun part is the years of digital digging and CD/Vinyl ripping to replace all those low quality 128s...

Get busy - times a wasting!!!

+1 Painful bro... Painful smh

Should probably tell him/her that using a bitrate converter to go up from 128 to 320 isn't going to work either.

Although 128 can be horrible, a lot of 192 files are decent-good...every song is different. Nowadays, a lot of hit songs aren't even mixed and mastered properly, so even the 320 versions don't sound all that good. While some songs were mixed GREAT and polished...so the 192 versions sound decent. But still, when you're in a club with a strong system, you can tell the difference much more than you can through speakers at home or regular headphones...mainly because the bass is similar. The highs on 128 definitely aren't as sharp.

Safdsre doesn't compress his files.

nm

HeHeHe

Just wondering... Most of my music is at 256 or better. Whitelabel stuff is good and all CD and vinyl is ripped at 320 or lossless format - BUT -

When I run video files through Handbrake, they show up at 163 or 212 or some random bitrate like that. Is this normal? I use the Serato presets.

320 or GTFO

yes, but some of yall are playing 320 quality mp3s over 128 quality speakers

I'm all about FLAC now and slowly replacing a lot of my music. Also, if I can't get a song in lossless, I'm not spending money on it either.

LMAO

i.imgur.com


That's what happens when the label or distributor transcodes the audio at the exact spec of the 3.2, 4.0, and 4.1 H264 levels with AAC Audio (usually at a VBR of 192Kbps) instead of just using straight up PCM lossless audio.


I'm with you on this one. I've been getting FLACs where I can for my DJ collection (320Kbps if not), and won't even touch anything less than FLAC anymore for my own personal collection.

how much is that costing with obtaining FLAC files.

The answer is always use the best in this question the best is 320kbps. You can tell the difference on big sounds system even if you are not sure about it at home.

There shouldn't be any associated cost. It's a different format. That's it. If a place is charging more for a different format, time to find a new outlet.

This topic really belongs in 2002.

The conversation in 2014 should be about moving away from lossy audio formats entirely.

Agreed. The problem is lack of bandwidth for all, and lack of uniformity. Does iOS currently support FLAC? Also, these aren't small. Remember that these are effectively CDs (and, quite large, depending on your level of compression). One CD Single can be over 120MB. (Sadly) not everyone has that kind of bandwidth.

ALAC files are non compressed and much smaller than aiff or wav, soo and someone else converted me.

Well, I don't know about that. I mean, there are plenty of people doing video and each video is around 120MB's each too. So, I don't think space is currently a problem. In 2002. Yeah. lol

nm

Not space, bandwidth.

Correction, ALAC is compressed. FLAC is too. The compression ratio is in the range of 57% for both of them.

If you're using a Mac/iTunes/iOS, the lossless format you want is ALAC ("Apple Lossless"). It works fine with Scratch Live.

One good thing about lossless formats is that transcoding to a different format involves no quality losses.

Yes, FLAC and ALAC files are "compressed", but the compression is lossless, meaning that what comes out is bit-for-bit identical to the uncompressed input. While MP3 and AAC are NOT bit-for-bit identical to the original.

what he said ^^^^^

I personally use neither a Mac, nor iTunes (HATE), nor iOS so FLAC works for me fine, and it's supported in Serato ITCH 2.2.2 and Serato DJ. I'm quite satisfied. I've used FLAC for the better part of a decade in my personal collection without issue.

The advantage FLAC has had over ALAC is that it was open-source, and royalty free. Till 2011, ALAC was not. You can imagine which one the significant majority was quicker to adopt...

FLAC, in and of itself, is technically superior to ALAC, but lacks native support on Apple devices or operating systems. So, if you're tied down to Apple, I suppose ALAC would be the route for you to take. If not, FLAC is far more widely supported by a myriad of devices (though neither format has the support that MP3 carries).

It also sees much higher broader usage than ALAC (2011: www.hydrogenaudio.org, 2009: www.hydrogenaudio.org), but this may be an effect of user adoption, device support, and market share of Apple PC's. I'm sure a user is more likely to use ALAC if they own a Mac as opposed to FLAC.

320Kbps should be the industry standard. Apple lossless is not that bad either. Sometimes it's hard to find classics at 320, so i prefer to buy it at the itunes store (sadly it's 256Kbps but alot of times it comes out sounding great).

And I agree with everyone else... Flac is the way to go. Compare the wave form in serato for a FLAC vs any MP3, AAC, Or WAV file. You'll see a difference.

If you want the best out of Flac, RIP IT YOURSELF! I find that people that share Flac on the internet rip it to "Low Flac Quality" at 28MB (700Kbps average according to serato), while the actual HIGH quality flac usually comes to about 36MB (1072Kbps). You'll definetely see the difference! Don't play distorted 128Kbps crap!

Care to elaborate on this Midnight?

i say hop over to bpm & order a hard drive filled with music and trash all those 128 files. they sound like trash

do your self a favor and delete all tracks under 320 or 256 aac

??

Lossless is lossless. You convert back to WAV/AIFF as many times as you want and the file is the same.

I don't see how a 320kbps MP3 lossy file can be better than an ALAC lossless file.



Again, ??

What exactly are you seeing that's different. The waveforms will look virtually identical between formats. You should be listening to the audio files, not looking at them.

And even if they did look different, how on earth can a FLAC look different than a WAV? They are bit identical.

320 mp3 should be the minimum you compress your original lossless file for practical space savings on your portable hard drive. the problem for most of is we are DJs that use record pools. so, they hopefully are doing this for us. the problem came in where crap duplicates started replacing original files. unless i personally rip music myself i can't trust the original was truly lossless. MY POINT...i'll take my chances hoping my reputable sources are giving my quality files between 320 & bare minimum 192 in a pinch. everything has sounded great so far...so i'm satisfied with that.

you know what. if you have to rip the song off soundcloud cause you cant find it anywhere else and its 128 you should be fine just make sure its joint stereo

128 Kbps files always sounded crappy, but when Rane jumped to new sound cards (ala sl-2, sixty two, etc) 128kbps seemed unbearably bad

I think also the SL1 and TTM57 just had bad sound compared to any of the newer ones (SL2,3,4, 61,62,64).

Even with a 320 file the sound is noticeably better.

or how about you just don't play the track

If it's only on soundcloud at 128 then you aren't supposed to have the track in the first place.

True, 320kbps plus sl-1/ttm-57 is noticeably better.

When you hear the new generation products, it's hard to fathom we ever plugged the old stuff into high end sound systems and thought it sounded good.

However, looking back, I once thought standard definition TVs looked great as well, until I got my first high definition TV.

Truth…. Try asking where you can get a higher quality copy.. allot of times people/djs/producers will just send it to you or tell you when it will be released

Sorry bout the late response, but maybe this will help answer your questions.

So i took the song "No scrubs - TLC" in 3 different bitrates, and 2 different formats to compare them.

First one is .MP3 at 128KBPS:

s1276.photobucket.com[user]=140947617&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0

as you can see its a very thin wave form, its also very distorted and seems to have little bits of drop outs through out the track, but not many people will notice this. Also ... the track itself is not very loud, i have to CRANK up the gain on that track to make it loud enough if i were to ever make people dance. Maybe it was a poorly ripped/compressed file? Who knows... I've noticed A LOT of DJs that are starting out that play 128kbps files with distortion and thin wave lengths tend to crank up the gain - which they don't realize it also results in the track clipping - thus sounding like shit. But...

Second one is also .Mp3 at 320kbps

s1276.photobucket.com[user]=140947617&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0

Wave form shows barely any distortion, barely any drop outs, it's definitely thicker, and more colorful. Why does colorful matter? I'll show you in a sec but first ...

Here's a FLAC version of TLC no scrubs:

s1276.photobucket.com[user]=140947617&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0

Alot thicker than the 128kbps, alot louder which means we don't have to crank up the GAIN which results in clipping, and definitely no distortion!

I always make sure i have Lossless formats, Or if i have to buy/download tracks online, I make sure their minimum 320kbps... 256Kbps is acceptable at times. Make sure you always open up the track with serato to see what it looks like as well and what it sounds like before you play it.

Hopefully that helps ... all i gotta say is though - if you're a working DJ, you should consider using some of that money and buying your music. If you have an entire library of 128kbps, it sounds like to me that your downloading for free. Pay your dues my friend!

sorry broken links ... lets try again:

128kbps: i1276.photobucket.com

320Kbps: i1276.photobucket.com


FLAC: i1276.photobucket.com

All 3 of those tracks have different durations. Clearly, they're 3 different rips that could be from anywhere. Vinyl, Radio, YouTube, Soundcloud, CD, Web... who the hell knows.

How bout you grab the FLAC version, convert that to 320 and to 128 and see how different they look. I'm willing to bet they'll look almost identical. ;)



Was that directed at me? Are you under the impression that I play 128kbps files? If so, you are grossly mistaken.

All I was doing was pointing out incorrect information, of which you posted.

Cool?

it wasn't directed at you Forty, it was directed at the guy that started the thread.

I'm not hating on people that are playing 128kbps, i'm just saying that alot of the content you find online that are 128kbps, are generally are poorly ripped files, and i wouldn't reccomend playing em.

But hey man, at the end of the day, if it makes you feel good that you play 128kbps files that are properly ripped without any distortion, then good on ya! I guess i'm one of those DJ's that love to buy and CD rip my own content :)

As Forty alluded to, it all depends on the source rip. If you save to to 128 from a good lossless source it will be much better.

Technologically, FLAC is functionally superior to ALAC.

As an example, you cannot transcode a 24-bit ALAC file to another format without it being truncated to 16-bit regardless of the project bit-depth, or bit-depth of the recipient codec while using anything that makes use of Apple's CoreAudio engine.

FLAC can also compress significantly better than ALAC without loss. The difference here is that FLAC offers compression parameters across 8 levels (actually, 9 if you count uncompressed FLAC audio) while ALAC offers no compression parameters.

Probably the most important is FLAC's Cyclic-Reduancy-Checking. FLAC performs Frame Header CRC, Frame CRC (of the entire Frame), and a hash check of the entire stream itself. This is good for detecting for file truncation, and bit checking (down to the single bit); and it can be verified in batches as a bonus. ALAC (unless something has recently changed) offers no CRC of any kind (whether it be frame or stream verification). It might potentially detect a premature ending of the mdat atom (atomicparsley.sourceforge.net), but you're really relying on the decoder to trigger an error.


There are inaccuracies in both post here. Unless there is a difference in bit-rate and bit-depth, there should be no visual or audible difference between FLAC and PCM audio (WAV is just a container, people). MP3 and AAC, however, are lossy codecs and would show a visual difference and a significantly audible difference than that of a lossless file that was not transcoded from a lossy source.

This discussion is really familiar... (serato.com)


...and I'm willing to tell you openly that they will not. As I described in my last go around, I did a comparison of a lossless FLAC which was peaks at 4.6Mbit/s (96KHz) -- I transcoded it down to 1.4Mbit/s (44.1KHz - FLAC) and 320kbit/s (44.1KHz - MP3). As more compression is applied, increasing amounts of artifacting becomes prevalent as does clipping from the compressed waveform. 128Kbit/s will just increase significantly more.

I'll quote my post from there herein:

so what happens with 'afconvert -f 'WAVE' -d LEI24@44100 file.m4a' then?

Without much knowledge on afconvert (OS X is admittedly not my primary OS), ideally, nothing more than a transcode to LPCM and package into the WAV container.

This isn't the problem though. The problem is with using a program such as iTunes to do it as it will convert them to 16-bit (though it will maintain the same sample rate of the input -- i.e.: 96/24 -> 96/16). With that in mind, something such as XLD should be used (www.macupdate.com).

Admittedly, it's been quite some time since I last worked with ALAC so my information may be dated regarding it's handling of retaining bit-depth when transcoding from other formats. But if I am incorrect, please let me know. Accurate information helps everyone!

afconvert is Apple's command line audio utility - I am fairly sure it does transcode correctly, as I use it to go between ALAC, WAV and AIFF with 24 bit files.

ALAC's main advantage over FLAC is that iTunes handles it natively, including tagging, etc. and will copy the tags when transcoding. This is important only because iTunes is probably the way the majority of people manage their libraries.

Fair enough; however, that assumes someone is using OS X as their primary OS, and/or is using iTunes to manage their library. Personally, I would never let iTunes near my library even if OS X was my primary OS. That said, that is my own opinion.

Personally, I recommend FLAC and will continue to make the recommendation of it. That is with the caveat, though, that if you're an OS X user and find yourself primarily using Apple devices, ALAC is the way to go for you.

Regarding tags, I use dbPowerAmp to manage most of my conversion (especially for batch conversion) and it does an exemplary job of retaining tags and file properties across formats. I also use MP3Tag for tagging in general.

@Papa Midnight

I converted alot of my CD collection into ALAC... Would I have better quality If i converted/Ripped em into FLAC? I want the best possible sound from my collection

Coming from a CD, there should be no difference.

Well I have a CD for the artist "SNOW" , called "12 Inches of Snow", and their's a single on there called "Informer" (i'm sure everyone's obviously heard that hit song).

I converted mine to ALAC, and i also found a "FLAC" Rip online. My CD rip came to about 950kbps, and the FLAC rip was at about 1024kbps, and it sounds alot louder, clearer, better, plus the wave form in serato is alot more thicker, and colorful.

Could this be they have a different CD rip than i have? I'm aware that sometimes there are songs on "greatest hits" albums that generally have better rips than the original albums do since they're remastered...

Or does FLAC just have better parameters when you rip em?

Without knowing this song off the top of my head (or how old it is), if it came from two different sources that were mastered differently, it may indeed sound different - and have a different bitrate.

In example, let's look at N.W.A.'s "F*** the Police". The song appeared on the album "Straight Outta Compton" (1988), and was also remastered for the "Greatest Hits" (2003) album.

Here's the output from Mediainfo:

"Straight Outta Compton" release:

"Greatest Hits" release:


Here's the waveform of both. Top is "Straight Outta Compton", and the bottom is "Greatest Hits": i.imgur.com

On sight, I can tell that compression has been applied across the board to the "Greatest Hits" release (and it's quite audible as well). It was actually a pretty decently balanced approach (I'm looking at you, "Death Magnetic") so no problem there.

That's a very helpful image that you uploaded, I'm assuming the remastered track would have the same media info if it was converted into ALAC? I know your saying FLAC is better, but can you show us an ALAC as well?

Setup: i.imgur.com
Encoding: i.imgur.com
Verification: i.imgur.com
Complete: i.imgur.com



Wave form screenshots (Top is FLAC -- Bottom is ALAC transcoded from FLAC).

Entire wave form: i.imgur.com
Zoomed in: i.imgur.com
Further zoomed: i.imgur.com
ENHANCE: i.imgur.com

As you can see, they are pretty much identical.

So i guess ripping from CD directly into FLAC or ALAC wouldn't make much of a difference overall. I believe you filled in any of the missing pieces people had in this thread. I'm sure the original uploader is long gone anyway, but cheers dude that was a great help!

Thanks for elaborating Midnight. You seem to know your tech stuff.

I do my conversions with XLD, which support sample rates up to 96khz & bith depths up to 32 for ALAC.

Most of my music originates from CD actually, the rest from downloads. (Beatport, Juno & iTunes mostly). Glad I came back to this thread as I found the "lossless store list" in that other thread just now... ;-) -> www.head-fi.org

Ok first there is a LOT of excellent information in this string. I'll try to simplify it.

128 kbps is just fine for regular listening etc. You're teen-age kids listening to an MP3 wont give a crap. Is it truly CD quality ALL the time..nope..it's not.

FLAC is truly lossless. and awesome. 320 is the way to go and here is why.

First there is a test online your can listen to two recordings of the exact song clip and guess which one is 128 and which is 320. Go here

www.noiseaddicts.com

Now the first thing you MUST notice is the fullness of the music. There is a lot of hard beats with subsequent lulls in the sound. One guy, one vocal, no harmonies and not backup singing. With this "type" of wave form 128 and 320 are going to be nearly equal. So this is actually and bad and even deceiving example of comparing the two.

BUT. when you throw in lots of instruments and more vocals, backups, harmonies into the mix as much of the music out there is...you get a different story with 128 to 320, with 320 being clearly the more capable. I would stick with 320.

Unless it's a Podcast of nothing but Talk Radio (i.e.: Serial, or a News Radio stream à la KNX1070), 128 Kbps isn't fine for anyone; and that includes Soundcloud who disappointingly uses 128Kbps for streams.



We've had this discussion. 320Kbps MP3 / AAC is acceptable.

Lossless is the way to go.

Science and math is one thing, but lets give the ears a try;)

this test must be performed in a daw or an audio-editing software like audacity or wavelab

1. step: take a track from a cd and save it as wav (<- original file)
2. step: swap the phase and save ot as a second file (keep the original, too!)
3. step: now convert the second file , thas is phase-swapped, to one aac, one mp3 320 kbps and one mp3 128 kbps (important here do not use any normalisation or anything just convert without any editing but phase swap)
4. step: create a new project in your audio-software with two tracks, put the original on one track, and one of the converted files on the second track and exactly allign the waveforms (in the end of alligning you have to be at the highest millisecond-resultion).
-> result: if the tracks alligned exactly everything that is identically is phased out and you should only hear what was lost due compression
-> now repeat this test original wav vs. each of the other compressed tracks.

Modern audio compression works much more sophisticated. So trying to find out 'what's been left out', is only one side of the coin.
Keywords : Psychoaccoustig model, masking audio

One (simple example) : Very (frequency wise) similar tones may not be distinguished by the human ear/brain. So they might be left out without the listener being able to 'hear' any difference. Esp if one tone is considerably lower volume wise.

I wrote that two years ago, it's even more applicable now than it was then. Lossy audio was a "necessary evil" in an era when the largest hard drives were 60gb. In today's world, it's an anachronism that can't go away soon enough.

The thing I hate most about lossy audio: the more I hear it, the more my ears "learn the degradations". I didn't use to really notice degradations from 320kbps LAME-encoded MP3 files. Now I almost always do.

Oh most definitely. You'll hear it more when you start working with higher sample rates.

To add to the lossless vs. 320 discussion, for those that do thing like go more than a couple percent off on pitch, or if you do scratching, then when you have a lossy file you are more likely to get artifacting from the manipulation.

Personally most of my library is 320, I still have a few legacy files that are 192 - 200-290 VBR, and I have been replacing files as time permits with FLAC. Storage is now cheap enough that one should not compromise quality.