# Digital Music



## BuddhaBandit

Somebody recently started a thread on the future of CDs. The general consensus was that they'll be basically obsolete in about 10 years. So, that made me wonder whether I should transfer my CDs to my computer and start buying digital music- any thoughts from you all? And, if any of you have digital collections, how do you organize it? And which players work well for classical?


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## Yagan Kiely

> So, that made me wonder whether I should transfer my CDs to my computer and start buying digital music- any thoughts from you all?


RIAA says that is illegal (Though I didn't see them sue Bush for having Beatles on his iPod). But RIAA are full of **** and are greedy arsehats.



> And, if any of you have digital collections, how do you organize it? And which players work well for classical?


I listen to my music through my MacBook Pro/iPod, and I'd be buggered if I had to get a CD everytime. I prefer having the hard copy on hand, but I couldn't _use_ it.

I use iTunes, but Songbird is okay. WMP is ****ing retarded, don't go near it.


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## Weston

You may be disappointed in the sound quality if you are an audiophile, but I do like the convenience and versatility of mp3's.

I do not like to buy mp3's, however - I don't trust other people encoding them. It works better for me to buy the CD's and rip them to wav files so I can be sure the volume levels are correct. It's been my experience purchased mp3's can have terrible gaps in continuous movments such as the 3rd and 4th of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, and individual tracks can be normalized to the same volume as other tracks which may work fine for pop / rock, but not for classical.

So I dread the day when CD's are obsolete until either the music distributors or the mp3 players get smarter.


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## Isola

I agree with Weston. I do exactly the same: buy the CDs and rip them to WAV - I suppose the closest format to the audio CD at the moment? The sound is quite good even from a decent mp3 player. I just got a Creative Zen X-FI for present to place my old one and the sound is excellent. I don't think CDs will be out of the market until new formats that can match CDs audio quality come to existence, which is only a matter of time.


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## Louigi Verona

It must be noted that a high quality mp3 cannot be distinguished from a cd by ear - only by using specialized audio analysis equipment. So I wouldn't really mind too much.


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## Mr. Terrible

*Hm.....*



Louigi Verona said:


> It must be noted that a high quality mp3 cannot be distinguished from a cd by ear - only by using specialized audio analysis equipment. So I wouldn't really mind too much.


Even at 192 or higher there is a real difference, which is easily discernible by ear assuming you are playing it back on halfway decent audio equipment. 
On an IPod with earbuds I would agree, but there again that is what mp3 was always geared up to.
Where the future of quality recordings lies has already been discussed on here.
Already you can buy high def audio files which offer recording quality far better than anything available on either CD or the usual download formats.

So I guess we will all be shopping for really good quality interfaces between our computers and our hifi systems very soon.


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## Louigi Verona

I am sorry, but I cannot believe that there is any significant difference in mp3 at 192 *and higher*. Although it does depend on the genre of music and what kind of instruments, sounds and techniques used. If you are a real audiophile, you can use 320 mp3. At this kind of quality human ear simply is out of range to notice any difference, no matter what audio equipment you have.
I believe that in many cases it is psychology which takes over here.


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## phoenixshade

BuddhaBandit said:


> So, that made me wonder whether I should transfer my CDs to my computer and start buying digital music- any thoughts from you all? And, if any of you have digital collections, how do you organize it?


I already transfer my CDs to an external hard drive, due to lessons learned after losing some to CD rot and quite a few more in a sewage backup. I use EAC and lossless FLAC compression. I won't buy music in mp3 or any other lossy compression format - see below for why.

As for organization, I simply use the filesystem and folders that are the default with Windows: the top level is categorization into broad categories (rock, jazz, electronica, classical, opera, etc.); I break these into subcategories at the next level (using eras in the case of classical), then I create a separate folder for each complete CD.

I know that this isn't the most efficient way of organizing, but it is at least as good as any method for organizing the physical CDs... better in fact, since I don't have to remember to put them back when I'm done with them.



Louigi Verona said:


> I am sorry, but I cannot believe that there is any significant difference in mp3 at 192 and higher. [ . . . ] I believe that in many cases it is psychology which takes over here.


I can tell you that I personally can hear the difference between 256kbps mp3 and lossless files by ear on my good (but not great) PC speakers, and it's not psychology. One of my friends believed the same thing - that it was "all in my head" to use his terms, so we set about an objective test.

I ripped the first movement of Beethoven's String Quartet #14 (the Takács Quartet recording, which I love) in several mp3 bitrates (LAME encoded) and in the lossless flac format. Then, we ran a blind test. He played back samples at random, and I attempted to identify whether it was mp3 or lossless. No feedback was given after each sample as to whether I was correct; he simply wrote which file he had played and I checked off whether I thought I heard lossy or lossless compression. For all bit rates up to 192, I correctly identified them as lossy 100% of the time. At 256, I identified it as lossy in 3 out of 4 hearings. With 320 kbps mp3 and flac, I always them identified as lossless. But keep in mind this was on my Dell speakers on my PC, not on a good soundsystem.

So when it comes to archiving my CD collection, I'll stick with flac - which incidentally is capable of lossless encoding at MUCH higher than cd quality both in terms of sample rate and resolution - so whatever the future brings (SACD, DVD-audio, whatever), this format is ready.


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## BuddhaBandit

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'm going to take the plunge and upload my collection- it'll take a while but I think it's worth it.


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## Ralfy

I tend to do things the other way round, i.e., assume that hard disks will crash and that I might be able to recover more from CDs or DVDs, even with the possibility of rot. I wish I still had a record player, though.

Has anyone been ordering high-quality MP3s or FLACs from publishers that sell online versions of their albums? How's the quality, and should I look out for things like DRM?


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## kv466

Yeah, upload it anyway...you'll enjoy it and your discs will be great unused backups


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## LordBlackudder

benefits:

1 - you can navigate through your collection easier and faster and organize it by genre, duration, artist and so on.

2 - there is no difference in sound quality. the new players can blend or change from one track to another instantly so the sound quality is better than CD's in that respect.

3 - u will have a back up.

4 - takes up less storage space and is easier to dust.

5 - itunes can be cheaper than buying a CD.

6 - don't forget websites like grooveshark which can keep your music collection on the internet. so you can access it anyway in the world. you might as well do this option anyway it doesn't cost you anything.

negatives:

none since this is what CDs always tried to be.


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## DennyL

I was recently tempted to buy a 96/24 download of Boulez' Mahler 3, but I couldn't buy it because I'm in the UK and HDTracks wouldn't sell it to me (after spending 30 minutes faffing around on their site). Afterwards I was wondering about this. Do HDTracks and sights like them have access to superior-quality source material, or are they doing something with a CD-quality (44/16) source, and pretending that they are extracting more data? Does anyone know what is going on here?


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## Philip

BuddhaBandit said:


> Somebody recently started a thread on the future of CDs. The general consensus was that they'll be basically obsolete in about 10 years. So, that made me wonder whether I should transfer my CDs to my computer and start buying digital music-


the compact disc itself one day might become obsolete, and lossy formats such as the mp3 will suffer the same fate. but the difference is that the cd is a physical media while the mp3 is a data format... the data format on a cd is actually pcm, and pcm is here to stay.



DennyL said:


> Do HDTracks and sights like them have access to superior-quality source material, or are they doing something with a CD-quality (44/16) source, and pretending that they are extracting more data? Does anyone know what is going on here?


if the source for 96/24 audio were 44/16, that would constitute a scam.


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## haydnfan

The decline of the cd is taking so long that even the estimate of being obsolete in 10 years is wishful thinking for the digital converts. And for classical music in particular, it won't go away for along time just because we vote with our wallets very often for lossless audio and liner notes. Something that itunes and amazon mp3 are not offering and might never offer.

Some people think that lossless audio downloads will take over soon... yeah right! As long as lossy downloads are good enough for most people, and most people in the US have slow internet connections (which they do) lossy downloads will dominate the digital market for many years to come.


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## misterjones

The evolution of music media typically has been driven by matters other than sound quality (except for die-hard audiophiles). Edison cylinders sounded better than 78s, but people preferred the 78s because they were easier to store on shelves. Edison's version of the flat disc sounded better, but failed because he didn't sign the singers people wanted to hear. (The famous rejection being Bessie Smith. Edison's note - "voice NG"). Paramount made notoriously crappy 78s, but they sold well because they recorded artists like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton. The LP had good sound (with a bit of surface noise) and you could buy extended recordings - especially good for classical - but they lacked portability and cassette tapes soon became popular (despite the annoying tape hiss and deterioration). Finally, CDs seemed to be the answer - no surface noise, longer playing time, easy storage and portability. Case closed? I thought so. Now I think we're back to convenience and portability and let audio quality be damned. (I can carry around hundreds of CD on my iPod.) I've always assumed the answer was FLAC, but I'd need a FLAC player to hold my entire music collection AND permit me to re-load my CDs extremely quickly. Not sure we're there yet.


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## Vaneyes

I love CDs.


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## DennyL

Now that the age of downloads has dawned there is no reason why we should be constrained to a 44/16 standard, which has always been tight, both in amplitude resolution and sample frequency. I'm not alone in believing that there were media that predate the CD that had superior sound quality, such as vinyl and open real tape. I'm disappointed that SACD didn't take off but I still have hopes that a system superior to CD will gain acceptance. I use a Squeezebox system and I can already play high definition downloads; they just need to be available; I don't need a special player.

I agree that most people don't give a damn about sound quality, and I sometimes wonder about it myself, but now storage capacity and connection bandwidth are cheap and increasing, moving to a better standard than 44/16 would be a natural progression. I'm not sure I buy the sleeve notes and packaging arguments in favour of CD because I'm interested in music, and these elements are that turn music into a consumer product; if I want to read about the work or the musicians there's no shortage of information available, with or without sleevenotes.


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## Vaneyes

DennyL said:


> I'm not alone in believing that there were media that predate the CD that had superior sound quality, such as vinyl and open real tape. I'm disappointed that SACD didn't take off but I still have hopes that a system superior to CD will gain acceptance....I agree that most people don't give a damn about sound quality, and I sometimes wonder about it myself...


Open reel tape and vinyl are good sounding alternatives, until they begin to deteriorate. This can be slowed with great care and low humidity. CDs don't have that problem, but until the early 90's, were too often unpredictable in sound engineering.

I think SACD could have succeeded, though not with mass-market ('most people don't give a damn about sound quality'), if it had stuck to its original intentions for 2-channel.


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## DennyL

Vaneyes said:


> Open reel tape and vinyl are good sounding alternatives, until they begin to deteriorate. This can be slowed with great care and low humidity. CDs don't have that problem, but until the early 90's, were too often unpredictable in sound engineering.


Would you care to estimate a number of years for the storage life of tape, vinyl and optical disks, Vaneyes? Not only must the media survive, but the technical means of playing them must be available, too. This is a huge and complex topic addressed by corporations wanting to archive data (well, not vinyl!). Do we think that as many choices CD players will be available in 25 years as there are, say, turntables and cartridges now? There is a good chance that it will be downloads or nothing, and we won't be able even to give away our cherished CDs, like my cherished vinyl now. I've sold one of my CD players and I'm about to sell the other. I need a CD only once - when I rip it to FLAC before archiving it, and I do that in my Mac or PC.


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## Vaneyes

DennyL said:


> Would you care to estimate a number of years for the storage life of tape, vinyl and optical disks, Vaneyes? Not only must the media survive, but the technical means of playing them must be available, too. This is a huge and complex topic addressed by corporations wanting to archive data (well, not vinyl!). Do we think that as many choices CD players will be available in 25 years as there are, say, turntables and cartridges now? There is a good chance that it will be downloads or nothing, and we won't be able even to give away our cherished CDs, like my cherished vinyl now. I've sold one of my CD players and I'm about to sell the other. I need a CD only once - when I rip it to FLAC before archiving it, and I do that in my Mac or PC.


A long, longer, and longest time, howz that? If you take great care, and with the proper climate, you probably have more chance of losing everything to a natural event or nuclear strike.

Single CD players are quickly disappearing, and many that are still being manufactured are over-priced. Currently, some BluRay machines for CD playback are viable options. Likely in our lifetimes, some form of good disc playback machine will be available for a reasonable price. I'm not into downloading, so I choose to remain optimistic in this regard.:tiphat:


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## DennyL

You'll come round to downloading sooner or later, Vaneyes. I'm a Mac fanboy and I'm off into the Cloud asap! :angel:


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## misterjones

I mentioned it at another site and I'll note it here: I have a Miles Davis 78 from 1951 and it sounds better (i.e., warmer and fuller) to me than my CD version. I can't say whether either sounds as good as Miles live in the studio that day in 1951. Some say LPs sound better, but is that because they add qualities that sound good but are nevertheless artificial?


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## Philip

Analog (tape, vinyl) has lost its battle against digital years ago. today most vinyls are made from digital recordings anyway. also, i'm not sure if anything higher than 44/16 is needed for listening purposes. many if not all listening tests have shown that 44/16 is indiscernible from higher resolutions. 192/24 is certainly overkill, although perhaps 48/20 or 48/24 could be useful in some applications.

Now. i'm sorry to say but all forms of compact discs will eventually disappear, cd, dvd, blu-ray included. We are moving towards entirely homogenous systems where no physical layer is desired between user and media. the current trend for streaming and low bit-rate media is a clear indication of this.

The real underlying question is which digital format will prevail? for uncompressed audio (studio, pre-mastering), pulse-code modulation (used on cds) will most likely remain the coding of choice for its efficiency and processing affinity. the sacd, which uses pulse-density modulation, has failed for this reason exactly.

Low bit-rate audio will continue to evolve from the mp3, already to mpeg2 (aac) and onward. it is difficult to predict whether or not lossless formats will fade away. the disappearance of the cd from our shelves will certainly blur the meaning of loss - in that audio is lossless with regards to what? ...rendering lossless media compression (audio, video) irrelevant altogether.


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## Vaneyes

Philip said:


> Analog (tape, vinyl) has lost its battle against digital years ago. today most vinyls are made from digital recordings anyway. also, i'm not sure if anything higher than 44/16 is needed for listening purposes. many if not all listening tests have shown that 44/16 is indiscernible from higher resolutions. 192/24 is certainly overkill, although perhaps 48/20 or 48/24 could be useful in some applications.
> 
> Now. i'm sorry to say but all forms of compact discs will eventually disappear, cd, dvd, blu-ray included. We are moving towards entirely homogenous systems where no physical layer is desired between user and media. the current trend for streaming and low bit-rate media is a clear indication of this.
> 
> The real underlying question is which digital format will prevail? for uncompressed audio (studio, pre-mastering), pulse-code modulation (used on cds) will most likely remain the coding of choice for its efficiency and processing affinity. the sacd, which uses pulse-density modulation, has failed for this reason exactly.
> 
> Low bit-rate audio will continue to evolve from the mp3, already to mpeg2 (aac) and onward. it is difficult to predict whether or not lossless formats will fade away. the disappearance of the cd from our shelves will certainly blur the meaning of loss - in that audio is lossless with regards to what? ...rendering lossless media compression (audio, video) irrelevant altogether.


Will they come into my home and take my CDs, CD chair, and playback equipment?


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## Philip

Vaneyes said:


> Will they come into my home and take my CDs, CD chair, and playback equipment?


You will be dead by then so your equipment will have no use.


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## DennyL

My understanding is that you will be able to keep your CD chair and re-allocate it to another purpose, Vaneyes.


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## Vaneyes

misterjones said:


> I mentioned it at another site and I'll note it here: I have a Miles Davis 78 from 1951 and it sounds better (i.e., warmer and fuller) to me than my CD version. I can't say whether either sounds as good as Miles live in the studio that day in 1951. Some say LPs sound better, but is that because they add qualities that sound good but are nevertheless artificial?


I don't know if it's what you're saying, but the 1951 78 is virtually an LP, except for revolutions and restricted playing time.


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## Vaneyes

DennyL said:


> My understanding is that you will be able to keep your CD chair and re-allocate it to another purpose, Vaneyes.


That's not good enough. I will be protecting my CD castle.


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## Vaneyes

Philip said:


> You will be dead by then so your equipment will have no use.


Well, then your CD-less information is of no use to any of us. This is Philip K. Dick stuff, that's what it is.


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## Philip

How did you know my full name?


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## Guest

Hi Guys a very interesting subject if I could just add my two cents worth:
The quality of the music source I.e. 128-192-320-plus kbps is noticeable if you are burning CD's I will not d/l anything under 320k and go for FLAC wherever possible.
I have a reasonable HiFi system and you really can tell the difference on play back, if you are listening via PC or mp3 player then it is not important.
CD's will not last a life time do you remember the 'tarnishing' scare a few years ago, I personally lost quite a few before I was made aware of the problem and copied the ones likely to be lost, finally I think the next step could be Holographic Crystal storage at the moment it is very expensive but who knows,
This is a wiki page on Holographic data storage if you are interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_data_storage


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## haydnfan

To reply to the whole what will happen to the cd player strand:

Who cares? Dvd players and blu-ray players* both play cds with no problem. And for portable use an mp3 player trumps the cd player. The only market left for dedicated cd players are for the audiophile, which is why they are insanely overpriced. A fool and his money are soon parted.

* actually my blu-ray player has trouble with copy-protected cds.


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