SAVING PRIVATE RYAN 20th Anniversary Edition from La-La Land Records

[Incanus 5,714]

1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

I remember Winamp.

 

I still use Winamp.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

It really whips the llama's ass.

[Jurassic Shark 12,074]

6 minutes ago, Incanus said:

I still use Winamp.

 

But the final release came out several years ago, right?

[Josh500 1,615]

27 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Anyone still listen to Josh?

 

You still butthurt? 😂 

[Jurassic Shark 12,074]

Why would I be butthurt? I'm referring to your constant stream of useless polls, such as the one about dental care.

[Josh500 1,615]

6 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Why would I be butthurt? I'm referring to your constant stream of useless polls, such as the one about dental care.

 

You do sound butthurt. 😂 

 

Little advice. Just don't participate in my polls. This ain't school.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

You're a funny little boy. How do you know so much?

[Nick Parker 3,040]

26 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

 

You do sound butthurt. 😂 

 

Little advice. Just don't participate in my polls. This ain't school.

 

Josh, your lack of empathy and self-awareness is legitimately concerning to myself and other members. Has the possibility of therapy crossed your life path? Treatment is difficult yet possible. 

25 minutes ago, Cherry Pie That'll Kill Ya said:

You're a funny little boy. How do you know so much?

 

Gigalo Cherry, whaddayou marry?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

10 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

Gigalo Cherry, whaddayou marry?

 

I am... I was!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

3 hours ago, Josh500 said:

 

You do sound butthurt. 😂 

 

Little advice. Just don't participate in my polls. This ain't school.

If this isn’t school, why are you using the term “butthurt?”

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

5 hours ago, Incanus said:

I still use Winamp.

 

I use it on my music server.

[JohnnyD 1,223]

7 hours ago, Josh500 said:

 

Anyone still listen to their music on actual CDs played by a CD-player?

 

I do; my Bose CD player has amazing sound! Then again, all of the Maestro’s music is on my iPod and iTunes, so I tend to listen more on my iPod; sitting down on the sofa with a nice hot cup of tea, listening on my Bluetooth Bose headphones (the latest version) is the way to go.

9 hours ago, Incanus said:

I think we can survive another week more without this expansion.  

 

I guess so. I’m excited about the slight remastering and the two extra tracks, as well as the booklet information.

[rough cut 1,714]

2 hours ago, JohnnyD said:

 

all of the Maestro’s music is on my iPod and iTunes, so I tend to listen more on my iPod; sitting down on the sofa with a nice hot cup of tea, listening on my Bluetooth Bose headphones (the latest version) is the way to go.

 

I guess so. I’m excited about the slight remastering and the two extra tracks, as well as the booklet information.

 

Hmmm. Just be aware. Even though both the iTunes and an iPod is able to serve up lossless audio, be aware that Apple and Bluetooth has a long history of being incompatible when it comes to streaming lossless, CD quality, audio.

 

I wouldn’t jump too high over the remastering. The original OST and re-release will be more or less indistinguishable from each other - no matter the equipment used.

[phbart 609]

9 hours ago, Incanus said:

I still use Winamp.

So do I. I used it a lot in the 2000's. And I still do because it's the ONLY software that handles ASIO playback properly with my soundboard, an Asus Xonar DX. Literally all other software I tested didn't work. Winamp lives!

[Jurassic Shark 12,074]

I remember that I had the Phantom Menace skin on Winamp as a warm-up to the film premiere. Good times.

[Chewy 2,391]

MusicBee is the best

[Josh500 1,615]

3 hours ago, JohnnyD said:

 

I do; my Bose CD player has amazing sound! Then again, all of the Maestro’s music is on my iPod and iTunes, so I tend to listen more on my iPod; sitting down on the sofa with a nice hot cup of tea, listening on my Bluetooth Bose headphones (the latest version) is the way to go.

 

 

By definition, listening to the actual CDs must always sound better than any computer files, regardless of format (even FLAC or Apple Lossless).

 

I would listen to the CDs too, at least when I'm at home, except for the inconvenience and my worry that I might accidentally damage the CDs.

 

I used to love my Sony Discman. Now long gone, of course.

[Chewy 2,391]

11 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

By definition, listening to the actual CDs must always sound better than any computer files, regardless of format (even FLAC or Apple Lossless).

 

Why would that be the case?

[Josh500 1,615]

11 minutes ago, Chewy said:

 

Why would that be the case?

 

All the information is contained on the CD. There cannot be any more. Therefore playing directly off the CD yields the best sound quality, of course. In case of lossless formats, they come exceedingly close to CD quality, but imo something always gets lost.

[Chewy 2,391]

Accurate rips of CDs (using EAC for example) contain the exact same info as the Audio CD (sound is bit-perfect and gaps between songs are also perfectly preserved). So unless your CD ripper is bad, ripping a CD preserves 100% of the quality of the sound.

[Josh500 1,615]

3 minutes ago, Chewy said:

Accurate rips of CDs (using EAC for example) contain the exact same info as the Audio CD (sound is bit-perfect and gaps between songs are also perfectly preserved). So unless your CD ripper is bad, ripping a CD preserves 100% of the quality of the sound.

 

Hmmm, yes, that's the theory.

 

However, in practice, something always gets lost, I think. In any case, any rip can only be just as good as the actual CD or worse in terms of sound quality, it can never be better.

[Chewy 2,391]

I see what you mean now  Now that I think about it, there's indeed a small amount of samples (equals to the read offset of your drive) lost at the end of the very last song of the CD.

[Amer 2,107]

So the releases both SPR and ET Vinyl delayed from the manufacturer as updated on LLL's main page. 

[rough cut 1,714]

There is no way - no way - any one could tell the difference between CD playback and a lossless rip of that same CD.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

14 minutes ago, rough cut said:

There is no way - no way - any one could tell the difference between CD playback and a lossless rip of that same CD.

 

Yes you can! Welcome to JWFan University, today's Josh500 lecturing on audio fidelity.

[Jurassic Shark 12,074]

You just gotta believe hard enough!

 

[rough cut 1,714]

Just to be clear - My comment wasn’t meant as an attack on Josh, but a general state of fact.

 

But when it comes to preference for CDs over lossless rips, I guess there could be a placebo effect that occurs.

 

I mean, if you really enjoy picking up the CD-case from the bookshelf, glancing over the track list while strolling over to the hifi equipment, pushing the eject button on the CD-player (that you did research on before you bought it) and then watch the tray disappear back in, before sitting down to listen - then I guess the lack of this ritual will make it seem as if the lossless file, being streamed without ceremony from a computer, is inferior.

[phbart 609]

For what it's worth, if you play a 256kbps or 320kbps lossy audio file that was efficiently encoded using the OGG or AAC format and say it's a lossless audio file or a CD playing, no one will be able to tell difference.

[Faleel 5,347]

10 minutes ago, phbart said:

For what it's worth, if you play a 256kbps or 320kbps lossy audio file that was efficiently encoded using the OGG or AAC format and say it's a lossless audio file or a CD playing, not many will be able to easily tell difference.

Fixed-ish.

[ciarlese 250]

If you rip in wav format (16 bit 44kHz) you get exactly the data as they are on the CD.

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

On 9/7/2018 at 9:34 PM, Chewy said:

Now that I think about it, there's indeed a small amount of samples (equals to the read offset of your drive) lost at the end of the very last song of the CD.

 

Why would that be?

 

A correct rip should be 100% identical to the data on the CD. That's the point of digital data.

 

Now, getting that data to an amp (which then transforms it into analogue data and sends it to the speakers) is another matter. That's where CD players differ in quality (I'm no audio expert, but stuff like jitter etc. comes into play here), and where digital sound cards differ. Plus, depending on your playback hardware and software, your player or your drivers may convert the data to a different bit rate or resolution during playback (for example 48kHz instead of 44.1), which would also affect the quality.

 

But a decent hardware (just like a decent CD player) coupled with correctly configured software should produce exactly the same result as a CD player. Meaning neither is better, and neither is worse. But the computer playback option has the advantage of actually making the files visible. As long as the file can be read and your setup is correct, you KNOW that your playback is perfect. When a CD is scratched, the CD player will attempt to correct any read errors on the fly, and you'll never know that a) your playback isn't perfect anymore and, more importantly, b) it might stop working any moment when the CD gets another tiny scratch.

 

Ergo, all other things being equal, computer playback has a potential quality advantage (or, rather, CD playback has a potential quality disadvantage).

[Chewy 2,391]

7 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Why would that be?

 

A correct rip should be 100% identical to the data on the CD. That's the point of digital data.

Every drive has a read-offset which means it doesn't start to read an audio CD at sample 0. My drive, for example, has a read offset of 6 samples: that means it'll add 6 zero samples at the beginning of the very first track.

A ripper like EAC will know the read offset of your drive and will fix the audio track so that it begins where it should begin (in my example, EAC will just remove the first 6 samples at the beginning of the rip).

However, the problem is that the drive will also not be able to read the last samples of a CD. In the same example, 6 samples will be missing at the end of the last track because the drive assumes that the CD ends before it actually ends. What EAC does in this case is adding 6 zero samples at the end of the last track so the length of the track is correct but it has no idea to know if the last 6 samples are really zero.

Some drives can overread, which means you can make it read after what it assumes to be the end of the CD, but that's kind of a rare feature.

 

Anyway, that's not a big problem because :

- the offset is usually very small. In my example, 6 is 0.00014 seconds.

- the majority of CDs actually end with zero samples so the samples EAC adds at the end are usually making your full rip accurate.

 

important info: EAC checks if your rip is accurate using AccurateRip and CueTools. Both of these services actually don't check the very beginning of the first track and the very end of the last track which means it won't be able to tell you if the last samples added by EAC are correct.

 

So yea, ripping is almost 100% bit-perfect

 

More info on offsets: http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/support/faq/offset-questions/

[Jay 37,359]

On 07/09/2018 at 3:14 PM, Josh500 said:

 

All the information is contained on the CD. There cannot be any more. Therefore playing directly off the CD yields the best sound quality, of course. In case of lossless formats, they come exceedingly close to CD quality, but imo something always gets lost.

 

This is incorrect information.  A proper lossless rip is literally 100% identical to what is on the CD.

 

 

On 07/09/2018 at 3:23 PM, Chewy said:

Accurate rips of CDs (using EAC for example) contain the exact same info as the Audio CD (sound is bit-perfect and gaps between songs are also perfectly preserved). So unless your CD ripper is bad, ripping a CD preserves 100% of the quality of the sound.

 

This is correct.

 

 

On 09/09/2018 at 6:19 PM, phbart said:

For what it's worth, if you play a 256kbps or 320kbps lossy audio file that was efficiently encoded using the OGG or AAC format and say it's a lossless audio file or a CD playing, no one will be able to tell difference.

 

NO NO NO!

 

 

On 09/09/2018 at 7:26 PM, Marian Schedenig said:

A correct rip should be 100% identical to the data on the CD. That's the point of digital data.

 

Now, getting that data to an amp (which then transforms it into analogue data and sends it to the speakers) is another matter. That's where CD players differ in quality (I'm no audio expert, but stuff like jitter etc. comes into play here), and where digital sound cards differ. Plus, depending on your playback hardware and software, your player or your drivers may convert the data to a different bit rate or resolution during playback (for example 48kHz instead of 44.1), which would also affect the quality.

 

But a decent hardware (just like a decent CD player) coupled with correctly configured software should produce exactly the same result as a CD player. Meaning neither is better, and neither is worse. But the computer playback option has the advantage of actually making the files visible. As long as the file can be read and your setup is correct, you KNOW that your playback is perfect. When a CD is scratched, the CD player will attempt to correct any read errors on the fly, and you'll never know that a) your playback isn't perfect anymore and, more importantly, b) it might stop working any moment when the CD gets another tiny scratch.

 

Ergo, all other things being equal, computer playback has a potential quality advantage (or, rather, CD playback has a potential quality disadvantage).

 

QUALITY POST RIGHT HERE!

[crumbs 14,314]

15 minutes ago, Jay said:

This is incorrect information.  A proper lossless rip is literally 100% identical to what is on the CD.

 

Exactly! A CD contains digital data, written in the form of billions of 0s and 1s. When ripped to a lossless format, this binary data is preserved with the same 0s and the same 1s, ergo there is no difference in sound quality.

[Jay 37,359]

As Marian nicely points out, the difference between the two comes down to the hardware interpreting and outputting those 1s and 0s, not the file itself.

[Chewy 2,391]

Yup! That's why choosing a high quality DAC is important. 

[phbart 609]

18 hours ago, Falafel said:

Fixed-ish.

 

3 hours ago, Jay said:

NO NO NO!

 

Okay, people with dog hearing. Let's make this simple blind test here. And be honest about the results, please. I only got two right. TWO! And one of those was a lucky guess, I must say.

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

 

EDIT:

Here's a more "complex" test. I got 35% right, and some were lucky ones.

http://abx.digitalfeed.net/

[Holko 9,526]

I got 4 of those right, but Tom's Diner was the only one which didn't really need any guesswork. Don't know if I could reproduce this number a second time.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

2 hours ago, phbart said:

Okay, people with dog hearing.

 

[Brundlefly 2,385]

5 hours ago, crumbs said:

Exactly! A CD contains digital data, written in the form of billions of 0s and 1s. When ripped to a lossless format, this binary data is preserved with the same 0s and the same 1s, ergo there is no difference in sound quality.

That's the advantage of digital data. The information cannot distort or decay. It is either there or it is completely lost.

[SteveMc 2,674]

2 hours ago, phbart said:

 

 

Okay, people with dog hearing. Let's make this simple blind test here. And be honest about the results, please. I only got two right. TWO! And one of those was a lucky guess, I must say.

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

 

EDIT:

Here's a more "complex" test. I got 35% right, and some were lucky ones.

http://abx.digitalfeed.net/

Did the simple test.  Only got two "right."  For me, the 320 mp3s sounded just about right for everything.  The Neil Young segment , though, was noticeably superior in the top format.

[phbart 609]

1 hour ago, Cherry Pie That'll Kill Ya said:

 

Why are you crying?

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Just now, phbart said:

Why are you crying?

 

Do yourself a favor and continue avoiding Other Topics.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Drax recently sprained his penis, an injury which subsequently spread to his back and now to an ear, causing acute tinnitus.

[phbart 609]

19 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Do yourself a favor and continue avoiding Other Topics.

Earn this!

 

15 minutes ago, TGP said:

Drax recently sprained his penis, an injury which subsequently spread to his back and now to an ear, causing acute tinnitus.

That makes him perfect for detecting 16kHz sine wave on audio.

[thx99 1,740]

(Resisting the urge to nitpick some of the “technical” posts above...)

[Josh500 1,615]

On 9/10/2018 at 8:26 AM, Marian Schedenig said:

 

Why would that be?

 

A correct rip should be 100% identical to the data on the CD. That's the point of digital data.

 

Now, getting that data to an amp (which then transforms it into analogue data and sends it to the speakers) is another matter. That's where CD players differ in quality (I'm no audio expert, but stuff like jitter etc. comes into play here), and where digital sound cards differ. Plus, depending on your playback hardware and software, your player or your drivers may convert the data to a different bit rate or resolution during playback (for example 48kHz instead of 44.1), which would also affect the quality.

 

But a decent hardware (just like a decent CD player) coupled with correctly configured software should produce exactly the same result as a CD player. Meaning neither is better, and neither is worse. But the computer playback option has the advantage of actually making the files visible. As long as the file can be read and your setup is correct, you KNOW that your playback is perfect. When a CD is scratched, the CD player will attempt to correct any read errors on the fly, and you'll never know that a) your playback isn't perfect anymore and, more importantly, b) it might stop working any moment when the CD gets another tiny scratch.

 

Ergo, all other things being equal, computer playback has a potential quality advantage (or, rather, CD playback has a potential quality disadvantage).

 

In theory, you're correct. That's how it should be!

 

However, in practice, I have my doubts. Nothing is 100% like something else on this planet, even computer files. There's always some degradation (whatever the cause), even if it's too slight for us to notice. 

[Chewy 2,391]

Yup, there might indeed be some degradation if a meteorite crashes right on your soundcard.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

7 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

However, in practice, I have my doubts. Nothing is 100% like something else on this planet, even computer files. There's always some degradation (whatever the cause), even if it's too slight for us to notice. 

Josh500 + technology + philosophyA hilarious combination!

[Jay 37,359]

4 hours ago, Josh500 said:

Nothing is 100% like something else on this planet, even computer files. There's always some degradation (whatever the cause), even if it's too slight for us to notice. 

 

You're wrong about this Josh.  1s and 0s are 1s and 0s.  They don't degrade.