Digital music setups

[John L]

I store lossless files in FLAC and use iTunes. Since iTunes doesn't play FLAC and WAV takes up too much room, I make additional MP3s to use in iTunes. So I have lossless, but usually listen to lossy, not a very efficient combination.

What do you guys do?

[mjzee]

I use pretty much only mp3. In the beginning, I also ripped using Apple's m4a, but couldn't see much of a difference. I recently experienced FLAC when I downloaded 2 Furthur concerts, and was astonished by the file sizes. I converted the FLAC files into mp3, and I could hear a little sonic difference between the two, but not enough to encourage me to look into using it, well, further.

I really do think that mp3, when ripped using VBR, is good enough. I've long since stopped using my living room stereo; I listen mostly using Altec computer speakers and in my car. mp3 is good enough to let me get lost in the music.

[A Lark Ascending]

mp3s

I experimented with a few higher resolution things from places like Chandos and Gimell but could not hear the difference.

I don't think God made me to be an audiophile.

I'm increasingly finding I get my most pleasurable listening experiences via the iPod. Even with inexpensive earphones I get a much better sense of the separate instruments than on my main system. What started as a way to listen to music in the early morning at a sensible volume without waking the neighbours is becoming a preferred way of listening. The only thing that stops me doing it all the time is a) gets a bit wearing on the ears after a couple of hours; b) as I move round the house the wire inevitably snags on something and yanks then painfully from my ears.

I recall a friend in the early 70s, who was much more knowledgeable about music than myself, being a bit dismissive of the enthusiasm of my fellow listeners for hi-fi (not that we could afford it!) - he maintained that someone really keen on music would happily listen to a 78 rpm, hearing through the imperfections to the music.

Though I can't deal with badly distorted records or poorly transferred CDs, I've increasingly come to see the wisdom of his view.

Edited December 24, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[jazzbo]

I'm still using only discs. But I have only one set of analog connections now, from my DAC to my amp. My three sources (audio transport, Blu-ray player, and DVR) all pass digital signals into my PS Audio PerfectWave DAC which has a variable analog output going into my amplifier (which also has an adjustable gain stage). I'm getting sound I only ever imagined I could get before with this set up, and remote control of source selection and volume. Very happy.

[mjzee]

I recall a friend in the early 70s, who was much more knowledgeable about music than myself, being a bit dismissive of the enthusiasm of my fellow listeners for hi-fi (not that we could afford it!) - he maintained that someone really keen on music would happily listen to a 78 rpm, hearing through the imperfections to the music.

I remember a DownBeat interview with Milt Jackson (towards the end of his career...probably the last one they did with him). They interviewed him in his house. He showed them a boom box he kept in his kitchen, and told them that's where he did all his listening. They were astonished that he didn't listen on some huge audiophile setup; he told them it's good enough.

(I think it's this interview, but weirdly, it doesn't show most of the article.)

[Shawn]

I store lossless files in FLAC and use iTunes. Since iTunes doesn't play FLAC and WAV takes up too much room, I make additional MP3s to use in iTunes. So I have lossless, but usually listen to lossy, not a very efficient combination.

What do you guys do?

There are ways around the iTunes thing. iTunes has lossless capabilities, they have their own file type called Apple Lossless (ALAC - it's just a FLAC file with a different header). There are many converters out there that will quickly change FLAC to ALAC and then you can use them in iTunes like any other file.

If you are using a Mac, there are also numerous players that support FLAC, including Vox (my favorite), Cog, Songbird and others.

You can also use a program like 'FLUKE" which tricks iTunes into thinking the Flac file is a wav file, this allows you to keep the file in Flac format but still use iTunes.

[John L]

I store lossless files in FLAC and use iTunes. Since iTunes doesn't play FLAC and WAV takes up too much room, I make additional MP3s to use in iTunes. So I have lossless, but usually listen to lossy, not a very efficient combination.

What do you guys do?

There are ways around the iTunes thing. iTunes has lossless capabilities, they have their own file type called Apple Lossless (ALAC - it's just a FLAC file with a different header). There are many converters out there that will quickly change FLAC to ALAC and then you can use them in iTunes like any other file.

If you are using a Mac, there are also numerous players that support FLAC, including Vox (my favorite), Cog, Songbird and others.

You can also use a program like 'FLUKE" which tricks iTunes into thinking the Flac file is a wav file, this allows you to keep the file in Flac format but still use iTunes.

Thanks. These are options to consider. I suppose that this FLUKE thing works only on iTunes, not iPods?

[Shawn]

Thanks. These are options to consider. I suppose that this FLUKE thing works only on iTunes, not iPods?

Correct. I use a little converter called "Max" to convert FLAC files to ALAC, then you can use them on any iPod.

http://sbooth.org/Max/

When I rip CDs I just rip directly to ALAC using iTunes.. ITunes/Preferences/Import Settings/Apple Lossless.

Edited December 24, 2011 by Shawn

[John L]

What about going from ALAC to FLAC? Is that also easy?

[Shawn]

What about going from ALAC to FLAC? Is that also easy?

Yes, but you would need to use something other than iTunes (Max for example) to do the conversion.

[Uncle Skid]

All my CDs are ripped to FLAC, using Exact Audio Copy. I have a 1TB drive on a network attached storage device, so "everything" is there, in the lossless format. I use Winamp -- have always preferred that over iTunes, even for transferring music to the iPod.

I used foobar2000 to do a batch conversion of all FLAC files to MP3/compressed for iPods. When I did this initially, it took over 24 hours to convert all the FLAC files to MP3. After that point, foobar is smart enough to convert only newly added FLAC files.

Under Winamp, I use smart playlists to easily differentiate between the FLAC and MP3s. FLACs for home listening, MP3s for iPods.

Finally, I have a Xitel Hi-Fi Link device (USB to line-out) for sound output from PC to home stereo.

[John L]

Sounds nice, like the system that I need!

[micha]

Similarly, I also ripped everything to FLAC with Exact Audio Copy (custom configuration using guide). I'm listening from a Windows 7 computer using J River Media Center 16 as the player. I'd certainly recommend J River after trying a bunch of others as in my experience it's handled a large music library much better than iTunes but with a similar interface and with many more options available for technical users, plus nice features for tweaking audio setup for your audio card or DAC. I play from my computer to an external Asynchronous USB DAC (Ayre QB-9) to my stereo.

It took me six months to rip all of my albums into FLAC so I tried to be meticulous with tagging everything right the first time, with recording year, album cover art, record label, and some instrumentation data stored in each file, as well as a filterable "keywords" tag I added where I can give each album or track as many keywords as desired such as "AACM", "Solo", "New Orleans", etc. Needless to say, I make sure to keep several backups of my library on external hard drives in case of hard drive failure. I'd love to one day key my digital library into an online discography database to fill in searchable sidemen and session info for each track but I'm very happy with the current set up, admittedly still a bit of work and probably overkill for many people. It makes listening to Mosaics and other sets much easier as well as the fun of simply being able to click into a record label or sub-genre and listen on shuffle for a couple hours.