Lossless audio?

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canada16:
And my question after 4 pages of thread still has not been answered.

If I was a HiFi geek and had tens of thousands of pounds worth of kit, what type of audio, ie music would I play?

Would it be sacd, or would most people just get normal music from itunes ect..

Or is CD the best type of music for now? Not to offend the Vinyl lovers out there.

I just wanted to know what is the best format or best way of playing music so it sounds it best, without buying hi-fi kit

You would listen to music streamed off the internet at 320kbps as a minimum and wait for even higher bit rates and better codecs to appear. Everything else is old technology. You would do so with the highest broadband speed possible to a superb music processor/manager and DAC and amp and headphones or multi speaker system.
 
Gerrardasnails:mitch65:For me it wasn't a case of dropping CD in favour of streaming, I buy a CD (and will continue to do so), I copy it in FLAC format to my NAS drive which connects to my Uniti and plays it at 16/44.1 same as the CD I copied - simples!
Same here. The idea of buying a digital file of 320kbps from iTunes for more money (sometimes) than the CD itself is laughable.

+1

I have used gomusic.ru for several years, bigger catalogue at 1/10 of the prices, and most are available as 320kbs files.
 
idc:canada16:
And my question after 4 pages of thread still has not been answered.

If I was a HiFi geek and had tens of thousands of pounds worth of kit, what type of audio, ie music would I play?

Would it be sacd, or would most people just get normal music from itunes ect..

Or is CD the best type of music for now? Not to offend the Vinyl lovers out there.

I just wanted to know what is the best format or best way of playing music so it sounds it best, without buying hi-fi kit

You would listen to music streamed off the internet at 320kbps as a minimum and wait for even higher bit rates and better codecs to appear. Everything else is old technology. You would do so with the highest broadband speed possible to a superb music processor/manager and DAC and amp and headphones or multi speaker system.

Well I wouldn't, and judging by the number of CDPs in sigs a significant number think the same, though the OP is confusing - you can hardly play SA-CD or indeed any CD without buying hi fi kit.
 
SteveR750:idc:canada16:
And my question after 4 pages of thread still has not been answered.

If I was a HiFi geek and had tens of thousands of pounds worth of kit, what type of audio, ie music would I play?

Would it be sacd, or would most people just get normal music from itunes ect..

Or is CD the best type of music for now? Not to offend the Vinyl lovers out there.

I just wanted to know what is the best format or best way of playing music so it sounds it best, without buying hi-fi kit

You would listen to music streamed off the internet at 320kbps as a minimum and wait for even higher bit rates and better codecs to appear. Everything else is old technology. You would do so with the highest broadband speed possible to a superb music processor/manager and DAC and amp and headphones or multi speaker system.

Well I wouldn't, and judging by the number of CDPs in sigs a significant number think the same, though the OP is confusing - you can hardly play SA-CD or indeed any CD without buying hi fi kit.

Cart before the horse?
 
Well all the media I have gets converted to WMA anyway, so I am already going wrong if I cant convert those to FLAC.

So I can burn my cd's to FLAC using the program you mentioned then ilc ?
 
SteveR750:idc:canada16:
And my question after 4 pages of thread still has not been answered.

If I was a HiFi geek and had tens of thousands of pounds worth of kit, what type of audio, ie music would I play?

Would it be sacd, or would most people just get normal music from itunes ect..

Or is CD the best type of music for now? Not to offend the Vinyl lovers out there.

I just wanted to know what is the best format or best way of playing music so it sounds it best, without buying hi-fi kit

You would listen to music streamed off the internet at 320kbps as a minimum and wait for even higher bit rates and better codecs to appear. Everything else is old technology. You would do so with the highest broadband speed possible to a superb music processor/manager and DAC and amp and headphones or multi speaker system.

Well I wouldn't, and judging by the number of CDPs in sigs a significant number think the same, though the OP is confusing - you can hardly play SA-CD or indeed any CD without buying hi fi kit.

I am assuming that the rich hifi geek would be an early adopter.
Streaming is the last format.
 
canada16:
So I can burn my cd's to FLAC using the program you mentioned then ilc ?

I'd use which has been mentioned before dbpoweramp.
 
canada16:
Well all the media I have gets converted to WMA anyway, so I am already going wrong if I cant convert those to FLAC.

So I can burn my cd's to FLAC using the program you mentioned then ilc ?

Yes, that's why i mentioned it.
 
Gerrardasnails:Tarquinh:Isn't he streaming to the DAC in his CD player, though?I think that 90% of his listening is with CDs.

Nearly. 95% CDs and 5% streaming Spotify. 0% lossless as it doesn't sound as good as CD so there is no discernible benefit in spending time ripping just for the convenience of not having to get off the sofa and put another CD in the tray.
 
shooter69:canada16:
So I can burn my cd's to FLAC using the program you mentioned then ilc ?

I'd use which has been mentioned before dbpoweramp.

when you burn a CD you make a CD. and a CDP will not play FLAC files. it needs WAV files.

converting any file to FLAC is pointless unless it is a WAV file or another Lossless file as you can not add data to lossey files.
 
nads:when you burn a CD you make a CD. and a CDP will not play FLAC files. it needs WAV files.No, it needs .cda files. Have a look at the file extensions on a music CD.
 
There seems to be a common misconception that .WAV files and music cd content are the same thing - they're not. .WAV is a flexible proprietary Microsoft standard for containing music in a variety of formats, and is the default music files will be stored as uncompressed LPCM within .WAV if copies are made with MS s/w from a music cd.
 
Having read most of the replies here and apart from my head about to burst, the question i will ask is very simple. Look at my kit, i want to just sit on my backside, press play and get the most enjoyable musical experience. Now to get that do i stick with cd ?

Thanks john.
 
Tarquinh:nads:when you burn a CD you make a CD. and a CDP will not play FLAC files. it needs WAV files.No, it needs .cda files. Have a look at the file extensions on a music CD.

Yes and now look at the size of the file, they're typically only 1 or 2 kilobytes, that's some compression ratio! .cda's are simply shortcuts created by windows so it can handle the individual audio track, they contain no audio data whatsoever. The audio on a CD is PCM.
 
Well aware of that. The fact remains without them you'll hear nothing. They provide the structure to allow your CD player to work.
Without them there would be nothing.
 
Nope, sorry dude, the files don't actually exist on the CD at all and they certainly aren't required for an Audio CD player to play the CD. The Windows CD driver creates these files when an Audio CD is inserted into a (Windows) computer and, basically, pretends that the files are on the CD, when in actual fact, they aren't.
 
johnnyjazz:
Having read most of the replies here and apart from my head about to burst, the question i will ask is very simple. Look at my kit, i want to just sit on my backside, press play and get the most enjoyable musical experience. Now to get that do i stick with cd ?

Thanks john.

Simply yes. The big rival will be streamed music but I do not see that doing to CD what happened to cassettes and other formats that have all but disappeared.
 
the_lhc:Nope, sorry dude, the files don't actually exist on the CD at all and they certainly aren't required for an Audio CD player to play the CD. The Windows CD driver creates these files when an Audio CD is inserted into a (Windows) computer and, basically, pretends that the files are on the CD, when in actual fact, they aren't.You are right, of course, BUT CD PLAYERS WON'T PLAY WAV FILES. That was my main point.
 

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