SSD music players

[hammill]

I use a Blaupunkt Melbourne player. No CD. The music is stored on a SD card, which slots into the front but is limited to 2GB as that was the standard at the time, but can still hold around 25-30 CDs using WMA @ 192kbps. It's so simple, so neat and tidy and to me is the obvious choice for in-car audio. I can't understand why all car audio is not like this

I'll give you one very good reason: there are millions of people out there for which that set-up would be absolutely useless because they have neither the means, the knowledge nor the desire to transfer their music to SD cards or USB sticks. Pop some CDs into their multiplayer and they're happy.

Precisely. I do wonder sometimes if the people on this board ever mix with normal people at all. A large percentage of my family/in laws would stand no chance whatsoever of moving their CDs on to a memory stick. They would not even know what an SD card was.

 

[Anonymous]

I didn't know that they all sound the same, hence me asking the question.

Fair enough. The whole point of 'lossless' is that no information is lost, so the file will still have a bit-perfect copy of the original. Of course, this is hifi we're talking about, so there will always be people claiming they can hear difference between flac, alac, wav or aiff. In such cases, either the encoder or the player is broken.

By better, I suppose I mean that the format will be recognised on the majority of players rather than limited to s single manufacturer, and also that it will be more efficient with file sizes.

The majority of players support WAV and FLAC. Since Apple recently opened up their ALAC format, it is likely that new players will support that too. In terms of efficiency, most lossless formats have an average efficiency of 30-40% (versus 80% for 256kbit MP3). The differences between lossless formats are in the single digits, WavPack and APE usually offer the best compression. The major advantage of FLAC used to be that it's very easy to decode, but current players can easily handle all formats.

See here if you want to know more.

To get round the gap issue, I can always save the album as a single file

Yes, that's the only method that always works. You might want to look into FLAC's embedded cue-sheets: you can save the cd track information inside the file, so you can still skip between tracks if you want to. Player support is sadly limited though.

 

[Overdose]

If you rip to a lossless codec, you will retain all of the original quality, but have a reduced file size, hence lossless compression.

These lossless files also have the ability to retain album artwork in the metadata, unlike WAV, for example.

Not all lossless codecs are universally accepted, for example, apple hardware and software only recognises ALAC lossless by default, but you can get FLAC 'plugins' (additional software addons) to address this.

Media or music players can be either a dedicated piece of hardware or software based on a computer.

As you already have a Pc, why not try a variety of music files ripped at different bit rates and listen to them through your hifi to see if you an notice any difference? You could also take the opportunity to experiment with some of the free media/music players.

For music/media players try, iTunes, Windows Media Player, XBMC, Winamp and Musicbee. All are free and have a different way of presenting your files. It is a daunting task when venturing into this method of listening to music, due the the huge number of options, but for this very reason, you will be able to find a solution that is perfect for your needs. Once you have decided what they are, that is.