Should I get over my prejudice/ignorance/snobbery for WAV and change to mp3?
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Should I get over my prejudice/ignorance/snobbery for WAV and change to mp3? Posted on: 24.04.2012 by Lin Danek A combination of audiophile snobbery, ignorance, prejudice and an ability to convince myself that I CAN hear the difference has resulted in me only buying WAV files from Beatport and JunoDownload. I am also fortunate enough to have a 500GB ASUS NJ61 that only has my (stripped) OS, Traktor and music library on it. Our currency is about to hit 8 Rands to 1 Dollar and I am reconsidering the cost of WAV upgrades. I've read the science (I'm sick of reading about WAV's "voracious appetite for disc space" and "once lost with compression, always lost to compression") but want to hear from this community. 1. Is WAV REALLY worth it? 2. Will I notice the difference? I really appreciate the sound quality of the S4 and don't want it compromised. | |
| Leeanna Ayla 24.04.2012 | Mp3 here. |
| Sylvia Greener 25.04.2012 | I love WAVs but I normally use Mp3s as they can be tagged with information about the content. It's a shame that WAV does not support metadata tags. At least they don't work with Traktor Pro 2 any more. |
| Mimi Mahaffee 24.04.2012 | playing disco beats? Nah WAV or good quality mp3 is the same. Listening to classical music on 4000 dollar hifi system you will probably be able to sort out 192khz/24bit 44khz/16bit and so on. Still id say your just fine with mp3 when it comes to "digital" music.. |
| Roseanna Signorini 24.04.2012 | I have worked with professional broadcast quality video and audio for many years and there were many instances where I had clients insist on having "the best " quality because its going on air, not having any clue that what they wanted far exceeded broadcast standard. I had people look at a machine and know it was recorded in analog as opposed to digital and tell me there is a difference, so I would pretend to do it over, not changing a thing, and then have them tell me "See, that looks so much better" lol. So I can tell you that its all in your head. Once you know that something is so called, top of the line, then anything less than that is inferior and not as good so your brain plays tricks on you making you believe you can tell the difference. |
| Layne Koop 24.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by JonathanBlake
Now "randomly" load up a couple hundred copies of those two songs in a single playlist (e.g. do not just alternate...repeat the same source 1 to 4 times in a block). Put Traktor into Cruise mode and play that playlist through S4 and listen with headphones or your monitors. Put the screen out of view. While listening, flip the faders randomly a few dozen times....this will walk the playlist to a "random" spot. Now, attempt to identify if the track is WAV or mp3. Write down your "guess" for the next 10 tracks....then compare to the last 10 tracks in the playlist. If you can correctly ID the song source 10 out of 10 times...then you can tell. If you can not get 10 out of 10...then you can not tell. (Hint: You can not tell.) |
| Hipolito Scionti 24.04.2012 | I'm only buying AIFF now where possible. 320 mp3s are totally fine though and will buy em if that's the only option. Or indeed itunes AAC codec which sounds good to me. I just don't like WAV cause of the artwork and ID3 tag limitations. I always convert WAV to AIFF now, not sure that's saving much room mind. I tried FLAC and had issues when converting (drop outs etc) and just thought fuck it, AIFF is solid. |
| Lin Danek 24.04.2012 |
Originally Posted by SherpaPsy
1. Love the way they call it a 'handling fee'. 2. Yes I do maintain that, pariticularly the recordings (using Nero). |
| Marshall Aby 24.04.2012 | At some point we'll all be using lossless compression. You're just ahead of the curve. And the .WAV is far cheaper than the vinyl! |
| Nilsa Erben 24.04.2012 | 1. Is WAV REALLY worth it? I hate how beatport rips us off for them but I pay for AIFF 2. Will I notice the difference? I thought you said you did? I won't buy MP3's anymore. Lossy is as lossy does..in other words, its not full audio, and I don't care what blind hearing tests say, empirically its not the same as a lossless version of the same digital sourcestream. There ar esome people who believe CD quality is not even good enough for our ears! |
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