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Poll: Your preferred music format?
Author: Richard SwinburnePublished: 21st August 2007
How do you store your music? Let us know in this week's poll.
If you're an iRiver fanboy then good old OGG might be your friend, or iTunes can mean AAC. Others many prefer to shun digital distribution and storage altogether and stick with good old CD or Vinyl - it's not very portable but far better quality than anything digital unless you insist on being lossless like with Apple or FLAC?
You could be real old school and still use good old Chrome Oxide tape or even still listen to the sounds of Atari in MIDI?
We have had a poll running in the forums for a couple of days now and there are already some interesting results. Don't let that put you off adding your vote though, so what are you waiting for?! Get into the forums and vote!
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Comments (140)
may as well anyway, in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't take up all that much space
But if there was a "I don't care as long as it plays" option, I'd go for that one.
If FLAC would be more mainstream, I'd re-rip everything in FLAC, but for now it's a waste of space (and I'm not a audiophile)
I'm not too fussed about all this lossless stuff though. I don't like low bit-rate MP3s but anything 192 and above sounds just fine to me. Even 128's ok sometimes. Beggars can't be choosers and all that.
Amen to that.
Most of my library is mp3/ogg however since a lot of stuff was found as mp3 and so converting it to ogg or flac without some highyer quality source available would be pointless.
I use Ogg because it's small, sounds great and more people can listen than flac.
I won't rip any less than 192k/s and prefer to just go the full whack at 320kbps just "cause I can" kinda thing.
I will however buy CD's rather than downloads due to the price. More often than not I can get a proper CD with all the shiny album art for the same price as an iTunes download album and I prefer to be able to hold something for my money when it comes to stuff like movies or music.
If downloads were cheaper, say £2 per album then I'd bother.
Plus with an X-Fi soundcard the 3D crystaliser enabled does help improve the quality of most the mp3 files I have at home.
<A88>
What about midi ? not in the poll ? ^^
edit:having read all your post, MIDI seems entirely appropriate ;)
<A88>
edit: Seems like I am the only one so far :)
<A88>
Can't beat the feeling of having a physical copy - sublime!
Sam
so i use encode stuff to flac and mp3 when i get a new cd :)
I prefer DTS on movies, though. (and voted this, because I'm special :P )
I also have a bunch of CD's, but physical media is just to much work to listen to. I have most of my CDs ripped to MP3. I just want to fire up Winamp, and have all my music just a few clicks away. (That sounds like an advertisement, doesn't it?)
Also, mp3s are easier to get if downloading.
What does that actually mean?
are you saying that FLAC doesn't?
Just not practical for me; it's outside of most listeners' financial and lifestyle boundaries to make sensible use of it.
The thread states nothing specific to portable music, its simply asking in which format you prefer your music, whether it be portable, on your pc, hifi etc
- H.
I usually grab 320 CBR MP3 or at the very least 192 and both sound just fine. 128 however does sound absolutely abysmal by comparison.
*Envy24 HT-S -> Creek OBH21SE -> Senny HD495s. Missing a DAC :(
I started ripping CDs to FLAC before I could tell the difference on it all simply because if CDs got nicked, for instance, I had lossless copies (this has come in handy!) I had the space, so may as well.
After I upgraded sound cards and speakers, theres a pretty clear difference between FLAC and ~200k VBR MP3 for the majority of music.
As for the HDD space argument - I don't get it
Space is so vastly cheap and in excess these days.
There's really no reason for the other formats.
Lossless is nice, but chances are ppl's audio systems aren't all that great anyways. That, or they play the music in cars (ew).
Flac is great for keeping a backup of your music but as most people have mentioned the discernible difference in quality over mp3 is not that great on most portable players to justify the extra space it takes up imo.
I do try and record at 192Kbps or above but find 128 OK for some music.
Aggies
I do listen to some MP3's at work on my headphones, but they are mostly 320kbps ones that I ripped of my own CD's. I can put up with that for a couple of hours but then I start to miss being able to feel the bass and all the other benefits you get from listening to a decent Hi-Fi and I have to switch off.
well said, wma got my vote to.
Yes it adds 10mins to my linux set up times to get them running but I prefer them over mp3
The only problem is that my mp3-player only accepts mp3 and wma. I did install this:
http://www.cole2k.net/
then windows media player can play almost anything (tho M$ still thinks it knows best as it doesn't want to put WMP in the open with section for ogg files (bleeping dickwads)).
Above 128kbps, most formats will do.
I mainly listen to Metal (Dream Theater, Machine Head ) and here it seems vorbis performs really well (at lo bitrates it causes noisy distortion, but that doesn't show that much, but I think it would do a lot worse on symphonic music).
PS: ogg is only the container format, vorbis is the codec (if you want to correct)
The CD will get tossed onto the shelf after being ripped in Apple lossless. If I want to use the music on some other device I'll run off some AAC versions (my phone and every device seems to play mp4 fine - AAC is not just Apple's people).. most of the time I will burn off a compilation CD for the car.
cant beat it tbh :p (in terms of space and quality, its hardly any worse then a CD tbh)
I mean don't get me wrong, MP3 (when it comes down to the #'s) offers more data, but it's hard to notice it and when it comes to having a 13,000 song list, I want it all to fit on my 40GB Zen and being MP3s they most definitely wouldn't at 128kbps, but WMA does, so that's what I use.....
Yup! Teh best!
Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and LAME (With "--alt preset -extreme" (which gives a vbr mp3 done best)
The difference between CD and MP3 is hardly discernable. As mentioned in another cd-mp3 comparison in this thread the real difference is the really high frequency reverberation which is downplayed, making the music lose a little of that "airy" feeling.
I use this too.;)
I voted for MP3 too, But I burned a bunch of MP3's to CD awhile back and It's in My Mustang and I hardly ever listen to the Radio anymore(Shaker 1000w audio system). ;)
Actually, truthfully, the question is "What is your preferred audio format" - which really means "what do you use most" right? Then MP3 is accurate. But of course, DTS > * :P
Mp3's at 128 for the iPod in the car (can't see the sense in higher bitrates for portables, usually have an engine running or walking along the street with other noises).
One day I'll be bothered to sit down and rip a lossless copy of all the CDs as backups (It's a good idea), but the thought of the hours involved scares me (and the laser on the CD drive!).