Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems MP3: Lossy vs. Lossless

Last year I drove to Scotland for a weeks vacation, I burnt loads of music onto a single CD at a very low bit rate, 64kbps if I remember rightly. Didn't hear the same song twice...

Disclaimers;

1. Music in the car is background only.
2. My car is very noisey.
3. The head unit wouldn't play any lossless (compressed) files anyway.

Steve.

I would also like to add that with Spotify in my pocket I have instant play on about 6 million songs. Ofcourse I still have option to sync lossless but I could never stay up to date like I can with every 6M song online refreshing weekly by the Spotify service. Also Spotify premium users regularly get major albums like U2 1 week before street date which is cool

If I had the choice to have 6M songs instantly playable wherever I am in lossless ofcourse I would take it. But for now they are 160kbit/320kbit.

I have to confess that I only listen to music on the move in my car and currently it's the only place my CDs get any use. I would like to move to file based option though, and my choic would be FLAC if possible - not because I can distinquish that from 320kbs MP3 but just to avoid the hassle of maitaining 2 different files libraries.

The new Squeezebox Touch would be very nice adapted for in-car use. Come to think of it - it would be brilliant - 24/96 on the move

Cliff

I agree. My car audio is my weak-point, not from a quality point of view (it isn't bad), but from a music accessibility point of view.

Here is what I do.

I decided to go with MP3 over AAC years ago because MP3 was more of a standard.

I use MP3 on my iPod and any mixes I make for the car- sometimes its upsampled to red book or it goes on CD or even DVD-R for the car if the car stereo can handle it. I honestly dont hear much difference with 192kps MP3 in these environments (car, gym)- though I am sure its there.

I rip full disk images for my media server (kscape)- so thats lossless. I also make a backup file of all the cds to AIFF on an old computer over my network.

Listening around the house or on the M system its via the K scape so its lossless.

So when I get a new CD- it gets ripped 3x:

1- 192kps MP3 for iPod and ease of making mixes for the car

2- AIFF for backup

3- Kscape which I believe makes a disk image.

The tally remains constant at 50% lossy by choice with:

Lossy: 8
Ian, crion, Steve, 1337, Nick, Dan, Arcade, Jerry

Stuck with lossy due to player storage limitation or other issues: 3
Mr_Sukebe, VK, Seeker_UK

Lossless: 5
Ronnie, t42, Mr. Meridian, Dolf, Howiebrou

This has been a fascinating eye opening experience for me. Thanks all for your input!

Well if I may say I think I fall more into the lossless category because I use lossless 2/3 times. I just dont mind the MP3 sound for my gym iPod nor in the car.

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for the clarification. However I was checking specifically what hikers were using for their portable player (MP3) requirements. I think it is a given that (almost?) everyone uses lossless with their main Meridian system.

My objective was to see how many others shared my demand that my portable system is lossless and therefore how much pressure there is on all the manufactureres in the chain to fully supply it. I.e. I would like to see Sooloos download FLAC to a portable, the portables increase their memory, and the portables be FLAC compliant. I was very surprised to see only 50% of the elite of the audiophiles share my "need" and disapointed that there seems to be less pressure on the manufactures than I would have hoped.

However if you still feel that you belong in the lossless category just say so and I will change it.

Aloha and mahalo,

Aloha and Mahalo

I think I missed the original question and for that I apologize.

Well, in my case, when I got my first portable MP3 player back in like 1998 it was a Creative thing that looked like a portable CD player and I ripped everything to 320kps because that was the best quality I could get at the time. Then one day I decided to experiment with different bit rates and I found I didn't hear any difference via headphones with 192kps. Below that I felt I heard a difference- where 128kps was not absolutely terrible but it was unacceptable. Really terrible was 96kps and below. So I made 192kps my standard and its been that way ever since.

I know its not what you would want but I don't think the CE companies will push anything that adds more demand on bandwidth right now. They need to make the songs small enough not to overload the cellular networks.

Here is my 2 pence worth, just for completness.

I do use MP3 for my Audiobook collection, much of which was transfered from Cassete tape (Some of you know what that is) at 128 kbs. I did this via Creative media player in real time. For this material It is fine played on bedside radio or in car etc.

I also listen to many audio books from CD as well.

I dont have much MP3 Music and prefer to play CD's

I do stream from Spotify to my Squeezebox or computer as research for what I actualy want to buy. Its ok, but not as good as CD to my ears; sounds thin.

Cheers, Chris

I also tend to listen to a lot of internet radio on my Squeezebox, although I use the term 'listen' in the loosest possible sense - it's more a source of background noise while I'm doing the washing up etc.
Although I have discovered (or rediscovered in some cases) several artists while doing this, so I must be paying at least some attention to it!

AppleLossless for me
Sounds excellent upsampled