The future of music storage

[matesic]

Tests have now been conducted which prove, unscientifically but incontrovertibly, that I can't tell the difference between CD quality and mp3 encoding at 192Kbits/sec (I should say this was using medium-to-high quality equipment. 128Kbits/sec I could detect using some headphones but not others). I therefore consider myself qualified to speak on behalf the cloth-eared majority who seem to be happy to have their music files stored with this degree of compression. I gather the Codec listening tests have been extensively used to determine which forms of encoding are the most transparent, on average, but I wonder if anyone has attempted to define the degree of variation that exists between individuals? Clearly this is not a situation where one size fits all.

[mjkFendrich]

Some further remarks after my lengthy post some days ago:

A. The points I made there have solely been concerned with digital backup, enabling you to faithfully
   reproduce the original CDs and attaching necessary metadata to it. In response to hadrianus:
   FLAC typically requires about 45% of the size of ordinary stereo .wav files, containig the same information.

B. Concerning sound quality etc. of various digital formats, for me the following hierarchy of criteria is relevant:
   1. Availability of at least some recording of a work (no matter what quality) - this is what we all are looking for at this forum.
   2. Interpretation: I prefer having great interpretations of works, even in bad sound.
   3. Mastering quality - this is a further important point, e.g. the official CD transfer of Westerberg's famous recording
      of Atterbergs 3rd symphony is ways inferior to the original LP.
   4. Resolution - having the choice between different file formats of some recording I normally prefer HiRes file (24 bit FLAC),
       but when the original mastering is of good quality (and no large ensembles are involved, e.g. piano solo), then the
       audible difference indeed can be small even with good HiFi equipment.
       

[Ilja]

If there's only one thing I want everything to trust me on it is this: keep at least one off-site backup, whether that is through giving a hard drive to someone else or keeping it in some sort of cloud storage. Even if you have three redundant backups at home, if everything goes up in flames that is it.


A 1TB Dropbox account is 10$ a month at this time. It's reliable, it's fast and personally I don't see any good reason not to use it at least as a redundant system when you're serious about making sure everything is backed up properly - *even* if you have HD backups elsewhere, because, as I said, that *will* fail. And if you don't like Dropbox, there are numerous alternatives: Copy, Sync, Amazon, etc. The ones I wouldn't advise are OneDrive, which keeps a limited maximum path name length that may cause problems, or iCloud because it is somewhat idiosyncratic and Apple's track record with cloud services isn't exactly spotless.

[Alan Howe]

Still don't know what to do with my x-thousand CDs. It would take years to back them up and in any case I don't have the time...

[Richard Moss]

Just a(nother) thought,

I suspect - pls advise if you know better - that (nearly) all CDs which are, or have been , commercially available are almost, but not quite certainly, still available 'out there' somewhere, if not physically then as downloads.  So, if another copy is needed for 'recovery' purposes, then that could be the route.  That leaves things for which there is no ready recovery such as LPs (or cassettes) never commercially transcribed to CD, free-to air broadcasts or private performances.

So, if the above is a reasonable assumption and as a path of 'least resistance' (or least time and effort for all of us oldies!), if we went through our collections and simply noted items that were not commercially produced CDs, we'd probably have a far smaller set to worry about backing up.  I appreciate for some of you that would still be quite extensive but I hope less than the alternative!

For the rest (i.e. the bulk of our CDs), we could simply note, if we wanted, the label/catalogue number we have (or had,  if Armageddon strikes!).  As I keep my catalogue as a WORD document, it would be very easy to update it and simply keep that off-site, together with any non-commercial stuff I have (most of which is UC downloads, by the way).

Would this work and would it save a lot of time and cost?  I'm assuming the commercial value of lost CDs would be covered by house contents insurance, hence the emphasis on non-commercial items that (i) are not covered and (ii() not easily replaced, if at all.

What do members think?

Cheers

Richard

[adriano]

@ mjkFendrich
I once downloaded Martinon's "Tragédie de Salomé" fantastic EMI recording from a high quality FLAC site, and the datas of this about 30 minutes long work did not even found place on a CDR, that's how I came to my deduction.

[mjkFendrich]

@hadrianus

FLAC is a completely versatile digital format for lossless audio - the file size depends on the resolution:
- CDs are 44.1 kHz at 16 bit, you'll get this when ripping your standard stereo CDs, for 70 min. you'll typically need ~300-350MB
   (while .wav files will occupy some 700MB)
- HiRes ("Studio Master") downloads at 88.2kHz or 96 kHz at 24 bit will need about 3x more as compared to CD quality FLACS
   but may have significantly improved sound. There are also 192 kHz & 384 kHz downloads (e.g. from the Norwegian label 2L)
   of even larger size.

[sdtom]

Will a CD player in a hi-fi system play it?

[semloh]

Well, it's almost impossible to buy a CD player here now in any case. My last enquiry in an electrical store was met with "Sorry, mate, that's last century's technology. It's all bluetooth and Wi-Fi now!" 

[Alan Howe]

I bought my current CD-player on Amazon.

[sdtom]

In the US they're fairly easy to get

[chill319]

A couple of years back I started playing CDs on an Oppo DVD player that supports SACD as well. Even though speakers make the most difference in a system upgrade, followed by the amp/preamp, with only the change to the Oppo, the improvement in sound quality with ordinary CDs has been more than noticeable. SACDs -- even with only stereo speakers  -- are even better.

Given my collection of CDs, I'm thinking of getting a second Oppo because I doubt players will still be around when the current one dies.

[Alan Howe]

My Sony Blu-ray player is brilliant...

[bulleid_pacific]

One problem with mp3 that doesn't seem to have been discussed is that in works with continuous music over track boundaries, there is almost always a tiny audible gap introduced during playback.  The format was never designed to cope with gapless playback.  FLAC however plays back gaplessly with no problem.  Given the lossy nature of mp3, the tumbling cost of storage and the increasing speed of internet connections, I can see no justification at all for using mp3 either for ripping or downloading.  An mp3 rip of Eine Alpensinfonie with more than a dozen tiny breaks is likely to provide a disappointing listening experience.

[Ilja]

To be sure, that is not an inherent flaw of MP3, but rather of the player software. (In days of old usually connected with buffering issues) ITunes has no problems with any of my MP3s, let alone AAC (also a 'lossy' format, but one I much prefer to MP3).