Shn/flac

[tiedyetoga]

I'm not sure if anyone uses these formats or not, but they are a lossless format used for trading live music. Alot more people are starting to rip ablums in these formats. I just thought I would give ya a heads up.

FLAC:
http://flac.sourceforge.net/

SHN:
http://research.umbc.edu/~hamilton/shnfaq.html

General FAQ:
www.etree.org

[ech3]

But I don't think the iPod can currently play these formats. It could with a future firmware upgrade though.

[tiedyetoga]

What if you used dbPoweramp. Will that work with an ipod? This is the only thing holding me back from buying an ipod. I want to find out if it will def play SHN and FLAC files.

[ech3]

The iPod will NOT play SHN or FLAC files (I don't think any portable player will), but since they are encoded in a lossless format it would be an easy matter to convert those back to .wav files then encode them with a format the iPod can handle (mp3 or AAC).

[tiedyetoga]

Originally posted by ech3
The iPod will NOT play SHN or FLAC files (I don't think any portable player will), but since they are encoded in a lossless format it would be an easy matter to convert those back to .wav files then encode them with a format the iPod can handle (mp3 or AAC).

MP3 and ACC are terrible quality as you loose some high and lows.

[ech3]

"Terrible quality"? Hmmm...if you say so. However, given a properly encoded AAC file, I'm quite sure you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

The iPod will play .wav files so you could always decode the other formats to .wav and transfer them to the iPod but you'd be limited to about 40 hours of music.

SHN and FLAC are hardly worth the effort anyway since the compression ratio is so small. They're good for shrinking .wav files a little for downloading but not much else.

[Lazurus]

Originally posted by ech3
SHN and FLAC are hardly worth the effort anyway since the compression ratio is so small.

That's kinda the point... it's called lossless encoding - and for those of us who put out production quality music, it is the only digital format to be used...

And yes, mp3, aac, and ogg are all lossy formats. Their encoding rates don't even begin to border on true CD quality. CD Quality is 500 KBps, whereas the mainstream formats cap at 320. If you have a golden ear / lots of recording equipment, you can easily hear the difference.

[ech3]

But this is the iPod Lounge. The iPod's sole purpose in life is to
play mp3 and AAC files. Why do you bother reading and posting
if these formats are unacceptable to you? Do you own one?

I can hear the difference too if I play the songs on my good home
stereo equipment. But when listening to my iPod on small
portable headphones while I'm out for a walk, these compression
formats are just fine.

It would be nice if someday these little portables have multi-
terrabyte drives so we no longer need *any* compression
format, but I don't see that happening for a long time.

By the way, an original CD .wav file is around 1411 kbps, not 500.

44,100 (samples/second) X 2 (bytes sample size) X 2 (channels) X 8 (bits/byte) = 1,411,200 or 1411K.

[Lazurus]

I stand corrected :-)

[AptMunich]

How about monkey's audio (.ape)

The compression there is about 1:4 i think...

also not ipod compatible i know, but hey since you're such an audiophile give us your opinion on that!

[Lazurus]

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

I've honestly never heard of it - nor have any of my peers. But poking through the theory on their site, it does sound like it could be worth a try - and it is nice to see that it is OSS.

Unfortunately, they only compare the defaults of most of their "competitors" with their high/extra high 'compressor'. Unbiased results would be nice. I could show you many pages where it is proven through misdirection that Iraq is better then the US, Windows is the one true operating system, Quebec is the only thing holding Canada together, and of course - the Rio Riot is better then the iPod. (no, don't ask for URLs, go to google yourself).