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Topic: AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player) (Read 9069 times) previous topic - next topic
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AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

I own a Sony NWZ-A829 mp3 player and I've decided to move some of my favorite albums to lossless audio.
I've already figured out that Apple lossless is unsupported but what about AAC lossless?

If not that then .wav will have to do.
However I can't seem to add any track information to the wav file, so my second question will be to double check myself.
Can't .wav support an id3 tag or metadata?

Whenever I import a .wav track that I think i've added track info to it still comes up as an "Unknown."

Is there a way to go around this with .wav or some other lossless supported format?


thank you,

Moses Dill

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #1 –
Quote from: Momar on
I own a Sony NWZ-A829 mp3 player and I've decided to move some of my favorite albums to lossless audio.
I've already figured out that Apple lossless is unsupported but what about AAC lossless?


I doubt anything on earth supports MPEG lossless.

Quote from: Momar on
However I can't seem to add any track information to the wav file, so my second question will be to double check myself.
Can't .wav support an id3 tag or metadata?


It supports some sort of tag, but again, I don't think much of anything will actually read them outside of a few programs on the PC.

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Momar on
I've already figured out that Apple lossless is unsupported but what about AAC lossless?

There's no such thing as "AAC lossless". I don't think your player supports any kind of lossless format besides "PCM" (Wav?).

Quote from: Momar on
If not that then .wav will have to do. However I can't seem to add any track information to the wav file, so my second question will be to double check myself. Can't .wav support an id3 tag or metadata?

No, it's not common. There is a way to add meta data but I'm pretty sure your player would not care about this.

Quote from: Momar on
Is there a way to go around this with .wav or some other lossless supported format?

You could ask Sony for FLAC or WavPack support in the next firmware release. It's unlikely that they cave in, though.

You could also rethink your lossless strategy. Do you really need lossless audio on a portable player?

Cheers,
SG

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Momar on
I own a Sony NWZ-A829 mp3 player and I've decided to move some of my favorite albums to lossless audio

What was the logic behind this for you personally? Have you tried making MP3 encodings 'properly' with the LAME MP3 encoder in VBR mode?

You'd need to confirm this for yourself, but I can almost guarantee that you'll hear no difference whatsoever between an original CD-quality lossless track and LAME VBR at -V3 (~175Kbps) or -V2 (~190Kbps).

Cheers, Slipstreem. 

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #4 –
To SebastianG-
Unless I'm misinformed, there is an "AAC" lossless format. It isn't really well known at this point and may never truly get out there. It's better known as MPEG-4 ALS.
And you're right, I doubt my player would care if I tried adding metadata to any of the files. Which is why I was wondering about an AAC format.

To Slipstreem-
I've been using 320kbs AAC format for all of my music.
I've been hearing a few distortions, volume peaks, and recording flaws in some of my music.
I'm pretty picky about how my music sounds, so I'm just trying to remove any outside variables.

From what I've gotten it down to. It's the Production/Recording of Music -> CD condition -> Ripping/format quality -> Quality of transfer/Ripped file -> Quality of mp3 player -> Headphones.

Now I know there's a number of other variables but I'd guess this is the basics.
I'd also base it on that my mp3 player is a good player for quality. Perhaps not the best.
320kbs AAC is a high bitrate so the only thing left is headphones (which I plan to buy a pair of Shure SE530 headphones) So that removes 2 out of 3 basic possibilities.



Thanks you for all of the replies

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Momar on
Unless I'm misinformed, there is an "AAC" lossless format. It isn't really well known at this point and may never truly get out there. It's better known as MPEG-4 ALS.

'aac lossless' is a misnomer.  there's no such thing as aac lossless but there is mpeg-4 als, which many people mistakenly call 'aac lossless'.  many people also call apple lossless 'aac lossless' which confuses things even more.

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Momar on
To Slipstreem-
I've been using 320kbs AAC format for all of my music.
I've been hearing a few distortions, volume peaks, and recording flaws in some of my music.
I'm pretty picky about how my music sounds, so I'm just trying to remove any outside variables.

But have you actually tried LAME in VBR at -V3 or -V2? You can't possibly have a valid opinion on it if you haven't. Dismissing alternatives out of hand due to possibly false assumptions leads to dead-ends and forced situations pretty darn quickly. Open your eyes... or should that be ears?

Cheers, Slipstreem. 

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Momar on
To Slipstreem-
I've been using 320kbs AAC format for all of my music.
I've been hearing a few distortions, volume peaks, and recording flaws in some of my music.
I'm pretty picky about how my music sounds, so I'm just trying to remove any outside variables.


I'd use MP3 then.

Anyway, if you hear distortion when the volume peaks, its probably clipping and could be fixed with replaygain.

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #8 –
To Slipstreem
I'll gladly listen to what you have to say about using an mp3. I'm assuming when you say VBR you're referring to mp3 Variable Bitrate.
It was simply my understanding that mp3 cuts more out for compression. It's also been said that AAC allows for higher sound quality at lower bitrates.
Go ahead and let me know what you have to say. If there's a better way that I could be doing it then I'm all ears.

To jcoalson
Fair enough. I can see where it's simply a misconception and I'll look for other options.

To Mike
Luckily Winamp has a replay gain normalization plugin.
now whether that transfer over to the actual track or if it's only for play back within winamp I haven't found that out yet.


Thank you for the replies.

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Momar on
To Slipstreem
I'll gladly listen to what you have to say about using an mp3. I'm assuming when you say VBR you're referring to mp3 Variable Bitrate.
It was simply my understanding that mp3 cuts more out for compression. It's also been said that AAC allows for higher sound quality at lower bitrates.
Go ahead and let me know what you have to say. If there's a better way that I could be doing it then I'm all ears.


Yes, it is true that many AAC encoders are better than Lame at lower bitrates (96kbps and below).  However, once you get up to 128kbps and higher, Lame mp3 can compete with modern day AAC encoders.  You should properly ABX your files.  What this does is allows you to correctly compare a lossless file and a lossy file of the same song.  It will then ask you to do a couple of things in order to determine which one sounds more like the original.  Conducting a blind ABX test is the only true way to determine if you hear a difference or not.  Other wise the difference that you hear is flawed as it is the placebo affect.  In other words, you know that your music is lossy so your brain thinks that it can hear a difference.  Conducting a blind ABX test uses your ears and eliminates guessing.

Lame mp3 and Nero/iTunes AAC at 320kbps is generally regarded as overkill in that one doesn't need a bitrate setting that high.  Conduct a blind ABX test using the headphones that you normally use with your portable player (don't use speakers as there are too many outside influences such as distance from your ears, objects in your room which reflect sound, vibration, etc.).  Odds are pretty high that you won't be able to hear the difference between a lossless file and a -V 5/4/3 Lame mp3 file.

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #10 –
Quote from: Momar on
From what I've gotten it down to. It's the Production/Recording of Music -> CD condition -> Ripping/format quality -> Quality of transfer/Ripped file -> Quality of mp3 player -> Headphones.
That's fair enough.

Quote
Now I know there's a number of other variables but I'd guess this is the basics.
I'd also base it on that my mp3 player is a good player for quality. Perhaps not the best.
320kbs AAC is a high bitrate so the only thing left is headphones (which I plan to buy a pair of Shure SE530 headphones) So that removes 2 out of 3 basic possibilities.
What about the first step in your list - the quality of the recording itself? Have you listened on a decent CD player, with decent headphones, and satisfied yourself that the problems you hear aren't on the original?

CD copy protection, Clipping during encoding/decoding, distortion/clipping in the amplifier, and distortion in the headphones are also common problems. So is imagining a difference where none exists (really).

Buggy encoders, overclocked processors etc etc can also play their part. Exceptional high frequency hearing can reveal the problems of many lossy encoders, as can certain music genres.

Despite all this, for almost everyone, "good" mp3, done right, is more than good enough - especially on a portable device.

EDIT: btw, the only way I made my mp3 player display something meaningful when playing .wavs was to use a meaningful filename. Does that work?

Cheers,
David.

AAC Lossless or Wav support (mp3 player)

Reply #11 –
Quote from: jcoalson on
Quote from: Momar on
Unless I'm misinformed, there is an "AAC" lossless format. It isn't really well known at this point and may never truly get out there. It's better known as MPEG-4 ALS.

'aac lossless' is a misnomer.  there's no such thing as aac lossless but there is mpeg-4 als, which many people mistakenly call 'aac lossless'.  many people also call apple lossless 'aac lossless' which confuses things even more.


There's also MPEG-4 SLS, which actually does use AAC! Doesn't make it less confusing though