Im an Audiophile, I have a few questions about track quality here on FFshrine

Hey guys, I am an audiophile. I have a very expensive headphone setup. I was wondering if there are any links that they can provide me with that have binaural recordings or high 24bit audio sampling. I have a really nice USB dac, custom iem and amplifier setup so I’d like to experience some higher quality rips. If anyone can help me find some extremely high quality tracks here, please let me know!

thanks
-s

Well, there’s a lot of threads here that have FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). I assume you know that lossless is about as good as it gets in terms of sound quality. Just take a look around and you’ll see that a lot of threads have FLAC links.

Somebody posted a 24 bit copy of Chariots Of Fire today so check that out for starters.

Yes, I know what Flac is. I’m actually and Audio Engineer and have been in the Hi-Fi audio game for many years. I will look into that mentioned album Wild, thanks! It is very hard to search for 24 bit audio. Most everything flac here is 16 bit, not everyone rips in the highest lossless .flac settings though. I’m a super snob when it comes to my audio files, lol. Binaural is all but impossible to find, and 24bit flac files are super rare. Any help is appreciated!

Most everything flac here is 16 bit
That is because everything on every audio CD ever created in the world is 16-bit. It is a specification of Redbook Audio. Even an HDCD, which claims to be 20-bit, is really just a 16-bit audio signal encoded with 20 bits worth of data by the use of various audio filters.

not everyone rips in the highest lossless .flac settings though.
You mean not everyone rips at the highest audio settings, or not everyone encodes at the highest FLAC compression? They’re two different things, neither of which probably mean what it seems you’re referring to.

You don’t rip to FLAC, you rip to WAV, and the WAV output is whatever exists on the source material. Again, for CDs, this is 16-bit. If you’re talking about the highest FLAC setting, that just affects the size of the FLAC file, not the quality of it. FLAC doesn’t have quality settings; if it did, it would by definition not be lossless. You don’t apply settings to something you don’t want to change, and the whole idea of FLAC is that nothing changes.

24bit flac files are super rare.
They are only as rare as 24-bit source audio.

There’s mostly vinyl rips here.
Some DVD-A/BD rips.

Sinus has a 5.1/24bit/48kHz flac of Inception, ripped from the blu-ray. The second disc had most of the retail OST as a special feature in those properties.
A few tracks weren’t published to the special features, assuming for legal reasons on part of Edith Piaf’s music.
Lorne Balfe & Hans Zimmer ~ Inception (audiophile edition) (FLAC) (24 bit/48 kHz) (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/lorne-balfe-hans-zimmer-~-inception-audiophile-95574/)

You can start with that and downmix it with fancy Dolby Headphone filters and whatnot.
Foobar has DHP filter (install separately).

mr_merrick (http://forums.ffshrine.org/search.php?searchid=2713240) has a large collection of SACD/Vinyl rips as well.

Also by sinus, Geinō Yamashirogumi ~ Symphonic Suite AKIRA 2002 (lossless 4.1 and stereo) (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/gein-yamashirogumi-~-symphonic-suite-akira-2002-a-87528/#post1654619).

From a torrent, uploaded to MEGA: Masamichi Amano ~ Giant Robo OSTs 1-7 (24-bit 96000hz) [No Cue] (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/giant-robo-osts-1-7-masamichi-amano-49552/#post2372110).

Definitely go for Akira Symphonic Suite.

Thank you for the suggestions! Beautiful sounding scores there, I’ve never actually heard the Inception soundtrack before. I’ve seen the movie, but never got a chance to hear the OST. Nice!

@hellacia

I never asked for CDs. I asked for any links to any sources, which include any very high quality tracks, binaural or 24bit audio. I should have specified I wanted real 24bit tracks and not upsampled 24 bit from 16 bit. Your entire post is based on the assumption I believe Flac is true lossless. You are wrong in that assumption.

That is because everything on every audio CD ever created in the world is 16-bit. It is a specification of Redbook Audio. Even an HDCD, which claims to be 20-bit, is really just a 16-bit audio signal encoded with 20 bits worth of data by the use of various audio filters.

You mean not everyone rips at the highest audio settings, or not everyone encodes at the highest FLAC compression? They’re two different things, neither of which probably mean what it seems you’re referring to.

You don’t rip to FLAC, you rip to WAV, and the WAV output is whatever exists on the source material. Again, for CDs, this is 16-bit. If you’re talking about the highest FLAC setting, that just affects the size of the FLAC file, not the quality of it. FLAC doesn’t have quality settings; if it did, it would by definition not be lossless. You don’t apply settings to something you don’t want to change, and the whole idea of FLAC is that nothing changes.

They are only as rare as 24-bit source audio.

There was a release of one of the Final Fantasy Concerts released in 24 bits a while ago think the links still work Thread 85615

Your entire post is based on the assumption I believe Flac is true lossless. You are wrong in that assumption.

FLAC is true lossless. That isn’t a matter for debate or query; it’s a simple, proven, mathematical fact.

His assumption was only that you understood the most elementary concepts of digital audio; and in that respect, he was indeed 100% wrong.

lol we should start a thread: AA (Audiophiles Anonymous~)

I rip vinyls at 48k/24b but thanks to the new audio capture card I can capture at 96k/24b but have not got around to testing it out yet. Feel free to check out my current vinyl postings and give me some feedback if you like.

A big off-topic, perhaps, but I have a question of my own.

Which produces the highest quality when converted to MP3: CBR, VBR, or ABR?

A big off-topic, perhaps, but I have a question of my own.

Which produces the highest quality when converted to MP3: CBR, VBR, or ABR?

VBR is best.

VBR gives better results for Low Pass.

Using CBR with custom Low Pass settings may give weird or worse results.

You can google search for the hydrogenaudio forums and you’ll see several threads talking about the possibilities and the way the psycho-acoustics works for Lame MP3 encoding.

Lame is striving towards generating optimal presets so you don’t have to play so much with custom settings.

ABR is good for low-end tech usage as a medium between CBR compatibility and VBR quality (online streaming would use ABR instead of VBR; etc).

Personally, I would use VBR and not touch the Low Pass filter, unless you’re willing to spend time on each song with different settings and do blind ABX listening tests.

Google search for more information and discussion on Low Pass filter in LAME:

mp3 lame low pass site:hydrogenaudio.org/forums/

Does LAME lowpass more or less in VBR mode? Didn’t it used to be about the same? (Assuming we’re comparing -V0 with 320CBR…)

CBR 320 has a lower Low Pass than V0.

Here’s what normally happens when I use a sample from a blu-ray (48KHz sample rate) using presets to encode (with foobar2000).

Writing library: LAME3.99r

V0

-m j -V 0 -q 0 -lowpass 24 –vbr-new -b 32

CBR@320

-m j -V 4 -q 3 -lowpass 20.5

With V0, it retains as much as the original source audio as possible, by default.
With CBR, it gives you what is relative to CD sample rates: 44.1KHz.

Hang on… You’re specifying the lowpass yourself, aren’t you? A 48khz recording doesn’t sample higher than 24khz anyway, so that lowpass is pointless. Also, you’re invoking very strange and deprecated switches, like –vbr-new…

My tests show the following, for a standard 44.1khz sample:
-V0 has no hard lowpass – some frequencies all the way up to Nyquist are preserved. There is a "soft" lowpass at 16khz which is occasionally relaxed to allow high frequencies deemed important by the psychoacoustic model through.
320 CBR has a hard lowpass at 20khz!!! It also has a "soft" lowpass at 16khz but it relaxes more often than in VBR mode. Very curious!

To summarise, -V0 very occasionally permits higher frequencies (>20khz) than 320CBR, but is more stingy with 16khz-20khz content.

This makes sense and cements -V0 as the superior. CBR320’s performance is unusual but I suspect that 99.9% of development in the past decade has gone into VBR mode, so throwback behaviour on this mode is to be expected.

Finally, higher lowpass doesn’t equal better – in a lossy codec, frequently the opposite is true. Above 16khz, we don’t hear much of any consequence, above 18khz even the most pristine ears have approaching-zero sensitivity, and above 20khz, all bets are off unless you’re a bat or a dog or a cat. I like to see an aggressive lowpass in a lossy codec because that tells me that the model is being intelligent about throwing away stuff that we can’t hear or are insensitive to, and donating the bitrate it saves to frequencies that are within our most sensitive frequencies.

No, that’s what fb2k has in its presets if you don’t create a profile of your own from scratch.

There’s one other encoder I’ll use if it’s not fb2k: LameXP, which has its own presets but I’ve rarely got that installed since it undergoes multiple updates and betas.

Actually, LameXP uses the same settings for its presets:

In the advanced settings, I changed algorithm quality to slowest.
Everything else is on Auto.

General
Complete name : D:\Music\LameXP Encodes\01 – Look to the Stars.mp3
Format : MPEG Audio
File size : 5.70 MiB
Duration : 2mn 53s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 232 Kbps
Album : Man of Steel [Deluxe Edition] (Disc 1)
Track name : Look to the Stars
Track name/Position : 1
Performer : Hans Zimmer
Genre : Soundtrack
Recorded date : 2013
Writing library : LAME3.99r
Cover : Yes
Cover MIME : image/jpeg
Comment : Encoded with LameXP

Audio
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Duration : 2mn 53s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 232 Kbps
Minimum bit rate : 32.0 Kbps
Channel count : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 4.81 MiB (84%)
Writing library : LAME3.99r
Encoding settings : -m j -V 0 -q 0 -lowpass 22.1 –vbr-new -b 32

Here’s the same with LameXP done in CBR@320.

General
Complete name : D:\Music\LameXP Encodes\01 – Look to the Stars_CBR320.mp3
Format : MPEG Audio
File size : 7.52 MiB
Duration : 2mn 53s
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 320 Kbps
Album : Man of Steel [Deluxe Edition] (Disc 1)
Track name : Look to the Stars
Track name/Position : 1
Performer : Hans Zimmer
Genre : Soundtrack
Recorded date : 2013
Writing library : LAME3.99r
Cover : Yes
Cover MIME : image/jpeg
Comment : Encoded with LameXP

Audio
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Duration : 2mn 54s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 320 Kbps
Channel count : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 6.63 MiB (88%)
Writing library : LAME3.99r
Encoding settings : -m j -V 4 -q 0 -lowpass 20.5

Now to do a blind ABX test.

I’m not quite understanding why your command line is full of all these esoteric settings and switches. The way to get the best from LAME is to feed it your source, give it a bitrate or a VBR setting, and let it figure out the rest for itself. Unless your source is such that it specifically requires manual lowpassing, let LAME make the decision internally…

If everything is on auto, where’s all that other crap coming from? Why is LameXP forcing lowpass? And a really silly lowpass for that matter… 22.1khz lowpass on a 44.1khz source… when that sample rate tops out at 22.05!!!

Confused… and instantly distrustful of LameXP… 😉

ᴵ’ᵐ ᶰᵒᵗ ʳᵉᵃᶫᶫʸ ˢᵘʳᵉ⋅ ᴵ ʲᵘˢᵗ ᵘˢᵉ ᶦᵗ⋅

I’ve completely switched over to AAC for lossy encodes now.

I use QAAC to do my encodes and use TrueVBR settings. :smrt:

———- Post added at 03:18 PM ———- Previous post was at 03:16 PM ———-

Looking at a few other programs I use once in awhile, I think they mostly use the -new-vbr command and other things as defaults in their presets.
I hand’t actually paid attention so much since the new update of 3.99.5.

Shortly after that, I found QAAC was undergoing a lot of updates and seems to outdo NeroAAC in multiple ways with their continual updates and bugfixes which Nero will never ever do.

Yeah, the Apple encoder has really pushed ahead lately… leaving old Nero in the dust.

My car stereo doesn’t like AAC so I’m stuck with MP3 – at least until I get a new car stereo… 😉

How do I convert STRM files to MP3?

Going to answer anyway.. here is one if u haven’t found one FFX HD Remaster Blu-Ray files (FLAC 96khz) (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f72/final-fantasy-x-hd-remaster-original-soundtrack-166417/2.html)