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Have you seen murfie.com? They have reasonable prices and will "sell" you a physical CD but just digitally deliver you the FLAC. Of course the fact that they ev

by rm999 10y ago

Have you seen murfie.com? They have reasonable prices and will "sell" you a physical CD but just digitally deliver you the FLAC. Of course the fact that they even have to do it this way is so anachronistic. Audiophile quality digital audio is one of the places where piracy - specifically a few invite-only music torrent sites - have completely surpassed (and arguably innovated beyond) anything legal.

shmerl 10y ago
Interesting, thanks for the pointer.
hackuser 10y ago
What are the standards and innovations (not just high-quality FLAC?) in those places?
- shmerl 10y ago
  DRM-free lossless audio. That's all you need. Not anywhere new or novel, but lacking in many places. So anyone who offers it is innovative ;)
  - hackuser 10y ago
    What bit-depth, frequency, etc. is considered to meet the highest standards. Years ago I read 24 or 32 bits and ~96 KHz, but maybe those aren't even the specifications that matter any more.
    - masklinn 10y ago
      > Years ago I read 24 or 32 bits and ~96 KHz These are useful to record and produce, they're of no use whatsoever to listeners[0]. 16/48 is the highest standard. 24b (let alone 32) is completely pointless and just wasteful, and 192kHz can actually be detrimental due to ultrasonics. [0] https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
      - Wildgoose 10y ago
        In theory you are correct - but not in practise. The "Loudness Wars" means that we don't actually get the full 16 bits, in which case I would argue that anything up to the 24/96 standard may well be an improvement.
        pimeys 10y ago
        I was thinking the same, until I read this article about different qualities: http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ TLDR: 16/44.1 is enough for listening purposes.
        masklinn 10y ago
        > The "Loudness Wars" means that we don't actually get the full 16 bits, in which case I would argue that anything up to the 24/96 standard may well be an improvement. You'll get the exact same loudness issue at thrice the storage requirements. Fight for better mastering (and ubiquitous requirement of loudness checker or across-the-board audio normalisation as iTunes Radio does), not for worthless and detrimental gimmicks. Incidentally, loudness has been trending down (very very slowly) on lossless sources since its 2005 peak: http://www.tristancollins.me/computing/dynamic-range-analysis/ http://www.tristancollins.me/computing/dynamic-range-analysi...
        pimeys 10y ago
        As a music collector, the loudness wars is one of the biggest reasons to not use the streaming services. For some old albums, services like Spotify have only the remastered versions, if available. Especially in the early 2000s remasters were very loud in expense of the dynamics. Luckily it's usually quite cheap to find the original CD versions, and the loudness wars database [0] is very helpful when hunting these. Also for some new recordings the vinyl version has much better mastering because of the physical limitations of vinyl. Good examples are Radiohead or Björk, where the vinyl versions sound absolutely amazing compared to the overly compressed digital versions. Of course there are always nice surprised, like the new Kate Bush live album, which is almost exactly 89 dB and has amazing dynamics. [0]: http://dr.loudness-war.info/ http://dr.loudness-war.info/
    - shmerl 10y ago
      Extra bit depth is useful only if you want to remaster the audio (apply whatever effects and etc.). Otherwise 16 is just fine. Lossless source though is needed if you want to encode in any lossy codec.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  Probably community discussion, vast catalogs, and extensively curated metadata.
feld 10y ago
Even it's a duplicate CD in their catalog they still have to rip it. I'm not sure if they're allowed to store the digital copy with deduplication, but if someone sends in 50 of the same CD they have to pay someone to rip each one. It's a ridiculous way to skirt around the law.
- shmerl 10y ago
  If the law requires such workaround to buy digital goods - the law itself is ridiculous.
joshschreuder 10y ago
There was a similar concept for DVDs but the Kickstarter was cancelled https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1151191861/movieswap-join-us-to-freethemovies/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1151191861/movieswap-jo...

by rm999 10y ago

shmerl 10y ago

Interesting, thanks for the pointer.

hackuser 10y ago

What are the standards and innovations (not just high-quality FLAC?) in those places?

shmerl 10y ago
DRM-free lossless audio. That's all you need. Not anywhere new or novel, but lacking in many places. So anyone who offers it is innovative ;)
- hackuser 10y ago
  What bit-depth, frequency, etc. is considered to meet the highest standards. Years ago I read 24 or 32 bits and ~96 KHz, but maybe those aren't even the specifications that matter any more.
  - masklinn 10y ago
    > Years ago I read 24 or 32 bits and ~96 KHz These are useful to record and produce, they're of no use whatsoever to listeners[0]. 16/48 is the highest standard. 24b (let alone 32) is completely pointless and just wasteful, and 192kHz can actually be detrimental due to ultrasonics. [0] https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
    - Wildgoose 10y ago
      In theory you are correct - but not in practise. The "Loudness Wars" means that we don't actually get the full 16 bits, in which case I would argue that anything up to the 24/96 standard may well be an improvement.
      - pimeys 10y ago
        I was thinking the same, until I read this article about different qualities: http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ http://tweakheadz.com/16-bit-vs-24-bit-audio/ TLDR: 16/44.1 is enough for listening purposes.
      - masklinn 10y ago
        > The "Loudness Wars" means that we don't actually get the full 16 bits, in which case I would argue that anything up to the 24/96 standard may well be an improvement. You'll get the exact same loudness issue at thrice the storage requirements. Fight for better mastering (and ubiquitous requirement of loudness checker or across-the-board audio normalisation as iTunes Radio does), not for worthless and detrimental gimmicks. Incidentally, loudness has been trending down (very very slowly) on lossless sources since its 2005 peak: http://www.tristancollins.me/computing/dynamic-range-analysis/ http://www.tristancollins.me/computing/dynamic-range-analysi...
        pimeys 10y ago
        As a music collector, the loudness wars is one of the biggest reasons to not use the streaming services. For some old albums, services like Spotify have only the remastered versions, if available. Especially in the early 2000s remasters were very loud in expense of the dynamics. Luckily it's usually quite cheap to find the original CD versions, and the loudness wars database [0] is very helpful when hunting these. Also for some new recordings the vinyl version has much better mastering because of the physical limitations of vinyl. Good examples are Radiohead or Björk, where the vinyl versions sound absolutely amazing compared to the overly compressed digital versions. Of course there are always nice surprised, like the new Kate Bush live album, which is almost exactly 89 dB and has amazing dynamics. [0]: http://dr.loudness-war.info/ http://dr.loudness-war.info/
  - shmerl 10y ago
    Extra bit depth is useful only if you want to remaster the audio (apply whatever effects and etc.). Otherwise 16 is just fine. Lossless source though is needed if you want to encode in any lossy codec.
nitrogen 10y ago
Probably community discussion, vast catalogs, and extensively curated metadata.

feld 10y ago

Even it's a duplicate CD in their catalog they still have to rip it. I'm not sure if they're allowed to store the digital copy with deduplication, but if someone sends in 50 of the same CD they have to pay someone to rip each one. It's a ridiculous way to skirt around the law.

shmerl 10y ago
If the law requires such workaround to buy digital goods - the law itself is ridiculous.

joshschreuder 10y ago

There was a similar concept for DVDs but the Kickstarter was cancelled https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1151191861/movieswap-join-us-to-freethemovies/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1151191861/movieswap-jo...