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But who is using MP3 players these days any more? I found myself to buy an iPod in... like... 2011 or so. Converted all the CDs I had to FLAC because losless w

• mark-r 8y ago
  I rip my CDs in a two-step process: first to FLAC, then convert to mp3. The mp3s go in my phone, I have 33GB so far and my collection isn't even half ripped. I haven't checked how big the FLACs are lately but I'm sure they'd be a much bigger burden.
  • vortico 8y ago
    This is pretty reasonable. 16/44.1 FLACs aren't that large, especially considering that 4TB HDDs are available for $70 these days.
  • brewdad 8y ago
    I do the same. MP3s of yy entire CD collection sit on an SD card in my car and a Sandisk Ultra Fit USB drive in my wife's car. The FLAC files live on an external USB drive in my home. I still have Spotify for the times I want to listen to something I don't own or want to listen to one specific song without drilling down multiple menus to find it.
  • aidenn0 8y ago
    If you are concerned about space, consider vorbis, AAC, or opus. They all will achieve a higher quality at a given bitrate (or equivalently a lower bitrate for a given quality).
    • vortico 8y ago
      Note that the difference is not large. A 128 kbps opus or AAC might be comparible to a 160 or 192 kbps MP3. So it's less than 2x improvement of file size.
      • leetcrew 8y ago
        AAC has an additional advantage though, which is that many phones and receivers can transmit AAC files over Bluetooth without reencoding. this is technically possible for MP3 too, but very few devices implement it. the loss of quality from transcoding lossy to lossy is usually a lot worse than the difference in quality between codecs and bitrates (within reason).
        • vortico 8y ago
          Interesting, didn't know the Bluetooth fact. I don't usually deal with AAC myself, since opus is so close in every quality/feature, and the AAC patent license is sometimes costly to use commercially ($0.98 per software sale).
        • mark-r 8y ago
          Even though it's theoretically possible to send over Bluetooth without reencoding, I wonder if it happens in practice. The audio pipeline has too many stages and each of them would have to retain the encoding.
          • leetcrew 8y ago
            good point. the developer settings on my pixel 2 allow me to set the preferred codec, but I've never dug into it enough to know whether the setting is actually honored. all my music is MP3 anyway so it's going to sound awful over Bluetooth no matter what.
            • voltagex_ 8y ago
              Similar developer settings on the S8+/Note 9 - as soon as you connect to a device that doesn't support your chosen codec, it'll reset. I can tell the difference between APT-X and AAC, but I've got no idea if the AAC is being re-encoded.
  • nirvdrum 8y ago
    Slightly off topic, but do you use something other than iTunes for this process? I'm looking for a good way to manage a FLAC library.
    • mark-r 8y ago
      I use an older version of Media Monkey on the PC. I would have upgraded to a newer version but they removed the interface to the LAME encoder. This was before the patents expired so I should check them out again, but the old version does everything I need. I quite like it.
    • lozf 8y ago
      On Windows "foobar2000" is fantastic for playback and transcoding, looks pretty basic, but performs well and has lot's of plugins to modify look and feel as well as extra functionality. On Mac, XLD is great for ripping and transcoding, but I'm not sure what's the hot favourite for playback these days.
      • nirvdrum 8y ago
        Thanks for the pointer. I'm largely on Linux and my wife largely on Mac, but I'm sure I can spin up a VM somewhere if the software is worth it.
        • lozf 8y ago
          Oh snap! Haven't used Windows or Mac outside of occasional work use for >10 years - all BSD or Linux (mostly Debian since then)... I've heard good reports from people using foobar2000 under Wine, but on Linux there's many fine options depending on your preferences - Audacious or Deadbeef are more like foobar, or there's Quod Libet or Ex Falso if you prefer something "bigger". Personally I haven't used these GUI players for a while as I tend to have a terminal window always open and just point `mpv` to a directory, playlist or file. I use `ffmpeg` (compiled with recent codecs) for transcoding and for ripping there's `RubyRipper` or `abcde`.
    • AsyncAwait 8y ago
  • rograndom 8y ago
    I've been ripping to FLAC, and then convert to ALAC via avconv. The ALAC files go into iTunes, FLAC files stay on my server as an "archive". I then let iTunes convert the files it syncs to my phone / ipad to which ever size I need for that device, and I can still listen to uncompressed songs when I'm at my desk. I keep the Flac around in case sometime in the future I want to change formats for whatever reason.
    • criddell 8y ago
      Why do you think FLAC is better than ALAC for your archive? They are both open source, lossless formats.
  • thirdsun 8y ago
    Do you manually convert to mp3? iTunes has an option to convert lossless audio to a lossy, space saving AAC at a bitrate of your choice on the fly when syncing to an Apple device. I‘m sure there are similar solutions in Android land.
• npongratz 8y ago
  > But who is using MP3 players these days any more? I use my iPod Shuffle exclusively for portable music listening. Cannot beat the form factor, only have to charge it once a week or two (and sometime far longer between charges), and helps me relegate my mobile surveillance/communications device to phone-duties-only as much as possible.
• mruts 8y ago
  Well I never used CDs. Unfortunately what.cd got taken down, but a couple years ago, it was probably the biggest and most complete collection of music in the world. Nowadays, I also just use spotify since I don’t have a quality source for music. But if what.cd was still around, I would dump spotify in a second.
  • some-guy 8y ago
    what.cd was continued by redacted.ch, and the community is currently quite strong.
    • ValentineC 8y ago
      There is also Orpheus (nee Apollo, Xanax) and notwhat.cd, which spread the community out a bit, but also helps increase the bus factor.
• Arnt 8y ago
  Your smartphone or laptop is like an MP3 player with respect to mastering, not like an expensive amplifier and speakers. Your smaryphone/laptop has an amplifier that's optimised for low energy usage, not fidelity, and loudspeakers optimised for size. Music which has been mixed and mastered without regard for how it sounds on your smartphone is sold as "24/192" or "vinyl" or such. The 192 does not matter technically, it's just an identifying mark, and some sort of identifying mark is necessary.
• lucideer 8y ago
  I don't think this advice is aimed at your typical Spotify user (i.e. the majority of people). Spotify is fine for casual listening, but if you're picky about quality, you're going to diy it, and if you're diying, 24/192 is pointless.
• jlarcombe 8y ago
  But aren't you worried you'll lose access to your music? I have to own it! I can't have it at the whim of multiple third parties to take down as they see fit. It's too important.
  • matwood 8y ago
    So where do you store these files that you'll never lose access? CDs? People with a room full of 8 tracks or cassettes would like to have a word. HDDs? Those fail all the time, plus any sort of natural disaster could wipe out your collection. Online backup? This seems like the only real option, but for me the risk/reward just doesn't fit. At least for now, the record companies and the service providers are both incentivized to have as much of their catalogs as possible on streaming services. Until that changes, streaming works for many.
    • behringer 8y ago
      Your beef with CDs is they'll become out of date? Did you not read the article, CDs are already pretty much the pinnacle of audio formats.
    • magduf 8y ago
      You don't back up your hard drive?
    • aw3c2 8y ago
      > Online backup? This seems like the only real option, but for me the risk/reward just doesn't fit. What risk? You can privately store your music anywhere, it's completely legal to do so.
      • matwood 8y ago
        I wasn't clear. The risk of a streaming service turning off some music vs. storing and backing up everything in some lossless format like FLAC.
      • KozmoNau7 8y ago
• _jal 8y ago
  > I'm not sure but I think "owning" music like in "I got some files here on my drive" seems dead to me. I really don't think that's true. I think the "listening market" looks a lot like it did before; a large number of casual listeners and a smaller number of people who are in to their music enough to care about details. The second category does things like talk about differences in mastering between different releases, for instance, and Spotify or Apple are not going to offer you that 1973 Berlin recording or whatever. Tidal tries to cater to this market, but they don't have a massive amount of stuff. And then you get to bootleg collecting and people who record performances, old music that didn't make the digital jump and all sorts other recordings that will never make it commercial services. I'm not a "real audiophile" or obsessive about collecting things, but I do have a lot of music (last I looked, about 60k distinct artifacts - mostly individual songs, but some of those are albums or nonmusical, also some dupes and garbage). And a lot of that is not on commercial services.
• themodelplumber 8y ago
  I hike a lot and hate using my phone's battery power for music. On top of needing that power for other things, it just feels wasteful. I bought a cheap MP3 player to try out in 2016 and have been hooked ever since. These devices are smaller and lighter than spare phone batteries or power banks. In addition, I find that I use the MP3 player when I'm out running normal errands precisely because I've organized my music by hand and even edited tracks by hand in some cases. Examples would be things like rare covers that can only be found on YouTube, or favorite songs from niche internet music communities which were poorly mastered. It's also a bit of a gear hobby now since there are so many MP3 players on the market. Prices are low and performance is great. I have to agree about the iPod though, as I found the need for proprietary software, and really annoying software at that, made me use it less and less until my 32GB iTouch was mostly used as an ebook reader. I also prefer physical buttons for my mp3-listening while on the go.
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• KozmoNau7 8y ago
  I use my phone as an MP3 (Opus, actually) player, with a selection of music from my ~20K track collection. This works better for me than unlimited access to all music, because it makes me have to listen to a smaller selection of content, so I give each album more attention. While I do also have a Spotify Premium subscription, I am using it a lot less now than I used to. At least 10% of the album's I have simply aren't available on Spotify, and possibly never will be. Underground self-released artists very often don't bother with streaming services, or are outright against the entire concept in the first place, claiming that it devalues the music. It certainly doesn't pay very well. There's also the issue of music disappearing because of rightsholder disputes, such as most of the Motörhead discography being unavailable for an extended period of time. That sort of thing just isn't acceptable. Honestly I've come to realize that I prefer a smaller nicely curated collection over a massive unwieldy semi-unlimited library, with questionable curation. I have reported hundreds of curation errors to Spotify, but they keep popping up, especially errors involving two identically-named artists being mixed together. I will admit that I am very particular about tagging, labeling and sorting by genre. Spotify is woefully inadequate in this regard. For my own collection, I am in full control, which makes it much easier to sort and handle.