Lossless? Really?

Posted by: madgerald on 29 April 2014

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this Q but pretty sure someone will be able to help...

Following the principle that original is best (I've been brainwashed by vinylheads) and if you mess with something you make it worse then if you are going to listen to digital music then CD must be best format (unless you can get your hands on the original uncompressed file).

A good friend of mine disagrees (yes he is in IT) and says that ripped "lossless" will be as good as the original CD since its all just 1's and 0's anyway. The only way to settle the argument would be to do a blind test streaming a ripped "lossless" CD against the original played on my CDX2 through the same DAC, amp and speakers to see if we can hear the difference. Trouble is I don't have a separate DAC and am not about to buy one just to prove him wrong.

Has anyone conducted such a test and if so what were the results? Feel free to point me at a previous post if this has been discussed before.

Thanks if you can prove me righteous

Bill

Posted on: 16 May 2014 by Jota

Originally Posted by madgerald:

Originally Posted by Jota:

In the end be confident in your own choices and tastes and don't allow others opinions to adversely influence your tastes.

And don't wear socks with sandals

Man feet. That would be first on my list should I ever get to appear on room 101.

Posted on: 17 May 2014 by Mike-B

Originally Posted by winkyincanada:

I bought something from them with a Canadian IP address, a made-up US street address and a Canadian CC. Worked just fine. I think they don't really take the regional licensing too seriously.

Regional restrictions are back on today in UK

Oh well, I have enough new albums to keep my going for a while

I'm off to US in a cupla weeks & will get what I need then.

Posted on: 19 May 2014 by MichaelSch

Originally Posted by tonym:

So, HD Tracks have replied prompty, to let me know I can't order from them, me being in the UK and all, and have refunded my money. Oh well...

I registered with my correct Swiss address and login using a VPN that terminates at a US server - it works just fine. I use Paypal to pay and there are no problems.

HD Tracks seem not to care seriously about that.

Posted on: 19 May 2014 by madgerald

Thinking about some of the comments about analogue vs. digital on this thread - how would digital only music figure? I have a bunch of trance/dance music that has never been in analogue form so presumably all the previous comments about digital approximating the analogue signal don't apply.

What do you think?