Amazon Launching AutoRip CDs

mynamehere said:
Just wait until the MAFIAA get's wind of this!

It's good to see someone actually working towards a system that's favorable to the consumer.
Click to expand...

Their lawyers are probably already drafting up the papers as the paralegal intern is on standby to go serve them.

How dare Google give consumers what they want. If they wanted both a CD and MP3 files, well, both are available .. as separate purchases.
 
iTunes, no matter. Because buying from iTunes is supporting the iTerrorists
 
LeninGHOLA said:
100% accuracy? I'd like to see some blind testing to verify that claim. You're possibly Superman.
Click to expand...

Yes 100% - and that tells me either my encodes suck, and/or the hardware I'm using to play MP3s on suck (specifically too many hops through pieces of equipment to the stereo when streaming MP3s). To clarify my point a little further - I always believed MP3s to be vastly inferior to a straight up CD. Apparently, that's just because I'm doing it wrong... I never rtook the time to try to make it better, because I didn't think it was possible to get that quality out of an MP3.

The only thing holding me back from ripping everything into FLAC was compatibility (MP3s play on everything). But if I can get near perfect quality in MP3 format - well, then apparently I have a lot of work to do... :D

Thus my question - any good guides on doing it the right way? It's kind of time consuming ripping 500+ CDs (yes I have that many) :( Like does the program used matter? Or just turn the bitrate as high as you can and go to town with whatever?
 
Kongar said:
To clarify my point a little further - I always believed MP3s to be vastly inferior to a straight up CD. Apparently, that's just because I'm doing it wrong... I never rtook the time to try to make it better, because I didn't think it was possible to get that quality out of an MP3.
Click to expand...

Well,
That remains to be seen, you should try it and see what you come up with.

There are many variables when it comes to the perceived sound quality.

  • Operating system/codec
  • Sound hardware in computer (best would be to use optical out to an external high end DAC, hooked up to a dedicated good headphone amp, and a decent set of headphones)
  • Method of MP3 compression (as mentioned above, I use command line Lame -V2 -Q0)
  • BIAS / Placebo effect. (Do not underestimate this! it effects us all, and our brains are tricky things. This is why its good to convince yourself and others with a blind testing software setup)

In order to make sure you are actually judging the compression algorithm (and not your hardware) it would make sense to play the raw ripped wav from CD using the same software on the same computer with the same hardware. That way, you remove as many variables as possible.

It's not impossible that you really can tell the difference between these sources under those conditions, but I have met many who claimed they could, only to either fail to be able to in a blind test, or to decline to take a test, so my suspicion naturally falls towards one side of the equation.

The overwhelming majority of evidence either supports that it is not possible, or at very least that it is a lot more difficult than people (particularly audiophiles) think.
 
Kick ass! Unfortunately I just bought a shit load of MP3s less than a week ago. AARRGGHH!!:mad:
 
Zarathustra[H];1039503048 said:
In order to make sure you are actually judging the compression algorithm (and not your hardware) it would make sense to play the raw ripped wav from CD using the same software on the same computer with the same hardware. That way, you remove as many variables as possible.
Click to expand...

No edit button. I realized this was ambiguous when re-reading it after posting.

1.) rip CD to wav file
2.) compress wav file using encoder, keeping original wav file.
3.) play .wav file and .mp3 in same software on same computer for comparison.
4.) even better, do so in a blinded setup to test yourself and avoid bias.
 
I see 16 songs in my cloudplayer.

I have bought thousands and thousands of dollars of music.
 
Also, couldn't you buy, download and return? You'd only be on the hook for shipping.

That would be a pain in the ass though.
 
Vinyl is a technically inferior format to the CD. The only advantage vinyl has - and it is a significant one - is that the mastering for the source material can frequently be much better than what is used for CDs and mp3s. Since vinyl is considered a niche, enthusiast format the masters used are often not subjected to the ridiculous levels of dynamic range compression that ruins so much music today. CDs and mp3s are usually made from masters that are made for listening on an iPod with shitty earbuds in a noisy environment, or in the car (again, noisy environment).

I've seen waveforms of several albums released in the past few years where there was WAY more dynamic range in the vinyl than there was the CD. But again, this has nothing to do with the format and more the target market (I guess). CDs are technically capable of a significantly better dynamic range.

Kongar said:
Could you point me toward the programs, proper tools, and methods for a GOOD encode? In my experience - I can tell the difference with 100% accuracy between a CD and an MP3 on good stereo equipment. It intrigues me that a good encode can be just as good.

MP3s have been fine for my phone (music on the go) or streaming. But when it's time to turn the volume up and rock out - it's CDs all the way. Yes I still buy CDs for the quality. Yes, I'd like to move to FLAC or even better - an MP3 that sounds just as good.
Click to expand...

Double blind testing consistently reveals that listeners simply can not hear a difference between an MP3 lame encoded at vb0 (or better) and the source CD. Perhaps your mp3s are poorly encoded, or maybe the hardware involved in the mp3 playback is inferior, or maybe you just suffer from conformation bias like the rest of us. Try performing some ABX testing and see what happens. Maybe you'll still hear a difference. Most likely you won't.

aardvark sandwich said:
Also, couldn't you buy, download and return? You'd only be on the hook for shipping.

That would be a pain in the ass though.
Click to expand...

Why not just pirate it then? You're stealing either way.
 
True. I'm not advocating it either, just noting a sticky wicket for amazon.
 
It's not at all as it seems, I got my 21 Amazon MP3s listed in the Cloud Player, but it also says I have space for only 250 more songs, far from the 3,000+ CDs I bought from Amazon;com/.fr/.de/.co.uk.
It seems that to get my albums, I would need to purchase Cloud Player Premium for $250 per year, but even so, I'm pretty sure Amazon does not have rips of more than 10% of my albums, so it would be pointless to try really.

I also purchase CD and SACDs, rip them as lossless WMAs from Windows Media Player set to rip automatically when the CD is introduced. These WMAs are smaller in size than FLACs and just as lossless, I haven't had a problem with them. I also convert the WMAs to MP3s with the highest quality settings possible using LameXP. I used the WMAs for computer playback, the MP3s for mobile playback. Almost 1 terabytes of legal music so far. I haven't figured out how to rip the SACD part of the dual SACD/CD discs, I think WMP rips only the CD part but I am not 100% sure.
 
TCM said:
Yeah, CDs just can't reproduce those scratches and pops like Vinyl can.

I'd rather have (imaginary) 90% quality that's still 90% quality after listening 1000 times than 100% that's 50% after 10 playbacks.

Of course Vinyl junkies can't explain how they can discern 16 Bits of audio values or hear frequencies up to 22050Hz. They just "feel" it. :rolleyes:

And we're not even talking about SACD or HDCD.
Click to expand...


The fact that digital sound effectively has a (refresh rate) since it is composed of a number of samples per seconds it can be fatiguing. I picked up on it when i started listening to CD's in the early 90s but didnt know what it was until years later.

You can roll your eyes all you want i promise you even a quality cassette can be more enjoyable than a CD. I heard Boston (1976) on vinyl on a good stereo for the first time and it about drove me to tears. And its not some nostalgia i was born in 77, it was the fact id listened to the song for 25 years and had been hearing it wrong the whole time.
 
It did add about 450 CD albums, so the 250 songs are just for iTunes or other stuff you purchased outside of amazon.com, or amazon.com CDs that Cloud Player does not know yet.
It seems to be stick there though, at about 15% of my Amazon CD music.
So I have about 6,400 songs there, but I am not sure what to do with them, the player has almost no organization features, it can barely do more than play all the songs sequentially or randomly.
 
Curiosity,

If Amazon is doing this and getting away with it due to some 'license to listen based on purchase, digital media irrelevant'.

Under the same pretense, people could buy a dvd and download and watch a blu-ray movie under the same 'license to view'.

Or are they using some other method to legally provide this service?
 
Hell I might start buying CDs again if they rip them for free, depending of the cost difference course.
 
TCM said:
Yeah, CDs just can't reproduce those scratches and pops like Vinyl can.

I'd rather have (imaginary) 90% quality that's still 90% quality after listening 1000 times than 100% that's 50% after 10 playbacks.

Of course Vinyl junkies can't explain how they can discern 16 Bits of audio values or hear frequencies up to 22050Hz. They just "feel" it. :rolleyes:

And we're not even talking about SACD or HDCD.
Click to expand...

Vinyl purists make me laugh.

Listening to Pink Floyd - The Wall on Vinyl versus 6 channel SACD ... please Vinyl can't hold a candle to SACD in any sense.
 
The only CDs I have bought from Amazon were gifts (but I didn't mark them as gift when ordering). Now I have digital copies of those CDs that I gifted to others :)

In some cases it is cheaper to buy the AutoRip eligable physical disc than it is to get the MP3 only version. If you do this you can sell back the physical copy to Amazon and save another few bucks.

There are a few odd outlier cases, but overall I think this is an awesome idea.

I would love to see it expand to Kindle books :-D
 
Won't be lossless though, but at least you'll have the CDs should you want a better quality later, and full control on how to give away or resell your CDs, compared to MP3s for which you barely have any right and the media expire with you.
 
Nanan said:
People still buy CD's? Must be those eclectic types who still buy records.
/s

Actually that is fairly cool, wonder how they got the rights to do this seeing as physical and digital media have different rights and are often owned by different people. Yea! legal rights fragmentation!
Click to expand...

I never buy files. If it ain't lossless, I don't buy it. It's not like ripping CD's to a server is all that time consuming (unless you've got a 1000 CD backlog, which this service probably wont help you with). Personally, I like having CD's. Vinyl, I only get if it's collectible and/or if it's a young band and the album comes with a lossless download (they generally do).

Unless you get your downloads as a loss leader (e.g. $4.00 amazon sales), the difference in price isn't enough to give up liner notes and better sound. Ripping a CD is just too easy (and 99% of the time it's tagged when ripped).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top