iLounge

1

We will have a way to reincode it by the time iTunes will come out

Posted by Casual on October 9, 2003 at 4:03 AM (PST)

2

Huh?  mp3 is mp3 no matter what you do to it!  It will play on mp3 players.  It it doesn’t play on mp3 players, well, you can’t call the music mp3 file then!

Posted by CoolKidd on October 9, 2003 at 4:52 AM (PST)

3

CoolKidd—Napster uses WMA, which can’t be played on iPods unless converted.  (Is conversion from WMA—> MP3 even possible?)

Posted by gordyhulten in Urbana, IL on October 9, 2003 at 5:24 AM (PST)

4

Yes, but it’s time consuming. You have to burn the wma files to a cd then copy them in mp3 format. Too much trouble for me.

Posted by revmike in hanford, ca on October 9, 2003 at 6:59 AM (PST)

5

That’s a shame for Napster.

Posted by Z on October 9, 2003 at 7:46 AM (PST)

6

Or you could just do what I do with MC9 and protect audio files: play them in one channel, and record the WAVs using another channel and automatically transcode into MP3. Sure it’s an analog process, but the quality is top-notch and I honestly can’t tell the difference between the original digital files and my analog->digital copies.

This is also why Rhapsody is more valuable to me than iTMS—for $10 a month I get a choice of 300K songs, and I can record them into MP3s at will.

Posted by MC9 on October 9, 2003 at 8:50 AM (PST)

7

Easy CD-DA extractor includes a little program called EC-CDA file converter. You can turn .wma’s into MP3’s very, very easily.

It’s not time consuming at all. It’ll maybe convert in the time it takes do download a song, possibly even less time. What is a shame is the wma encoding, which is terrible.

Posted by dasein on October 9, 2003 at 9:25 AM (PST)

8

dbPoweramp is still the best tool to convert music (yes even wma to mp3). You also must consider that you are compressing the audio twice so there is a significant degrade in audio quality. Don’t even bother with this unless Apple makes the iPod wma compatible (unlikely).

Posted by MadDog5145 on October 9, 2003 at 10:35 AM (PST)

9

hey we are not all Apple freaks. why alienate all iPod users. who says im gonna “buy” music anyways. Napster sucks! doesnt Metallica feel stupid right about now. two big has beens.

Posted by Jaguares in Bay Area, Ca on October 9, 2003 at 7:21 PM (PST)

10

so, what’s the big deal.  just don’t use napster.  easy as that.

Posted by who_cares?? on October 9, 2003 at 8:39 PM (PST)

11

Jaguares.  at least metallica have actually “been” somewhere.  unlike who is a never was, never is and will be with only a 5gb music collection.  and by the way, we should be “buying” music…....POWER TO THE ARTIST, not the computer freak.

Posted by POWER_TO_THE_ALMIGHTY_ARTIST on October 9, 2003 at 8:43 PM (PST)

12

“dbPoweramp is still the best tool to convert music (yes even wma to mp3).”

Nice seuite of tools, it probably uses a loopback to decode into WAV then re-encode. However, I have issues about de-coding and re-encoding using any DACs inside a metal PC/Mac box… too noisy, lots of EM.

My setup is slightly more cumbersome, but probably gives better results. I output as SPDIF from a 24-bit 96KHz using an Envy24HT board, input to a 24-bit 192KHz Onkyo using its better, noise-free DACs, output the new SPDIF back into another 24-bit 96KHz Envy245, then convert into VBR MP3 using this string:

“—nspsytune—vbr-mtrh -V1 -mj -h -b96—lowpass 19.5—athtype 3—ns-sfb21 2 -Z—scale 0.98 -X0”

(I considered FLAC but considering that the “originals” are already lossy, I wouldn’t gain anything).

This gives superlative results. And despite all the wires involved, it’s all automated.

Posted by MC9 on October 10, 2003 at 8:29 AM (PST)

13

POWER_TO_THE_ALMIGHTY_ARTIST, you’re new to this aren’t you?  If you knew anything, you’d know that the record companies ensure the artists don’t make a profit, by using “recoupable expenses” and other dodgy accounting practices.

If you want to support the artist, go to their concerts, and purchase their CDs only if they are using an independant label that doesn’t subscribe to the RIAA (who are suing their consumers).

Wake up and do some research:

http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/problemwithmusic.html
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/

Posted by fish on October 13, 2003 at 12:21 AM (PST)

14

Where do you find info.on some of these programmes you’re talking about?

Posted by Christianicononev.2 on October 13, 2003 at 6:28 PM (PST)

15

“Where do you find info.on some of these programmes you’re talking about”

Google is always a good place tostart.

dbPoweramp - good petite suite of sound conversion utilities.
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

Media Center 9 - simple the best music jukebox software on any platofrm, period. It is quite complex though.
http://www.musicex.com/mediacenter/
http://www.ipodlounge.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=20

The talk about SPDIF and so on involves a high-end stereo system. Basically, with some sound cards, rtather than use analog (noisy!) output, you can take a direct digital signal and route it through different rack systems. This lets you do operations on it without introducing digital->analog hum and ground loops.

The iPod currently lacks a digital output so it is unsuitable for high-end audio processing. For these purposes, an Archos or Neuros with SPDIF is recommended instead.

Posted by MC9 on October 14, 2003 at 5:12 AM (PST)