Best way to get music?

NeverBackDown

AMD Enthusiast
So as the title says.. what's the best way to get music? Not streaming(unless i can download the music) but the best way to get "hifi" music. Examples being like FLAC files with 96/192khz and 24bit depth? I don't find streaming to be an ideal option since i'd rather own the music and have it stored locally.

I don't use Itunes since i have no apple devices so that's out the question so don't recommend that:p Some people say that buying the CD then using something like EAC to convert them to FLAC is the best way. This confuses me because isn't the best quality a CD uses 44.1khz and 16bit depth? I don't see how you can take that quality then make it better?

If any of you audio experts can help it'd greatly be appreciated. Let me know if i forgot any info.
 
Have a look at hdtracks.co.uk, but be warned its gonna be expensive!

I started to use spotify as it gives you a high quality option, it's not lossless but sounds very good!
 
Just use Spotify premium, you can download all the files locally for offline playing.
 
I'm sure spotify only does 320 mp3s?

If you're super into audio, you can buy vinyls and rip them for crazy high quality. Otherwise CD to flac @16 bit is your best option.

Alternatively (and if this isn't allowed on the forums I appologise) you can get on the bay of pirates where they usually have vinyl rips of classics as well as 24-bit flacs of popular mainstream albums. But make sure to support your favourite artists if you do this.
 
Beatport has FLACs on occasion if you're after electronic music. Smaller/alternative/experimental artists tend to also have FLAC albums you can buy from them directly, either on bandcamp or on their/their record company's site.

You'll struggle with anyone 'mainstream' tbh.
 
So as the title says.. what's the best way to get music? Not streaming(unless i can download the music) but the best way to get "hifi" music. Examples being like FLAC files with 96/192khz and 24bit depth? I don't find streaming to be an ideal option since i'd rather own the music and have it stored locally.

I don't use Itunes since i have no apple devices so that's out the question so don't recommend that:p Some people say that buying the CD then using something like EAC to convert them to FLAC is the best way. This confuses me because isn't the best quality a CD uses 44.1khz and 16bit depth? I don't see how you can take that quality then make it better?

If any of you audio experts can help it'd greatly be appreciated. Let me know if i forgot any info.

Just to clear somethings up here dear mate, 16 bit is the normal CD quality you will get from a CD. But 24 bit is SACD and not many program can play that. But you can now a days get addons to all things. So maybe you will get the 24 bit to work also.

I use HDtracks in the stats to get my music, just need a "Fake" adr over there. And you can buy them, but if you will like to rip them your selv. Then use DB poweramp Link it will cost some money ones a year. But the best program i have uset in like 3 years now.

And if you a from the stats, you can also buy from "
Acoustic Sound USA link, there is some very HIGH quality music there.

If you need more help, just poke the post here :)
http://store.acousticsounds.com/
 
Can be way more complicated... I know people that buy LPs and have an LP player that can be connected to a pc then they use Audacity to rip the tracs to FLAC

But best way is to buy the actual CDs Now I don't know what are the prices for the other genres but for heavy metal the newer releases aren't more expensive than 15-20 euros and the price of old albums can drop to 5 euros
 
Just use Spotify premium, you can download all the files locally for offline playing.
I prefer not to use spotify. You don't own the music and they have a lot of restrictions on how you can use it. At any point in time they can take back all the music you downloaded and cancel the account.. Prefer avoiding that tbh

I'm sure spotify only does 320 mp3s?

If you're super into audio, you can buy vinyls and rip them for crazy high quality. Otherwise CD to flac @16 bit is your best option.

Alternatively (and if this isn't allowed on the forums I appologise) you can get on the bay of pirates where they usually have vinyl rips of classics as well as 24-bit flacs of popular mainstream albums. But make sure to support your favourite artists if you do this.

Pretty sure it's not lol
I bought a Dt990 Pro 250ohm headphone and plan on getting into my audio. So for me flac at 16bit doesn't really seem to do my headphones justice? Also what's the difference between a CD and Vinyl?

Beatport has FLACs on occasion if you're after electronic music. Smaller/alternative/experimental artists tend to also have FLAC albums you can buy from them directly, either on bandcamp or on their/their record company's site.

You'll struggle with anyone 'mainstream' tbh.

I listen to metal music. Bands like Parkway Drive or August Burns Red. So i guess that is more "mainstream" then?

Just to clear somethings up here dear mate, 16 bit is the normal CD quality you will get from a CD. But 24 bit is SACD and not many program can play that. But you can now a days get addons to all things. So maybe you will get the 24 bit to work also.

I use HDtracks in the stats to get my music, just need a "Fake" adr over there. And you can buy them, but if you will like to rip them your selv. Then use DB poweramp Link it will cost some money ones a year. But the best program i have uset in like 3 years now.

And if you a from the stats, you can also buy from "
Acoustic Sound USA link, there is some very HIGH quality music there.

If you need more help, just poke the post here :)
http://store.acousticsounds.com/

Don't really like that website. They don't have many of the bands i listen to. Even when they do it's not the highest of quality.

I even went to the websites of some of the bands i listen to and either they don't offer them in there store or if they do its MP3 format -_-

They make it so difficult to go buy the best quality music.. Streaming seems like it's the only way but even then you still don't own the music and they take it from you at any point in time.
 
Honestly the difference between 16/24bit is very minimal... Far less than the difference between flac/320mp3, and even the difference between 320mp3/flac is something most people will struggle to hear. The difference between 44.1/96/192 is even less still... Honestly unless you're working in a studio where this is useful because the plugins they use can make use of the extra data, it's almost always pointless. Get a decent dac+amp and feed it flac @16/44.1 either ripped by yourself or downloaded from a decent source and you're good to go.

I'm not 100% but I think Vinyl records are natively at 24 bit or more, because every vinyl rip I've ever seen has either been 24/96 or 24/192, so that's the benefit of vinyl. But then again I think the reason vinyls sound better to most ears is because the valve tech they used back when vinyl was popular coloured the sound a little more than today's solid state tech, as opposed to the encoding.
 
The older you get the worse your hearing gets and audio differences become harder to differentiate. I'm still young :p

I have headphones and a DAC already. I'm just trying to find a good service where i can get lossess(mainly flac) files that are above 44/16. But it's difficult and while ripping CDs is the easiest option, i don't see the point in buying them just to rip them onto the PC and then put them in a box:p

I have found services TIDAL(here) and Grooveshark(here). Anyone ever use these before and know what the quality is like?

edit: If i'm totally off on assuming anything let me know.. i'm only just getting into hifi quality music so feel free to just point out the easiest way to get the best i can..
 
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I occasionally get few tracks off https://soundcloud.com/ not too sure what the quality is of them off hand as had long few days to say the least :p but they are really good and have some of the more obscure bands and newer upcoming bands out there that I not seen on other sites.
 
I occasionally get few tracks off https://soundcloud.com/ not too sure what the quality is of them off hand as had long few days to say the least :p but they are really good and have some of the more obscure bands and newer upcoming bands out there that I not seen on other sites.

They use 128/mp3 format, but yeah they do have a lot of songs! They could do so much better than 128/mp3 tbh

Edit: If you rip music off the CD, does the music stay on the CD? Or does it take the file off the CD?
 
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The older you get the worse your hearing gets and audio differences become harder to differentiate. I'm still young :p

I'm only 18 myslef mate. I can differentiate between 24/192 and 16/44.1, but the difference is so marginal that I often find it really isn't worth the effort. I understand you want to give your system the best possible files, and in that case hdtracks (the website) is decent, but the price and selection just makes it a pain in the arse.
 
I've went ahead and borrowed some of my friends CDs and just decided that ripping them to FLAC was the easiest option.. but still as soon as I can get a website that provides the best quality and downloads.. i'm on it:p

Thanks for the help everyone.
 
They use 128/mp3 format, but yeah they do have a lot of songs! They could do so much better than 128/mp3 tbh

Edit: If you rip music off the CD, does the music stay on the CD? Or does it take the file off the CD?

The 128K mp3's are for streaming only, the downloaded music is same quality as what has been uploaded, so it is dependent on the the quality of the user upload.
 
I'm not 100% but I think Vinyl records are natively at 24 bit or more, because every vinyl rip I've ever seen has either been 24/96 or 24/192, so that's the benefit of vinyl. But then again I think the reason vinyls sound better to most ears is because the valve tech they used back when vinyl was popular coloured the sound a little more than today's solid state tech, as opposed to the encoding.
Vinyl is way less than 16 bit as the bit depth determines the dynamic range and the noise floor. 16 bit allows for 96dB whereas 24 bit allows for 144dB. Vinyl suffers from rumble, which is basically noise generated by the stylus dragging through the groove. In a silent part on a record, you are lucky to get noise levels below -40dB. (meaning you have ~ 40dB of dynamic range which is less than 8 bit) Don't forget that you can still buy brand new records that are mastered using modern equipment, not valves. Still tends to sound better than the equivalent cd or other digital medium as the mastering is usually different. The way a cartridge/stylus function is also different which affects how things sound too.

Just to note about the mention of SACD above, Super Audio CD achieved 120 dB SNR using 1-bit audio with 64x oversampling. (i.e. rather than using 44.1KHz at 16 bit they used 2.8224 MHz at 1 bit.

Take a read of this and this.

In the studio i work at we use 48KHz at 24 bit. We only use 24 bit as that is the direction that the hardware has headed in, not because it offered a big technical advantage. At home I always use 44.1KHz 16 bit, even for transferring my records to FLAC.
 
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